Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., has been bringing its readers unique insights about developments in science and technology for more than 150 years.
More than 120 Nobel laureates have written for Scientific American, most of whom wrote about their prize-winning works years before being recognized by the Nobel Committee. In addition to the likes of Albert Einstein, Francis Crick, Jonas Salk and Linus Pauling, Scientific American continues to attract esteemed authors from many fields:
World leaders: former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, former United Nations Secretary-General Trygve Lie
U.S. Government Officials: former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former Secretary of Defense Les Aspin
Economists and Industrialists: John Kenneth Galbraith, Lester Thurow, Mitchell Kapor, Michael Dertouzos, Nicholas Negroponte

本书内容广泛涉及人生观、知识观、科学方法论和科学哲学思想等诸多方面，但是作者还是重在探讨人类的创造性思维的奇迹。

几年前，“数学之美”系列文章原刊载于谷歌黑板报，获得上百万次点击，得到读者高度评价。读者说，读了“数学之美”，才发现大学时学的数学知识，比如马尔可夫链、矩阵计算，甚至余弦函数原来都如此亲切，并且栩栩如生，才发现自然语言和信息处理这么有趣。
今年，作者吴军博士几乎把所有文章都重写了一遍，为的是把高深的数学原理讲得更加通俗易懂，让非专业读者也能领略数学的魅力。读者通过具体的例子学到的是思考问题的方式 —— 如何化繁为简，如何用数学去解决工程问题，如何跳出固有思维不断去思考创新。

Inside your head there is an amazing labor saving device; more effective than the latest high-tech computer. Your brain frees you from the everyday tasks of moving about in the world around you, allowing you to concentrate on the things that are important to you; making friends and influencing people. However, the 'you' that is released into this social world is also a construction of your brain. It is your brain that enables you to share your mental life with the people around you.
Making Up the Mind is the first accessible account of experimental studies showing how the brain creates our mental world. Using evidence from brain imaging, psychological experiments, and patient studies, Chris Frith, one of the world's leading neuroscientists, explores the relationship between the mind and the brain.

Continuing his exploration of the organization of complexity and the science of design, this new edition of Herbert Simon's classic work on artificial intelligence adds a chapter that sorts out the current themes and tools -- chaos, adaptive systems, genetic algorithms -- for analyzing complexity and complex systems.There are updates throughout the book as well. These take into account important advances in cognitive psychology and the science of design while confirming and extending the book's basic thesis: that a physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means for intelligent action. The chapter "Economic Reality" has also been revised to reflect a change in emphasis in Simon's thinking about the respective roles of organizations and markets in economic systems.

本书精选了万维钢老师的文章和书评，以“用理工科思维理解世界”为导向。作者常用有趣的实验、数据来解读感性的事物，其理工科思维涉及行为经济学、认知心理学、社会学、统计学、物理等许多学科，以前沿的科学视角解读生活，为人们提供了认知的新方法。读完本书相当于精读了十几本经过筛选 、再创作及通俗化处理的巨著，不仅有趣还十分有营养。

Paperback Edition What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries. Using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code, author Charles Petzold weaves an illuminating narrative for anyone who s ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines. It s a cleverly illustrated and eminently comprehensible story and along the way, you ll discover you ve gained a real context for understanding today s world of PCs, digital media, and the Internet. No matter what your level of technical savvy, CODE will charm you and perhaps even awaken the technophile within.

为什么咖啡店都设在街道一角？为什么同一家超市，有人觉得哗众取宠有人觉得物超所值？为什么老买不到一处位置好价钱便宜的好房子？交通拥堵的背后有什么经济原因？……为什么富裕的国家与贫穷的国家差距如此之大？
作为经济学家版的“万变之宗”，这部迷人的著作为你一一解惑。本书就是要帮助你像一位经济学家那样看世界，它不会告诉你有关汇率或商业周期的专业问题，但会帮你解开日常生活之谜。书中既会关注大问题，如星巴克为什么会赚个盆满钵满，也会关注小问题，如你怎样在超市里淘到价廉物美的货品。
本书从头到尾都是一种侦探式的工作，但会教给你如何运用经济学家的各种调查工具，理解和解决日常生活中的问题。作者指出：日常生活不过是谈判中的复杂博弈，体力的角逐和智力的较量。希望看完本书之后，你能成为一位更精明的消费者，能够看清楚种种现实背后的真相。

With over one million copies sold, The Undercover Economist has been hailed worldwide as a fantastic guide to the fundamental principles of economics. An economist's version of The Way Things Work , this engaging volume is part Economics 101 and part exposé of the economic principles lurking behind daily events, explaining everything from traffic jams to high coffee prices.

New to this edition : This revised edition, newly updated to consider the banking crisis and economic turbulence of the last four years, is essential for anyone who has wondered why the gap between rich and poor nations is so great, or why they can't seem to find a decent second-hand car, or how to outwit Starbucks. Senior columnist for the Financial Times Tim Harford brings his experience and insight as he ranges from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States to reveal how supermarkets, airlines, and coffee chains--to name just a few--are vacuuming money from our wallets. Harford punctures the myths surrounding some of today's biggest controversies, including the high cost of health-care; he reveals why certain environmental laws can put a smile on a landlord's face; and he explains why some industries can have high profits for innocent reasons, while in other industries something sinister is going on.

Covering an array of economic concepts including scarce resources, market power, efficiency, price gouging, market failure, inside information, and game theory, Harford sheds light on how these forces shape our day-to-day lives, often without our knowing it. Showing us the world through the eyes of an economist, Tim Harford reveals that everyday events are intricate games of negotiations, contests of strength, and battles of wits. Written with a light touch and sly wit, The Undercover Economist turns "the dismal science" into a true delight.

本书就是舍默研究的最佳呈现。他用进化论阐述了市场（经济的载体）发展的过程，然后用心理学剖析了市场内部所发生的经济行为背后的本质；市场是进化的，随之进化的还有人的行为，而这些进化的行为让市场具备了某种“心理”。舍默就是在这个经济学、进化论和行为心理三条线的交叉口，提出了一个全新的解释经济行为的方式。虽然我们还不能说，舍默将开创一个新的经济学研究领域，但在卡尼曼和特沃斯基最开始研究前景理论时，谁也没有预料到他们会有后来的斐然成绩。

《西方文化中的数学》是美国著名数学家、数学教育家、数学史家M·克莱因的一部力作。自1953年在美国出版后，多次再版，深受西方文化界、数学界欢迎，其影响经久不衰。《西方文化中的数学》系统地阐述了各个不同历史时期数学与文学、绘画、哲学、宗教、美学、音乐、人文科学、自然科学等文化领域的内在联系，详细而透彻地说明了数学对西方文化、理性精神、现代人类思想的发展所产生的深刻影响，有力地证明了数学是人类文化的重要组成部分和不可缺少的重要力量。

Technology matters, writes David Nye, because it is inseparable from being human. We have used tools for more than 100,000 years, and their central purpose has not always been to provide necessities. People excel at using old tools to solve new problems and at inventing new tools for more elegant solutions to old tasks. Perhaps this is because we are intimate with devices and machines from an early age--as children, we play with technological toys: trucks, cars, stoves, telephones, model railroads, Playstations. Through these machines we imagine ourselves into a creative relationship with the world. As adults, we retain this technological playfulness with gadgets and appliances--Blackberries, cell phones, GPS navigation systems in our cars.We use technology to shape our world, yet we think little about the choices we are making. In Technology Matters, Nye tackles ten central questions about our relationship to technology, integrating a half-century of ideas about technology into ten cogent and concise chapters, with wide-ranging historical examples from many societies. He asks: Can we define technology? Does technology shape us, or do we shape it? Is technology inevitable or unpredictable? (Why do experts often fail to get it right?)? How do historians understand it? Are we using modern technology to create cultural uniformity, or diversity? To create abundance, or an ecological crisis? To destroy jobs or create new opportunities? Should "the market" choose our technologies? Do advanced technologies make us more secure, or escalate dangers? Does ubiquitous technology expand our mental horizons, or encapsulate us in artifice?These large questions may have no final answers yet, but we need to wrestle with them--to live them, so that we may, as Rilke puts it, "live along some distant day into the answers."

One of the world's foremost nuclear physicists (celebrated for his theory of radioactive decay, among other accomplishments), George Gamow possessed the unique ability of making the world of science accessible to the general reader.
He brings that ability to bear in this delightful expedition through the problems, pleasures, and puzzles of modern science. Among the topics scrutinized with the author's celebrated good humor and pedagogical prowess are the macrocosm and the microcosm, theory of numbers, relativity of space and time, entropy, genes, atomic structure, nuclear fission, and the origin of the solar system.
In the pages of this book readers grapple with such crucial matters as whether it is possible to bend space, why a rocket shrinks, the "end of the world problem," excursions into the fourth dimension, and a host of other tantalizing topics for the scientifically curious. Brimming with amusing anecdotes and provocative problems, One Two Three . . . Infinity also includes over 120 delightful pen-and-ink illustrations by the author, adding another dimension of good-natured charm to these wide-ranging explorations.
Whatever your level of scientific expertise, chances are you'll derive a great deal of pleasure, stimulation, and information from this unusual and imaginative book. It belongs in the library of anyone curious about the wonders of the scientific universe.

New York Times bestselling author Edward Dolnick brings to light the true story of one of the most pivotal moments in modern intellectual history—when a group of strange, tormented geniuses invented science as we know it, and remade our understanding of the world. Dolnick’s earth-changing story of Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the birth of modern science is at once an entertaining romp through the annals of academic history, in the vein of Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, and a captivating exploration of a defining time for scientific progress, in the tradition of Richard Holmes’ The Age of Wonder.

Zu Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts entfesseln Isaac Newton und Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz eine heftige Debatte, die bis heute von Mathematikern und Philosophen geführt wird: Was ist das, was wir »Zeit« nennen? Thomas de Padova zeichnet das lebendige Bild einer Epoche, in der die Zeit zum heiß diskutierten Gegenstand der Naturwissenschaften wird und Uhren anfangen, unseren Alltag zu bestimmen. Eine fesselnde Entdeckungsreise in die beschleunigte Welt der Moderne.
»Nehmen Sie sich die Zeit und lesen Sie dieses Sachbuchjuwel. Sie werden nie mehr einfach so auf die Uhr schauen.«, SWR, 07.01.2014
»Spannend wie in einem Krimi schildert de Padova die beiden Genies. (...) Um das anschaulich und unterhaltsam geschriebene Sachbuch mit Genuss lesen zu können, braucht man übrigens keine besonderen mathematischen oder physikalischen Kenntnisse. Man muss sich nur Zeit dafür nehmen.«, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 02.01.2014
»Ein wunderbares Buch, das den Leser in eine andere Zeit versetzt und interessante Einblicke in die Anfänge der Wissenschaft liefert.«, Deutschlandfunk, 13.10.2013
»Thomas de Padova versteht es, abwechlungsreich und spannend zu erzählen. Seit langem hat mich kein Sachbuch so angenehm belehrt und vergnügt.«, Spektrum der Wissenschaft
»Eine wunderbar erzählte Doppelbiografie. (...) Für Entdeckerfreudige ein idealer Schmöker zum Start ins neue Jahr.«, KulturSPIEGEL
»De Padova inszeniert aus Philosophie, Kulturgeschichte und Physik einen erkenntnisreichen Showdown; Witz und Alltagsbezug sorgen dafür, dass seine Zeitrecherche nie die Bodenhaftung verliert.«, Philosophie Magazin
»Lesenswert.«, Wiener Zeitung (A), 14.04.2015
»Der Publizist Thomas de Padova hat darüber ein kluges und sehr spannendes Buch geschrieben«, Morgenpost am Sonntag, 23.02.2014
»Lebendig und packend erzählt.«, MDR - Figaro, 23.01.2014
»Das Herausstreichen wissenschaftlicher Entwicklungen vor den Gegebenheiten ihrer Epoche, die Kontextualisierungen von Philosophie und Zeitgeist, von historischer und gegenwärtiger Naturwissenschaft sind die Stärke de Padovas. (...) Das Sachbuch gerät keineswegs zur Plauderei, sondern bleibt kompakt und diszipliniert aufgebaut - gerade so wie ein Uhrwerk.«, Der Standard, 18.12.2013

◎聯合推薦
商業周刊副社長兼總編輯／王文靜
AVEDA 創辦人／朱平
奇幻文化藝術基金會創辦人兼執行長／朱學恆
中央大學認知神經科學研究所所長／洪蘭
台灣大學社會系教授／孫中興
統一星巴克總經理 徐光宇
電視節目主持人 陳文茜
富邦文教基金會執行長 陳藹玲
網路家庭董事長／詹宏志
知名網路趨勢觀察家／劉威麟
王品集團董事長／戴勝益
美國最具影響力暢銷作家葛拉威爾，繼《引爆趨勢》、《決斷2秒間》，
再創話題旋風，本書甫上市即攻占全美最重要媒體書榜第一名！
成功和你想的不一樣！
天賦、家世、學歷、努力還不夠，之所以超群成為「異數」，還牽涉周遭的人和環境。
能不能成為運動明星，要看你幾月出生；數學好不好，要看祖先是不是種稻。
作者引用大量統計科學辯證，大開我們的視野，重新發現「出身」的意義：
誰能成功，多少人能成功，要看我們生活在什麼樣的社會。
想想看，他們的成功背後隱藏了什麼秘密？
加拿大曲棍球代表隊的明星隊伍，40%的球員都是在1月到3月間出生。
披頭四成名前，從1960年到62年，共去了5趟德國漢堡，在一家脫衣舞夜總會，連續開唱270個晚上的搖滾流水席。
1968年，比爾‧蓋茲13歲，他是當時全世界唯一能夠無限使用最先進電腦分時系統的孩子，此後，他連寫了7年的電腦程式。
紐約最頂尖的律師，他們有幾個共同點：早期歐洲移民後代、生於1930年代的猶太人、父母都是成衣工廠的工人。
根據國際測驗的比較研究，日韓港星與台灣學生的數學能力在全球名列前茅，亞洲人天生具有數學優勢，他們的祖先都種稻。
你從未真正看清楚屬於你的成功！
葛拉威爾說：不是最聰明的人就可以成功，正確的決定或努力不懈，也不能保證；
要成功，除了必須有把握「機會」的智慧、善用特有的「文化」遺澤；
必要時，還得脫離部分的身分，擺脫傳統的束縛。