How can our societies be stabilized in a crisis? Why can we enjoy and understand Shakespeare? Why are fruitflies uniform? How do omnivorous eating habits aid our survival? What makes the Mona Lisa s smile beautiful? How do women keep our social structures intact? Could there possibly be a single answer to all these questions? This book shows that the statement: "weak links stabilize complex systems" provides the key to understanding each of these intriguing puzzles, and many others too. The author (recipient of several distinguished science communication prizes) uses weak (low affinity,...
How can our societies be stabilized in a crisis? Why can we enjoy and understand Shakespeare? Why are fruitflies uniform? How do omnivorous eating ...
Theoretical physics is presently at a very exciting time in the history of scientific discovery. For we are at a precipice facing two conflicting 20th century revolutionary movements in physics, each purporting to be basic truths of nature - the quantum theory and the theory of relativity. In the 20th century the mathematical expression of the quantum theory yielded correct predictions of a great deal of the data on the behavior of the molecular, atomic, nuelear and elementary partiele domains of matter. In the same period, the theory of relativity suc cessfully described new features of...
Theoretical physics is presently at a very exciting time in the history of scientific discovery. For we are at a precipice facing two conflicting 20th...
Information and Its Role in Nature presents an in-depth interdisciplinary discussion of the concept of information and its role in the control of natural processes. After a brief review of classical and quantum information theory, the author addresses numerous central questions, including: Is information reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry? Does the Universe, in its evolution, constantly generate new information? Or are information and information-processing exclusive attributes of living systems, related to the very definition of life? If so, what is the role...
Information and Its Role in Nature presents an in-depth interdisciplinary discussion of the concept of information and its role in...
Metaphysics, with which, as fate would have it, I have fallen in love but from which I can boast of only a few favours, o?ers two kinds of advantage. The ?rst is this: it can solve the problems thrown up by the enquiry of mind, when it uses reason to spy after the more hidden properties of things. But hope is here all too often disappointed by the outcome. And, on this occasion, too, satisfaction has escaped our eager grasp. ...] The second advantage of metaphysics is more consonant with the nature of the human understanding. It consists ...] in knowing what relation the question has to...
Metaphysics, with which, as fate would have it, I have fallen in love but from which I can boast of only a few favours, o?ers two kinds of advantage. ...
Significant, and usually unwelcome, surprises, such as floods, financial crisis, epileptic seizures, or material rupture, are the topics of Extreme Events in Nature and Society. The book, authored by foremost experts in these fields, reveals unifying and distinguishing features of extreme events, including problems of understanding and modelling their origin, spatial and temporal extension, and potential impact. The chapters converge towards the difficult problem of anticipation: forecasting the event and proposing measures to moderate or prevent it. Extreme Events in Nature and Society will...
Significant, and usually unwelcome, surprises, such as floods, financial crisis, epileptic seizures, or material rupture, are the topics of Extreme Ev...
This accessible and easy-to-follow book offers a new approach to consciousness. The author s eclectic style combines new physics-based insights with those of analytical philosophy, phenomenology, cognitive science and neuroscience. He proposes a view in which the mechanistic framework of classical physics and neuroscience is complemented by a more holistic underlying framework in which conscious experience finds its place more naturally."
This accessible and easy-to-follow book offers a new approach to consciousness. The author s eclectic style combines new physics-based insights wit...
The Thermodynamic Machinery of Life presents the relevant foundations of nonequilibrium thermodynamics as applied to biological processes taking place at the subcellular level. The biological cell is considered as a complex open thermodynamic system far from equilibrium that enzymatically controls various biochemical reactions and transport processes across internal and the cytoplasmatic membrane. The enzymatic free energy and signal transduction processes are described in detail. All the biological molecular machines, also pumps and motors are considered to be effective chemo-chemical...
The Thermodynamic Machinery of Life presents the relevant foundations of nonequilibrium thermodynamics as applied to biological processes taking pl...
This volume brings together leading quantum physicists to expound on the meaning and future directions of quantum mechanics. It offers new insights from different vantage points to tackle essential questions in quantum mechanics and its interpretation. All the authors have written for a broad readership, and the resulting volume will appeal to everyone wishing to keep abreast of new developments in quantum mechanics, as well as its history and philosophy.
This volume brings together leading quantum physicists to expound on the meaning and future directions of quantum mechanics. It offers new insights...
This book gathers concepts of information across diverse fields physics, electrical engineering and computational science surveying current theories, discussing underlying notions of symmetry, and showing how the capacity of a system to distinguish itself relates to information. The author develops a formal methodology using group theory, leading to the application of Burnside's Lemma to count distinguishable states. This provides a tool to quantify complexity and information capacity in any physical system."
This book gathers concepts of information across diverse fields physics, electrical engineering and computational science surveying current theorie...
