Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 710 items
This undergraduate-level textbook offers a unique and in-depth approach to the study of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. It covers the…
fundamentals of thermodynamics using both traditional and postulatory approaches, including origin of the concept of thermodynamic entropy, Euler’s equation, Gibbs-Duhem relations, stability of equilibrium, and the concept of thermodynamic potentials, and that of independent thermodynamic observables. The book then delves into the microscopic foundation of thermodynamics, starting with the kinetic theory and highlighting its historical development. Boltzmann's concept of entropy is explored, along with its applications in deriving Planck’s, Bose’s, Bose-Einstein, and Fermi-Dirac distribution functions. The formal structure of classical and quantum statistical mechanics is built based on the concept of statistical entropy and the maximum entropy principle and used to investigate in detail the thermodynamic properties of ideal classical and quantum systems. The book also covers phase transitions, simple theory of critical phenomena, and the theory of interacting van der Waals gases. Throughout the text, the book provides historical context, enriching the reader's understanding. This textbook is a valuable resource for undergraduate physics students, offering comprehensive coverage, including overlooked topics, and a historical perspective on thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.This book presents an introduction to quantum mechanics that consistently uses the methods of operator theory, allowing readers to develop…
a physical understanding of quantum mechanical systems. The methods of operator theory are discussed throughout the book and presented with a mathematically rigorous approach. The author describes in detail how to use the methods of operator theory for analyzing quantum mechanical systems, starting with the definition of the involved physical operators (observables) up to the calculation of their spectra, spectral measures, and functional calculus. In addition, the book includes the construction of exponential functions of the involved Hamilton operators that solve the problem of time evolution.This book meticulously examines over one hundred documents of research notes by Albert Einstein, many of which were previously unidentified,…
held in the archives of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Einstein Papers Project at Caltech. Focused on Einstein's quest for a five-dimensional unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism, the analysis provides unique insights into his mathematical skills, thinking, and modus operandi. This academic exploration also investigates the role of mathematics in Einstein’s theorizing with a special focus on projective geometry and delta functions.This book focuses on methods of how to understand the relationship between the structure and physical properties of polymers from…
the microscopic point of view on the basis of experimental and theoretical methodologies. It is the second volume of a two volume set with Structural Science of Crystalline Polymers. The first volume of the series, “Structural Science of Crystalline Polymers: Basic Concepts and Practices” describes the details of techniques for analysis of the hierarchical structure of crystalline polymers from both the experimental and theoretical points of view. Readers of the first volume who master the concrete techniques and concepts necessary for the analysis of the structure of polymers are now invited to begin this second volume. The methods introduced in this book are useful not only for understanding the physical properties of crystalline regions but also for interpreting the bulk properties of polymer materials from the 3D structural point of view. Forthis purpose, a concrete description is provided so that readers can use the theory or the program in the actual interpretation of physical properties. The physical properties of polymers are intimately related to the structural evolution in the crystallization process and also the structural changes in the samples subjected to an external field. Concrete methods and examples are introduced for these studies, making the book a useful and practical guide for young professional researchers, including those working in industry. At the same time, it can also be used as an excellent reference for graduate-level students.Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe
By Philip Plait. 2023
A Financial Times Best Science Book of 2023 • A Science News Favorite Book of 2023 • A Scientific American…
2023 Staff Recommendation "The next-best thing to traveling through space and time." —Laura Helmuth, editor in chief of Scientific American A rip-roaring tour of the cosmos with the Bad Astronomer, bringing you up close and personal with the universe like never before. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel the universe? How would Saturn’s rings look from a spaceship sailing just above them? If you were falling into a black hole, what’s the last thing you’d see before getting spaghettified? While traveling in person to most of these amazing worlds may not be possible—yet—the would-be space traveler need not despair: you can still take the scenic route through the galaxy with renowned astronomer and science communicator Philip Plait. On this lively, immersive adventure through the cosmos, Plait draws ingeniously on both the latest scientific research and his prodigious imagination to transport you to ten of the most spectacular sights outer space has to offer. In vivid, inventive scenes informed by rigorous science—injected with a dose of Plait’s trademark humor—Under Alien Skies places you on the surface of alien worlds, from our own familiar Moon to the far reaches of our solar system and beyond. Try launching yourself onto a two-hundred-meter asteroid, or stargazing from the rim of an ancient volcano on a planet where, from the place you stand, it is eternally late afternoon. Experience the sudden onset of lunar nightfall, the disorientation of walking—or, rather, shuffling—when you weigh almost nothing, the irritation of jagged regolith dust. Glimpse the frigid mountains and plains of Pluto and the cake-like exterior of a comet called 67P. On a planet trillions of miles from Earth, glance down to see the strange, beautiful shadows cast by a hundred thousand stars. For the aspiring extraterrestrial citizen, casual space tourist, or curious armchair traveler, Plait is an illuminating, always-entertaining guide to the most otherworldly views in our universe.Space Mathematics: Math Problems Based on Space Science (Dover Books on Aeronautical Engineering)
By Bernice Kastner. 2012
Created by NASA for high school students interested in space science, this collection of worked problems covers a broad range…
of subjects, including mathematical aspects of NASA missions, computation and measurement, algebra, geometry, probability and statistics, exponential and logarithmic functions, trigonometry, matrix algebra, conic sections, and calculus. In addition to enhancing mathematical knowledge and skills, these problems promote an appreciation of aerospace technology and offer valuable insights into the practical uses of secondary school mathematics by professional scientists and engineers.Geared toward high school students and teachers, this volume also serves as a fine review for undergraduate science and engineering majors. Numerous figures illuminate the text, and an appendix explores the advanced topic of gravitational forces and the conic section trajectories.How AI Thinks: How we built it, how it can help us, and how we can control it
By Nigel Toon. 2024
THE #2 TIMES BESTSELLER'Artificial intelligence is going to have a massive impact on everyone’s lives... an accessible and sensible read…
that helps demystify AI' Deborah Meaden, entrepreneur and star of Dragon's Den'Nigel Toon is a visionary leader in the field of artificial intelligence... a must-read' Marc Tremblay, Distinguished Engineer, MicrosoftThose who understand how AI thinks are about to win big.We are used to thinking of computers as being a step up from calculators - very good at storing information, and maybe even at playing a logical game like chess. But up to now they haven't been able to think in ways that are intuitive, or respond to questions as a human might. All that has changed, dramatically, in the past few years.Our search engines are becoming answer engines. Artificial intelligence is already revolutionising sectors from education to healthcare to the creative arts. But how does an AI understand sentiment or context? How does it play and win games that have an almost infinite number of moves? And how can we work with AI to produce insights and innovations that are beyond human capacity, from writing code in an instant to unfolding the elaborate 3D puzzles of proteins?We stand at the brink of a historic change that will disrupt society and at the same time create enormous opportunities for those who understand how AI thinks. Nigel Toon shows how we train AI to train itself, so that it can paint images that have never existed before or converse in any language. In doing so he reveals the strange and fascinating ways that humans think, too, as we learn how to live in a world shared by machine intelligences of our own creation.Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth
By Noa Tishby. 2021
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A &“fascinating and very moving&” (Aaron Sorkin, award-winning screenwriter of The West Wing and The…
Social Network) chronological timeline spanning from Biblical times to today that explores one of the most interesting countries in the world—Israel.Israel. The small strip of arid land is 5,700 miles away but remains a hot-button issue and a thorny topic of debate. But while everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Israel, how many people actually know the facts? Here to fill in the information gap is Israeli American Noa Tishby. But &“this is not your Bubbie&’s history book&” (Bill Maher, host of Real Time with Bill Maher). Instead, offering a fresh, 360-degree view, Tishby brings her &“passion, humor, and deep intimacy&” (Yossi Klein Halevi, New York Times bestselling author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor) to the subject, creating an accessible and dynamic portrait of a tiny country of outsized relevance. Through bite-sized chunks of history and deeply personal stories, Tishby chronicles her homeland&’s evolution, beginning in Biblical times and moving forward to cover everything from WWI to Israel&’s creation to the disputes dividing the country today. Tackling popular misconceptions with an abundance of facts, Tishby provides critical context around headline-generating controversies and offers a clear, intimate account of the richly cultured country of Israel.Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North
By Ibn Fadlan. 2012
In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad named Ibn Fadlan encountered a party of Viking traders on the upper…
reaches of the Volga River. In his subsequent report on his mission he gave a meticulous and astonishingly objective description of Viking customs, dress, table manners, religion and sexual practices, as well as the only eyewitness account ever written of a Viking ship cremation.Between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, Arab travellers such as Ibn Fadlan journeyed widely and frequently into the far north, crossing territories that now include Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Their fascinating accounts describe how the numerous tribes and peoples they encountered traded furs, paid tribute and waged wars. This accessible new translation offers an illuminating insight into the world of the Arab geographers, and the medieval lands of the far north.Rampage: Macarthur, Yamashita, And The Battle Of Manila
By James M. Scott. 2018
“Illuminating.… An eloquent testament to a doomed city and its people.” —The Wall Street Journal In early 1945, General Douglas MacArthur prepared…
to reclaim Manila, America’s Pearl of the Orient, which had been seized by the Japanese in 1942. Convinced the Japanese would abandon the city, he planned a victory parade down Dewey Boulevard—but the enemy had other plans. The Japanese were determined to fight to the death. The battle to liberate Manila resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the city and a rampage by Japanese forces that brutalized the civilian population, resulting in a massacre as horrific as the Rape of Nanking. Drawing from war-crimes testimony, after-action reports, and survivor interviews, Rampage recounts one of the most heartbreaking chapters of Pacific War history.A Meteorite Killed My Cow: Stuff That Happens When Space Rocks Hit Earth
By Richard Greenwood. 2024
Meteorites are generally considered to be bizarre and exotic space junk that you only ever come across in museums. But…
the reality is very different. Meteorites are generally harmless, with the exception of a cow in Venezuela and a few dinosaurs. Well, quite a few dinosaurs in fact! They are arriving on Earth every day, everywhere, in the form of fine dust. The result is that meteorites can be collected from the rooftops of houses everywhere. It’s not easy and you need to know what to look for. This book will help. Meteorites are the oldest rocks in our Solar System and contain grains that are even older. These space rocks provide science with the best available evidence concerning the origin and early evolution of the Solar System.This book introduces the reader to the fascinating and sometimes bizarre world of space rocks using a simple, clear layman-friendly style. It explains why they are so special and describes their main characteristics. The non-technical approach used throughout the book make it particularly accessible to the general public and it will be of interest to anyone looking to learn more about these cosmic visitors and the wealth of scientific information they contain.Features: Provides a concise introduction to the world of meteorites in an accessible and non-technical way Demonstrates how meteorites can be found locally and provides practical guidance on how to search for them! Emphasizes the human side of meteorites and how ordinary people can and do encounter meteorites in a wide variety of settingsElusive Victory: The Arab-israeli Wars, 1947-1974
By Trevor N. Dupuy. 1978
From the prologue, "All wars have political causes, all have political origins. However, the series of conflicts between Israelis and…
Arabs since 1948 have their roots farther back in history than most of the wars of recent times, and their causes are a complicated mixture of political, ideological, and religious differences that are not easily susceptible to negotiation and resolution."The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East
By Eugene Rogan. 2024
An award-winning scholar&’s account of an ancient city&’s descent into unprecedented communal violence—an event that would mark the end of…
the old Ottoman order and the beginning of the modern Middle East On July 9, 1860, a violent mob swept through the Christian quarters of Damascus. For eight days, violence raged, leaving five thousand Christians dead, thousands of shops looted, and churches, houses, and monasteries razed. The sudden and ferocious outbreak shocked the world, leaving Syrian Christians vulnerable and fearing renewed violence. Drawn from never-before-seen eyewitness accounts of the Damascus Events, eminent Middle East historian Eugene Rogan tells the story of how a peaceful multicultural city came to be engulfed in slaughter. He traces how rising tensions between Muslim and Christian communities led some to regard extermination as a reasonable solution. Rogan also narrates the wake of this disaster, and how the Ottoman government moved quickly to retake control of the city, end the violence, and reintegrate Christians into the community. These efforts to rebuild Damascus proved successful, preserving peace for the next 150 years until 2011. The Damascus Events offers a vivid history, one that masterfully uncovers the outbreak of violence that unmade a great city and examines the possibility, even after searing conflict and unimaginable tragedy, of repair.Turkey: The Second Republic (The Contemporary Middle East)
By Birol Başkan, Burak Bilgehan Özpek. 2024
Focused on the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) over the last two decades, this book discusses and…
contextualizes key events and developments in Turkish politics, economics and foreign policy.The authors begin by exploring the longer-term historical trends that shaped the country, focusing on Ottoman and Republican legacies, culminating in the formation of the modern state in Turkey. This context, it is argued, is key in understanding the AKP’s emergence since 2002 as the preeminent political power. The book further argues that the AKP achieved this position due to political maneuvers aimed at undermining military influence within politics, its management of the economy and its approach to foreign policy. These three domains are dealt with in successive chapters to help explicate how the AKP built broad societal coalitions and consolidated its power. The book concludes by analyzing contemporary developments: in the face of mounting economic and political challenges, the fate of the AKP, and of Turkey, remain uncertain.Written in an accessible style and grounded in data-driven analysis, the book will appeal to journalists, policymakers, researchers and general audiences interested in the contemporary Middle East, Turkish political economy and international relations.Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History
By Kim A. Wagner. 2024
In this &“forensic, unflinching, devastating work of historical recovery&” (Sathnam Sanghera), Bud Dajo—an American atrocity bigger than Wounded Knee or…
My Lai, yet today largely forgotten—is revealed, thanks to the rediscovery of a single photograph. In March 1906, American soldiers on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines surrounded and killed 1000 local men, women, and children, known as Moros, on top of an extinct volcano. The so-called &‘Battle of Bud Dajo&’ was hailed as a triumph over an implacable band of dangerous savages, a &“brilliant feat of arms&” according to President Theodore Roosevelt. Some contemporaries, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Mark Twain, saw the massacre for what it was, but they were the exception and the U.S. military authorities successfully managed to bury the story. Despite the fact that the slaughter of Moros had been captured on camera, the memory of the massacre soon disappeared from the historical record. In Massacre in the Clouds, Kim A. Wagner meticulously recovers the history of a forgotten atrocity and the remarkable photograph that exposed its grim logic. His vivid, unsparing account of the massacre—which claimed hundreds more lives than Wounded Knee and My Lai combined—reveals the extent to which practices of colonial warfare and violence, derived from European imperialism, were fully embraced by Americans with catastrophic results.Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World (The Early Modern Americas)
By Kristie Flannery. 2024
Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World offers a new interpretation of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippine…
islands. Drawing on the rich archives of Spain’s Asian empire, Kristie Patricia Flannery reveals that Spanish colonial officials and Catholic missionaries forged alliances with Indigenous Filipinos and Chinese migrant settlers in the Southeast Asian archipelago to wage war against waves of pirates, including massive Chinese pirate fleets, Muslim pirates from the Sulu Zone, and even the British fleet that attacked at the height of the Seven Years’ War. Anti-piracy alliances made Spanish colonial rule resilient to both external shocks and internal revolts that shook the colony to its core.This revisionist study complicates the assumption that empire was imposed on Filipinos with brute force alone. Rather, anti-piracy also shaped the politics of belonging in the colonial Philippines. Real and imagined pirate threats especially influenced the fate and fortunes of Chinese migrants in the islands. They triggered genocidal massacres of the Chinese at some junctures, and at others facilitated Chinese integration into the Catholic nation as loyal vassals.Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World demonstrates that piracy is key to explaining the surprising longevity of Spain’s Asian empire, which, unlike Spanish colonial rule in the Americas, survived the Age of Revolutions and endured almost to the end of the nineteenth century. Moreover, it offers important new insight into piracy’s impact on the trajectory of globalization and European imperial expansion in maritime Asia.This volume presents an anthology of 19 seminal studies, some for the first time in English, that explore the history…
and tradition of the ancient relationship between Samaritans and Jews.The book is arranged into three parts: Methods, Traditions, and History; Samaritan and Jewish Pentateuchs; and Studies in Bible and Tradition, each of which is chronologically ordered. It represents a collection of the author’s previous publications on the relationship between Samaritans and Jews, expanding and supplementing the conclusions of her published books. Recent archaeological developments on Mount Gerizim have demonstrated that our paradigms for writing the ancient histories of the kingdoms and provinces of Samaria and Judah in the Iron II, Persian, and Hellenistic periods must change. These developments also affect how we evaluate and read ancient literary traditions, and several chapters offer challenging new perspectives on well-known themes, narratives, and compositions in this subject area.Samaritans and Jews in History and Tradition: Changing Perspectives 10 will be of interest to students and scholars of biblical studies, theology, comparative religion, the ancient Near East, and in particular, Samaritan and Jewish studies.A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity
By Michael A. Cook. 2024
A panoramic history of the Muslim world from the age of the Prophet Muḥammad to the birth of the modern…
eraThis book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day. Michael Cook thus provides a broad history of a civilization remarkable for both its unity and diversity.After setting the scene in the Middle East of late antiquity, the book depicts the rise of Islam as one of the great black swan events of history. It continues with the spectacular rise of the Caliphate, an empire that by the time it broke up had nurtured the formation of a new civilization. It then goes on to cover the diverse histories of all the major regions of the Muslim world, providing a wide-ranging account of the key military, political, and cultural developments that accompanied the eastward and westward spread of Islam from the Middle East to the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific.At the same time, A History of the Muslim World contains numerous primary-source quotations that expose the reader to a variety of acutely insightful voices from the Muslim past.Zhou Enlai: A Life
By Jian Chen. 2024
The definitive biography of Zhou Enlai, the first premier and preeminent diplomat of the People’s Republic of China, who protected…
his country against the excesses of his boss—Chairman Mao.Zhou Enlai spent twenty-seven years as premier of the People’s Republic of China and ten as its foreign minister. He was the architect of the country’s administrative apparatus and its relationship to the world, as well as its legendary spymaster. Richard Nixon proclaimed him “the greatest statesman of our era.” Yet Zhou has always been overshadowed by Chairman Mao. Chen Jian brings Zhou into the light, offering a nuanced portrait of his complex life as a revolutionary, a master diplomat, and a man with his own vision and aspirations who did much to make China, as well as the larger world, what it is today.Born to a declining mandarin family in 1898, Zhou received a classical education and as a teenager spent time in Japan. As a young man, driven by the desire for China’s development, Zhou embraced the communist revolution as a vehicle of China’s salvation. He helped Mao govern through a series of transformations, including the disastrous Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. Yet, as Chen shows, Zhou was never a committed Maoist. His extraordinary political and bureaucratic skill, combined with his centrist approaches, enabled him to mitigate the enormous damage caused by Mao’s radicalism.When Zhou died in 1976, the PRC that we know of was not yet visible on the horizon; he never saw glistening twenty-first-century Shanghai or the broader emergence of Chinese capitalism. But it was Zhou’s work that shaped the nation whose influence and power are today felt in every corner of the globe.Beyond the Binary: Gender and Legal Personhood in Islamic Law
By Saadia Yacoob. 2024
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit…
www.luminosoa.org to learn more. One of the most hotly debated issues in contemporary Muslim ethics is the status of women in Islamic law. Whereas Muslim conservatives argue that gender-differentiated legal rulings reflect complementary gender roles, Muslim feminists argue that Islamic law has subordinated women and is thus in need of reform. The shared assumption on both sides, however, is that gender fundamentally shapes an individual’s legal status. Beyond the Binary explores an expansive cross section of topics in ninth- to twelfth-century Hanafi legal thought, ranging from sexual crimes to consent to marriage, to show that early Muslim jurists imagined a world built not on a binary distinction between male and female but on multiple intersecting hierarchies of gender, age, enslavement, lineage, class, and other social roles. Saadia Yacoob offers a restorative reading of Islamic law, arguing that its intersectional and relational understanding of legal personhood offers a productive space for Muslim feminists to move beyond critique and instead think with and through the Islamic legal tradition.