General Books - Page 5

Why Does a Ball Bounce?: 101 Questions You Never Thought of Asking

Adam Hart-Davis

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Simple answers to 100 truly perplexing questions.

Curiosity spans all ages as kids, teenagers and adults have lots of questions about everyday occurrences they never think to ask.

Why does syrup spiral off the spoon? Which metals can be recycled? The answers to these and 98 other important questions about life, the universe and a whole lot more are found in Why Does a Ball Bounce?

Fully illustrated with color photographs, this book explains complex ideas in easy-to-understand terms. The book's 100 questions are organized into the following topics: - Air: bouncing balls, bursting bubbles, fizzy drinks - Earth: mountain-making, lava, the age of the Earth - Plants: sowing wild oats, why the numbers 3, 5, 8, and 13 crop up so often in plants - Fire and ice: the sparkler's sparks, why skates slide, what is dew - Water: why water ripples, how soap works, bouncing rain - Food: seeing underground, why barley needs the sun - Weather: overflowing drains, sky color, seeing the wind - Electricity: why electricity sparks, hair standing on end, shrinking computers - Mathemagic: seeing musical notes, how knots work, swinging pendulums - Little critters: worm heads, how slugs breathe, patient spiders - Health and sickness: dilating pupils, smoking facts, vaccination safety - Technology: level playing fields, stone age tools, the first computer.

Why Does A Ball Bounce? is the ideal title for anyone who needs to explain these ideas to children, students... or just to themselves.

Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin

Stephen Jay Gould

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 47 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Yes and No 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Having finished Stephen Gould's book Full House let me opine. An excellent book by all accounts, however, to quibble, he does not convince that there is no innate driving mechanism to greater orders of complexity in the universe. For instance, his argument that if you were to replay the tape of human evolution you would get a different result every time begs the question of yes, but how comes it turned out the way that it did....

In other words, he takes an assumption as fact, that everything happens by accident is evidence for him that everything happens by accident. I guess I don't really understand this....it seems to me hard to explain how sub-atomic particles became you and me. Yes, you can say it was all by accident, but it is just a little more than curious that at every stage of evolution, things took a quantum jump to a higher level of complexity and freedom (which goes with it). I've long since stopped disputing the facts of evolution which at this point are overwhelming, billions of bits of data from every field of science all converge on the same conclusion. However, whether it all just happened to be so for no paricular reason, with no outcome in view can't be proven.....

I occurs to me that we should stop thinking in terms of creation vs. evolution and think in terms of "emergence." You and I are what God is doing right now, what God was doing with dinosaurs is about what God was doing then....Now Gould is taking pains to get humans to stop thinking of themselves as some special example at the top of an apex, or that horses today are necessarily an advance over horses yesterday. As he points out, bacteria is much more successful biologically than humans, they're more numerous, they've been around much longer, they can survive miles underground and in water at temperatures of several hundreds....on and on. "Progress" simply defined, as leading to us because we're so special, doesn't exist.

However, however, however, he overdoes it. Because one can truly have it both ways. We can easily envision another quantum jump from homo sapien sapiens to another level. Yes, we might not be the apex, but that doesn't mean that the general trend of to higher orders of complexity is invalidated. He thinks trends, largely speaking, are greatly exaggerated. We see trends where they don't exist.

He says that the path from bacteria to you and me doesn't represent a "trend" but simply a movement away from a left wall of development. It's a very complex argument, but to use his example, imagine a drunk is walking along a path between a wall and a ditch, which way can he go? Into the ditch everytime. In other words, bacteria represent a left wall, a so simple you can't get lots simpler....the ditch toward complexity is where all the change is going to occur. And he uses many examples from baseball and such to prove his point.

There is, also, he says a right wall....in other words, you can only so far in the rightward direction before you max out. No baseball player CAN throw a ball at 140 miles an hour, world records in sports are becoming less frequent, the faster and faster greats are less and less common, not because they no longer exist, but because they're at the tether ends of the right wall....

But....here is exactly where I find him to be unconvincing. In a universe which went from subatomic particles to you and me, where does he get the confidence to put limits on what baseball players may yet achieve?? Even if it's all by accident, you can't rule out further accidents which may yet produce the baseball player who throws at 140 mph.

Second, he begs the question of why the left wall exists in the first place. You can say the left wall just so happens to be there in the nature of things, it just so happens to be the case that.....you can take things for granted. But that doesn't prove a daggone thing. To be intellectually humble, all you can say is, this is the way it is, if there's a "why" to it we haven't discovered that......

Since I'm going on and on, let me go on even further, many theistic evolutionists have made a human-centered error of defining what God is doing in the universe in terms of "progress." Everything mounts up to a higher and higher level of complexity which becomes defined as progress. That's a political imposition on the idea of evolution, as Gould makes clear, Darwin mostly only said of natural selection that it was a local adaption to environmental pressures. The notion of progress was a Victorian political doctrine based on manifest destiny of white colonialists. In the course of time, these two notions became fused....human-centrically. Social-darwinism being a case pre-eminent...

Progress does not necessarily imply evolution upwards and onwards to greater complexity leading to me and thee, evolution is not necessarily progressive. Granted.

But is it the case that simply because something isn't quantifiable it doesn't exist. Let's use one of Gould's own examples from sports. He says "hot hands" don't exist in sports because all of the statistical research shows that just because a basketball player (he used the example of a baseball player, but I'm switching over) makes a shot, doesn't mean he'll make another shot.

Statistically this doesn't appear. But in reality, anyone who has ever watched basketball knows, players get on a roll....we even have terms to describe it "when you're hot your hot" or "he's in the zone" or "he's unstoppable tonight." Mathematically there's no such thing as "when you're hot your hot" but does that then mean it doesn't exist? Harvard biologist extraordinaire Stephen Gould says yes, humble me, lawn tech extraordinaire says no.

Here's a perfect example of ruling something out simply because it isn't quantifiable. He's a great biologist but a poor psychologist. What is happening when a basketball player has "hot hands?" Statistically, apparently, nothing. Psychologically, the player has lost self-consciousness. A player (and often the audience) who is in the zone, that space where everything starts to click, is lost in the moment. The crowd and the player merge, one seething body making slam dunk after slam dunk.....Sit ringside and get caught up in the moment, it's a thing of beauty....mathematically beauty doesn't appear, but subjectively who can't get lost in wonder when it all starts to come together and the team is on a roll.....looking back you can say that was all just sports talk, but I demure....

There is a bridge between science and God and that is through the psyche, what's happening inside of people that can't be quantified....there is a pattern in the universe which maybe cannot be defined so simply as progress defined as higher orders of complexity leading to me and thee.....but however defined, it seems to me to be beyond the powers of linear thinking to simply rule it out because it can't be quantified....if it doesn't exist in math it doesn't exist at all seems to me to be a poor science indeed.....

As Shakespeare said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." -JL

Editorial Review:

The human mind has a trusty device for simplifying a complex world: reduce to averages and identify trends. Although valuable, the risk is that we ignore variations and end up with a skewed view of reality. In evolutionary terms, the result is a view in which humans are the inevitable pinnacle of evolutionary progress, instead of, as Stephen Jay Gould patiently argues, "a cosmic accident that would never arise again if the tree of life could be replanted." The implications of Gould's argument may threaten certain of our philosophical and religious foundations but will in the end provide us with a clearer view of, and a greater appreciation for, the complexities of our world.

Ion Channels of Excitable Membranes (3rd Edition)

Bertil Hille

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Keeps getting better with each Edition 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This book is a must-have for anyone working with excitable cells, be they experimentalists or modelers. It's a great reference book; everything is clearly indexed and almost compulsively cited. I've been using this book since its first edition, and it just keeps getting better each time.

Editorial Review:

This fully revised and expanded third edition of "Ionic Channels of Excitable Membranes" describes the known channels and their physiological functions, then develops the conceptual background needed to understand their architecture and molecular mechanisms of operation. It includes new chapters on calcium signalling, structural biology, and molecular biology and genomics. The text begins with the classical biophysical work of Hodgkin and Huxley, continues with the roles of channels in cellular signaling, then develops the physical and molecular principles needed for explaining permeation, gating, pharmacological modification, and molecular diversity, and ends with a discussion of channel evolution. It is written to be accessible and interesting to life scientists and physical scientists of all kinds. It introduces all the concepts that a graduate student should be aware of but is also effective in advanced undergraduate courses.

Dictionary of Architecture and Construction (Dictionary of Architecture & Construction)

Cyril M. Harris

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Updated and expanded, this Fourth Edition of the most trusted reference in architecture offers the most comprehensive coverage of architectural and construction terms available. This classic dictionary now features nearly 25,000 definitions (including 2,800 new terms), 2,500 illustrations (including 200 new illustrations), and maintains its extraordinary visual appeal and easy-to-read page design. Prepared by a renowned architectural editor in association with expert contributors and incorporating the work of many standards groups, the book presents clear, concise definitions of terms in nearly 80 working areas. The Fourth Edition covers new industry terms which have emerged due to changes in engineering and building technologies, organizations, materials, and legal developments, and has been expanded to include more historic architectural styles. New terms include: Legal Architectural Barriers Act Wheelchair Accessible Materials Fibrous Concrete Latex Mortar Polymer-Based Stucco Concrete Compliance Conformity Refractory Mortar Organizations Building Research Establishment (formerly Building Research Station) of Great Britain ASTM Historic Architectural Styles Anglo-Palladianism French Victorian Isabellino Mudajar Mozarabic Neo-Rococo

The Nature of Science: An A-Z Guide to the Laws and Principles Governing Our Universe

James Trefil

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Today science literacy - knowing how the world works, from the microscopic level to the farthest reaches of space - is more important than ever, but finding all the essential information in one place can be a daunting task. Enter The Nature of Science, the ultimate science handbook for the home, explaining in everyday terms the two hundred overarching laws, principles, and mechanisms that make sense of the physical world.
Cloning; black holes; Fermat's last theorem; genetic drift; the inflationary universe; Newton's laws of motion; string theories. With lively writing and whimsical analogies, science popularizer James Trefil leads a remarkable A-Z tour through the discovery, significance, and workings of the universe's major laws. Here are some two hundred essays on grand theories, such as Kepler's laws of planetary motion and Mendel's laws of genetics, and on more familiar phenomena, such as how airplanes fly and how polarized sunglasses work. Abundant cross-references make it easy to follow a law's connections across different fields, revealing a web of unifying theories that span the smallest cell and the largest galaxy. Timelines in each essay further spell out the evolution of each law, while biographical sidebars on scientists showcase the often quirky tales of discovery - the human stories behind nature's laws.
From atomic theory to Zeno's paradox, The Nature of Science makes understanding science a pleasure. For those who are familiar with the Big Bang (but maybe not the Big Crunch or the Big Splash), this book is essential reading - a key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe.

Probability: The Science of Uncertainty with Applications to Investments, Insurance, and Engineering

Michael A. Bean

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Not a good learning book 1 out of 5 stars.
11 of 22 people found this review helpful.

Some gaffes in this book, I don't think the author has any real understanding. He even messes up the definition of expectation, and it doesn't get more elementary than that. There are many better probability books out there, don't choose this one.

Excellent for SOA exam P 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful.

I used this book to study for SOA exam P and loved it! If you already have some background in statistics and probability, this is the book to go. It will fill in the blanks left by your average school textbook and give you the nesessary coverage of the exam material.

A hard book to digest 3 out of 5 stars.
6 of 11 people found this review helpful.

As a statistics graduate, I found it hard to understand this book. There are not many friendly examples to help the readers to understand the concepts, even with the help of solution manual. There are some mistakes too.

Editorial Review:

Bean's PROBABILITY: THE SCIENCE OF UNCERTAINTY WITH APPLICATIONS TO INVESTMENTS, INSURANCE, AND ENGINEERING is an 'applied' book that will be of interest to instructors teaching probability in mathematics departments of operations research, statistics, actuarial science, management science, and decision science. Comprehensive, easy to read and comprehend, and current, the book uses investment, insurance, and engineering applications throughout as a unifying theme.

Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science

Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt

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Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Postmodernism exploded 4 out of 5 stars.
24 of 26 people found this review helpful.

Gross and Levitt do a fine job of demolishing postmodernism in its various guises. The authors' impatience with, and honest surprise at, the academic left's ridiculously incompetent attacks on scientific objectivity is expressed throughout the book alongside some penetrating analyses of, and cogent arguments against, a string of postmodernistic theses.

The book has, however, one serious shortcoming: The authors' justified impatience with the academic left too often seems to make them forget - repeated assurances to the contrary notwithstanding - that a good many honest scholars within the humanities departments are just as hostile to postmodernism as any scientist. Eager to disclose the nonsense behind the empty rhetoric of the "scholars" of postmodernism, Gross and Levitt simultaneously discloses what seems to me to be a far from praiseworthy disdain of the humanities in general.

I am educated in the humanities, but my attitude is very much pro science. I was therefore frequently frustrated when I read "Higher Superstition", because I felt stabbed in the back by the authors' propensity to treat humanities scholars as of all of the same kind - e.g. as mathematically "illiterate". Gross and Levitt ought to know that even though humanities scholars rarely know anything about avant-garde mathematical and physical research this does not in itself betoken a lack of abilities, skill or intelligence on the part of those scholars. Reality has many different and fascinating aspects and no one can be an expert within every field of research. We pick the subject that interests us the most, and Gross and Levitt should accept that not all intellectuals find mathematics or quantum mechanics as interesting as e.g. history, anthropology or psychology.

Unfortunately, Gross and Levitt too often seem to equate the liberal arts with some kind of cosy game that can lead anywhere because of a lack of rules. This is grossly unfair - not to say ridiculous and demeaning - to scholars within the humanities departments. But to me it is regrettably an altogether too typical example of the intellectual arrogance that typifies many scientists' attitude to any kind of research that is not about the "exact" or "hard" sciences. Why shouldn't the humanities pretend to study an objective reality by way of stringent methodological rules and in the hope of providing sound, corroborated theories and true propositions? Why can't there be a good theory of e.g. the origins of World War I? Surely, Gross and Levitt wouldn't want to claim that there can be no true or false statements within the humanities? Were that the case, Gross and Levitt would be exactly as naïve and unjustified as the postmodernists who level the same charge against science. The fact that the humanities don't use particle accelerators or advanced mathematics does not in itself falsify their claim to objectivity. Surely the nature of the subject matter - and not the postulates of arrogant scientists - must decide questions of methodology. Objectivity is not just a matter of expensive laboratories and men in white coats.

An obvious example of the authors' condescending attitude towards the humanities is their musings on the question of which of the two - science or the humanities - is least dispensable to the human race. Apparently, Gross and Levitt think that whereas a world without science would be a terrible place, a world without the humanities would only be marginally (if at all) worse than the present one. I find the question in it self rather childish - science and the humanities are not competitors - but were I to play this game I'd point out that a scientifically advanced world without an adequate appreciation of the arts, literature, ethics etc. would be a world in which any Hitler or Stalin wannabe had every chance of blowing everything apart. Science can tell us how the world is - but only the humanities can tell us about how we ought to live our lives and treat each other. Gross and Levitt would do well to learn this lesson. Their claim that they themselves could teach a course in the humanities is hilarious and it made me shake my head in disbelief. I've been taught philosophy and history by teachers who have spent a lifetime studying these subjects. But of course, Gross and Levitt are not only wiser by far than anyone else when it comes to mathematics and physics. They also know everything worthwhile about subjects outside their area of expertise! A modicum of respect and humility - or just plain old modesty - would not be amiss.

This criticism aside, there ought to be no doubt about the high quality of the authors' writing and logic. This is an important and well written book; it should command the attention of the intelligent reader and prompt some serious considerations of basic questions in epistemology and philosophy of science. I can heartily recommend this book.

Editorial Review:

With the emergence of "cultural studies" and the blurring of once-clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In this book, the authors raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left.".

Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry (Oxford Paperback Reference)

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Fully revised and updated, the Sixth Edition of this popular dictionary is the ideal reference resource for students of chemistry, either in high school or in college. The new edition features more than 4,300 entries, including hundreds of new terms. The Dictionary covers all aspects of chemistry--from physical chemistry to biochemistry--including topics such as metallurgy, materials science, forensic science, and geology. There are also biographical entries on key figures in the field. The book has single or double-page feature articles on important topics such as polymers and crystal defects, and chronologies that chart the main discoveries in such fields as atomic theory, biochemistry, explosives, and plastics. The new edition also features web links accessed via a companion website, featuring additional information that is regularly updated to ensure that it stays fresh. The volume concludes with nine appendices, including the periodic table, SI units, the chemical elements, Nobel prizewinners, and useful websites.

The Usborne Internet-Linked First Encyclopedia of Science

Rachel Firth

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great book for elementary Science class 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I ordered a class set of this book for my Science classroom. It is an excellent resource for my elementary students. We review many areas of science in preparation for our state test that is given to 5th graders. This book supplied the basics and is easy to read.

great resource 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book has been looked at and searched through a great deal already. The only thing that was disappointing was the internet link suggestions from within the book. I guess I expected more...

Editorial Review:

An introduction to science for young children. It includes simple, safe projects which use easily-obtainable household equipment. There are photographs and illustrations designed to appeal to readers and pre-readers, along with links to Web sites containing additional information.

Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication

Neil Gershenfeld

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Fab is not happening.. 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 10 people found this review helpful.

Despite many good reviews on this book, I find it disappointing. The book is a historical summary of the work that MIT labs did. Neil got his PhD in Physics from Cornell University, dabbled into Computer Programming, examples were on C programming and some Assembly Language codes. It is easy to impress physics students these topics. But all computer students learn C and Assembly in the 1970s. They have very limited use today. Most of the equipment, laser cutters, and others were used in the 1960s. Yes, they may be useful in India, Ghana, but Norway?

Fast forward to 2007, Microsoft is doing C# (sharp) .NET programming, Windows Vista and Office 2007. Jobs are created to support all these new softwares. With globalization and outsourcing, USA manufacturing jobs are done to 23% and service sector jobs are 77%.

With NSF grants and student enthusiasm, Neil's CBA reseach continues. But MIT graduates do not get jobs in manufacturing or personal fabrications. They mostly find work in programming, business systems, or work in the financial sector in NYC. Is FAB a good training for these jobs?

Conclusion, it is great that we can bring manufacturing back, but the reality is: FAB is not happening in USA any time soon.

Editorial Review:

What if you could someday put the manufacturing power of an automobile plant on your desktop? According to Neil Gershenfeld, the renowned MIT scientist and inventor, the next big thing is personal fabrication-the ability to design and produce your own products, in your own home, with a machine that combines consumer electronics and industrial tools. Personal fabricators are about to revolutionize the world just as personal computers did a generation ago, and Fab shows us how.