A Nobel Prize-winning scientist and a leading brain researcher show how the brain creates conscious experience In A Universe of Consciousness, Gerald Edelman builds on the radical ideas he introduced in his monumental trilogy-Neural Darwinism, Topobiology, and The Remembered Present-to present for the first time an empirically supported full-scale theory of consciousness. He and the neurobiolgist Giulio Tononi show how they use ingenious technology to detect the most minute brain currents and to identify the specific brain waves that correlate with particular conscious experiences. The results of this pioneering work challenge the conventional wisdom about consciousness.

在线阅读本书
The long awaited second edition of Dynamic Optimization is now available. Clear exposition and numerous worked examples made the first edition the premier text on this subject. Now, the new edition is expanded and updated to include essential coverage of current developments on differential games, especially as they apply to important economic questions; new developments in comparative dynamics; and new material on optimal control with integral state equations. The second edition of Dynamic Optimization provides expert coverage on:- methods of calculus of variations - optimal control - continuous dynamic programming - stochastic optimal control -differential games. The authors also include appendices on static optimization and on differential games. Now in its new updated and expanded edition, Dynamic Optimization is, more than ever, the optimum choice for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in economics, mathematical methods in economics and dynamic optimization, management science, mathematics and engineering. New features of Dynamic Optimization will show students:advances in how to do comparative dynamics; how to optimally switch from one state equation to another during the planning period; how to take into account the history of the system governing an optimization problem through the use of an integral state equation; and how to apply differential games to problems in economics and management sciences.

Father of modern management, social commentator, and preeminent business philosopher, Peter F. Drucker has been analyzing economics and society for more than sixty years. Now for readers everywhere who are concerned with the ways that management practices and principles affect the performance of the organization, the individual, and society, there is The Essential Drucker -- an invaluable compilation of management essentials from the works of a management legend.</p>
Containing twenty-six selections, The Essential Drucker covers the basic principles and concerns of management and its problems, challenges, and opportunities, giving managers, executives, and professionals the tools to perform the tasks that the economy and society of tomorrow will demand of them.</p>

Astrophysicist and author Mario Livio investigates perhaps the most human of all our characteristics—curiosity—as he explores our innate desire to know why .

Experiments demonstrate that people are more distracted when they overhear a phone conversation—where they can know only one side of the dialogue—than when they overhear two people talking and know both sides. Why does half a conversation make us more curious than a whole conversation?

In the ever-fascinating Why? Mario Livio interviewed scientists in several fields to explore the nature of curiosity. He examined the lives of two of history’s most curious geniuses, Leonardo da Vinci and Richard Feynman. He also talked to people with boundless a superstar rock guitarist who is also an astrophysicist; an astronaut with degrees in computer science, biology, literature, and medicine. What drives these people to be curious about so many subjects?

Curiosity is at the heart of mystery and suspense novels. It is essential to other forms of art, from painting to sculpture to music. It is the principal driver of basic scientific research. Even so, there is still no definitive scientific consensus about why we humans are so curious, or about the mechanisms in our brain that are responsible for curiosity.

Mario Livio—an astrophysicist who has written about mathematics, biology, and now psychology and neuroscience—explores this irresistible subject in a lucid, entertaining way that will captivate anyone who is curious about curiosity.

Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner once wondered about "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in the formulation of the laws of nature. Is God a Mathematician? investigates why mathematics is as powerful as it is. From ancient times to the present, scientists and philosophers have marveled at how such a seemingly abstract discipline could so perfectly explain the natural world. More than that -- mathematics has often made predictions, for example, about subatomic particles or cosmic phenomena that were unknown at the time, but later were proven to be true. Is mathematics ultimately invented or discovered? If, as Einstein insisted, mathematics is "a product of human thought that is independent of experience," how can it so accurately describe and even predict the world around us? Mathematicians themselves often insist that their work has no practical effect. The British mathematician G. H. Hardy went so far as to describe his own work this way: "No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world." He was wrong. The Hardy-Weinberg law allows population geneticists to predict how genes are transmitted from one generation to the next, and Hardy's work on the theory of numbers found unexpected implications in the development of codes. Physicist and author Mario Livio brilliantly explores mathematical ideas from Pythagoras to the present day as he shows us how intriguing questions and ingenious answers have led to ever deeper insights into our world. This fascinating book will interest anyone curious about the human mind, the scientific world, and the relationship between them.

What do the music of J. S. Bach, the basic forces of nature, Rubik's Cube, and the selection of mates have in common? They are all characterized by certain symmetries. Symmetry is the concept that bridges the gap between science and art, between the world of theoretical physics and the everyday world we see around us. Yet the "language" of symmetry--group theory in mathematics--emerged from a most unlikely source: an equation that couldn't be solved.
Over the millennia, mathematicians solved progressively more difficult algebraic equations until they came to what is known as the quintic equation. For several centuries it resisted solution, until two mathematical prodigies independently discovered that it could not be solved by the usual methods, thereby opening the door to group theory. These young geniuses, a Norwegian named Niels Henrik Abel and a Frenchman named Evariste Galois, both died tragically. Galois, in fact, spent the night before his fatal duel (at the age of twenty) scribbling another brief summary of his proof, at one point writing in the margin of his notebook "I have no time."
The story of the equation that couldn't be solved is a story of brilliant mathematicians and a fascinating account of how mathematics illuminates a wide variety of disciplines. In this lively, engaging book, Mario Livio shows in an easily accessible way how group theory explains the symmetry and order of both the natural and the human-made worlds.

Drawing on the lives of five renowned scientists, Mario Livio shows how even these geniuses made major mistakes and how their errors were an essential part of the process of achieving scientific breakthroughs. We all make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. And that includes five of the greatest scientists in history—Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein. But the mistakes that these great luminaries made helped advance science. Indeed, as Mario Livio explains, science thrives on error, advancing when erroneous ideas are disproven.

As a young scientist, Einstein tried to conceive of a way to describe the evolution of the universe at large, based on General Relativity—his theory of space, time, and gravity. Unfortunately he fell victim to a misguided notion of aesthetic simplicity. Fred Hoyle was an eminent astrophysicist who ridiculed an emerging theory about the origin of the universe that he dismissively called “The Big Bang.” The name stuck, but Hoyle was dead wrong in his opposition.

They, along with Darwin (a blunder in his theory of Natural Selection), Kelvin (a blunder in his calculation of the age of the earth), and Pauling (a blunder in his model for the structure of the DNA molecule), were brilliant men and fascinating human beings. Their blunders were a necessary part of the scientific process. Collectively they helped to dramatically further our knowledge of the evolution of life, the Earth, and the universe.

The Guinness Book made records immensely popular. This book is devoted, at first glance, to present records concerning prime numbers. But it is much more. It explores the interface between computations and the theory of prime numbers. The book contains an up-to-date historical presentation of the main problems about prime numbers, as well as many fascinating topics, including primality testing. It is written in a language without secrets, and thoroughly accessible to everyone. The new edition has been significantly improved due to a smoother presentation, many new topics and updated records.

A perennial bestseller by eminent mathematician G. Polya, "How to Solve It" will show anyone in any field how to think straight. In lucid and appealing prose, Polya reveals how the mathematical method of demonstrating a proof or finding an unknown can be of help in attacking any problem that can be "reasoned" out - from building a bridge to winning a game of anagrams. Generations of readers have relished Polya's deft - indeed, brilliant - instructions on stripping away irrelevancies and going straight to the heart of the problem. In this best-selling classic, George Polya revealed how the mathematical method of demonstrating a proof or finding an unknown can be of help in attacking any problem that can be "reasoned" out - from building a bridge to winning a game of anagrams.Generations of readers have relished Polya's deft instructions on stripping away irrelevancies and going straight to the heart of a problem. "How to Solve It" popularized heuristics, the art and science of discovery and invention. It has been in print continuously since 1945 and has been translated into twenty-three different languages. Polya was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century. He made important contributions to a great variety of mathematical research: from complex analysis to mathematical physics, number theory, probability, geometry, astronomy, and combinatorics. He was also an extraordinary teacher - he taught until he was ninety - and maintained a strong interest in pedagogical matters throughout his long career.In addition to "How to Solve It", he published a two-volume work on the topic of problem solving, "Mathematics of Plausible Reasoning", also with Princeton. Polya is one of the most frequently quoted mathematicians, and the following statements from "How to Solve It" make clear why: "My method to overcome a difficulty is to go around it." "Geometry is the science of correct reasoning on incorrect figures." "In order to solve this differential equation you look at it till a solution occurs to you."

Number theory, the branch of mathematics that studies the properties of the integers, is a repository of interesting and quite varied problems, sometimes impossibly difficult ones. In this book, the authors have gathered together a collection of problems from various topics in number theory that they find beautiful, intriguing, and from a certain point of view instructive.

This first volume, a three-part introduction to the subject, is intended for students with a beginning knowledge of mathematical analysis who are motivated to discover the ideas that shape Fourier analysis. It begins with the simple conviction that Fourier arrived at in the early nineteenth century when studying problems in the physical sciences - that an arbitrary function can be written as an infinite sum of the most basic trigonometric functions. The first part implements this idea in terms of notions of convergence and summability of Fourier series, while highlighting applications such as the isoperimetric inequality and equidistribution. The second part deals with the Fourier transform and its applications to classical partial differential equations and the Radon transform; a clear introduction to the subject serves to avoid technical difficulties. The book closes with Fourier theory for finite abelian groups, which is applied to prime numbers in arithmetic progression. In organizing their exposition, the authors have carefully balanced an emphasis on key conceptual insights against the need to provide the technical underpinnings of rigorous analysis. Students of mathematics, physics, engineering and other sciences will find the theory and applications covered in this volume to be of real interest. "The Princeton Lectures in Analysis" represents a sustained effort to introduce the core areas of mathematical analysis while also illustrating the organic unity between them. Numerous examples and applications throughout its four planned volumes, of which "Fourier Analysis" is the first, highlight the far-reaching consequences of certain ideas in analysis to other fields of mathematics and a variety of sciences. Stein and Shakarchi move from an introduction addressing "Fourier" series and integrals to in-depth considerations of complex analysis; measure and integration theory, and Hilbert spaces; and, finally, further topics such as functional analysis, distributions and elements of probability theory.

Highly useful text studies the logarithmic measures of information and their application to testing statistical hypotheses. Topics include introduction and definition of measures of information, their relationship to Fisher's information measure and sufficiency, fundamental inequalities of information theory, much more. Numerous worked examples and problems. References. Glossary. Appendix. 1968 2nd, revised edition.

Expert coverage of the design and implementation of state estimation algorithms for tracking and navigation Estimation with Applications to Tracking and Navigation treats the estimation of various quantities from inherently inaccurate remote observations. It explains state estimator design using a balanced combination of linear systems, probability, and statistics. The authors provide a review of the necessary background mathematical techniques and offer an overview of the basic concepts in estimation. They then provide detailed treatments of all the major issues in estimation with a focus on applying these techniques to real systems. Other features include:* Problems that apply theoretical material to real-world applications* In-depth coverage of the Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) estimator* Companion DynaEst(TM) software for MATLAB(TM) implementation of Kalman filters and IMM estimators* Design guidelines for tracking filters Suitable for graduate engineering students and engineers working in remote sensors and tracking, Estimation with Applications to Tracking and Navigation provides expert coverage of this important area.

Uniquely bridging all levels of neurobiological analysis, this book describes and explains step-by-step the concepts, methods, findings and conclusions of modern learning research. This text starts with a treatment of simple nervous systems and molecular mechanisms, proceeds to more complex learning and development, and concludes with the functional organization of highly complex memory systems in the human brain and their disintegration in amnesia. This book, supplemented by 1100 references and many illustrations, is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as for neuroscientists who seek a comprehensive overview of the field. It should also be of interest to scientists from other disciplines and to other readers who wish to learn about the new neurobiology of learning.