Wetenschap en Techniek

The humanities and the sciences face challenging times, each in their own way. The humanities suffer shrinking enrollments and budgets, and are perceived by some as irrelevant in a changing economy. The sciences face a political climate that disrespects academic expertise and challenges settled debates. Meanwhile age-old disputes about their spheres of knowledge continue: does scientific knowledge subsume that of the humanities? Are their forms of knowledge complementary, or ultimately at odds?

Richard Foley, a philosopher of knowledge and the former Dean of Arts and Sciences at New York University, here provides a concise and accessible overview of what the overarching goals of these disciplines are, relative to one another, and what kind of knowledge they aim to produce. His fundamental argument is that the sciences aim at insights that ideally are not limited to particular locations or times and are also perspective-free and wholly descriptive, whereas the humanities appropriately seek insights about specific locations and times, with the insights being perspective-based and having evaluative as well as descriptive elements. He also finds these two spheres of knowledge to be complementary in the search for understanding of our world and the human condition. The ultimate goal of Foley's investigation however is an eloquent defense and celebration of the culture of academic research. In an era of sound-bites and tweet-length falsehoods, this culture values and supports long-term intellectual achievements for the good of humanity - produced with hard work, dedication, and patience. The Geography of Insight is essential reading for readers both inside and outside of the academy.

What is the relationship between the financial system and politics? In a democratic system, what kind of control should elected governments have over the financial markets? What policies should be implemented to regulate them? What is the role played by different elites - financial, technocratic, and political - in the operation and regulation of the financial system? And what role should citizens, investors, and savers play? These are some of the questions addressed in this challenging analysis of the particular features of the contemporary capitalist economy in Britain, the USA, and Western Europe. The authors argue that the causes of the financial crisis lay in the bricolage and innovation in financial markets, resulting in long chains and circuits of transactions and instruments that enabled bankers to earn fees, but which did not sufficiently take into account system risk, uncertainty, and unintended consequences. In the wake of the crisis, the authors argue that social scientists, governments, and citizens need to re-engage with the political dimensions of financial markets. This book offers a controversial and accessible exploration of the disorders of our financial capitalism and its justifications. With an innovative emphasis on the economically 'undisclosed' and the political 'mystifying', it combines technical understanding of finance, cultural analysis, and al political account of interests and institutions.

America's economic future is uncertain. Mired in a long, crippling economic slump and hamstrung by bitter partisan debate over the growing debt and the role of government, the nation faces substantial challenges. Prominent Stanford University economist John B. Taylor brings his steady voice of reason to the discussion with a natural solution: start with the country's founding principles of economic and political freedom--limited government, rule of law, strong incentives, reliance on markets, a predictable policy framework--and reconstruct its economic foundation from these proven principles. Channeling his high-level experience as both a policymaker and a researcher, Taylor shows that when we embrace these first principles, the economy prospers. When we abandon them, the economy falters. In a masterful sweep through history, he identifies the key policymakers who stuck to, ignored, or compromised on these principles, drawing lessons from the mistakes and successes of each administration from JFK's to Obama's, as well as from the policies of Arthur Burns, Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, and Ben Bernanke, who ran the Federal Reserve during these periods. Neither Democrats nor Republicans wholly own these mistakes and successes. Taylor then zeroes in on current policy issues, applying the first principles. He lays out in simple terms bold strategies to defuse the debt explosion, to reform the Fed so it once again follows rules that work, to reform regulations and put an end to crony capitalism and scattershot bailouts, to transform existing entitlements and improve people's lives, and to rebuild America's global economic leadership.

De beheersing van het vuur was de eerste grote ingreep die de mensheid in de natuur teweeg heeft gebracht en een voorwaarde voor de ontwikkeling van landbouw en industrie. Alleen de mens heeft geleerd vuur te beheersen. Maar die beheersing leidde tot een grotere afhankelijkheid - met vaak onvoorziene gevolgen.

Hoe kun je leugens detecteren of iemand online (of offline) versieren? De bedenkers van het tv-programma Mindfuck vertellen hoe 101 van hun trucs, illusies en experimenten in elkaar zitten. Met veel kleurenfoto's. Vanaf ca. 15 jaar.

Samuel Brittan has been one of the Financial Times' leading columnists for nearly thirty years. He has also advised numerous Chancellors of the Exchequer on economic policy. Against the Flow collects the most important of these writings from the last three decades. Brittan has established a reputation for elegance of expression, trenchant analysis and tremendous range of reference. All three qualities are powerfully apparent in this collection, as he ranges over the arms trade and US military (which he opposes); the expansion of free markets and a basic income for all (which he supports), as wall as the war on terror, The book also includes his pungent portraits of some heroes and villans, including Keynes, Milton Friedman & Taken together the pieces in Against the Flow amount to a robust defence of classic liberalism.

Antwoorden op een aantal basale economische vragen, zonder economisch jargon. Wat moet ik vinden van marktwerking, economische groei en recessies? Ik weet niet eens wat die woorden feitelijk betekenen. Toch word ik wel geacht er iets van af te weten. Wanneer ik stem bijvoorbeeld. Politieke partijen hebben uiteenlopende ideeën over economische onderwerpen, maar ik heb geen flauw benul wie er gelijk heeft. En toch stem ik. Onwetend.

In principe gaat economie over ons dagelijks leven: ons werk, de verdeling van rijkdom, tegenslagen en geluk, de toekomst. Dat zijn toch belangrijke onderwerpen en het is eigenlijk zaak dat ik er meer van begrijp. Vandaar dus dat ik me in economie ben gaan verdiepen, via vragen als: Waar komt geld vandaan? Zijn wij rijk dankzij de armoe van anderen? En waarom is cola duurder dan melk?
Tot mijn bevrediging en verbazing heb ik op al mijn vragen een antwoord gevonden. En bovenal ben ik tot de onverwachte ontdekking gekomen dat die economen nog zo gek niet zijn

Verdediging van een niet-mechanistische benadering van het ontstaan van vorm en gedrag in de natuur.

Uiteenzetting over de filosofische consequenties van de nieuwe natuurkundige inzichten.

"Bedrijven die niet bijdragen aan een betere wereld hebben geen bestaansrecht. Ze moeten zich op het goede richten, de wereld beter maken, het geld komt dan vanzelf. Na de door hebzucht en overmoed gekenmerkte crisis van 2008 wordt deze boodschap van de nieuwe CEO van Unilever met gejuich ontvangen. Onverbiddelijk en onvermoeibaar legt Paul Polman uit: multinationals als Unilever spelen een hoofdrol in het uitbannen van armoede en het aanpakken van het klimaatprobleem. Dit is het grote gevecht om de ziel van het kapitalisme. Maar de moedige pionier loopt zo ver voor de troepen uit dat ?zijn? duurzame Unilever in 2017 dreigt te worden opgeslokt door concurrent Kraft-Heinz. Na deze ?bijna-doodervaring? gaat Polman op zoek naar een veilige haven voor zijn experiment. Door dagkoersen geregeerde Britse aandeelhouders en Nederlandse politici versperren de slecht luisterende ?CEO-priester? de weg. Zijn poging om er eindelijk echt één bedrijf van te maken met één hoofdkantoor in Nederland, mislukt op dramatische wijze. 0In 'Het drama Ahold' (2004) en 'De Prooi' (2008) reconstrueerde Jeroen Smit hoe falend leiderschap, opgejaagd door op snelle winst gerichte aandeelhouders, veel waarde vernietigde. De wereld snakt naar een bedrijfsleven dat zich over de grote vraagstukken van deze tijd ontfermt. In 'Het Grote Gevecht' laat Smit zien dat we daarvoor allemaal, als consumenten, werknemers en vooral ook als beleggers, een grote draai moeten maken.

Stanley Fischer served as First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund from 1994 to 2001. IMF Essays from a Time of Crisis collects sixteen essays written for the most part during his time at the IMF, each updated with Fischer's later reflections on the issues raised. The IMF drew much criticism for some of its actions during Fischer's tenure, and he vigorously defends the "battlefield medicine" practiced by the IMF during a series of economic crises, which included the problems of economic transition in the former Soviet bloc and the Asian financial crisis. Fischer addresses the subsequent calls for reform of the international financial system and makes the case for the IMF as an international lender of last resort.

The first section of essays, "The Role of the IMF and the Reform of the International Financial System," considers the IMF's role in the international financial system in light of the crises of the 1990s. The second section, "Macroeconomic Policy, Stabilization, and Transition," examines such topics as exchange rate regimes, inflation, and Eastern Europe's relation to the European Union. The final section, "Poverty and Development," reflects Fischer's basic belief that economic policies should explicitly target poverty reduction. These engaging and accessible essays will appeal not only to economics students, economists, and policymakers but also to the general reader interested in the international monetary system.

Once upon a time, students who were willing and able to work hard could obtain an affordable, high-quality education at a public university. Those times are gone. Intensified admissions competition coupled with opposition to public spending has scorched every campus. Budget cuts, tuition hikes, and debt burdens are undermining the best path to upward mobility that this country ever built.

But despite all of this, Americans still embrace ideals of equal opportunity and know that higher education represents a public good. Students, faculty, staff, and advocates are beginning to build political coalitions and develop new strategies to improve access, enhance quality, and simplify financial aid. This book celebrates and will fortify their efforts.

In Saving State U, economist Nancy Folbre brings the national debates of education experts down to the level of trying to teach--and trying to learn--at major state universities whose budgets have repeatedly been slashed, restored, and then slashed again. Here is a brilliant firsthand account of the stakes involved, the politics, and the key debates raging through public campuses today. In a passionate, accessible voice, Folbre also offers a sobering vision of the many possible futures of public higher education and their links to the fate of our democracy while looking at the practical ways in which change is now possible.

Over bezuinigingen is veel geschreven, over het bedrijfsleven nog meer en over de bankensector misschien wel het meest. Maar boeken over de financin van heel Nederland zijn er nauwelijks. Uit evenwicht In Een rijk land moet rijk leven laat Martin ten Cate zien dat Nederland de langdurige economische crisis vooral aan zichzelf te wijten heeft. We houden met elkaar niet alleen de financile onevenwichtigheden in stand, maar vergroten die zelfs. Met onze enorme spaardrift en het daarmee samenhangende enorme, structurele overschot op de lopende rekening van de betalingsbalans brengen we onszelf eerder schade toe dan dat we onze problemen oplossen. Als particulier of als bedrijf kan je sparen, maar als samenleving is dat onmogelijk. De financin blijken in Nederland wezenlijk anders te zijn gestructureerd dan bij onze Europese partners. Financin Een rijk land moet rijk leven is bestemd voor genteresseerden in economie en het debat rondom onze nationale economie. Ten Cate belicht verschillende themas binnen de financin, zoals het Nederlandse pensioenstelsel en de huizenmarkt. Ook heeft het boek oog voor de financin op Europees niveau. Willen we meer of minder Europa? En hoe zit het met financile solidariteit binnen de Europese Unie? Ten Cate hoop met deze bijdrage een breed nationaal debat over het spaaroverschot in Nederland op gang te brengen. Het boek besluit met een aantal stevige conclusies en grensverleggende aanbevelingen. In de pers Ten Cate was op 4 maart te gast bij Henk Steenhuis in het programma Achter het boek op Amsterdam FM. Luister het gesprek hier terug.

Popular math at its most entertaining and enlightening. "Zero is really something"-Washington Post

A New York Times Notable Book.

The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now it threatens the foundations of modern physics. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.

In Zero, Science Journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics. Here are the legendary thinkers—from Pythagoras to Newton to Heisenberg, from the Kabalists to today's astrophysicists—who have tried to understand it and whose clashes shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion. Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in the dark core of a black hole and the brilliant flash of the Big Bang. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time: the quest for a theory of everything.

Vijftig machines die van groot belang zijn geweest in de geschiedenis van de techniek, van het weefgetouw tot de eerste mobiele telefoon van Motorola.

De lotgevallen van vier Parijzenaars en de geschiedenis van de wiskunde raken steeds meer verstrengeld.

Korte uitleg van diverse, meest natuurkundige, wetten.

Wat is de kortste weg van A naar B als je niet weet wat B is of waar het ligt? In dit vervolg op 'Blikwisselingen' (2008) betoogt Robbert Dijkgraaf op overtuigende wijze hoe belangrijk verwondering, intuïtie, kunst en creativiteit zijn in de wetenschap. Met aanstekelijk enthousiasme laat hij zien hoe de zoektocht naar een antwoord op de schijnbaar nutteloze vraag hoe de wereld in elkaar zit, diezelfde wereld ingrijpend verandert en de moeite waard maakt. Van legoblokjes tot wondergetallen, van de oerknal tot de maanlanding, van de Groenlandse ijskap tot de Nederlandse politiek - in Dijkgraafs visie is wetenschap overal om ons heen, mateloos fascinerend en voor iedereen toegankelijk.

From the brightest minds in the field—a revealing look at how countries use their currencies to achieve prosperity . . . and the coming repercussions

Bloomberg Television's Sara Eisen sheds light on the complex global financial system through this illuminating collection of essays. She hand selected the crème de la crème of authors from the world's most prestigious academic institutions and esteemed professional organizations to share--for the first time in print-- their observations and deductions on the topics that matter most to you and your future wealth, including:

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CURRENCIES AND FINANCIAL CRISES
THE FLAWS WITHIN THE INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE RATE SYSTEM AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES
HOW EMERGING MARKETS FIT INTO THE CURRENT AND FUTURE EXCHANGE RATE FRAMEWORK
THE IMPACT EXCHANGE RATES HAVE ON FREE TRADE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
WHAT DEFINES A "SAFE HAVEN" CURRENCY AND ITS ROLE
POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS TO THE CURRENT ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

"Today's fiat currency system is based upon trust among market participants, politicians, and central bankers--and that trust is assembled around the reserve currency that enjoys an exorbitant privilege. The reserve status is in doubt in a post financial crisis era but alternatives are lacking. . . . This book is a great guide on how the global currency system is morphing into a potential new standard, but not without the necessary volatility." -- Ben Emons, Senior Vice President, Portfolio Manager, PIMCO

In 2011, the International Monetary Fund invited prominent economists and economic policy makers to consider the brave new world of the post-crisis global economy. The result is a book that captures the state of macroeconomic thinking at a transformational moment. The crisis and the weak recovery that has followed raise fundamental questions concerning macroeconomics and economic policy. For instance, to what extent are financial markets efficient and self-correcting? How crucial is low and stable inflation for growth and the real stability of the economy? How strong is the case for open capital markets? Too often, the standard models provided insufficient guidance on how to respond to the unprecedented situations created by the crisis. As a result, policy makers have been forced to improvise. What to do when interest rates reach the zero floor? How best to provide liquidity to segmented financial institutions and markets? How much to use fiscal policy starting from high levels of debt? These top economists discuss future directions for monetary policy, fiscal policy, financial regulation, capital account management, growth strategies, and the international monetary system, and the economic models that should underpin thinking about critical policy choices. Among the new realities they consider are the swing of the pendulum toward regulation; the need for new theoretical approaches, incorporating advances in agency theory, behavioral economics, and understanding of credit markets and finance based on theories of imperfect information; and the importance for macroeconomic policy to target not just inflation but also output and financial stability. This title is copublished with The MIT Press. For more information, please visit www.mitpress.mit.edu.

In the past fifteen years, inflation has been conquered by many advanced countries. History reveals, however, that it has been conquered before and returned. In The Conquest of American Inflation, Thomas J. Sargent presents a groundbreaking analysis of the rise and fall of U.S. inflation after 1960. He examines two broad explanations for the behavior of inflation and unemployment in this period: the natural-rate hypothesis joined to the Lucas critique and a more traditional econometric policy evaluation modified to include adaptive expectations and learning. His purpose is not only to determine which is the better account, but also to codify for the benefit of the next generation the economic forces that cause inflation.

Sargent begins with an explanation of how American policymakers increased inflation in the early 1960s by following erroneous assumptions about the exploitability of the Phillips curve--the inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment. In subsequent chapters, he connects a sequence of ideas--self-confirming equilibria, least-squares and other adaptive or recursive learning algorithms, convergence of least-squares learners with self-confirming equilibria, and recurrent dynamics along escape routes from self-confirming equilibria. Sargent synthesizes results from macroeconomics, game theory, control theory, and other fields to extend both adaptive expectations and rational expectations theory, and he compellingly describes postwar inflation in terms of drifting coefficients. He interprets his results in favor of adaptive expectations as the relevant mechanism affecting inflation policy.

Providing an original methodological link between theoretical and policy economics, this book will engender much debate and become an indispensable text for academics, graduate students, and professional economists.

This bestselling and hilarious book blew the doors off Wall Street's boardrooms and introduced the world to the writing of Michael Lewis. In this shrewd and wickedly funny book, Michael Lewis describes an astonishing era and his own rake's progress through a powerful investment bank. From an unlikely beginning (art history at Princeton?) he rose in two short years from Salomon Brothers trainee to Geek (the lowest form of life on the trading floor) to Big Swinging Dick, the most dangerous beast in the jungle, a bond salesman who could turn over millions of dollars' worth of doubtful bonds with just one call. With the eye and ear of a born storyteller, Michael Lewis shows us how things really worked on Wall Street. In the Salomon training program a roomful of aspirants is stunned speechless by the vitriolic profanity of the Human Piranha; out on the trading floor, bond traders throw telephones at the heads of underlings and Salomon chairman Gutfreund challenges his chief trader to a hand of liar's poker for one million dollars; around the world in London, Tokyo, and New York, bright young men like Michael Lewis, connected by telephones and computer terminals, swap gross jokes and find retail buyers for the staggering debt of individual companies or whole countries. The bond traders, wearing greed and ambition and badges of honor, might well have swaggered straight from the pages of Bonfire of the Vanities. But for all their outrageous behavior, they were in fact presiding over enormous changes in the world economy. Lewis's job, simply described, was to transfer money, in the form of bonds, from those outside America who saved to those inside America who consumed. In doing so, he generated tens of millions of dollars for Salomon Brothers, and earned for himself a ringside seat on the greatest financial spectacle of the decade: the leveraging of America. - Publisher.

Wat als? geeft hilarische en informatieve antwoorden op belangrijke vragen waar je nooit aan zou denken.

There were only a few women economists who made it to the surface and whose voices were heard in the history of economic thought of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Maynard Keynes, and Milton Friedman – right? Wrong!

In this book, distinguished economist Edith Kuiper shows us that the history of economic thought is just that, a his-story, by telling the herstory of economic thought from the perspective of women economic writers and economists. Although some of these women were well known in their time, they were excluded from most of academic economics, and, over the past centuries, their work has been neglected, forgotten, and thus become invisible. Edith Kuiper introduces the reader to an amazing crowd of female pioneers and reveals how their insights are invaluable to understanding areas of economics ranging from production, work, and the economics of the household, to income and wealth distribution, consumption, public policy, and much more.

This pathbreaking book presents a whole new perspective on the development of economic thought. It will be essential reading for all students and scholars of the history of economic thought and feminist economics.

The Growth of Scientific Knowledge

Clear, insightful, and nondogmatic, this book gives us a new appreciation for one of our most ubiquitous institutions. From the wild swings of the stock market to the online auctions of eBay to the unexpected twists of the world's post-Communist economies, markets have suddenly become quite visible. We now have occasion to ask, "What makes these institutions work? How important are they? How can we improve them?" Taking us on a lively tour of a world we once took for granted, John McMillan offers examples ranging from a camel trading fair in India to the $20 million per day Aalsmeer flower market in the Netherlands to the global trade in AIDS drugs. Eschewing ideology, he shows us that markets are neither magical nor immoral. Rather, they are powerful if imperfect tools, the best we've found for improving our living standards. Peter Bernstein's Against the Gods enabled us to see risk in a whole new light. McMillan's book will do the same for markets.

No one has more authority to call the shots the way they really are than Paul Krugman, whose provocative New York Times columns are keenly followed by millions. One of the world's most respected economists, Krugman has been named America's most important columnist by the Washington Monthly and columnist of the year by Editor and Publisher magazine.

In this long-awaited work containing Krugman's most influential columns along with new commentary, he chronicles how the boom economy unraveled: how exuberance gave way to pessimism, how the age of corporate heroes gave way to corporate scandals, how fiscal responsibility collapsed. From his account of the secret history of the California energy crisis to his devastating dissections of dishonesty in the Bush administration, Krugman tells the uncomfortable truth about how the United States lost its way. And he gives us the road map we will need to follow if we are to get the country back on track.

How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes uses illustration, humor, and accessible storytelling to explain complex topics of economic growth and monetary systems. In it, economic expert and bestselling author of Crash Proof, Peter Schiff teams up with his brother Andrew to apply their signature "take no prisoners" logic to expose the glaring fallacies that have become so ingrained in our country?s economic conversation.

Inspired by How an Economy Grows and Why It Doesn?t?a previously published book by the Schiffs? father Irwin, a widely published economist and activist?How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes incorporates the spirit of the original while tackling the latest economic issues.With wit and humor, the Schiffs explain the roots of economic growth, the uses of capital, the destructive nature of consumer credit, the source of inflation, the importance of trade, savings, and risk, and many other topical principles of economics.

The tales told here may appear simple of the surface, but they will leave you with a powerful understanding of How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes.

The story of this storm in the global markets is the story of how government intervention to solve previous crises laid the foundation for a new one, writes Johan Norberg in his important new book. Tracing the causes of our current financial crisis with liveliness and clarity, Financial Fiasco shows the mistakes made in Washington, on Wall Street, and in communities across America that led to the economic meltdown. While many analysts have placed the blame solely on Wall Street, Norberg exposes the crucial role government regulation played in creating the opportunities and incentives that led to the financial collapse. In six concise chapters, Financial Fiasco tells the complex story of the crisis, showing how monetary policy, housing policy, and financial innovations combined to create financial catastrophe. The final two chapters describe the government's mismanagement of the crisis and how we are now dangerously repeating many of the very same mistakes that caused it. An understanding of the roots of the financial crisis is crucial for every American who has felt its effects - and would like to prevent the same disaster from happening again. Financial Fiasco provides that understanding, with great insight, clarity, and wit. Just as important, the book serves as a profound warning against pursuing the wrong solutions. After government authorities had helped create the worst financial crisis in generations, the climate of ideas has now shifted dramatically in the direction of bigger and more active government," Norberg writes. Financial Fiasco is the perfect antidote to those ideas, a cautionary tale on how to stop confusing the disease with the cure."--Jacket.

Onderzoekt gebruiksvriendelijkheid bij mens-machine interacties met introductie van het begrip Flow.