Wetenschap en Techniek

Acclaimed one of the "seminal books... comparable in ultimate importance to... Galileo or Malthus or Rousseau or Mill," Cybernetics was judged by twenty-seven historians, economists, educators, and philosophers to be one of those books published during the "past four decades," which may have a substantial impact on public thought and action in the years ahead.-- Saturday Review

In this book the author sets out to describe and discuss the philosophical foundations and conceptual problems encountered in the theory of quantum physics. The book describes the basic ideas of quantum physics and discusses both the long standing and the more modern conceptual problems. It then goes on to discuss the 'Measurement Problem' which arises when quantum physics is taken to be the fundamental theory of physics, applicable to large-scale physical systems as well as to atomic phenomena. Various attempts to resolve the resulting contradictions have led some physicists to suggest that human consciousness plays a unique role in the physical world and others to postulate that the physical universe is continually splitting into a huge number of copies of itself. Recent suggestions that quantum physics might be capable of explaining so-called paranormal phenomena are critically reviewed.

From Darwin onward, it has been second nature for evolutionary biologists to think comparatively because comparisons establish the generality of evolutionary phenomena. Do large genomes slow down development? What lifestyles select for large brains? Are extinction rates related to body size? These are all questions for the comparative method, and this book is about how such questions can be answered. The first chapter elaborates on suitable questions for the comparative approach and shows how it complements other approaches to problem-solving in evolution. The second chapter identifies the biological causes of similarity among closely related species for almost any observed character. The third chapter discusses methods for reconstructing phylogenetic trees and ancestral character states. The fourth chapter sets out to develop statistical tests that will determine whether different characters that exist in discrete states show evidence for correlated evolution. Chapter 5 turns to comparative analyses of continuously varying characters. Chapter 6 looks at allometry to exemplify the themes and methods discussed earlier, while the last chapter looks to future development of the comparative approach in both molecular and organismic biology.

Uitleg van Gödels beroemde onvolledigheidsstelling uit 1931, die vergaande konsekwenties had voor de wiskunde en logica.

berekening aangevuld met:  Geïmproviseerde Lichte Hangbruggen

De ontwikkeling van de meetkunde en haar relatie tot de kunst.

Openbare les bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van lector in e afdeling der werktuigbouwkunde om onderwijs te geven in de hydraulische werktuigen aan de technische hogeschool te Delft op vrijdag 23 oktober 1959

Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar aan de faculteit gedragswetenschappen

rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar aan de faculteit gedragswetenschappen

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.