History of science Books

Book SynopsisIn 1952, Martin Gardner wrote the book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, which has become a modern classic of the skeptical movement. He is best known as the Father of Recreational Mathematics, but was also a frank critic of pseudoscientists and a contributor to the Skeptical Inquirer magazine.Marcello Truzzi was one of the founders of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal in 1976. He left that and founded the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research, which was more aligned with his views.Dana Richards presents the unedited, colorful correspondence between these two well-known figures within the skeptical movement as they probed and wrestled with fundamental questions such as:

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Book SynopsisIn 1952, Martin Gardner wrote the book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, which has become a modern classic of the skeptical movement. He is best known as the Father of Recreational Mathematics, but was also a frank critic of pseudoscientists and a contributor to the Skeptical Inquirer magazine.Marcello Truzzi was one of the founders of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal in 1976. He left that and founded the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research, which was more aligned with his views.Dana Richards presents the unedited, colorful correspondence between these two well-known figures within the skeptical movement as they probed and wrestled with fundamental questions such as:

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Book SynopsisColleagues and former students of the late Professor Pritchard (aka Bob), an eminent UK geneticist, have gathered memories about his scientific and personal life. Bob's early, crucial contributions to decipher gene structure and mechanism of recombination in fungi, and those in bacterial physiology and the cell cycle, are briefly summarized. Bob was appointed as a young professor (34 years old) to open a new Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester, a department that thrived under his leadership to become internationally recognized for the quality of its scientific research and teaching. Pritchard's research studies on Microbial Genetics and Physiology and his intellectual leadership were pioneering and instrumental in the development of Molecular Biology and Bacterial Cell Biology.Recollections from the contributors about their interactions with Bob will be enjoyed by anyone interested in the history of Genetics in the UK, during the 1960s and 1970s. To future generations of investigators, they provide insights into how unbiased honesty, humbleness, incisiveness, generosity and friendship are cornerstones for the advancement of human knowledge.The book has been compiled from articles by 26 colleagues, former students and friends of Bob Pritchard, and of his surviving daughter, each from his/her personal viewpoint. They include 17 Professors, 2 Readers, 4 Doctors (all PhD's), 2 politicians and an Attorney, and are citizens of 6 countries (UK-14, USA-5, FR-3, ES-2, IL-1, AU-1). Each chapter has been written independently of the others hence marked differences in length (between 1-10 pp) and style. The 44 photographs were gathered from their personal collections.

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Book SynopsisColleagues and former students of the late Professor Pritchard (aka Bob), an eminent UK geneticist, have gathered memories about his scientific and personal life. Bob's early, crucial contributions to decipher gene structure and mechanism of recombination in fungi, and those in bacterial physiology and the cell cycle, are briefly summarized. Bob was appointed as a young professor (34 years old) to open a new Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester, a department that thrived under his leadership to become internationally recognized for the quality of its scientific research and teaching. Pritchard's research studies on Microbial Genetics and Physiology and his intellectual leadership were pioneering and instrumental in the development of Molecular Biology and Bacterial Cell Biology.Recollections from the contributors about their interactions with Bob will be enjoyed by anyone interested in the history of Genetics in the UK, during the 1960s and 1970s. To future generations of investigators, they provide insights into how unbiased honesty, humbleness, incisiveness, generosity and friendship are cornerstones for the advancement of human knowledge.The book has been compiled from articles by 26 colleagues, former students and friends of Bob Pritchard, and of his surviving daughter, each from his/her personal viewpoint. They include 17 Professors, 2 Readers, 4 Doctors (all PhD's), 2 politicians and an Attorney, and are citizens of 6 countries (UK-14, USA-5, FR-3, ES-2, IL-1, AU-1). Each chapter has been written independently of the others hence marked differences in length (between 1-10 pp) and style. The 44 photographs were gathered from their personal collections.

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Book SynopsisThis special book is a compilation of essays on a remarkable but little-known story that lasted over half a century of world-renowned physicist, the late Sir Rudolf Peierls and his wife Genia Kannegiser. Peierls collected a lot of prestigious awards in his lifetime, and in the beginning of WW2, he and Otto Frisch were responsible for the inception of the Anglo-American nuclear program (1940). He was also one of the key contributors in the research at Los Alamos during those turbulent times.Most previous books on Peierls have focused on his scientific research, while the contents for this volume sheds light on his private life in dramatic circumstances. The extensive contributions were not only gathered from the relatives of Genia, the couple's daughters, Landau's students, and from Russian and English archives, but they also include the unique perspectives of the author who is a professional theoretical physicist and is also fluent in Russian, his native language.So, this fascinating story of love, friendship and physics between Rudolf and Genia is being told for the first time from a surprisingly new angle through correspondence between Genia and Rudolf, memoirs and other documents, interesting and informal excerpts from Peierls' private 'diary' covering the years 1979-1994 that will take the reader on a journey through communism, world war, the trials and tribulations of the loving couple with distinctly very different personalities.

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Book SynopsisThe year 2008 marks the 150th birth anniversary of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose who, at a relatively young age, established himself among the ranks of European scientists during the heyday of colonial rule in India. He was one of those great Indian scientists who helped to introduce western science into India. A physicist, a plant electrophysiologist and one of the first few biophysicists in the world, Sir J C Bose was easily 60 years ahead of his time and much of his research that was ignored during his lifetime is now entering the mainstream. As the inventor of millimeter waves and their generation, transmission and reception, and the first to make a solid state diode, he was the first scientist who convincingly demonstrated that plants possess a nervous system of their own and “feel” pain. J C Bose later spent his life's savings to set up the Institute which carries his name in Calcutta and Darjeeling.This book covers Bose's life in colonial India, including the general patriotic environment that pervaded at the time and how he became one of the flag bearers of the Bengal Renaissance. It also examines the scientific achievements of this polymath and his contributions to physics and plant electrophysiology, while highlighting his philosophy of life.Table of ContentsRemembering J C Bose; Reflections on the Many-in-One: J C Bose and the Roots of Plant Neurobiology; The Milimeter Wave Research of J C Bose.

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Book SynopsisThe result of meticulous research by Professor Abram Blokh, this book presents facts, documents, thoughts and comments on the system of the Nobel Prize awards to Russian and Soviet scientists. It provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between the ideas expressed by the Nobel Foundation and those expressed by the autocratic and totalitarian regimes in Russia and the ex-Soviet Union during the 20th century who had the same attitude of revulsion toward the intellectual and humanistic values represented by the Nobel Prizes.To do his research, the author had access to the declassified documents in the archives of the Nobel Foundation for many years. Also included in the book are new materials obtained and developed by the author after the publication of the first two editions (in Russian). This additional information is from the archives of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Soviet Writers' Union et al. in Moscow and St Petersburg. These documents shed new light on the difficulties encountered during the attempts to integrate Russian and Soviet science into the world's intellectual community.This book would be of utmost interest to those who are interested in the history of science in Russia and the ex-Soviet Union, related to the Nobel Prize.

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Book SynopsisThis book is the epitome of important developments in chemistry in the 20th century and beyond. It provides a historical account of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry and includes the biographies and selected papers of the distinguished recipients from 1978 to 2008 (no prize was awarded in 2009 or 2010). Many of the recipients have extensive publication lists; this book brings together a wealth of information on the Wolf Prize, the prize winners, and especially a reprint of their most significant publications.This invaluable volume provides readers with in-depth knowledge of all the major fields in chemistry, and will also inspire readers with the unique accounts of the prize winners.Both editors of the book are veteran chemists who have worked in the field for many years. Dr Sheng-Hsien Lin, an Academician, is a theoretical chemist who has published more than 700 papers and 20 books. Dr Lou-Sing Kan is a biophysicist on structures of nucleic acids and an NMR specialist; he has authored 176 peer-reviewed papers and is also a popular science writer in Chinese.Table of ContentsBioorganic Chemistry (C Djerassi); Synthetic Transition Metal Chemistry (J Chatt); Electron Transfer Reactions (R A Marcus); Quantum Chemical Methods (J A Pople); Femtochemistry (A H Zewail); Oligosaccharides (R U Lemieux); Transition Metal Chemistry (F A Cotton); Long-Range Electron Transfers (H B Gray); Laser in Analytical Chemistry (R N Zare); and other papers.

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Book SynopsisThis is a book of testimonials from participants to the famous Erice International Seminars on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies. The Erice International Seminars with their multidisciplinary scientific audiences have addressed, since 1981, a long list of planetary problems and emergencies. This book describes one of the most exciting intellectual and political ventures of the later part of the 20th century, of the decades of the Cold War, a period of bristling East-West tension with the omnipresent possibility that its management might get out of hand, and a war of unimaginable proportion and potential damage eruption. The Erice International Seminars — held in an idyllic setting of a small location in Western Sicily — were the attempt to stem these perilous tides, and to put science at the service of political problem-solving in a new, open and interdisciplinary approach aimed, at the highest scientific level. Thousands of top-level scientists, the best in their respective fields, among them many Nobel Prize laureates, have participated in the Seminars and their interdisciplinary working groups as well as the Permanent Monitoring Panels, and have helped to generate a steady and influential flow of scientific insight. United in their work in a unique community of knowledge, wisdom and shared values, these eminent scientists testify, today, the importance and the impact of the Erice International Seminars during the last 28 years.Table of ContentsAndrei Andries; William A Barletta; Viktor Baryakhtar, Valery Kukhar, Gennady Palshin; Juan Manuel Borthagaray; Enzo Boschi; Vladimir B Britkov; Franco M Buonaguro; Gregory H Canavan; Georges Charpak; Luisa Cifarelli; Robert A Clark; Hassan Dalafi; Guy de The; Carmen Difiglio; Mbareck Diop; Lorne G Everett; Paolo Fulci; William Fulkerson; Bertil Galland; Richard L Garwin; Bernardino Ghetti; Alberto Gonzalez-Pozo; Brian Heap; Walter F Huebner; Hisham Khatib; Vasiliy Krivokhizha; Axel Lehmann; Michael MacCracken; Bruno Maraviglia; Sergio Martellucci; Leon Michaud; Akira Miyahara; Povl L A lgaard; Jef Ongena; Andrei Piontkovsky; Juras PoA ela; Richard C Ragaini; Zeononas Rokus Rudzikas; Hiltmar Schubert; Geraldo G Serra; Soroosh Sorooshian; William A Sprigg; Bruce Stram; Jan Szyszko; Gerard 't Hooft; Evgeny Velikhov; Henning Wegener; Jody Westby; Richard Wilson; Lowell Wood.

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Book SynopsisIn a relatively brief but masterful recounting, Professor Ulf Lagerkvist traces the origins and seminal developments in the field of chemistry, highlighting the discoveries and personalities of the individuals who transformed the ancient myths of the Greeks, the musings of the alchemists, the mystique of phlogiston into the realities and the laws governing the properties and behavior of the elements; in short, how chemistry became a true science. A centerpiece of this historical journey was the triumph by Dmitri Mendeleev who conceived the Periodic Law of the Elements, the relation between the properties of the elements and their atomic weights but more precisely their atomic number. Aside from providing order to the elements known at the time, the law predicted the existence and atomic order of elements not then known but were discovered soon after.An underlying but explicit intent of Lagerkvist's survey is to address what he believes was a gross injustice in denying Mendeleev the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1905 and again in 1906. Delving into the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' detailed records concerning the nominations, Lagerkvist reveals the judging criteria and the often heated and prejudicial arguments favoring and demeaning the contributions of the competing contenders of those years. Lagerkvist, who was a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences and has participated in judging nominations for the chemistry prize, concludes “It is in the nature of the Nobel Prize that there will always be a number candidates who obviously deserve to be rewarded but never get the accolade” — Mendeleev was one of those.Table of ContentsElements; Atoms and Molecules; Atoms as a Philosophical Concept; The Cardinal and the Heretic Monk; The Dawn of Chemistry; Atoms and Corpuscles; A Chemical Revolution; An Atomic Theory in the Romantic Era; Gases and the Concept of the Molecule; Important Results of a Congress; Atomic Weights and Their Relation to Chemical Properties of Elements; The Road from Tobolsk to St. Petersburg; From the Physiology of Blood Gases to the Mass of Atoms and Molecules; Competing for Recognition; Unexpected Support of the Periodic Law; Straightening Out Some Irregularities; Life After the Periodic Law; The Elusive Nobel Prize; The Birth of an Academy; The King of Flowers; The Advent of Chemistry in Sweden; Two Outstanding Chemists in the Era of Neoclassicism; Berzelius Takes Charge; An Unexpected Responsibility; The Advent of Ions; Alfred Nobel and His Prizes; An Electric Oven or the Periodic Law.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides the first integrated account of all factors which play a role in making Science what it is today. The book discusses historical, sociological and philosophical aspects of Science emphasizing their interconnectedness. It describes many of the latest developments in scientific practice as well old unsolved problems. The book aims to be explanatory and stimulating rather than comprehensive. The book is an overview of important issues and aims to present these issues in the context of not only Society but of Science itself. One of the important aims of the book is to clarify misconceptions about Science held by general public or by scientists themselves. Science and scientists in this book are presented in their true light, not as stereotyped by the media.Table of ContentsWhat is Science; Misconceptions About Science; Why is Science Important; Science and Other Elements of Culture; General Knowledge vs. Scientific Knowledge; Scientific Community; Peer Review; General Characteristics of Science; Scientific Language; Laws, Models, Hypotheses, Theories, Metaphors; Critical Thinking; Scientific Evidence; Pseudo-Science; Scientific Knowledge; Reductionism, Holism, Determinism; Selection of Scientific Theories; Models of Development of Science; Science and Technology; Two Visions of Science; Science and Ethics; Misconduct in Science; Social Support for Science; New Self-Image of Mankind; Science and Society; Science in History; Two Traditions of Science; Scientific Revolution; The Future of Science; Limits of Science; Case Studies in the History of Science.

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Book SynopsisLéon Rosenfeld (1904-1974) was a remarkable, many-sided physicist of exceptional erudition. He was at the center of modern physics and was well-known as Niels Bohr's close collaborator and spokesman. Besides he reflected deeply on the history and philosophy of science and its social role from a leftist perspective. As both actor and acute spectator of modern physics and as a polyglot cosmopolitan whose life crossed those of many important people in both the East and West, as well as by virtue of his close collaboration and friendship with Bohr, Rosenfeld was an important figure in twentieth century physics. His biography illuminates the development, popularization, and reception of quantum physics and its interpretation in addition to the development of the political Left. The book draws extensively from previously untapped, unpublished sources in more than five languages.Table of ContentsPhysicist of the Second Quantum Generation; Postdoc in Paris, Gottingen, and Zurich; Rosenfeld in Copenhagen; Intellectual Leftist in the 1930s; Surviving the War in Utreght; Cold War Ideology and the Politics of Science; Bohr's Warrior.

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Book SynopsisWhen a ship's surgeon during a routine episode of bloodletting noticed that the sailors' blood was brighter in the tropics than in the north, he hypothesized that heat was a form of energy.When a young boy tried to visualize what a beam of light would look like by riding alongside it at the same speed, he began thinking along lines that eventually changed our views of space and time.When a student caught hay fever and went to recover on Heligoland, he started a major revolution in physics. These are but just some of the stories covered in this entertaining book that deals with the history of physics from the end of the 19th-century to about 1930.Quips, Quotes and Quanta (2nd Edition) is unique in that it contains anecdotes on physicists creating new ideas. Often the thinking of the creators of what is now called “modern physics” is revealed through quotes. Thematic and biographical in nature, this book also includes many personal incidents.This second edition has been revised to include new material: a prologue, epilogue, glossary and chronology, and photographs as well as additional quotes and anecdotes.Table of ContentsThermodynamics: Founders and Flounderers; Cracks Appear in Classical Physics; It's About Time and Space; Space Becomes Curved; Kilns and Quanta; The Hydrogen Atom: Plum-Pudding or Planet; Action in Physics: The Old Quantum Theory; Particles are Waves are Particles; Schrodinger Makes Waves; Boys' Physics and Quantum Jumping; Matrix Mechanics is Born; The Purest Soul's Beautiful Quantum Mechanics; Quantum Mechanics is Complete; The Electron Spins.

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Book SynopsisBest known outside the scientific community for the Nobel Prize in Physics he won in 1991, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes was exceptional amongst scientists for the breadth and depth of his contributions in multiple fields of physics. He was also much ahead of his time in his desire to break down barriers between scientific disciplines and between fundamental and applied science. He was equally unusual in his willingness to explain the nature and purpose of his work to society at large and to young people in particular.Laurence Plévert's fascinating work retraces the influences and experiences that moulded this complex, charismatic, charming and eclectic genius. It follows him from his unconventional childhood on the fringes of the old French aristocracy and in war-divided France, through his glittering school and early scientific career, up to the revolutionary breakthroughs in fields as diverse as superconductivity, liquid crystals, polymers and soft matter, culminating in the final consecration of the Nobel prize.Constructed from exclusive interviews with the physicist himself, his family, friends and colleagues, this biography immerses us in the work and character of a truly remarkable figure, a Renaissance man of the 20th century.Table of ContentsChildhood Wanderings; Birth of a Vocation; Studious Years; Apprentice Researcher; The Big League; Team Leader; The Liquid Crystals Adventure; Out of the Tunnel; Recognition; The Invention of Soft Matter; Head of a School; A Different Kind of Nobel; Life Course; If God Spares MeA"; France Pays Tribute.

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Book SynopsisNarrating the well-lived life of the “Chinese Madame Curie” — a recipient of the first Wolf Prize in Physics (1978), the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Princeton University, as well as the first female president of the American Physical Society — this book provides a comprehensive and honest account of the life of Dr Wu Chien-Shiung, an outstanding and leading experimental physicist of the 20th century.Table of ContentsChildhood in Liuhe; A Young Wu Chien-Shiung Became the Favorite Student of Hu Shih; Choice of Future; A Rising Star in Berkeley; Youth and Love; Going East; From Nuclear Fission to The Manhattan Project; A World Authority in Beta Decay; Revolution in Parity Conservation; Experiment at 2000 Feet Below Ground; First Female President of the American Physical Society; Love of China; The First Lady of Physics Research; Wu Chien-Shiung: The Scientist.

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Book SynopsisNarrating the well-lived life of the “Chinese Madame Curie” — a recipient of the first Wolf Prize in Physics (1978), the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Princeton University, as well as the first female president of the American Physical Society — this book provides a comprehensive and honest account of the life of Dr Wu Chien-Shiung, an outstanding and leading experimental physicist of the 20th century.Table of ContentsChildhood in Liuhe; A Young Wu Chien-Shiung Became the Favorite Student of Hu Shih; Choice of Future; A Rising Star in Berkeley; Youth and Love; Going East; From Nuclear Fission to The Manhattan Project; A World Authority in Beta Decay; Revolution in Parity Conservation; Experiment at 2000 Feet Below Ground; First Female President of the American Physical Society; Love of China; The First Lady of Physics Research; Wu Chien-Shiung: The Scientist.

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Book SynopsisThis book aims to describe, for readers uneducated in science, the development of humanity's desire to know and understand the world around us through the various stages of its development to the present, when science is almost universally recognized — at least in the Western world — as the most reliable way of knowing. The book describes the history of the large-scale exploration of the surface of the earth by sea, beginning with the Vikings and the Chinese, and of the unknown interiors of the American and African continents by foot and horseback. After the invention of the telescope, visual exploration of the surfaces of the Moon and Mars were made possible, and finally a visit to the Moon. The book then turns to our legacy from the ancient Greeks of wanting to understand rather than just know, and why the scientific way of understanding is valued. For concreteness, it relates the lives and accomplishments of six great scientists, four from the nineteenth century and two from the twentieth. Finally, the book explains how chemistry came to be seen as the most basic of the sciences, and then how physics became the most fundamental.Table of ContentsWe Want to Know: Looking at the Heavens; Exploratory Voyages; We Want to Understand: Charles Darwin; Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur; Michael Faraday; Max Planck; Enrico Fermi; Science: Chemistry as the Fundamental Science; How Physics Became Most Fundamental.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides realistic answers to hotly debated scientific topics: Science is about quantitative aspects of natural realities (physical, chemical, biological) but it is the result of human intellectual inquiry and therefore not “per se” materialistic.This book, with contributions from experts in physics, cosmology, mathematics, engineering, biology and genetics, covers timely and relevant topics such as the origin of the universe, the origin of life on Earth, the origin of man (intelligent life) and the origin of science.Table of ContentsModern Science in Historical Perspective: On the Origins of Modern Science; The Post-Renaissance Revolution: The New Science; Frank Sherwood Taylor: The Man Who was Converted by Galileo; The Limits of Science; Proofs and Demonstrations; On the Intelligibility of Quantum Mechanics; Uncertainty, Incompleteness, Chance, and Design; A Finite, Open and Contingent Universe; On the Origin and Development of Life: A Brief History of Evolutionary Thought; Life's Intelligible Design; What Are the Contributions of Genetics to the Understanding of Life?; On the Human Genome in Contrast to the Great Ape's Genome; On the Evolution Controversy; Scientific Critiques of Darwinism; Beyond Nature and History: The Religion of Darwinism; On the Riddle of Man's Origin; On Science, History and Free Will; Science and Faith.

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Book SynopsisThere is a lot of confusion and misconception concerning science. The nature and contents of science is an unsettled problem. For example, Thales of 2,600 years ago is recognized as the father of science but the word science was introduced only in the 14th century; the definition of science is often avoided in books about philosophy of science. This book aims to clear up all these confusions and present new developments in the philosophy, history, sociology and communication of science. It also aims to showcase the achievement of China's top scholars in these areas. The 18 chapters, divided into five parts, are written by prominent scholars including the Nobel laureate Robin Warren, sociologist Harry Collins, and physicist-turned-historian Dietrich Stauffer.Table of ContentsAll About Science: Philosophy, History, Sociology and Communication (Lui Lam); Philosophy of Science: Towards a Phenomenological Philosophy of Science (Guo-Sheng Wu); The Predicament of Ancient Chinese Scientific Culture (Hong-Sheng Wang); What Do Scientists Know! (Nigel Sanitt); How to Deal with the Whole: Two Kinds of Holism in Methodology (Jin-Yang Liu); History of Science: Helicobactor: The Ease and Difficulty of a New Discovery (Robin Warren); Science in Victorian Era: New Observations on Two Old Theses (Dun Liu); Medical Studies in Portugal: 1911 (Maria Burguete); The Founding of the International Liquid Crystal Society (Lui Lam); Sociology of Science: Three Waves in Science Studies (Harry Collins); Solitons and Revolution in China: 1978 - 2003 (Lui Lam); Science Culture: A Unique Chinese Phenomenon (Bing Liu and Mei-Fang Zhang); Communication of Science: Science Communication: A History and Review (Peter Broks); Science Communication in China: A Cultural Perspective (Fu-Jun Ren and Xuan Li); Popular Science Writings in Early Modern China (Lin Yin); Other Science Matters: Understanding Art through Science: From Socrates to the "Contextual Brain" (Kajsa Berg); Narrative Strategies of Role-Playing Video Games: Three Kingdoms Games as an Example (Ting-Ting Wang); Statistical Physics for Humanities: A Tutorial (Dietrich Stauffer).

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Book SynopsisThere is a lot of confusion and misconception concerning science. The nature and contents of science is an unsettled problem. For example, Thales of 2,600 years ago is recognized as the father of science but the word science was introduced only in the 14th century; the definition of science is often avoided in books about philosophy of science. This book aims to clear up all these confusions and present new developments in the philosophy, history, sociology and communication of science. It also aims to showcase the achievement of China's top scholars in these areas. The 18 chapters, divided into five parts, are written by prominent scholars including the Nobel laureate Robin Warren, sociologist Harry Collins, and physicist-turned-historian Dietrich Stauffer.Table of ContentsAll About Science: Philosophy, History, Sociology and Communication (Lui Lam); Philosophy of Science: Towards a Phenomenological Philosophy of Science (Guo-Sheng Wu); The Predicament of Ancient Chinese Scientific Culture (Hong-Sheng Wang); What Do Scientists Know! (Nigel Sanitt); How to Deal with the Whole: Two Kinds of Holism in Methodology (Jin-Yang Liu); History of Science: Helicobactor: The Ease and Difficulty of a New Discovery (Robin Warren); Science in Victorian Era: New Observations on Two Old Theses (Dun Liu); Medical Studies in Portugal: 1911 (Maria Burguete); The Founding of the International Liquid Crystal Society (Lui Lam); Sociology of Science: Three Waves in Science Studies (Harry Collins); Solitons and Revolution in China: 1978 - 2003 (Lui Lam); Science Culture: A Unique Chinese Phenomenon (Bing Liu and Mei-Fang Zhang); Communication of Science: Science Communication: A History and Review (Peter Broks); Science Communication in China: A Cultural Perspective (Fu-Jun Ren and Xuan Li); Popular Science Writings in Early Modern China (Lin Yin); Other Science Matters: Understanding Art through Science: From Socrates to the "Contextual Brain" (Kajsa Berg); Narrative Strategies of Role-Playing Video Games: Three Kingdoms Games as an Example (Ting-Ting Wang); Statistical Physics for Humanities: A Tutorial (Dietrich Stauffer).

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Book SynopsisOn July 17, 2012, the centenary of Henri Poincaré's death was commemorated; his name being associated with so many fields of knowledge that he was considered as the Last Universalist. In Pure and Applied Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Engineering and Philosophy, his works have had a great impact all over the world. Poincaré acquired in his lifetime such a reputation that, both nationally and internationally, his life and career were made the object of various articles in the daily papers not only in France, but also in the USA. Some of his philosophical concepts have even caused sharp controversies in the Press (as we will discover in this book).This work presents an original portrait of Henri Poincaré based on various press cuttings from The New York Times, The San Francisco Sunday Call, The Times, The Sun, The Washington Post that chronicled unknown anecdotes of his life (for example, his first name was actually not Henri, but Henry; he obtained his high school diploma in sciences with a zero in mathematics, etc.). Such an approach enables the discovering of many forgotten or unknown aspects of his scientific and philosophical works as well as his important role in the public sphere.Table of ContentsThe Early Years: The Poincare Family; Childhood and Studies; Inspector of Mines in Vesoul; The Professor and the Savant: From the University of Caen to the Sorbonne; From the Sorbonne to the Academie; The Prize of King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway; The Universal Thinker and the Public Figure: French Geodesy and the Fight Over the Meridian; The Controversy Over the Rotation of the Earth; The Philosophical Work and Its Impact; The Committed Man: The Dreyfus Affair; The Role Model - The Immortal; Last Commitments, Last Works.

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Book SynopsisIn this engaging scientific memoir, Kenneth Ford recounts the time when, in his mid-twenties, he was a member of the team that designed and built the first hydrogen bomb. He worked with — and relaxed with — scientific giants of that time such as Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, Stan Ulam, John von Neumann, and John Wheeler, and here offers illuminating insights into the personalities, the strengths, and the quirks of these men. Well known for his ability to explain physics to nonspecialists, Ford also brings to life the physics of fission and fusion and provides a brief history of nuclear science from the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 to the ten-megaton explosion of “Mike” that obliterated a Pacific Island in 1952.Ford worked at both Los Alamos and Princeton's Project Matterhorn, and brings out Matterhorn's major, but previously unheralded contribution to the development of the H bomb. Outside the lab, he drove a battered Chevrolet around New Mexico, a bantam motorcycle across the country, and a British roadster around New Jersey. Part of the charm of Ford's book is the way in which he leavens his well-researched descriptions of the scientific work with brief tales of his life away from weapons.Table of ContentsThe Big Idea; The Protagonists; The Choice; The Scientists, the Officials, and the President; Nuclear Energy; Some Physics; Going West; A New World; The Classical Super; Calculating and Testing; Constructing Matterhorn; Academia Cowers; New Mexico, New York, and New Jersey; The Garwin Design; Climbing Matterhorn; It's More Than a Boy;

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Book SynopsisThis book tells captivating stories of misadventures of two renowned theoretical physicists in the Soviet Union. The first part is devoted to Friedrich (Fritz) Houtermans, an outstanding Dutch-Austrian-German physicist who was the first to suggest that the source of stars' energy is thermonuclear fusion, and also made a number of other important contributions to cosmochemistry and geochemistry. In 1935, Houtermans, a German communist, in an attempt to save his life from Hilter's Gestapo, fled to the Soviet Union. He took up an appointment at the Kharkov Physico-Technical Institute, working there for two years with the Russian physicist Valentin P Fomin. In the Great Purge of 1937, Houtermans was arrested in December by the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police, KGB's predecessor). He was tortured, and confessed to being a Trotskyist plotter and German spy, out of fear of threats against his wife Charlotte. However, Charlotte had already escaped from the Soviet Union to Denmark, after which she went to England and finally the USA. As a result of the Hilter-Stalin Pact of 1939, Houtermans was turned over to the Gestapo in May 1940 and imprisoned in Berlin.The second part consists of two essays that narrate the life story of Yuri Golfand, one of the codiscoverers of supersymmetry, a major discovery in theoretical physics in the 20th century. In 1973, just two years after the publication of his seminal paper, he was fired from the Lebedev Physics Institute in Moscow. Because of his Jewish origin he could find no job. Under such circumstances, he applied for an exit visa to Israel, but his application was denied. Yuri Golfand became a refusnik and joined the Human rights movement, along with two other prominent physicists, Andrei Sakharov and Yuri Orlov. To earn his living, he had to do manual work, repeatedly being intimidated by KGB. Only 18 years later, shortly before the demise of the Soviet Union, did he obtain permission to leave the country, emigrating to Israel in 1990.These personal life stories of two outstanding theorists are interwined with the tragedies of the 20th century and make for compelling reading.Table of ContentsPart I: Fritz Hountermans: Life and Work (V Frenkel); Part II: Yuri Golfand's Destiny (B Eskin); To the Memory of Yuri Abramovich Golfand (B Bolotovsky);

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Book SynopsisThis book tells captivating stories of misadventures of two renowned theoretical physicists in the Soviet Union. The first part is devoted to Friedrich (Fritz) Houtermans, an outstanding Dutch-Austrian-German physicist who was the first to suggest that the source of stars' energy is thermonuclear fusion, and also made a number of other important contributions to cosmochemistry and geochemistry. In 1935, Houtermans, a German communist, in an attempt to save his life from Hilter's Gestapo, fled to the Soviet Union. He took up an appointment at the Kharkov Physico-Technical Institute, working there for two years with the Russian physicist Valentin P Fomin. In the Great Purge of 1937, Houtermans was arrested in December by the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police, KGB's predecessor). He was tortured, and confessed to being a Trotskyist plotter and German spy, out of fear of threats against his wife Charlotte. However, Charlotte had already escaped from the Soviet Union to Denmark, after which she went to England and finally the USA. As a result of the Hilter-Stalin Pact of 1939, Houtermans was turned over to the Gestapo in May 1940 and imprisoned in Berlin.The second part consists of two essays that narrate the life story of Yuri Golfand, one of the codiscoverers of supersymmetry, a major discovery in theoretical physics in the 20th century. In 1973, just two years after the publication of his seminal paper, he was fired from the Lebedev Physics Institute in Moscow. Because of his Jewish origin he could find no job. Under such circumstances, he applied for an exit visa to Israel, but his application was denied. Yuri Golfand became a refusnik and joined the Human rights movement, along with two other prominent physicists, Andrei Sakharov and Yuri Orlov. To earn his living, he had to do manual work, repeatedly being intimidated by KGB. Only 18 years later, shortly before the demise of the Soviet Union, did he obtain permission to leave the country, emigrating to Israel in 1990.These personal life stories of two outstanding theorists are interwined with the tragedies of the 20th century and make for compelling reading.Table of ContentsPart I: Fritz Hountermans: Life and Work (V Frenkel); Part II: Yuri Golfand's Destiny (B Eskin); To the Memory of Yuri Abramovich Golfand (B Bolotovsky);

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Book SynopsisThis book is published to celebrate the International Year of Crystallography 2014, as proclaimed by the United Nations. The year has been chosen as the International Year of Crystallography since it was 100 years ago that the first Nobel Prize was awarded for crystallographic observations to Max von Laue. Just a year later, Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg, father and son, won their prize for showing the possibility of determining atomic positions in crystals. This book describes the lives and works of 33 Nobel Laureates starting with Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1901) and ending with Brian Kobilka (2012). It also reproduces the most important works of these scientists. The book gives a historical perspective of a scientific field that is important for our understanding of the atomic organization of the world around us, from inorganic materials to complex biological molecules, such as the ribosome.This book is a timely summary of the main developments in crystallography over the last 100 years. The central publications of 33 Nobel laureates are reproduced. There is no other book providing this selection of material.Table of Contentsuber eine neue Art von Strahlen (Erste Mittheilung) (W C Rontgen); uber eine neue Art von Strahlen (Zweite Mitteilung) (W C Rontgen); Interferenz-Erscheinigungen bei Rontgenstrahlen (W Friedrich, P Knipping, M Laue); The Structure of Some Crystals as Indicated by Their Diffraction of X-rays (W L Bragg); The background to the Nobel Prize to the Braggs (A Liljas); The Diffraction of Electrons by a Crystal of Nickel (C JDavisson); The Diffraction of Electrons by Single Crystals (G P Thomson); The Isolation and Crystallization of the Enzyme Urease: Preliminary paper (J B Sumner); Crystalline Pepsin I Isolation and tests of Purity (J H Northrop); Isolation of a Crystalline Protein Possessing the Properties of Tobacco-Mosaic Virus (W Stanley); The Nature of the Chemical Bond (L Pauling); Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids (J D Watson and F H C Crick); Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids (M H F Wilkins, A R Stokes and H R Wilson); Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate (R E Franklin and R G Goosling); Structure of Hemoglobin A Three-Dimensional Fourier Synthesis at 55-A Resolution, obtained by X-ray Analysis (M FPerutz, M G Rossmann, A F Cullis, H Muirhead, G Will and A C T North); Structure of Myoglobin: A Three-Dimensional Fourier Synthesis at 2 A Resolution (J C Kendrew, R E Dickerson, B E Strandberg, R G Hart, D R Davies, D C Phillips and V C Shore); X-ray Crystallographic Evidence on the Structure of Vitamin B12 (C Brink, D C Hodgkin, J Lindsey, J Pickworth, J H Robertson and J G White); Early Development of Neutron Scattering (C G Shull); Approaching the Molecular Structure of Ribosomes (A Yonath and H G Wittmann); Metallic Phase with Long-Range Orientational Order and No Translational Symmetry (D Shechtman, I Blech, D Gratias and J W Cahn); and other papers;

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Book SynopsisIn this engaging scientific memoir, Kenneth Ford recounts the time when, in his mid-twenties, he was a member of the team that designed and built the first hydrogen bomb. He worked with — and relaxed with — scientific giants of that time such as Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, Stan Ulam, John von Neumann, and John Wheeler, and here offers illuminating insights into the personalities, the strengths, and the quirks of these men. Well known for his ability to explain physics to nonspecialists, Ford also brings to life the physics of fission and fusion and provides a brief history of nuclear science from the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 to the ten-megaton explosion of “Mike” that obliterated a Pacific Island in 1952.Ford worked at both Los Alamos and Princeton's Project Matterhorn, and brings out Matterhorn's major, but previously unheralded contribution to the development of the H bomb. Outside the lab, he drove a battered Chevrolet around New Mexico, a bantam motorcycle across the country, and a British roadster around New Jersey. Part of the charm of Ford's book is the way in which he leavens his well-researched descriptions of the scientific work with brief tales of his life away from weapons.Table of ContentsThe Big Idea; The Protagonists; The Choice; The Scientists, the Officials, and the President; Nuclear Energy; Some Physics; Going West; A New World; The Classical Super; Calculating and Testing; Constructing Matterhorn; Academia Cowers; New Mexico, New York, and New Jersey; The Garwin Design; Climbing Matterhorn; It's More Than a Boy;

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Book SynopsisHistory and Philosophy of Biology summarizes the major philosophical ideas that have attended the development of science in general and of biology in particular. The book then explores how the techniques and the concepts of the physical sciences have impacted biology. A reductionist approach to biology — anatomy, physiology, genetics — complements the study of evolution by natural selection and an ecological perspective. The final section of the book explores several examples of the influence of science on society, and of society on science.Each of 46 chapters of History and Philosophy of Biology has been or could be the topic of a major tome. The book is unique in that it explores the web of interactions among issues of philosophy, techniques and concepts of the physical sciences, fields of biology, and the diverse relationships between society and science.The book should appeal to readers of Scientific American or the New York Review of Books even if they are not trained biologists. It is a good text, or additional reading, for an advanced undergraduate course treating history and/or philosophy of biology or of science in general.Table of ContentsHistorical and Philosophical Perspectives: Pre-hellenic Science; Hellenic Science; China, Science; Islam, Science; Early Christianity; Inductive Logic, Works, and Francis Bacon; Deductive Logic, Maths, and Renee Descartes; The Scientific Revolution; The Church and Science; Falsifiability: Karl Popper; Paradigm: Thomas Kuhn; Two Cultures: C P Snow; Emergence; Physical Sciences: Engineering; Mathematics; Astronomy; Mechanics; Alchemy; Phlogiston; Periodic Table; Electricity, Magnetism, and Optics; Thermodynamics; Geology; Biology: Medicine; Anatomy; Physiology; Cell Biology; Embryology; Microbiology; Pharmacology; Biochemistry; Neurobiology; Botany; Genetics; Paleontology; Systematics; Evolution; Race; Information; Origin of Life; Society and Science: Integrity; Informed Consent; Faith; Art; Global Warming; Free Will;

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Book SynopsisHistory and Philosophy of Biology summarizes the major philosophical ideas that have attended the development of science in general and of biology in particular. The book then explores how the techniques and the concepts of the physical sciences have impacted biology. A reductionist approach to biology — anatomy, physiology, genetics — complements the study of evolution by natural selection and an ecological perspective. The final section of the book explores several examples of the influence of science on society, and of society on science.Each of 46 chapters of History and Philosophy of Biology has been or could be the topic of a major tome. The book is unique in that it explores the web of interactions among issues of philosophy, techniques and concepts of the physical sciences, fields of biology, and the diverse relationships between society and science.The book should appeal to readers of Scientific American or the New York Review of Books even if they are not trained biologists. It is a good text, or additional reading, for an advanced undergraduate course treating history and/or philosophy of biology or of science in general.Table of ContentsHistorical and Philosophical Perspectives: Pre-hellenic Science; Hellenic Science; China, Science; Islam, Science; Early Christianity; Inductive Logic, Works, and Francis Bacon; Deductive Logic, Maths, and Renee Descartes; The Scientific Revolution; The Church and Science; Falsifiability: Karl Popper; Paradigm: Thomas Kuhn; Two Cultures: C P Snow; Emergence; Physical Sciences: Engineering; Mathematics; Astronomy; Mechanics; Alchemy; Phlogiston; Periodic Table; Electricity, Magnetism, and Optics; Thermodynamics; Geology; Biology: Medicine; Anatomy; Physiology; Cell Biology; Embryology; Microbiology; Pharmacology; Biochemistry; Neurobiology; Botany; Genetics; Paleontology; Systematics; Evolution; Race; Information; Origin of Life; Society and Science: Integrity; Informed Consent; Faith; Art; Global Warming; Free Will;

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Book SynopsisDistinguished historian Benjamin A Elman's collective volume on the history of science in imperial China, brings together over 30 years of historical literature on the subject. With updates to the literature and new material including transcripts of podcasts and translated interview articles, Science in China takes the reader on a journey starting in the early 17th century with the missionary efforts of the Jesuits in China, and ending with the Protestant missions in the 19th century. These two milestone encounters brought Western sciences to local Chinese scholars with great success in shaping modern Chinese science. Elman studies the interaction between Western and Chinese sciences through philological research and evidence, and treats the two encounters not as separate events but as a continuum of creative exchange of scientific knowledge and discourse.

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Book SynopsisIn the year 2015, 100 years after Fred Hoyle was born, the ideas relating to the cosmic origins of life are slowly gaining credence in scientific circles. Once regarded as outrageous heresy, evidence from a variety of disciplines — astronomy, geology, biology — is converging to support these once heretical ideas.This volume opens with recent review articles pointing incontrovertibly towards our cosmic heritage, followed by a collection of published articles tracing the development of the theory throughout the years. The discovery that microorganisms — bacteria and viruses — are incredibly resistant to the harshest conditions of space, along with the detection of an estimated 144 billion habitable planets around other star systems in our galaxy alone, makes it virtually impossible to maintain that life on one planet will not interact with life elsewhere. The emerging position is that life arose exceedingly rarely, possibly only once, in the history of the cosmos, but its subsequent spread was unstoppable. 'Panspermiology' can no longer be described as an eccentric doctrine, but rather is the only doctrine supported by an overwhelming body of evidence. Fred Hoyle's work in this area may in the fullness of time come to be regarded as his most important scientific contribution.Table of ContentsPrologue; Recent Review Articles Supporting Panspermia; Papers from 2000-2014; Papers from 1990-2000; Papers from 1980-1990; Papers from 1970-1980; Prospects for the Future; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index;

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Book SynopsisThis unique volume contains a tribute to Lord Patrick M S Blackett through the testimony of Professor Antonino Zichichi, who was one of Blackett's pupils in the experiment at the Sphinx Observatory, Europe's highest lab (3580 meters a.s.l.), at Jungfraujoch. The book presents an overview of Blackett's most significant discoveries, such as the so called 'vacuum polarization' effect, the first example of 'virtual physics' and the 'strange particles', that opened a new horizon towards the existence of the subnuclear universe. After discussing the profound implications of Blackett's pioneering contributions to Subnuclear Physics, the book also recalls his deep interest in the promotion of scientific culture. Blackett was firmly convinced that physicists must be engaged directly to let the people outside our labs know what the role of science is in the progress of our civilisation. In particular, according to Blackett and his friend Bertrand Russell, the Manhattan Project was the example of how the new frontiers of science and technology would have been implemented in the future. In this respect, the role of dedicated institutions is discussed, as a new bridge between traditional university teaching and the big projects for the future of science and technology.Table of ContentsThe Reasons Why This Book Has Been Written; An Incredible Sequence of Unexpected Events; Blackett and the Origin of The Subnuclear Universe; Blackett and Russell (Galilei, Einstein, Godel); The "Blackett Effect" in the 2nd World War; Blackett and the Whole of Our Knowledge Including Virtual History and the Three Big Bangs; New Institutions Founded; Memory is Needed for the Future; The Future; Conclusions - From Blackett to Present Day Physics; The View Which Enchanted Professor Blackett; References;

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Book SynopsisThis unique volume contains a tribute to Lord Patrick M S Blackett through the testimony of Professor Antonino Zichichi, who was one of Blackett's pupils in the experiment at the Sphinx Observatory, Europe's highest lab (3580 meters a.s.l.), at Jungfraujoch. The book presents an overview of Blackett's most significant discoveries, such as the so called 'vacuum polarization' effect, the first example of 'virtual physics' and the 'strange particles', that opened a new horizon towards the existence of the subnuclear universe. After discussing the profound implications of Blackett's pioneering contributions to Subnuclear Physics, the book also recalls his deep interest in the promotion of scientific culture. Blackett was firmly convinced that physicists must be engaged directly to let the people outside our labs know what the role of science is in the progress of our civilisation. In particular, according to Blackett and his friend Bertrand Russell, the Manhattan Project was the example of how the new frontiers of science and technology would have been implemented in the future. In this respect, the role of dedicated institutions is discussed, as a new bridge between traditional university teaching and the big projects for the future of science and technology.Table of ContentsThe Reasons Why This Book Has Been Written; An Incredible Sequence of Unexpected Events; Blackett and the Origin of The Subnuclear Universe; Blackett and Russell (Galilei, Einstein, Godel); The "Blackett Effect" in the 2nd World War; Blackett and the Whole of Our Knowledge Including Virtual History and the Three Big Bangs; New Institutions Founded; Memory is Needed for the Future; The Future; Conclusions - From Blackett to Present Day Physics; The View Which Enchanted Professor Blackett; References;

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Book Synopsis'This is a thought-provoking book that would be of interest to anyone wanting to ponder the concept of time, and to develop more critical thinking skills that may be useful when reading popular science books or articles.'IEEE Electrical Insulation MagazineThe aim of this book is to explain in simple language what we know about time and about the history of time. It is shown that the briefest (as well as the lengthiest) history of time can be described in one or two pages.The second purpose of the book is to show that neither entropy, nor the Second Law of Thermodynamics has anything to do with time. The third purpose is to educate the lay reader how to read popular science books, critically. Towards this goal, detailed reviews of four books on time are presented.There are many popular science books on Time, on the beginning of Time and the end of Time. This book is unique in the following two senses:Table of ContentsPreface; List of Abbreviations; Acknowledgements; What is Time?; What is a History of Something?; The Briefest History of Space; The Briefest History of Time; Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics; The History of Histories of Time; Epilogue; Notes; Bibliography; Index;

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Book Synopsis'Professor Hao Bailin is one of China's most talented and most versatile theoretical physicists. He has made important contributions to a wide variety of research fields, including biology in which he pioneered a multidimensional method for studying the evolutionary pathways of bacteria. Indeed he calls himself, appreciatively I believe, a guerrilla fighter.'Chen-Ning Yang, Nobel LaureateTable of ContentsC N Yang on Hao Bailin, 2015; Skeleton Graph Expansion of Critical Exponents in "Cultural Revolution" Years; The Virial Expansion Revisited: A New Interpretation; Chaos in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction; Discrete Resonances; Exact Solution of the Planar Motion of Three Arbitrary Point Vortices; A Cognitive Network for Oracle-Bone Characters Related to Animals; Periodic Oscillations of the Forced Brusselator; Genomes: At the Edge of Chaos with Maximum Information Capacity; Low Temperature Glassy Systems: Present Understanding, Open Problems and Future Developments; Teacher and Friend;

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Book SynopsisThis study explores the evolution of Lomonosov’s imposing stature in Russian thought from the middle of the eighteenth century to the closing years of the Soviet period. It reveals much about the intersection in Russian culture of attitudes towards the meaning and significance of science, as well as about the rise of a Russian national identity, of which Lomonosov became an outstanding symbol. Idealized depictions of Lomonosov were employed by Russian scientists, historians, and poets, among others, in efforts to affirm to their countrymen and to the state the pragmatic advantages of science to a modernizing nation. In setting forth this assumption, Usitalo notes that no sharply drawn division can be upheld between the utilization of the myth of Lomonosov during the Soviet period of Russian history and that which characterized earlier views. The main elements that formed the mythology were laid down in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; Soviet scholars simply added more exaggerated layers to existing representations.

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