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The Reality Frame

Relativity and our place in the universe

Author: Brian Clegg

Publisher: Icon Books

ISBN: 1785782142

Category: Science

Page: 320

View: 577

Weaving together the great ideas of science, The Reality Frame takes us on a thrilling journey from empty space all the way to the human mind. Acclaimed science writer Brian Clegg builds up reality piece by piece, from space, to time, to matter, movement, the fundamental forces, life, and the massive transformation that life itself has wrought on the natural world. He reveals that underlying it all is not, as we might believe, a system of immovable absolutes, but the ever-shifting, amorphous world of relativity. From religion to philosophy, humanity has traditionally sought out absolutes to explain the world around us, but as science has developed, relativity has swept away many of these certainties, leaving only a handful of unchangeable essentials – such as absolute zero, nothingness, light – leading to better science and a new understanding of the essence of being human. This is an Ascent of Man for the 21st century, the gripping story of modern science that will fill you with wonder and give you a new insight into our place in the universe.
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Conundrum

Crack the Ultimate Cipher Challenge

Author: Brian Clegg

Publisher: Icon Books

ISBN: 1785784110

Category: Games & Activities

Page: 240

View: 5585

The ultimate trial of knowledge and cunning, Conundrum features 200 cryptic puzzles and ciphers. The solutions link throughout the book – so you need to solve them all to get to the final round. With a focus on ciphers and codebreaking, Conundrum contains twenty sections, each built around a specific subject from music to literature, physics to politics. To take on Conundrum you need good general knowledge and the ability to think laterally. But if you need help, there are plenty of hints to point you in the right direction. Whether you attempt to crack it alone or work in a team, Conundrum will challenge you to the extreme. Can you take on Conundrum and win? There’s only one way to find out...
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Jetzt

Die Physik der Zeit

Author: Richard A. Muller

Publisher: S. Fischer Verlag

ISBN: 3104038228

Category: Science

Page: 480

View: 6802

Sie lesen jetzt das Wort »jetzt« – und schon ist es vergangen. Das flüchtige Dasein der Gegenwart hat Philosophen und Physiker vor die größten Rätsel gestellt: Was ist die Zeit? Und warum fließt sie? Generationen von Wissenschaftlern haben sich vergeblich um Antworten bemüht, einige haben es aufgegeben. Nicht so Richard A. Muller. Er hat eine Theorie der Zeit aufgestellt, die neu ist und experimentell überprüfbar. Um sie vorzustellen, erklärt er zunächst mit großem Geschick die physikalischen Grundkonzepte wie Relativität, Entropie, Verschränkung, Antimaterie und Urknall. Darauf aufbauend entfaltet er seine provozierend neue Sicht mit all ihren Folgen für die Philosophie oder die Frage nach der Willensfreiheit. Eine kraftvolle und überzeugende Vision für die Lösung des alten Rätsels der Zeit. »Muller hat einen bemerkenswert frischen und aufregenden Ansatz für die Erklärung der Zeit.« Saul Perlmutter, Physik-Nobelpreisträger »Ein provokatives und gut argumentiertes Buch über die Natur der Zeit.« Lee Smolin
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Eine kleine Geschichte der Unendlichkeit

Author: Brian Clegg

Publisher: Rowohlt Verlag GmbH

ISBN: 364404371X

Category: Fiction

Page: 352

View: 636

Philosophen und Mathematiker hat das Nachsinnen über das Wesen des Unendlichen buchstäblich den Verstand geraubt – und dennoch ist es ein Konzept, das immer wieder unser Leben bestimmt. In diesem mit Anekdoten und Geschichten gespickten Buch nimmt uns Brian Clegg mit auf eine Reise durch das Grenzland zwischen dem extrem Großen und dem Ultimativen, von Archimedes, der die Zahl der Sandkörner bestimmte, die das Universum füllen würden, bis zu den neuesten Theorien über die physikalische Realität des Unendlichen.
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Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (Commonwealth Fund Book Program)

Author: Kip Thorne

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

ISBN: 0393247473

Category: Science

Page: 624

View: 3281

Winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics Ever since Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity burst upon the world in 1915 some of the most brilliant minds of our century have sought to decipher the mysteries bequeathed by that theory, a legacy so unthinkable in some respects that even Einstein himself rejected them. Which of these bizarre phenomena, if any, can really exist in our universe? Black holes, down which anything can fall but from which nothing can return; wormholes, short spacewarps connecting regions of the cosmos; singularities, where space and time are so violently warped that time ceases to exist and space becomes a kind of foam; gravitational waves, which carry symphonic accounts of collisions of black holes billions of years ago; and time machines, for traveling backward and forward in time. Kip Thorne, along with fellow theorists Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, a cadre of Russians, and earlier scientists such as Oppenheimer, Wheeler and Chandrasekhar, has been in the thick of the quest to secure answers. In this masterfully written and brilliantly informed work of scientific history and explanation, Dr. Thorne, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus at Caltech, leads his readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, coming finally to a uniquely informed answer to the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know the things they think they know? Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time has been one of the greatest best-sellers in publishing history. Anyone who struggled with that book will find here a more slowly paced but equally mind-stretching experience, with the added fascination of a rich historical and human component. Winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science.
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Eine kurze Geschichte der Zeit

Author: Stephen Hawking

Publisher: Rowohlt Verlag GmbH

ISBN: 3644008612

Category: Science

Page: 272

View: 3578

Ist das Universum unendlich oder begrenzt? Hat die Raumzeit einen Anfang, den Urknall? Dehnt sie sich aus? Wird sie wieder in sich zusammenstürzen? Liefe die Zeit dann rückwärts? Welchen Platz im Universum nehmen wir ein? Und ist in den atemberaubenden Modellen der Kosmologen noch Platz für einen Gott? – Es sind existenzielle Fragen, mit denen sich Stephen Hawking befasst, Fragen, die Forschung und Lehre in den Zentren der modernen Physik ebenso bestimmen wie die Diskussion von Geisteswissenschaftlern. Dieses Meisterwerk eines Jahrhundert-Genies hat unsere Weltsicht verändert. Zugleich hat Stephen Hawking damit neue Maßstäbe für die Erklärung komplexer physikalischer Zusammenhänge gesetzt. In diesem Buch, weltweit inzwischen über zehn Millionen Mal verkauft, ist das Credo des großen Physikers enthalten und lebendig. «Der Physiker Stephen Hawking ist im Begriff, die Formel zu finden, die das Universum erklärt.» ZEIT-Magazin
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No Need for God

Author: Peter William Clement

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

ISBN: 149312384X

Category: Religion

Page: 395

View: 2481

Because Catholic Theologians consciously fail to revise and rebuild the intellectual architecture of their faith -- and because they deliberately refuse to accommodate the discoveries of science over the 3000 years since their God was invented by a tribe of unenlightened shepherds and farmers , they are forced to maintain an inflexible policy of deliberate "obscurantism." I use arguments from science (in layman's terms)- evolutionary biology, geology, archaeology, anthropology, particle physics, astronomy, and cosmology- to demonstrate the validity of this proposition. I have been a student (and victim) of Catholic Theology for more than 65 years. Over the last seven years (since my retirement) I have devoted nearly all of my time to learning and understanding the revelations of modem science - and to recognizing how incompatible they are with the "infallible" dogmas of the Pope and his minions. I have a Ph.D. in English, and I have completed 42 years of teaching on the college level. I am now Professor emeritus of English at Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts. My book is devoted to the questions which all peoples have tried to answer since the dawn of civilization: "Where do we come from? Where are we going to? What are we here for? What the hell's it all about?" The findings of modem neuroscience prove- with carloads of experimental and observational data -- that, without the material substrate of the brain, there can be no consciousness: that is, there can be no soul that survives the death of the body. The correlative point is that we now have empirical proof that "God" did not magically inject a supernatural soul into a single-celled zygote at the precise moment of its conception- because there is no such entity. Catholic Theologians cannot recognize the truth empirically demonstrated by modem neuroscience -- the fact that there is no such entity as a supernatural soul. Their only recourse is to maintain a policy of inflexible obscurantism - in plainer words, a ''theology" of systematic prevarication.
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Secular Steeples 2nd edition

Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination

Author: Conrad Ostwalt

Publisher: A&C Black

ISBN: 1441183418

Category: Social Science

Page: 288

View: 7760

An exploration of secularization in America, this book provides students with an innovative way of understanding the relationship between religion and secular culture. In Secular Steeples, Conrad Ostwalt challenges long-held assumptions about the relationship between religion and culture and about the impact of secularization. Moving away from the idea that religion will diminish as secularization continues, Ostwalt identifies areas of popular culture where secular and sacred views and objectives interact and enrich each other. The book demonstrates how religious institutions use the secular and popular media of television, movies, and music to make sacred teachings relevant. From megachurches to sports arenas, the Bible to Harry Potter, biker churches to virtual worship communities, Ostwalt demonstrates how religion persists across cultural forms, secular and sacred, with secular culture expressing religious messages and sometimes containing more authentic religious content than official religious teachings. An ideal text for anyone studying religion and popular culture, each chapter provides questions for discussion, a list of important terms and guided readings.
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Motifs:

The Transformative Creation of Self

Author: Dr. Don J Feeney Jr.

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

ISBN: 1465324763

Category: Psychology

Page: 261

View: 8203

Just as DNA determines the genetic makeup of every individual, a motif determines individual biopsycho-social, emotional, and spiritual behaviors and attitudes. This epigenetic theory of individuality describes the motif as a unique artistry of organizing principles. The author uses the concept of motif to explain physiology, behavior, and attitude and to show how each person has his or her own unique system of motifs that comprises the fabric of every level of personality. Case studies exemplify the way in which motifs manifest the ""self"" and how the core personality is understood once the individual's motif is revealed. Of interest to graduate students in psychology and clinicians and counselors in the field of humanistic and clinical psychology, holistic medicine, wellness and mind-body healing, psycho-biology, and spirituality this book will bring new understanding to personality and behavior studies.
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Gravity's Engines

How Bubble-Blowing Black Holes Rule Galaxies, Stars, and Life in the Cosmos

Author: Caleb Scharf

Publisher: Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux

ISBN: 0374709750

Category: Science

Page: 272

View: 2404

One of The Barnes and Noble Review Editors' Picks: Best Nonfiction of 2012 Selected by The Christian Science Monitor as one of "21 smart nonfiction titles we think you'll enjoy this summer" Selected by The New Scientist as one of 10 books to look out for in 2012 We've long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the Sun, they lurk in the inner sanctum of almost every galaxy of stars in the universe. They're mysterious chasms so destructive and unforgiving that not even light can escape their deadly wrath. Recent research, however, has led to a cascade of new discoveries that have revealed an entirely different side to black holes. As the astrophysicist Caleb Scharf reveals in Gravity's Engines, these chasms in space-time don't just vacuum up everything that comes near them; they also spit out huge beams and clouds of matter. Black holes blow bubbles. With clarity and keen intellect, Scharf masterfully explains how these bubbles profoundly rearrange the cosmos around them. Engaging with our deepest questions about the universe, he takes us on an intimate journey through the endlessly colorful place we call our galaxy and reminds us that the Milky Way sits in a special place in the cosmic zoo—a "sweet spot" of properties. Is it coincidental that we find ourselves here at this place and time? Could there be a deeper connection between the nature of black holes and their role in the universe and the phenomenon of life? We are, after all, made of the stuff of stars.
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Rod's Room: a New Earth and a New Universe

Author: Rodney Bartlett

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

ISBN: 1469122502

Category: Fiction

Page: 111

View: 4353

This book is made up of short articles, poems and stories that speculate on the future and seek to combine science with medicine and ideas which have always been regarded as belonging to religion or science fiction. The four short articles at the start (Gates>STARGATE, How to Create Universes, Building Doctor Who's TARDIS and Darwin's Evolution Unifies Universe) give the reader a condensed view of the conclusions my reading and thinking led me to. They seem to help explain points in each other. After these four are written the steps taken since 1999 to arrive at my conclusions.
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Technoromanticism

Digital Narrative, Holism, and the Romance of the Real

Author: Richard Coyne

Publisher: MIT Press

ISBN: 9780262531917

Category: Technology & Engineering

Page: 398

View: 645

Technoromanticism pits itself against a hard-headed rationalism, but its most potent antagonists are contemporary pragmatism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, surrealism, and deconstruction--all of which subvert the romantic legacy and provoke new narratives of computing. This book explores the spectrum of romantic narrative that pervades the digital age, from McLuhan's utopian vision of social reintegration by electronic communication to claims that cyberspace creates new realities. Technoromanticism pits itself against a hard-headed rationalism, but its most potent antagonists are contemporary pragmatism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, surrealism, and deconstruction--all of which subvert the romantic legacy and provoke new narratives of computing. Thus the book also serves as an introduction to the application of contemporary theory to information technology, raising issues of representation, space, time, interpretation, identity, and the real. As such, it is a companion to Coyne's Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age: From Method to Metaphor (MIT Press, 1995).
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Relativistic Reality

A Modern View

Author: J. D. Edmonds

Publisher: World Scientific

ISBN: 9789812796103

Category: Philosophy

Page: 352

View: 2482

It now appears that the old argument about Lorentz vs Galileo relativity is passing into history. The Lorentz symmetry may soon become obsolete itself just as the Galileo symmetry did about 1900. The tremendous successes of QED represent real progress in our quest to understand nature. The answer is not to go as most OC outsidersOCO but to go forward OCo beyond to new ideas and equations that will match nature even better than QED does. This book shows us a new view of relativity and quantum equations. It has new equations that extend Lorentz Maxwell and Dirac."
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Die Wirklichkeit, die nicht so ist, ...

Eine Reise in die Welt der Quantengravitation

Author: Carlo Rovelli

Publisher: Rowohlt Verlag GmbH

ISBN: 3644052514

Category: Science

Page: 320

View: 8889

Was ist Wirklichkeit? Existieren Raum und Zeit tatsächlich, wenn wir uns anschicken, die elementarsten Grundlagen unserer Existenz zu erforschen? Wie viel davon können wir überhaupt verstehen? Carlo Rovelli beschäftigt sich seit vielen Jahren damit, die Grenzen unseres Verstehens zu erweitern. In diesem Buch nimmt er uns mit auf eine Reise, die von dem Realitätsverständnis der griechischen Klassik bis zur Schleifenquantengravitation führt. Ein großer Physiker unserer Zeit macht sich auf, uns ein neues Welt-Bild zu zeichnen: mit einem physikalischen Universum ohne Zeit, einer Raumzeit, die aus Schleifen und Körnchen besteht und in der Unendlichkeit nicht existiert. Einer Kosmologie, die ohne Urknall und Paralleluniversen auskommt und hier zum ersten Mal von einem ihrer «Erfinder» für ein breites Publikum einfach und ausführlich erklärt wird. Ein Buch über «die großen Herausforderungen der gegenwärtigen Naturwissenschaften, die all unser Wissen über die Natur in Frage stellen» (Rovelli).
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God in an Open Universe

Science, Metaphysics, and Open Theism

Author: William Hasker,Thomas Jay Oord

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

ISBN: 1630877832

Category: Religion

Page: 214

View: 1200

Since its inception, the discussion surrounding Open Theism has been dominated by polemics. On crucial philosophical issues, Openness proponents have largely been devoted to explicating the underlying framework and logical arguments supporting their perspective against competing theological and philosophical perspectives. As a result, very little constructive work has been done on the interconnections between Open Theism and the natural sciences. Given the central place of sciences in today's world, any perspective that hopes to have a broad impact must necessarily address such disciplines in a sustained and constructive manner. To date such engagements from the Openness perspective have been rare. God in an Open Universe addresses this deficiency. This book demonstrates that Open Theism makes a distinctive and highly fruitful contribution to the conversation and constructive work occurring between philosophy, theology, and the sciences. The various essays explore subjects ranging from physics to prayer, from special relativity to divine providence, from metaphysics to evolution, and from space-time to God. All who work at the intersection of theology and the sciences will benefit greatly from these essays that break new ground in this important conversation.
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Theological Reflections at the Boundaries

Author: Paul O. Ingram

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

ISBN: 1630874078

Category: Religion

Page: 188

View: 5525

The interdependence of boundary questions and the experience of cognitive dissonance reveal that knowledge in all fields of inquiry is always incomplete and tentative. The issues are particularly acute for Christian theological reflection. Ingram illustrates the importance of boundary questions and cognitive dissonance as a means of creatively transforming contemporary Christian theological reflection through dialogue with the natural sciences and the world's religions, particularly Buddhism, filtered through the lenses of Whiteheadian process philosophy.
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Die Ordnung der Zeit

Author: Carlo Rovelli

Publisher: Rowohlt Verlag GmbH

ISBN: 3644000751

Category: Science

Page: 192

View: 7487

Leben wir in der Zeit oder lebt die Zeit vielleicht nur in uns? Alle theoretischen Physiker von Weltrang, die den großen und kleinen Kräften des Universums nachspüren, beschäftigen sich immer wieder mit der entscheidenden Frage, was Zeit ist. Wenn ihre großen Modelle die Zeit zur Erklärung des Elementaren nicht mehr brauchen, wie kommt es dann, dass sie für unser Leben so wichtig ist? Geht es wirklich ohne sie? Carlo Rovelli gibt in diesem Buch überraschende Antworten. Er nimmt uns mit auf eine Reise durch unsere Vorstellungen der von der Zeit und spürt ihren Regeln und Rätseln nach. Ein großes, packend geschriebenes Lese-Abenteuer, ein würdiger Nachfolger des Welt-Bestsellers "Sieben kurze Lektionen über Physik".