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Did you know that the number of atoms in a cookie is about the same number of stars in the…
universe? Geoff Engelstein tackles the big questions of the universe and how it works using the sweet and simple chocolate cookie as guide. By exploring what goes into the cookie—the ingredients and the steps—we learn about how everything works, from the tiny world of subatomic particles to galactic clusters. Topics include: The Big Bang Explained with Chocolate ChipsQuantum Mechanics Explained with Milk and CookiesChaos Explained with VanillaAnd more!Filled with fascinating facts and laugh-out-loud moments, it's a richly visual and deeply fascinating scientific exploration of the world. And cookies.Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos (Dover Books On Astronomy Ser.)
By Alan W. Hirshfeld. 2013
In the dramatic tradition of the best-selling Longitude, Parallax charts the historical path of observational astronomy's most daunting challenge: measuring…
the distance to a star. The greatest scientific minds applied themselves in vain to the problem across the millennia, beginning with the ancient Greeks. Not until the nineteenth century would three astronomers, armed with the best telescopes of the age, race to conquer this astronomical Everest—their contest ending in a virtual dead heat. Against a sweeping backdrop filled with kidnappings, dramatic rescue, swordplay, madness, and bitter rivalry, Alan Hirshfeld brings to life the heroes of this remarkable story. Meet the destitute boy plucked from a collapsed building who becomes the greatest telescope maker the world has ever seen; the hot-tempered Dane whose nose is lopped off in a duel over mathematics; the merchant's apprentice forced to choose between the lure of money and his passion for astronomy; and the musician who astounds the world by discovering a new planet from his own backyard. Generously illustrated with diagrams, period engravings, and paintings, Parallax is an unforgettable tale that illuminates the distinctly human side of science.The Girl in the Photograph: The True Story of a Native American Child, Lost and Found in America
By Byron L. Dorgan. 2019
Through the story of Tamara, an abused Native American child, North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan describes the plight of many…
children living on reservations—and offers hope for the future. On a winter morning in 1990, U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota picked up the Bismarck Tribune. On the front page, a small Native American girl gazed into the distance, shedding a tear. The headline: "Foster home children beaten—and nobody's helping." Dorgan, who had been working with American Indian tribes to secure resources, was upset. He flew to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to meet with five-year-old Tamara who had suffered a horrible beating at a foster home. He visited with Tamara and her grandfather and they became friends. Then Tamara disappeared. And he would search for her for decades until they finally found each other again. This book is her story, from childhood to the present, but it's also the story of a people and a nation. More than one in three American Indian/Alaskan Native children live in poverty. AI/AN children are disproportionately in foster care and awaiting adoption. Suicide among AI/AN youth ages 15 to 24 is 2.5 times the national rate. How has America allowed this to happen? As distressing a situation as it is, this is also a story of hope and resilience. Dorgan, who founded the Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) at the Aspen Institute, has worked tirelessly to bring Native youth voices to the forefront of policy discussions, engage Native youth in leadership and advocacy, and secure and share resources for Native youth. You will fall in love with this heartbreaking story, but end the book knowing what can be done and what you can do.The Education of Clarence Three Stars: A Lakota American Life
By Philip Burnham. 2024
In The Education of Clarence Three Stars Philip Burnham tells the life story of the remarkable Packs the Dog, a…
member of the Minneconjou Lakotas who was born in 1864 east of the Black Hills. His father, Yellow Knife, died when the boy was five, and the family eventually enrolled at Pine Ridge Agency with the Oglalas under an uncle&’s name, Three Stars. In 1879 Packs the Dog joined the first class of Indian students to be admitted to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. An enthusiastic student, Clarence Three Stars, as he would come to be known, was one of five Lakota children who volunteered to stay at Carlisle after the three-year plan of instruction was finished—though he eventually left the school in frustration. Three Stars returned to Pine Ridge and married Jennie Dubray, another Carlisle veteran, and they had seven children. The life of Lakota advocate Three Stars spanned a time of dramatic change for Native Americans, from the pre-reservation period through the Dawes Act of 1887 until just before the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Three Stars was a teacher, interpreter, catechist, lawyer, and politician who lived through the federal policy of American Indian assimilation in its many guises, including boarding school education, religious conversion, land allotment, and political reorganization. He used the fundamentals of his own boarding school education to advance the welfare of the Oglala Lakota people, even when his efforts were deemed threatening or subversive. His dedication to justice, learning, and self-governance informed a distinguished career of classroom excellence and political advocacy on his home reservation of Pine Ridge.Cast Out of Eden: The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness
By Robert Aquinas McNally. 2024
John Muir is widely and rightly lauded as the nature mystic who added wilderness to the United States&’ vision of…
itself, largely through the system of national parks and wild areas his writings and public advocacy helped create. That vision, however, came at a cost: the conquest and dispossession of the tribal peoples who had inhabited and managed those same lands, in many cases for millennia. Muir argued for the preservation of wild sanctuaries that would offer spiritual enlightenment to the conquerors, not to the conquered Indigenous peoples who had once lived there. &“Somehow,&” he wrote, &“they seemed to have no right place in the landscape.&”Cast Out of Eden tells this neglected part of Muir&’s story—from Lowland Scotland and the Wisconsin frontier to the Sierra Nevada&’s granite heights and Alaska&’s glacial fjords—and his take on the tribal nations he encountered and embrace of an ethos that forced those tribes from their homelands. Although Muir questioned and worked against Euro-Americans&’ distrust of wild spaces and deep-seated desire to tame and exploit them, his view excluded Native Americans as fallen peoples who stained the wilderness&’s pristine sanctity. Fortunately, in a transformation that a resurrected and updated Muir might approve, this long-standing injustice is beginning to be undone, as Indigenous nations and the federal government work together to ensure that quintessentially American lands from Bears Ears to Yosemite serve all Americans equally.Beams: The Story of Particle Accelerators and the Science They Discover (Copernicus Books)
By Volker Ziemann. 2024
This book describes and explains the world of particle accelerators and the physics they study. The presentation is non-technical (E=mc2 is the…
only equation!) and the prose accessible. By following the co-evolution of particle accelerators and particle physics, readers will learn why the accelerators are built, how they work, and what "results" they produce. The book highlights the great ideas (e.g. synchrotron) and technological advances (superconducting magnets) that boosted the potential of accelerators and led to new discoveries, eventually resulting in the standard model of particle physics. Many concepts are illustrated with figures derived from three-dimensional models; these include theaccelerators, detectors, and particles. Background information about the main protagonists, along with pointers to further reading, e.g. from "Scientific American," are provided in endnotes.Advances in Geoinformatics Technologies: Facilities and Utilities Optimization and Management for Smart City Applications (Earth and Environmental Sciences Library)
By Ram Narayan Yadava, Muhamad Uznir Ujang. 2024
There are many GIS products for smart cities to implement smart city projects or activities. Most of the Geoinformatics Technologies…
and its application books are theoretical and lack of examples with real world data and step by step explanations to understand the facilities and utilities optimization and management for smart city applications and socio-economic aspects.This book focuses and discusses topics related to how technological advances in Geoinformatics can help in the management operations of smart city applications to help our environment to be smart. Specifically, the volume focuses on how these advancements can help optimize and manage facilities and utilities. This book focuses on geoinformation modelling, geo-smart city applications, geoinformation technology, information system and computer science, and geolocation and positioning as its five primary areas of discussion. Each of these primary subjects delves into the application that uses geoinformatics technology in greater depth. This covers the use of Geoinformatics technology in the prevention of crime, coastal erosion, carbon emission modelling, landslide modelling, urban farming, and various other applications linked to the field. This book's objective is to provide a comprehensive review of the accomplishments that geoinformatics has made in a number of different application areas for smart cities. It covers Geoinformation Technologies, Geoinformation Modelling, Information System and Computer Science, Geolocation & Positioning, and Geo-Smart City Applications.The book will be useful to graduate students, university faculty, and researchers in Geoinformatics sciences/engineering and architecture and town planning. It will also be useful to entrepreneurs, professionals, and planners in policy and decision making at the local, state and national levels.They Came but Could Not Conquer: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Alaska Native Communities
By Diane J. Purvis. 2024
As the environmental justice movement slowly builds momentum, Diane J. Purvis highlights the work of Indigenous peoples in Alaska&’s small…
rural villages, who have faced incredible odds throughout history yet have built political clout fueled by vigorous common cause in defense of their homes and livelihood. Starting with the transition from Russian to American occupation of Alaska, Alaska Natives have battled with oil and gas corporations; fought against U.S. plans to explode thermonuclear bombs on the edge of Native villages; litigated against political plans to flood Native homes; sought recompense for the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster; and struggled against the federal government&’s fishing restrictions that altered Native paths for subsistence. In They Came but Could Not Conquer Purvis presents twelve environmental crises that occurred when isolated villages were threatened by a governmental monolith or big business. In each, Native peoples rallied together to protect their land, waters, resources, and a way of life against the bulldozer of unwanted, often dangerous alterations labeled as progress. In this gripping narrative Purvis shares the inspiring stories of those who possessed little influence over big business and regulations yet were able to protect their traditional lands and waterways anyway.The oil and natural gas boom in pre–World War I Oklahoma brought unbelievable wealth to thousands of tribal citizens in…
the state on whose lands these minerals were discovered. However, as Angie Debo recognizes in her seminal study of the period, And Still the Waters Run, and, more recently, as David Grann does in Killers of the Flower Moon, this affluence placed Natives in the crosshairs of unscrupulous individuals. As a result, this era was also marked by two of the most heinous episodes of racial violence in the state&’s history: the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and the Osage Murders between 1921 and 1925. In Resisting Oklahoma&’s Reign of Terror Joshua Clough details the responses of one largely forgotten Native organization—the Society of Oklahoma Indians (SOI)—to the violence and pillaging of tribal resources during the 1920s. Clough provides historical understanding of its formation and its shared values of intertribal unity, Native suffrage, and protection of Native property. He also reveals why reform efforts were nearly impossible in 1920s Oklahoma and how this historical perspective informs today&’s conflicts between the state and its Indigenous inhabitants. Through this examination of the SOI, Clough fills the historiographic gap regarding formal Native resistance between the dissolution of the national Society of American Indians in 1923 and the formation of the National Congress of American Indians in 1944. Dismissed or overlooked for a century as an inconsequential Native activist organization, the history of the SOI, when examined carefully, reveals the sophistication and determination of tribal members in their struggle to prevent depredations on their persons and property.In Bribed with Our Own Money David R. M. Beck analyzes the successes and failures of Indigenous nations&’ opposition to…
federal policy in the 1950s and 1960s. Focusing on case studies from six Native nations, Beck recounts how the U.S. government coerced American Indian nations to accept termination of their political relationship with the United States by threatening to withhold money that belonged to the tribes. Termination was the continuation—and, federal officials hoped, the culmination—of more than a century of policy initiatives intended to end the political relationship between Indian tribal nations and the federal government. Termination was also intended to assimilate American Indian individuals into the country&’s social and economic culture and to remove the remainder of reservation lands from federal trust. American Indians hoped to gain greater opportunities of self-governance and self-determination, but they wanted to do so under the protection of the federal trust relationship.Bribed with Our Own Money analyzes both successful and unsuccessful efforts of Native nations to oppose this policy within the larger context of long-standing federal abuse of tribal funds. It is the first book to view federal termination efforts grounded in bribery for what they were: a form of coercion.The Boy Who Promised Me Horses
By David Joseph Charpentier. 2024
&“He tried to outrun a train,&” Theodore Blindwoman told David Joseph Charpentier the night they found out about Maurice Prairie…
Chief&’s death. When Charpentier was a new teacher at St. Labre Indian School in Ashland, Montana, Prairie Chief was the first student he met and the one with whom he formed the closest bonds. From the shock of moving from a bucolic Minnesota college to teach at a small, remote reservation school in eastern Montana, Charpentier details the complex and emotional challenges of Indigenous education in the United States. Although he intended his teaching tenure at St. Labre to be short, Charpentier&’s involvement with the school has extended past thirty years. Unlike many white teachers who came and left the reservation, Charpentier has remained committed to the potentialities of Indigenous education, motivated by the early friendship he formed with Prairie Chief, who taught him lessons far and wide, from dealing with buffalo while riding a horse to coping with student dropouts he would never see again. Told through episodic experiences, the story takes a journey back in time as Charpentier searches for answers to Prairie Chief&’s life. As he sits on top of the sledding hill near the cemetery where Prairie Chief is buried, Charpentier finds solace in the memories of their shared (mis)adventures and their mutual respect, hard won through the challenges of educational and cultural mistrust.This book explains different phenomena that occur in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs (NFRs) of carbonate rocks neighboring a salt structure and…
how it affects well drilling. Prediction of carbonate pore pressure is difficult; therefore, a new set of pore pressure equations for carbonates were developed, accounting for overpressure and depleted conditions. A detailed description of a fully coupled model is shown in order to discuss geomechanics and the coupling of fluid flow in porous media and to achieve a better representation of the mechanics involved in the exploitation of NFRs. Additionally, results of a new model of geomechanics in vuggy carbonate reservoirs are presented. This book also displays a wide discussion, analysis, and numerical implementation of six different salt rheology models. Furthermore, the most representative rheology salt models were studied aside with the fully coupled model of geomechanics and fluid flow in porous media. Finally, it presents an answer to areal case of a well drilled near a salt diapir where anomalous pore pressure was found.Computational Fluid Dynamics: Finite Difference Method and Lattice Boltzmann Method (Engineering Applications of Computational Methods #20)
By Guoxiang Hou, Caikan Chen, Shenglei Qin, Yuan Gao, Kai Wang. 2024
This book provides a concise and comprehensive introduction to several basic methods with more attention to their theoretical basis and…
applications in fluid dynamics. Furthermore, some new ideas are presented in this book, for example, a method to solve the transition matrix by difference operator transformation. For this method, the book gives the definition of Fourier integral transformation of translation operator, and proves the transition matrix equaling to the differential operator transformation, so that it is extended to general situations of explicit, implicit, multi-layer difference equations, etc. This flexible approach is also used in the differential part. In addition, the book also includes six types of equivalent stability definitions in two ways and deeply analyzes their errors, stabilities and convergences of the difference equations. What is more important, some new scientific contributions on lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) in recent years are presented in the book as well. The authors write the book combining their ten years teaching experience and research results and this book is intended for graduate students who are interested in the area of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Authors list some new research achievements, such as simplified lattice Boltzmann method, the simplified lattice Boltzmann flux solver and discrete unified gas kinetic scheme, and expect that this new information could give readers possible further investigating ideas in their future research on CFD area.One of The Barnes and Noble Review Editors' Picks: Best Nonfiction of 2012Selected by The Christian Science Monitor as one…
of "21 smart nonfiction titles we think you'll enjoy this summer"Selected by The New Scientist as one of 10 books to look out for in 2012We've long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the Sun, they lurk in the inner sanctum of almost every galaxy of stars in the universe. They're mysterious chasms so destructive and unforgiving that not even light can escape their deadly wrath.Recent research, however, has led to a cascade of new discoveries that have revealed an entirely different side to black holes. As the astrophysicist Caleb Scharf reveals in Gravity's Engines, these chasms in space-time don't just vacuum up everything that comes near them; they also spit out huge beams and clouds of matter. Black holes blow bubbles.With clarity and keen intellect, Scharf masterfully explains how these bubbles profoundly rearrange the cosmos around them. Engaging with our deepest questions about the universe, he takes us on an intimate journey through the endlessly colorful place we call our galaxy and reminds us that the Milky Way sits in a special place in the cosmic zoo—a "sweet spot" of properties. Is it coincidental that we find ourselves here at this place and time? Could there be a deeper connection between the nature of black holes and their role in the universe and the phenomenon of life? We are, after all, made of the stuff of stars.Heart of Darkness: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe (Princeton Science Library #148)
By Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Simon Mitton. 2013
Humanity's ongoing quest to unlock the secrets of dark matter and dark energyHeart of Darkness describes the incredible saga of…
humankind's quest to unravel the deepest secrets of the universe. Over the past forty years, scientists have learned that two little-understood components—dark matter and dark energy—comprise most of the known cosmos, explain the growth of all cosmic structure, and hold the key to the universe's fate. The story of how evidence for the so-called "Lambda-Cold Dark Matter" model of cosmology has been gathered by generations of scientists throughout the world is told here by one of the pioneers of the field, Jeremiah Ostriker, and his coauthor Simon Mitton.From humankind's early attempts to comprehend Earth's place in the solar system, to astronomers' exploration of the Milky Way galaxy and the realm of the nebulae beyond, to the detection of the primordial fluctuations of energy from which all subsequent structure developed, this book explains the physics and the history of how the current model of our universe arose and has passed every test hurled at it by the skeptics. Throughout this rich story, an essential theme is emphasized: how three aspects of rational inquiry—the application of direct measurement and observation, the introduction of mathematical modeling, and the requirement that hypotheses should be testable and verifiable—guide scientific progress and underpin our modern cosmological paradigm.This monumental puzzle is far from complete, however, as scientists confront the mysteries of the ultimate causes of cosmic structure formation and the real nature and origin of dark matter and dark energy.Birds through Indigenous Eyes: Native Perspectives on Birds of the Eastern Woodlands
By Dennis Gaffin. 2024
An intimate and personal account of the profound roles birds play in the lives of some Indigenous peopleFor many hours…
over a period of years, white anthropologist Dennis Gaffin and two Indigenous friends, Michael Bastine and John Volpe, recorded their conversations about a shared passion: the birds of upstate New York and southern Ontario. In these lively, informal talks, Bastine (a healer and naturalist of Algonquin descent) and Volpe (a naturalist and animal rehabilitator of Ojibwe and Métis descent) shared their experiences of, and beliefs about, birds, describing the profound spiritual, psychological, and social roles of birds in the lives of some Indigenous people. Birds through Indigenous Eyes presents highlights of these conversations, placing them in context and showing how Native understandings of birds contrast with conventional Western views.Bastine and Volpe bring to life Algonquin, Ojibwe, and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) beliefs about birds. They reveal how specific birds and bird species are seamlessly integrated into spirituality and everyday thought and action, how birds bring important messages to individual people, how a bird species can become associated with a person, and how birds provide warnings about our endangered environment. Over the course of the book, birds such as the house sparrow, Eastern phoebe, Northern flicker, belted kingfisher, gray catbird, cedar waxwing, and black-capped chickadee are shown in a new light—as spiritual and practical helpers that can teach humans how to live well.An original work of ethno-ornithology that offers a rare close-up look at some Native views on birds, Birds through Indigenous Eyes opens rich new perspectives on the deep connections between birds and humans.The de Sitter: An Introduction to Elementary Systems and Modeling the Dark Energy Universe (Synthesis Lectures on Mathematics & Statistics)
By Mohammad Enayati, Jean-Pierre Gazeau, Hamed Pejhan, Anzhong Wang. 2024
This Second Edition is a comprehensive update, integrating the latest research and theoretical advancements in the field of de Sitter…
(dS) group representations. Building on the success of the first edition, the book offers a more in-depth analysis of mathematical aspects, conceptual foundations, and practical implications related to the dS group, including its Lie manifold, Lie algebra, and co-adjoint orbits, viewing the latter as potential classical elementary systems within the context of dS spacetime. Additionally, the examination of unitary irreducible representations (UIRs) sheds light on the potential existence of quantum elementary systems within the dS spacetime framework. The authors emphasize consistency with Wigner's approach to elementary systems, incorporate Wigner's principles and exploring projective UIRs of the dS group, and provide a deeper insight into the nature of dS elementary systems. Particular attention is paid to: the “smooth” transition from classical to quantum theory, the physical content under vanishing curvature, and the thermal interpretation from a quantum perspective. The book also focuses on the physical interpretation of elementary systems in curved spacetimes, recognizing the limitations of traditional concepts derived from flat Minkowski spacetime and the Poincaré group.Digital Resilience: Navigating Disruption and Safeguarding Data Privacy (EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing)
By Shishir Kumar Shandilya, Agni Datta, Yash Kartik, Atulya Nagar. 2024
This book offers an in-depth overview of digital resilience, defined as the ability of individuals, organizations, and societies to adapt…
to and counter various digital threats such as cyberattacks, data breaches, and other forms of cyber threats. Digital resilience not only enables proactive measures but also ensures fault-tolerant planning and design. The book elaborates on the necessary techniques and methods to achieve digital resilience. Key methodologies, including quantum computing, post-quantum cryptography, nature-inspired cybersecurity, zero-trust systems, zero-knowledge proofs, multi-party computation, and the emerging field of space security, are discussed in detail. The book provides insights into artificial intelligence and machine learning, examining their impact on society and organizations. It critically analyses the role of cybersecurity in businesses, emphasizing its importance for safety and economic stability. In addition, the book discusses notable cyber incidents, offering valuable insights into digital resilience. It serves as a comprehensive compilation, featuring key terms, definitions, case studies, and references to existing literature and research in cybersecurity, analytics, information sciences, future computing, digital resilience, and related fields.Classical Electrodynamics (Frontiers in Physics)
By Julian Schwinger. 2024
Classical Electrodynamics captures Schwinger's inimitable lecturing style, in which everything flows inexorably from what has gone before. This anniversary edition…
offers a refreshing update while still maintaining Schwinger’s voice.The book provides the student with a thorough grounding in electrodynamics in particular, and in classical field theory in general. An essential resource for both physicists and their students, the book includes a Reader's Guide, which describes the major themes in each chapter, suggests a possible path through the book, and identifies topics for inclusion in, and exclusion from, a given course, depending on the instructor's preference.Carefully constructed problems complement the material of the text. Classical Electrodynamics should be of great value to all physicists, from first-year graduate students to senior researchers, and to all those interested in electrodynamics, field theory, and mathematical physics.The original text for the graduate classical electrodynamics course was left unfinished upon Julian Schwinger's death in 1994, but was completed by his former students and co-authors, who have brilliantly recreated the excitement of Schwinger's novel approach. This anniversary edition has been revised by one of those original co-authors, Kimball Milton.An Introduction to Astronomy and Astrophysics
By Pankaj Jain. 2024
Astronomy is the field of science devoted to the study of astronomical objects, such as stars, galaxies, and nebulae. Astronomers…
have gathered a wealth of knowledge about the universe through hundreds of years of painstaking observations. These observations are interpreted by the use of physical and chemical laws familiar to mankind. These interpretations supply information about the nature of these astronomical objects, allowing for the deduction of their surface and interior conditions. The science associated with these interpretations is called astrophysics.An Introduction to Astronomy and Astrophysics offers a comprehensive introduction to astronomy and astrophysics, complete with illustrative examples and illuminating homework problems. Requiring a familiarity with basic physics and mathematics, this undergraduate-level textbook: Addresses key physics concepts relevant to stellar observations, including radiation, electromagnetic spectrum, photometry, continuous and discrete spectrum, and spectral lines. Describes instruments used for astronomical observations as well as how the radiation received is characterized and interpreted to determine the properties of stars. Examines the structure of stars, the basic equations that explain stars in equilibrium, and the fusion reactions occurring in stellar cores. Discusses the evolution of stars, the solar system, the dynamics of galaxies, and the fundamentals of modern cosmology. Explores the universe at high redshifts, where it is dominated by objects such as active galaxies. An Introduction to Astronomy and Astrophysics teaches students how to interpret the night sky, providing them with a critical understanding of the stars and sun, solar system, extrasolar planets, stars, and galaxies.The book is thoroughly revised to make it an essential textbook for students. The Second edition introduces the following changes: New solutions are provided at the end of all the chapters. The number of problems has increased. Major chapters have been considerably revised and new developments in this field have been introduced.