Wetenschap en Techniek

Inleiding in de deeltjesfysica, met name het Higgsdeeltje.

Who makes most money from the demand for cappuccinos early in the morning at Waterloo Station? Why is it impossible to get a foot on the property ladder? How does the Mafia make money from laundries when street gangs pushing drugs don't? Who really benefits from immigration? How can China, in just fifty years, go from the world's worst famine to one of the greatest economic revolutions of all time, lifting a million people out of poverty a month?

Looking at familiar situations in unfamiliar ways, THE UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST is a fresh explanation of the fundamental principles of the modern economy, illuminated by examples from the streets of London to the booming skyscrapers of Shanghai to the sleepy canals of Bruges. Leaving behind textbook jargon and equations, Tim Harford will reveal the games of signals and negotiations, contests of strength and battles of wit that drive not only the economy at large but the everyday choices we make.

Why has power in the West assumed the form of an "economy," that is, of a government of men and things? If power is essentially government, why does it need glory, that is, the ceremonial and liturgical apparatus that has always accompanied it?

In the early centuries of the Church, in order to reconcile monotheism with God's threefold nature, the doctrine of Trinity was introduced in the guise of an economy of divine life. It was as if the Trinity amounted to nothing more than a problem of managing and governing the heavenly house and the world. Agamben shows that, when combined with the idea of providence, this theological-economic paradigm unexpectedly lies at the origin of many of the most important categories of modern politics, from the democratic theory of the division of powers to the strategic doctrine of collateral damage, from the invisible hand of Smith's liberalism to ideas of order and security.

But the greatest novelty to emerge from The Kingdom and the Glory is that modern power is not only government but also glory, and that the ceremonial, liturgical, and acclamatory aspects that we have regarded as vestiges of the past actually constitute the basis of Western power. Through a fascinating analysis of liturgical acclamations and ceremonial symbols of powerthe throne, the crown, purple cloth, the Fasces, and moreAgamben develops an original genealogy that illuminates the startling function of consent and of the media in modern democracies. With this book, the work begun with Homo Sacer reaches a decisive point, profoundly challenging and renewing our vision of politics.

 Space and time are the most fundamental features of our experience of the world, and yet they are also the most perplexing. Does time really flow, or is that simply an illusion? Did time have a beginning? What does it mean to say that time has a direction? Does space have boundaries, or is itinfinite? Is change really possible? Could space and time exist in the absence of any objects or events? Are our space and time unique, or could there be other, parallel worlds with their own space and time? What, in the end, are space and time? Do they really exist, or are they simply theconstructions of our minds?Robin Le Poidevin provides a clear, witty, and stimulating introduction to these deep questions, and many other mind-boggling puzzles and paradoxes. He gives a vivid sense of the difficulties raised by our ordinary ideas about space and time, but he also gives us the basis to think about theseproblems independently, avoiding large amounts of jargon and technicality.His book is an invitation to think philosophically rather than a sustained argument for particular conclusions, but Le Poidevin does advance and defend a number of controversial views. He argues, for example, that time does not actually flow, that it is possible for space and time to be both finiteand yet be without boundaries, and that causation is the key to an understanding of one of the deepest mysteries of time: its direction.Travels in Four Dimensions draws on a variety of vivid examples and stories from science, history, and literature to bring its questions to life. No prior knowledge of philosophy is required to enjoy this book. The universe might seem very different after reading it.

Analyse van de negatieve gevolgen die de industriële groei voor de mens heeft

De mensheid heeft altijd al een bijzondere band met de planeet Mars gehad. Zo bestaat er een oud Australisch cultusvoorwerp waarop ons zonnestelsel is afgebeeld met als middelpunt de planeet Mars, in de Sahara bevinden zich in de rotsen 8000 jaar oude beelden die reusachtige Marsgoden voorstellen en de drie grote piramides van Gizeh lijken op de Tharsis-regio op Mars georiënteerd. Maar de planeet Mars heeft meer mysteries te bieden die ook de moderne mens blijven boeien. In 1976 maakte de Amerikaanse ruimtesonde Viking 1 foto's van de planeet waarop duidelijk een menselijk gezicht en de sporen van piramides en andere rulines te herkennen zijn - een ontdekking die zou kunnen wijzen op leven op Mars. Een intrigerende gedachte die mogelijk een verklaring zou kunnen zijn voor het toenemen van het aantal UFO-meldingen in periodes waarin Mars zich dicht bij de aarde bevindt. Zouden daarom wellicht ook zoveel Marssondes - zoals de Amerikaanse 'Mars Observer' op mysterieuze wijze verdwijnen of zelfs geheel defect raken? In het gezicht van Mars licht de Oostenrijkse Marsdeskundige Walter Hain (ontdekker van het Marsgezicht) een tipje van de sluier op. Een spannend relaas over de mysterieuze ontdekkingen die met deze intrigerende planeet samenhangen.

Hoe slim techniek in elkaar steekt, snap je pas als je er een tekening van ziet. Dit boek bevat een keur aan technische illustraties waarvan de meeste eerder verschenen in het tijdschrift De Ingenieur. De aantrekkelijke illustraties maken de techniek om ons heen tastbaar, begrijpelijk en leuk. Je ziet in een oogopslag hoe dingen werken, hoe een bouwproject verloopt, hoe een mechanische constructie in elkaar zit of hoe een biologisch proces werkt.

Nancy McKinstry, bestuursvoorzitter van informatieleverancier Wolters Kluwer, over de razendsnelle technologische veranderingen, de daaruit voortvloeiende ethische vraagstukken en het belang van diversiteit en inclusiviteit voor ondernemingen als Wolters Kluwer.00Dit boek bevat de Nederlandse vertaling plus het Engelse origineel - uitgebreid en geannoteerd - van de vijfde EW Economie-lezing die de bestuursvoorzitter van informatieleverancier Wolters Kluwer Nancy McKinstry donderdagavond 10 maart 2022 heeft uitgesproken in debatcentrum De Rode Hoed in Amsterdam.00De Amerikaanse McKinstry (63) is sinds september 2003 CEO en voorzitter van de raad van bestuur van informatieleverancier Wolters Kluwer. Toonaangevende media hebben haar herhaaldelijk een van de machtigste vrouwen in het bedrijfsleven genoemd. Ze staat op de lijst van Fortune International?s Most Powerful Women in Business en is opgenomen in HBR?s 2019-lijst van ?de meest effectieve CEO?s van de wereld?.00In de jaarlijkse EW Economie-lezing geven ondernemers, bestuurders van bedrijven en economen hun visie op ontwikkelingen in de samenleving. De EW Economie-lezing is eerder uitgesproken door Ben van Beurden (Shell), Pieter Elbers (KLM), Frans van Houten (Philips) en Jacco Vonhof (MKB-Nederland). Nancy McKinstry vertegenwoordigt bij dit eerste lustrum een dubbele primeur: zij is de eerste vrouw én de eerste niet-Nederlander die de EW Economie-lezing verzorgt.0.

The #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller
The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and “a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingeniously picked apart what makes us tick” (Elle).

“Sid Mukherjee has the uncanny ability to bring together science, history, and the future in a way that is understandable and riveting, guiding us through both time and the mystery of life itself.” —Ken Burns

“Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee dazzled readers with his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies in 2010. That achievement was evidently just a warm-up for his virtuoso performance in The Gene: An Intimate History, in which he braids science, history, and memoir into an epic with all the range and biblical thunder of Paradise Lost” (The New York Times). In this biography Mukherjee brings to life the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.

“Mukherjee expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories…[and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry” (The Washington Post). Throughout, the story of Mukherjee’s own family—with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness—reminds us of the questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In riveting and dramatic prose, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome.

“A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are—and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future” (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), The Gene is the revelatory and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master. “The Gene is a book we all should read” (USA TODAY).

Het gewichtige lichaam brengt de fascinerende omgang van de mens met zijn uiterlijke verschijning in beeld. Rode draad is een geschiedenis van het hongeren. Waarom besluiten mensen te stoppen met eten? Zijn de motieven persoonlijk, religieus of esthetisch? Wanner is er sprake van een verstoorde omgang met het lichaam? En zijn we vandaag wel baas over ons eigen lijf? De laatste decennia heeft magerzucht of anorexia nervosa zich ontwikkeld van een zeldzaam ziektebeeld tot een modieuze aandoening. Het lichaam is bij uitstek een symbool geworden van het verlangen naar een identiteit.

Dit boek is samengesteld door het Museum Dr. Guislain, bij de gelijknamige tentoonstelling. Achterin het boek is een Franse en Engelse vertaling opgenomen.
Het Nederlandse gedeelte is rijkelijk geïllustreerd met kleuren en zwart wit foto's en tekeningen.

The discovery of fundamental laws of nature has influenced the fate of Homo sapiens more than anything else. Has modern physics already understood these laws? Many puzzles formulated by Albert Einstein or Paul Dirac are still unsolved today, in particular the meaning of fundamental constants. In this book, it is argued that a rational description of nature must do without any constants. A thorough analysis of the history of physics leads to the conclusion that there is a serious problem with what have been considered the basis of reality for centuries: Space and time. These may be the most accessible concepts for human perception, but are probably unsuitable for a basic understanding of nature. A methodological and historical analysis shows, however, that the underlying problem of physics is deep, unexpected and fatal: the concepts of space and time themselves, the basis of science since Newton, could be fundamentally inappropriate for the description of reality, although-or precisely because-they are so easily accessible to human perception. A new understanding of reality can only arise from mathematics. By exploring the three-dimensional unit sphere, which could replace the concepts of space and time, the author presents a mathematical vision that points the way to a new understanding of reality.

When Dr Ben Goldacre saw someone on daytime TV dipping her feet in an Àqua Detox' footbath, releasing her toxins into the water and turning it brown, he thought he'd try the same at home. L̀ike some kind of Johnny Ball cum Witchfinder General', using his girlfriend's Barbie doll, he gently passed an electrical current through the warm salt water. It turned brown. In his words: b̀efore my very eyes, the world's first Detox Barbie was sat, with her feet in a pool of brown sludge, purged of a weekend's immorality.' Dr Ben Goldacre is the author of the BAD SCIENCE column in the Guardian and his book is about all the b̀ad science' we are constantly bombarded with in the media and in advertising. At a time when science is used to prove everything and nothing, everyone has their own b̀ad science' moments from the useless pie-chart on the back of cereal packets to the use of the word v̀isibly' in cosmetics ads. This book will help people to quantify their instincts that a lot of the so-called s̀cience' which appears in the media and in advertising is just wrong or misleading. Satirical and amusing and unafraid to expose the ridiculous it provides the reader with the facts they need to differentiate the good from the bad.

THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS tells the story of how science, revolutionary politics, and the dream of a new economy converged to produce both the metric system and the first struggle over globalization.
Amidst the scientific fervor of the Revolution two French scientists, Delambre and Mechain, were sent out on an expedition to measure the shape of the world and thereby establish the metre (which was to be one ten-millionth the distance from pole to equator). Their hope was that people would use the globe as the basis of measure rather than an arbitrary system meted out by the monarchs. As one scientist went north along the French meridian and the other south, their experiences diverged just as radically. After seven years, they received a hero's welcome upon their return to Paris. Mechain, however, was obsessed over a minute error in his calculations that he'd discovered and concealed, and which eventually drove him to his grave. His death forced his colleague Delambre to choose between loyalty to his friend and his science.

In Science, Patricia Fara rewrites science's past to provide new ways of understanding and questioning our modern technological society. Aiming not just to provide information but to make people think, this unique book explores how science has become so powerful by describing the financial interests and imperial ambitions behind its success.
Sweeping through the centuries from ancient Babylon right up to the latest hi-tech experiments in genetics and particle physics, Fara's book also ranges internationally, challenging notions of European superiority by emphasising the importance of scientific projects based around the world, including revealing discussions of China and the Islamic Empire alongside the more familiar stories about Copernicus's sun-centered astronomy, Newton's gravity, and Darwin's theory of evolution. We see for instance how Muslim leaders encouraged science by building massive libraries, hospitals, and astronomical observatories and we rediscover the significance of medieval Europe--long overlooked--where, surprisingly, religious institutions ensured science's survival, as the learning preserved in monasteries was subsequently developed in new and unique institutions: universities. Instead of focussing on esoteric experiments and abstract theories, she explains how science belongs to the practical world of war, politics and business. And rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes, she tells true stories about real people--men (and some women) who needed to earn their living, who made mistakes, and who trampled down their rivals.
Finally, this provocative volume challenges scientific supremacy itself, arguing that science is successful not because it is always indubitably right, but because people have said that it is right. Science dominates modern life, but perhaps the globe will be better off by limiting science's powers and undoing some of its effects.
"Dismantling popular myths, taking a truly global view and dispensing with false idols, Fara's highly readable survey of science's histories is a breath of fresh air. She unerringly pinpoints the defining moods of each age, treating the past with respect and the present with discernment. This wonderfully literate book tells a story that is far, far more interesting than the tidy fictions of hindsight." -- Philip Ball, Consultant Editor of Nature
"It's been a very long time since any reputable historian of science had the desire, the knowledge, or the nerve to undertake a book like this-- an attempt to survey the development of science from Antiquity to the present, notably including non-European materials. Patricia Fara has succeeded: Science is an elegant and compact creative synthesis of the piecemeal researches of generations of academic historians. It deserves the widest possible readership." - Steven Shapin, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard, and author of The Scientific Revolution

Patricia Fara lectures in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and is the Senior Tutor of Clare College. She is the author of numerous books, including Fatal Attraction: Magnetic Mysteries of the Enlightenment and Newton: The Making of Genius. Her writing has appeared in History Today, New Scientist, Nature, The Times and New Statesman, and she writes a regular column on scientific portraits for Endeavour.
Books by the same author Fatal Attraction: Magnetic Mysteries of the Enlightenment by Patricia Fara. Published: 2005 Publisher: Icon Books Price: L9.99 Pandora's Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment by Patricia Fara. Published: 2004 Publisher: Pimlico Price: L12.99 Sex, Botany and Empire; the Stories of Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks by Patricia Fara. Published: 2003 Publisher: Icon Books Price: L6.99 Newton: the Making of Genius by Patricia Fara. Published: 2002 Publisher: Macmillan Price: L20 An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity in the Enlightenment by Patricia Fara. Publish

"Failed states" Chomsky writes, are those "that do not protect their citizens from violence and perhaps even destruction, that regard themselves as beyond the reach of domestic or international law, and that suffer from a 'democratic deficit,' having democratic forms but with limited substance." Exploring recent U.S. foreign and domestic policies, Chomsky assesses Washington's escalation of the nuclear risk, the dangerous consequences of the occupation of Iraq; and America's self-exemption from international law. He also examines an American electoral system that frustrates genuine political alternatives, thus impeding any meaningful democracy.

Glaeser travels through history and around the globe to reveal the hidden workings of cities and how they bring out the best in humankind. Even the worst cities-Kinshasa, Kolkata, Lagos- confer surprising benefits on the people who flock to them, including better health and more jobs than the rural areas that surround them. Glaeser visits Bangalore and Silicon Valley, whose strangely similar histories prove how essential education is to urban success and how new technology actually encourages people to gather together physically. He discovers why Detroit is dying while other old industrial cities-Chicago, Boston, New York-thrive. He investigates why a new house costs 350 percent more in Los Angeles than in Houston, even though building costs are only 25 percent higher in L.A. He pinpoints the single factor that most influences urban growth-January temperatures-and explains how certain chilly cities manage to defy that link. He explains how West Coast environmentalists have harmed the environment, and how struggling cities from Youngstown to New Orleans can "shrink to greatness." And he exposes the dangerous anti-urban political bias that is harming both cities and the entire country.

S.W Couwenberg merkte eens op: 'We zijn in dit land dol op dissidenten, maar ze moeten wél een flink eind uit de buurt zijn'. Rietdijk is zo'n dissident. Staatsrecht-deskundige Wim Couwenberg, VPRO-journalist-socioloog Kees Sluys, VU filosoof-politicoloog Henk Woldring en drie andere tegenstanders van censuur-op-pantoffels stellen hem hier - vaak uitdagende - vragen. Rietdijk antwoordt taboe-doorbrekend inzake o.m. onbegrijpelijke kunst, misdaad, buitenlanders, genetisch 'zwakkeren' en de zin van het bestaan. Hij komt tot een samenhangende cultuurtheorie die weinig vleiend is voor onze 'relatiocratie'.

De wereld van het getal van Georges Ifrah is een uitgebreide verkenning van de geschiedenis van getallen en cijferstelsels. Het boek onderzoekt hoe verschillende beschavingen door de tijd heen hun eigen systemen voor het rekenen en noteren van getallen hebben ontwikkeld, van de oude Sumeriërs tot moderne wiskundige systemen. Ifrah belicht de oorsprong en evolutie van cijfers, zoals het decimale stelsel, het positiesysteem en de Arabische cijfers, en legt uit hoe deze systemen de ontwikkeling van wetenschap, technologie en cultuur hebben beïnvloed. Het werk biedt zowel een historisch als technisch inzicht in de rol van getallen in de menselijke beschaving.

There has been much talk about family values in recent years, but little examination of the economic forces that are exploding family life and limiting the caregiving that families can provide. As Folbre points out in her provocative and insightful new book, every society must confront the problem of balancing self-interested pursuits with care for others--including children, the elderly, and the infirm. Historically, most societies enjoyed an increased supply of care by maintaining strict limits on women's freedom. But as these limits happily and inevitably give way, there are many consequences for those who still need care.

Using the image of "the invisible heart" to evoke the forces of compassion that must temper the forces of self-interest, Folbre argues that if we don't establish a new set of rules defining our mutual responsibilities for caregiving, the penalties suffered by the needy--our very families--will increase. Intensified economic competition may drive altruism and families out of business.

A leading feminist economist, Nancy Folbre writes in a lively, personal style--Molly Ivins cheek-to-cheek with John Kenneth Galbraith--and develops a distinctive approach to the economics of care. Unlike others who praise family values, Folbre acknowledges the complicated relationship between women and altruism. Her book offers new interpretations of such policy issues as welfare reform, school finance, and progressive taxation, and it confronts the challenges of globalization, outlining strategies for developing an economic system that rewards both individual achievement and care for others.

In this volume, eminent economist Charles Kindleberger sets out to challenge the widespread belief that the market for seafarers, in the days before steam, was efficient, conforming more or less to a strong prior belief in the neo-classical economic model of supply and demand. 

Maritime history is traditionally strewn with references to crimping or shanghaiing, naval press-gangs, desertion, mutiny, marooning and shipwrecks due to drunkenness or negligence. In contrast, Kindleberger examines issues of recruitment and pay, the treatment of seamen, and the question of government intervention and its impact on efficiency, in the engaging narrative style that is his trademark. 

Offering an original and informative account of the markets for seafarers in the age of sail, Mariners and Markets will be welcomed by economic and maritime historians alike.

In February of 2008, amid the looming global financial crisis, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France asked Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, along with the distinguished French economist Jean Paul Fitoussi, to establish a commission of leading economists to study whether Gross Domestic Product (GDP)--the most widely used measure of economic activity--is a reliable indicator of economic and social progress. The Commission was given the further task of laying out an agenda for developing better measures.

Mismeasuring Our Lives is the result of this major intellectual effort, one with pressing relevance for anyone engaged in assessing how and whether our economy is serving the needs of our society. The authors offer a sweeping assessment of the limits of GDP as a measurement of the well-being of societies--considering, for example, how GDP overlooks economic inequality (with the result that most people can be worse off even though average income is increasing); and does not factor environmental impacts into economic decisions.

In place of GDP, Mismeasuring Our Lives introduces a bold new array of concepts, from sustainable measures of economic welfare, to measures of savings and wealth, to a "green GDP." At a time when policymakers worldwide are grappling with unprecedented global financial and environmental issues, here is an essential guide to measuring the things that matter.

Hoe creëer je een uitdagende en aantrekkelijke omgeving waarin de passie van bevlogen en eigenzinnige medewerkers een verbinding aangaat met de eisen van een succesvolle en solide bedrijfsvoering? Pieter de Jong reist in dit boek langs de belangrijkste thema s waar je als leidinggevende mee te maken krijgt. Vanaf de vraag welke eisen leidinggeven aan je stelt en wat verstandig is om aan bagage mee te nemen tot en met de do s en dont s van succesvol veranderingen in een organisatie doorvoeren. Hij toetst vanuit zijn jarenlange ervaring als CEO de zee aan managementadviezen op relevantie voor de praktijk van alledag en lardeert dat met verrassende citaten uit de wereldliteratuur. Ter zake kundig, praktisch en inspirerend voor wie zijn fascinatie deelt voor het avontuur dat leidinggeven heet.

In this revolutionary, acclaimed book, bestselling economist Tim Harford introduced us to a selection of fifty radical inventions that changed the world.

Now Harford once again brings us an array of remarkable, memorable, curious and often unexpected things, inventions, that teach us lessons by turns intimate and sweeping about the complex world economy we live in today. From the brick, blockchain and the bicycle to fire, the factory and fundraising, and from solar PV and the pencil to the postage stamp, this brilliant and enlightening collection resonates, fascinates and stimulates. It is a wonderful blend of insight and inspiration from one of Britain's finest non-fiction storytellers.

Metamorfose intrigeert de mens al sinds Ovidius, met verhalen over duivels en weerwolven in mensengedaante. We vergeten echter dat Homo sapiens, net als de rups en vlinder, uit twee soorten bestaat: het kind en de volwassene. Kinderen leven gescheiden in hun eigen wereld, tot ze zich in de puberteit 'verpoppen'. Veel volwassenen verlangen terug naar die kinderlijke vrijheid, skaten in opgroei kleren en lezen kinderboeken. Deze infantilisering doet denken aan een vlinder die terug kruipt in zijn pophuid. In De larf onderzoekt Midas Dekkers de rol van het kind in natuur en cultuur, en stelt dat de kind en volwassene verschillende wezens zijn, met vaak tegenstrijdige belangen. Groei in de natuur gaat altijd ten koste van iets anders, en de mens is daarop geen uitzondering.

Kinderen leven gescheiden van volwassenen, in een eigen wereld van crèches, scholen en clubs, ze lezen hun eigen kinderboeken en bezoeken een eigen kinderboerderij. Tot ze in de puberteit verpoppen in een explosie van popmuziek en pukkels.
In "De Larf" onderzoekt Midas Dekkers welke rol het kind speelt in natuur en cultuur.

Oude mensen doen zich jong voor, want iedereen wil oud worden, maar niemand wil het zijn. Na het feliciteren van de honderdjarige wast de burgemeester zijn handen. Liever opent hij een nieuwe wijk, want nieuw is mooi en jong is lekker. Tegenover elk herfststukje in het lokalen staan honderd boeketten fris in bloemenwinkels te stralen.
Toch lonkt het verval. Afwaarts is een berg ook mooi. Schilders schilderen ruïnes, toeristen fotograferen tandeloze vissers, en Fellini begreep dat de nadagen de mooiste dagen van Rome zijn. Nog steeds willen mannen niet oud zijn, maar eisen wel een penopauze. De cirkel wil rond.
Restaureren we om het oude te behouden, of proberen we de tijdelijkheid te ontduiken? Hoe meer we over de lente zingen, hoe noodzakelijker de herfst blijkt, wanneer de bomen hun vrucht en blad aan de wind meegeven. Wat verval lijkt, is vaak vervulling.