Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Philosophy & Social Aspects

Stem cell research has sparked controversy and heated debate since the first human stem cell line was derived in 1998. Too frequently these debates devolve to simple judgments--good or bad, life-saving medicine or bioethical nightmare, symbol of human ingenuity or our fall from grace--ignoring the people affected. With this book, Ruha Benjamin moves the terms of debate to focus on the shifting relationship between science and society, on the people who benefit--or don't--from regenerative medicine and what this says about our democratic commitments to an equitable society.

The concept of symmetry has widespread manifestations and many diverse applications--from architecture to mathematics to science. Yet, as twentieth-century physics has revealed, symmetry has a special, central role in nature, one that is occasionally and enigmatically violated. Fearful Symmetry brings the incredible discoveries of the juxtaposition of symmetry and asymmetry in contemporary physics within everyone's grasp. A. Zee, a distinguished physicist and skillful expositor, tells the exciting story of how contemporary theoretical physicists are following Einstein in their...

The physicist Friedrich Houtermans (1903-1966) was an essential promoter and proponent of the development of physics in Berne. He introduced a number of activities in the field of elementary particles, with a special focus on the physics of cosmic rays, and important contributions in applied physics.

This biography of Houtermans was written by Edoardo Amaldi and was almost finished just before his unexpected death in 1989. The editors have only corrected typographical errors and have introduced only minimal text changes in order to preserve the original content. Additionally they have...

There has been a flare-up in interest in science policy and a key factor in this is the increased interest in analysing the role that research can play in informing policy making.

A pioneering venture in this field was Government and Research: The Rothschild Experiment in a Government Department (1983) Heinemann. No other work had penetrated the deepest recesses of government to observe at first hand the attempts of a major department to determine its research agenda through collaboration with leading scientists in a wide range of fields, to observe how research was commissioned,...

Reading Bohr: Physics and Philosophy offers a new perspective on Niels Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics as complementarity, and on the relationships between physics and philosophy in Bohr's work, which has had momentous significance for our understanding of quantum theory and of the nature of knowledge in general. Philosophically, the book reassesses Bohr's place in the Western philosophical tradition, from Kant and Hegel on. Physically, it reconsiders the main issues at stake in the Bohr-Einstein confrontation and in the ongoing debates concerning quantum physics. It...