DOCSLIB.ORG

The Medium Is the Message Thomas J

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Medium Is the Message Thomas J TECHNOLOGY The medium is the message Thomas J. Misa enjoys a history of communication tools, from talking drums to Twitter. nformation is the paradigm of our time. Gleick acknowledges After decades of European puzzlement, Economies that once manufactured goods that the concept of John Carrington’s 1949 book The Talking now create value by processing informa- information and its Drums of Africa revealed all. There was no Ition. Global flows of money, ideas and news impacts are difficult telegraph-like Morse code within drum- determine which countries engage with to grasp, yet explains ming. African languages relied only partly on global society and which are left silently on our fascination with unitary sounds or ‘phonemes’ and more the sidelines. A skein of pervasive mobile seeing information as fundamentally on their intonation. Simply computing keeps us connected — instantly, the driver of just about altering their tones could transform the continuously, incessantly. James Gleick’s latest everything. phonemes for ‘he watched the riverbank’ book, The Information, examines the genesis Rather than tel- The Information: A into ‘he boiled his mother-in-law’. With History, A Theory, of the information society and the roots and egraphs or telephones, drum tones expressing the rising and falling S. HOWARD PHOTO: OF THE ARTIST; COURTESY A Flood consequences of information theory. Gleick begins with JAMES GLEICK pitches of African speech, drummers could Gleick is no stranger to demanding scien- ‘talking’ African Pantheon/Fourth accurately convey a complex message. And tific topics. His blockbuster Chaos (Penguin, drums. Because Afri- Estate: 2011. 544 pp. anyone whose ear was attuned could under- 1987) popularized Edward Lorenz’s math- can languages had $29.95/£25 stand it. Using this accessible analogy, Gleick ematics of complexity. He is also the biogra- hundreds of sounds, it deftly introduces the concepts of information pher of physicists Richard Feynman and Isaac seemed impossible to European observers that channels, intentional redundancy of mes- Newton. In The Information, he highlights complex messages could be conveyed using sages and the importance of error correction. the great surge of classifying and calculating drums that made only two sounds, pitched Gleick’s more technical treatment of often labelled as the industrial and scientific high and low. Yet for centuries, almost all Shannon and information theory is a recur- revolutions, and he profiles leading theorists, African people could understand the messages ring thread of the crucial middle chap- notably US mathematician Claude Shannon. that were broadcast by skilled drummers. ters. He serves up enlightening side views Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Power Struggles: Scientific Authority and the Gutenberg to Gates Creation of Practical Electricity Before Edison Adrian Johns (Univ. Chicago Press, 2011; $22.50) Michael Brian Schiffer (MIT Press, 2011; $19) Intellectual piracy, as historian Adrian Johns explains, is Behavioural archaeologist Michael Schiffer nothing new. From the invention of the printing press investigates electricity technologies before to modern file-sharing, Johns explores the wars that Thomas Edison’s success. He shows why some have arisen over intellectual property rights. (See made an impact while others failed, and the role Steven Shapin’s review: Nature 466, 563; 2010.) of scientific authority in determining their fate. 300 | NATURE | VOL 471 | 17 MARCH 2011 © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved SPRING BOOKS COMMENT had evolved into electronic computers. and mathematician Warren Weaver, The Shannon was the link between algebra Mathematical Theory of Communication and switches. He saw that the on–off states (University of Illinois Press, 1949). of telephone relays resembled the algebra Having engagingly assembled informa- originally conceived by George Boole in the tion theory, Gleick might have examined its 1850s, with its now-familiar notation of ones many ramifications in the mathematics of and zeroes and ‘and’, ‘or’ and ‘not’ operators, coding theory, data compression and error and that immense systems of telephone correction that underpins everything from relays could be analysed through Boolean mobile phones to DVDs. Instead, he treats algebra. Shannon also showed that logical information more metaphorically, covering problems, such as adding two binary num- the founding of cybernetics, the genetic code bers together, could be modelled exactly of DNA and the birth of quantum infor- using telephone relays — and, soon enough, mation science and the allure of quantum vacuum tubes, transistors and semiconduc- computing. His asides on the editing history tor chips too. Having grounded modern of Wikipedia articles, although entertaining, computing in this way, Shannon created begin to stretch the interpretive framework. ‘An Algebra for Theoretical Genetics’, as his A final substantive chapter surveys our doctoral thesis was titled, in 1940. predicament of information overload, A full-blown information theory arrived the flood of the book’s subtitle: too many soon after. Following a year at the Institute genomes, sky surveys and climate models, for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, let alone e-mails. He confronts social media Size Matters: Alphabet (2005) by Dalton Ghetti. Shannon joined Bell Telephone Laborato- such as Twitter, describing it as “banality ries full-time in 1941 and worked on war- shrink-wrapped, enforcing triviality by to Babylonian mathematics, the Oxford time cryptography and fire-control projects. limiting all messages to 140 characters”. English Dictionary, Charles Babbage’s Shrouded in secrecy, the wartime work Gleick admirably raises the question of mechanical computers, telegraph codes, the introduced him to British computer scien- how information relates to meaning and ‘completeness’ of formal mathematics, war- tist Alan Turing (they had tea together for semantics, which Shannon specifically time cryptography and especially the tele­ two months but could not discuss their code ruled out of scope in his theory, yet Gleick phone system, which provided a focus for work), and linked his thinking with math- mostly inclines towards instances of verbal Shannon’s work. He also gives apt summa- ematician Norbert Wiener’s broadly similar and mathematical thinking. “The written ries of Walter Ong, Marshall McLuhan and theory of the role of randomness or ‘entropy’ word — the persistent word — was a pre- other commentators on the information age. in information. All communication, Shan- requisite for conscious thought as we under- The narrative of Shannon’s place in infor- non decided, resembled coded messages stand it,” Gleick suggests. An anecdote from mation theory is well known to historians. sent through a noisy channel: distortion Feynman opens up this tidy world: “Think- Shannon, a distant relative of Thomas and noise battled against redundancy and ing is nothing but talking to yourself,” he Edison, grew up in rural northern Michi- bandwidth. He defined these terms math- once remarked. “Oh yeah?” countered a gan, studied electrical engineering and ematically. Shannon gained international friend. “Do you know the crazy shape of mathematics at the University of Michigan, acclaim after publishing two famous tech- the crankshaft in a car? Now tell me: how then went to the Massachusetts Institute of nical articles in which he named the bit did you describe it when you were talking Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. Here, (short for ‘binary digit’, first coined in a Bell to yourself?” Thinking in this spatial way, after operating Vannevar Bush’s massive Labs memo by statistician John Tukey), and Feynman set the stage for nanotechnology mechanical differential analyser and work- after writing a popular book with engineer in his article in Popular Science in Novem- ing at Bell Telephone Laboratories during ber 1960, titled ‘There’s Plenty of Room the summer break, he started work on at the Bottom: How to Build an Automo- his master’s thesis: ‘A Symbolic Analysis bile Smaller than this Dot.’ Semantics and of Relay and Switching Circuits’. It was spatial thinking might be considered for a accepted by MIT in 1937 and published a new, generative theory of information to year later. Psychologist Howard Gardner enhance Shannon’s. ■ called it “possibly the most important, and also the most famous, master’s Thomas J. Misa is director of the thesis of the century”. Telephone switch- Charles Babbage Institute at the ing systems at the time were composed University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, (1997) BY DALTON GHETTI. GHETTI. DALTON (1997) BY of thousands of electro­mechanical Minnesota 55455, USA. CHAIN S. HOWARD PHOTO: OF THE ARTIST; COURTESY relays; within two decades or so, they e-mail: [email protected] Fermilab: Physics, the Frontier, and Megascience The Eerie Silence Lillian Hoddeson, Adrienne W. Kolb and Catherine Paul Davies (Mariner Books, 2011; $15.95) Westfall (Univ. Chicago Press, 2011; $30) Astrophysicist Paul Davies describes the 50-year For 40 years, the Fermi National Accelerator Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence project. He Laboratory in Illinois has stood at the frontier of proposes other approaches, from scouring Earth high-energy physics. The book charts the rise of for microscopic aliens to seeking intelligence this institution, detailing the difficulties of balancing on planets beyond the Solar System. (See Chris pioneering science with tightened budgets. McKay’s review: Nature 464, 34; 2010.) 17 MARCH 2011 | VOL 471 | NATURE | 301 © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, by James Gleick
    16. Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, by James Gleick From the author of the national bestseller Chaos comes an outstanding biography of one of the most dazzling and flamboyant scientists of the 20th century that "not only paints a highly attractive portrait of Feynman but also . makes for a stimulating adventure in the annals of science" 15. “Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman!” by Richard Feynman and Ralph Leighton Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. Here he recounts in his inimitable voice his experience trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek; cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets; accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums; painting a naked female toreador. In short, here is Feynman's life in all its eccentric―a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah. 14. D Day – Through German Eyes, The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944, by Holger Eckhertz Almost all accounts of D Day are told from the Allied perspective, with the emphasis on how German resistance was overcome on June 6th 1944. But what was it like to be a German soldier in the bunkers and gun emplacements of the Normandy coast, facing the onslaught of the mightiest seaborne invasion in history? What motivated the German defenders, what were their thought processes - and how did they fight from one strong point to another, among the dunes and fields, on that first cataclysmic day? What were their experiences on facing the tanks, the flamethrowers and the devastating air superiority of the Allies? This book sheds fascinating light on these questions, bringing together statements made by German survivors after the war, when time had allowed them to reflect on their state of mind, their actions and their choices of June 6th.
    [Show full text]
  • A Brief History of Stephen Hawking's Blockbuster
    COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS IAN BERRY/MAGNUM PHOTOS IAN BERRY/MAGNUM Stephen Hawking and colleagues at the University of Cambridge in the 1980s, before the publication of A Brief History of Time. PUBLISHING A brief history of Stephen Hawking’s blockbuster Elizabeth Leane surveys the extraordinary influence of the physicist’s first foray into popular-science publishing. owards the end of The Theory of rarely reach the million mark, and are usu- History of Time is not, as is sometimes Everything, the 2014 film about ally much lower. So this is an astounding claimed, unprecedented. There were Stephen Hawking, scenes depict the achievement for a science book aimed at nineteenth-century science blockbusters Treception of his popular science classic, A the non-scientist, and especially for one such as mathematician Mary Somerville’s Brief History of Time (1988). The camera that grapples with the some of the biggest 1834 On the Connexion of the Physical zooms in on a large display of the book in questions in physics — the Big Bang, black Sciences (see R. Holmes Nature 514, 432– a shop window; fans crowd the physicist- holes, a ‘theory of everything’ and the nature 433; 2014). And in 1930, physicist James author, hoping that he will autograph their of time. As Hawking entertainingly related Jeans’ The Mysterious Universe achieved a copies. Future events are outlined in the in a 2013 essay in The Wall Street Journal, comparable reception to Hawking’s book film’s closing titles: the first relates not to he rewrote A Brief History repeatedly at (in Britain, at least); the jacket of the 1937 the ongoing impact of Hawking’s scientific the behest of his editor, Peter Guzzardi at Pelican edition promotes it as “the famous achievements or the challenges of living Bantam, to make it more understandable to book which upset tradition by making with motor neuron disease, but to the sales a lay readership.
    [Show full text]
  • The New York Times Book of Mathematics Reviewed by Ian Stewart
    Book Review The New York Times Book of Mathematics Reviewed by Ian Stewart an order that helps to The New York Times Book of Mathematics tell a story—which is, Edited by Gina Kolata after all, what journal- Sterling, 2013 ism is about. US$24.95, 496 pages This choice makes ISBN-13: 978-1402793226 the book far more ac- cessible to the general Mathematicians often complain that their subject reader, though I’m is neglected in the mass media, although when it tempted to photocopy does get reported there always seem to be a few the contents list and of us who find it impossible to resist the urge to shuffle the articles complain bitterly about inaccuracies and “hype”, back into the order which usually seems to mean the promotion of the of publication. Read- area concerned instead of their own. As this sump- ing them in that order tuous volume demonstrates, neither complaint would give a dramatic can sensibly be directed at the New York Times perception of how our subject has changed over [NYT ]. For more than a century this high-quality the last 120 years; however, this comes over any- newspaper has done sterling work in the service way. Paul Hoffman’s foreword and Gina Kolata’s in- of our profession, the public, and the cause of sci- troduction provide concise and helpful overviews ence journalism. of such questions, and the first group of topics This collection contains more than a hundred addresses general issues of what mathematics is NYT articles on mathematics and its applications and what it’s for.
    [Show full text]
  • BLR 02-08-10 100+ Must-Read Books A. Biographies 1. ET Bell
    BLR 02-08-10 100+ must-read books A. Biographies 1. ET Bell: Men of Mathematics 2. Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin: American Prometheus, Oppenheimer 3. John Cornwell: Hitler’s Scientists 4. Gerald Durell: My family and other animals 5. Richard Feynman: Perfectly reasonable deviations 6. George Gamow: Thirty years that Shook Physics 7. MK Gandhi: The story of my experiments with truth 8. James Gleick: Genius 9. Abraham Pais: Subtle is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein 10. Paris review interviews with authors 11. Munagala Venkataramaih: Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi 12. J Craig Venter: A Life Decoded; My Genome: My life B. Classics 13. Lord Byron: Prisoner of Chillon 14. Lewis Carroll: Alice’s adventure in Wonderland 15. Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote 16. Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Christabel 17. Charles Darwin: On the origin of species 18. Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe 19. Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment 20. Victor Hugo: Les Misérables 21. John Milton: Paradise lost 22. Plato: The Republic 23. William Shakespeare: Twelfth night 24. William Shakespeare: Macbeth 25. RL Stevenson: The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 26. Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s travel 27. Henry David Thoreau: Walden, Essay on Civil Disobedience 28. Mark Twain: The adventure of Tom Sawyer 29. HG Wells: The time machine 30. Oscar Wilde: The importance of being Ernest C. History 31. William Dalrymple: The last Mughal 32. Eric Hobsbawm: Age of extremes 33. Robert Jungk: Brighter than Thousand Suns 34. Jawaharlal Nehru: Discovery of India 35. Edward C Sachau: Alberuni’ India 36.
    [Show full text]
  • 00-201 Supreme Court of the United States the New York
    1 00-201 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY, INC., NEWSDAY, INC. THE TIME INCOPORATED MAGAZINE COMPANY; LEXIS/NEXIS and UNIVCERSITY MICROFILMS INTERNATIONAL Petitioner v. JONATHAN TASINI; MARY KAY BLAKELY; BARBARA GARSON; MARGOT MIFFLIN; SONIA JAFFE ROBBINS and DAVID S. WHITFORD Defendants BRIEF FOR AMICI CURIAE THE AUTHORS GUILD, INC., JACQUES BARZUN, JAMES GLEICK, JUSTIN KAPLAN, TRACY KIDDER, NICHOLAS LEMANN, JOHN LUKACS, ROBERT K. MASSIE, JACK MILES, AND JEAN STROUSE, IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS Leon Friedman Counsel of Record 148 East 78th Street New York N.Y. 10021 (212) 737-0400 Kay Murray The Authors Guild, Inc. 31 East 28th Street New York, N.Y. 10016 Attorneys for Amici 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Interest of Amici Curiae . 1 STATEMENT . 7 Introduction and Summary of Argument . 8 ARGUMENT . 9 I. THE OPINION BELOW PROPERLY WEIGHED THE INTERESTS OF AUTHORS, PUBLISHERS, RESEARCHERS AND ELECTRONIC DATABASES . 9 II. THE DECISION BELOW PROPERLY ANALYZED THE STATUTORY LANGUAGE OF SECTION 201(C) . 19 CONCLUSION . 22 3 BRIEF OF AMICI THE AUTHORS GUILD, INC. , JACQUES BARZUN, JAMES GLEICK, JUSTIN KAPLAN, TRACY KIDDER, NICHOLAS LEMANN, JOHN LUKACS , ROBERT K. MASSIE, JACK MILES and JEAN STROUSE This brief amici curiae is submitted in support of Respondents Jonathan Tasini et al. By letters filed with the Clerk of the Court, Petitioners and Respondents have consented to the filing of this brief. 1 INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE The Author’s Guild, Inc. founded in 1912, is a national non-profit association of more than 8,200 professional, published writers of all genres.
    [Show full text]
  • The Atlantic Monthly | December 2002 Our Genius Problem Why This
    The Atlantic Monthly | December 2002 Our Genius Problem Why this obsession with the word, with the idea, and with the people on whom we've bestowed the designation? BY MARJORIE GARBER ..... During the unexpected and glorious ascendancy of the New England Patriots to pre- eminence in the football world last season, the press was full of the word "genius." As a sports reporter for The Boston Globe noted, a computer search had matched "genius" with the Patriots' coach, Bill Belichick, "not once, but more than 200 times." And when the Pats actually defeated the heavily favored St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl, the New York Times headline for the Boston edition, in sixty-point type, read simply "DEFENSIVE GENIUS." The text of the article made it clear that this figure of speech had taken hold. Coach Belichick was likened to a "neighborhood tough guy in a dark alley" who "also has the I.Q. of a nuclear physicist." Belichick was hardly alone in this peculiar species of gridiron celebrity. The Rams' coach, Mike Martz, was touted as an "offensive genius," the Washington Redskins' newly designated coach, Steve Spurrier, as a "genius strategist," and so on through a parade of sports pages, until even the TV commentators began to call for an end to the hyperbole. And as Belichick's father, a ripe eighty-three years old (and himself a former coach), took time out to observe, "genius" seemed an odd appellation for "somebody who walks up and down a football field." We live in a time in which all terms and traits are inflated, and even the standard size at Starbucks is a tall.
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Mathematical Chaos Theory and Fractal Geometry
    Chaos Theory Chaos Theory An Introduction to Mathematical Chaos Theory and Fractal Geometry For a printable version of this document, please click here. The following essay was compiled by me, Manus J. Donahue III (second year Physics and Philosophy major at Duke University..age 19). It has been unofficially published in four different countries, has been cited in The New York Times and has been awarded technology site of the day by TechSightings.com. Please cite this page as a reference if you use any of the material on this page in essays, documents, or presentaitons. Also, you may e-mail me at [email protected] if you have any questions, and I'll try to get back with you as soon as possible. Because I compiled this essay for myself and the enjoyment of others, and because I am presenting it completely free, I am not responsible for any copyright violations or anything like that. Some of the pictures that are included in this essay (although almost universally common) were taken from other Web pages. If you are a high school/middle school student who has to do a report on chaos theory and you print this essay off and turn it in, you will be violating not only the work of myself, but the various other people who unknowingly may have contributed to this site. Don't do that - these people deserve credit for their work! Use this paper merely as a “jumping off point” for your own research, and then write a paper that is even better – and publish it.
    [Show full text]
  • The Misunderstanding of Memes: Biography of an Unscientific Object
    The misunderstanding of memes: Biography of an unscientiªc object, 1976–1999 Jeremy Trevelyan Burman York University When the “meme” was introduced in 1976, it was as a metaphor intended to illuminate an evolutionary argument. By the late-1980s, however, we see from its use in major US newspapers that this original meaning had become obscured. The meme became a virus of the mind. (In the UK, this occurred slightly later.) It is also now clear that this becoming involved complex sustained interactions between scholars, journalists, and the letter-writing public. We must therefore read the “meme” through lenses provided by its pop- ularization. The results are in turn suggestive of the processes of meaning- construction in scholarly communication more generally. “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clariªes, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.” —Gordon Gekko, as portrayed by Michael Douglas in the 1987 ªlm Wall Street “From the outset [in 1976] the reviews were gratifyingly favorable and it [The Selªsh Gene] was not seen, initially, as a controversial book. Its repu- tation for contentiousness took years to grow until, by now, it is widely An earlier version of this paper was pre-circulated and presented at the History & Theory of Psychology Evening Colloquium Series in the Fall of 2010. The author wishes to thank Jacy Young (the series coordinator) for the invitation to speak, as well as all those who attended and provided feedback—especially Laura Ball, Ron Sheese, Kelli Vaughn, and Fred Weizmann. It was originally written following the publication of Alexandra Rutherford’s (2009) Beyond the Box, which—among other things—used popu- lar press coverage to examine how the ideas of B.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Non-Linear Physics Lecture 1
    Introduction to Nonlinear Physics IntroductionLecture I to Non-linear physics Lecture 1 Tobias Galla Anne Juel Nonlinear Dynamics room G.12 [email protected] http://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/~ajuel / Adapted from T. Galla’s slides Nonlinear physics Why did you choose this course ? Reasons why you should choose this course • interesting and timely topic • combination of mathematical methods, numerical studies and experimental applications. • most phenomena in physics due to nonlinear effects • applications in a variety of different fields (in physics, but also biology, epidemiology, economics ... you name it) • essential for a broad Physics education. Reasons why you should not choose this course Reasons why you should not choose this course None Nonlinear physics Why did I choose to give this course ? • Research in complexity and soft matter : focus on instabilities in fluid dynamics and solid mechanics, which are inherently nonlinear phenomena. • Manchester Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics : multi- pronged approach of quantitative experiments and mathematical analysis/numerical simulations. • Concepts of nonlinear dynamics fundamental to understanding complex systems . e.g. game theory and evolutionary dynamics, biological systems (gene regulation, epidemics, metabolic systems), models in economics, models of socio-dynamics (traffic, opinion spreading, decision making). • Lots of interest in the public Nonlinear dynamics in a nutshell 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal 2. Bifurcation diagram of the logistic map: Universality
    [Show full text]
  • Princeton Earth Science 2021
    Princeton Earth Science 2021 From acclaimed writer and biologist Sean B. Carroll, a rollicking, awe-inspiring story of the surprising power of chance in our lives and the world A Series of Fortunate Events Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world. Like every other species, we humans are here by accident. But it is shocking just how many things—any of which might never have occurred—had to happen in certain ways for any of us to exist. From an extremely improbable asteroid impact, to the wild gyrations of the Ice Age, to invisible “Fascinating and exhilarating— accidents in our parents’ gonads, we are all here through an Sean B. Carroll at his very best.” astonishing series of fortunate events. And chance continues —Bill Bryson, author of The Body: to reign every day over the razor-thin line between our life A Guide for Occupants and death. “Profound, witty, and funny—this book This is a relatively small book about a really big idea. It is will change the way you see yourself, also a spirited tale. Drawing inspiration from Monty Python, and the universe, forever.” Kurt Vonnegut, and other great thinkers, and crafted by —Alice Roberts, author of The one of today’s most accomplished science storytellers, A Incredible Unlikeliness of Being Series of Fortunate Events is an irresistibly entertaining and thought-provoking account of one of the most important but least appreciated facts of life.
    [Show full text]
  • Phy 321 Reading List
    PHYSICS 321 Reading List George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives Econonics... Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ (2009) Proof that Homo Economus does not exist. A good book on economics. Robert K. Adair The Physics of Baseball Harper Row, Publishers, NY (1990) All you wanted to know about curveballs and home runs. Peter Atkins. The Four Laws that Govern the Universe Oxford University Press, NY (2007) Just the best introduction to thermodynamics and eminently readable. Philip Ball Life's Matrix: ABiography of Water Farrar, Straus, and Girous, NY (1999) All you ever wanted to know about water. What it is and what it does. John S. Bell Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics Cambridge University Press, Cambridge England (1987) Intellectually challenging essays by the person that has the deepest insight into the implications of quantum mechanics. Peter Bergman. The Riddle of Gravitation. Scribner & Sons, NY (1968). An excellent book on general and special relativity. Peter D. Bernstein Against the Gods J. Wiley and Sons Inc., NY (1996). A history of risk with the emphasis on investments. Stephen Breyer Breaking the Vicious Cycle Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. (1993) A good book on environmental policy by the Supreme Court justice. Jed Z. Buchwald The Rise of the Wave Theory of Light: Optical Theory and Experiment in the Early Nineteenth Century. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois (1989) The definitive treatment of the development of the wave theory of light. Nigel Calder. The Key to the Universe. Viking Press, NY (1977). A report of a television show which primarily covers particle physics.
    [Show full text]
  • Chaos Theory
    http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Bun-Comp/Chaos-Theory.html CHAOS THEORY Photo by: Kheng Guan Toh Chaos theory is a scientific principle describing the unpredictability of systems. Most fully explored and recognized during the mid-to-late 1980s, its premise is that systems sometimes reside in chaos, generating energy but without any predictability or direction. These complex systems may be weather patterns, ecosystems, water flows, anatomical functions, or organizations. While these systems's chaotic behavior may appear random at first, chaotic systems can be defined by a mathematical formula, and they are not without order or finite boundaries. This theory, in relation to organizational behavior, was somewhat discounted during the 1990s, giving way to the very similar complexity theory. ORIGINS OF CHAOS THEORY One of the first scientists to comment on chaos was Henri Poincaré(1854–1912), a late- nineteenth century French mathematician who extensively studied topology and dynamic systems . He left writings hinting at the same unpredictability in systems that Edward Lorenz (b. 1917) would study more than half a century later. Poincaré explained, "It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena. A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter. Prediction becomes impossible." Unfortunately, the study of dynamic systems was largely ignored long after Poincaré's death. During the early 1960s, a few scientists from various disciplines were again taking note of "odd behavior" in complex systems such as the earth's atmosphere and the human brain. One of these scientists was Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who was experimenting with computational models of the atmosphere.
    [Show full text]