Bücher der Reihe Princeton Science Library

What is the best way to photograph a speeding bullet? Why does light move through glass in the least amount of time possible? How can lost hikers find their way out of a forest? What will rainbows look like in the future? Why do soap bubbles have a shape that gives them the least area? By combining the mathematical history of extrema with contemporary examples, Paul J. Nahin answers these intriguing questions and more in this engaging and witty volume. He shows how life often works at the extremes--with values becoming as small (or as large) as possible--and how mathematicians over the centuries have struggled to calculate these problems of minima and maxima. From medieval writings to the development of modern calculus to the current field of optimization, Nahin tells the story of Dido's problem, Fermat and Descartes, Torricelli, Bishop Berkeley, Goldschmidt, and more. Along the way, he explores how to build the shortest bridge possible between two towns, how to shop for garbage bags, how to vary speed during a race, and how to make the perfect basketball shot. Written in a conversational tone and requiring only an early undergraduate level of mathematical knowledge, When Least Is Best is full of fascinating examples and ready-to-try-at-home experiments. This is the first book on optimization written for a wide audience, and math enthusiasts of all backgrounds will delight in its lively topics.

This is a rare and much-needed book: a concise but comprehensive account of quantum mechanics for popular science readers written by a respected physicist. Sam Treiman--internationally renowned for his work in particle physics--makes quantum mechanics accessible to nonspecialists. Combining mastery of the material with clear, elegant prose and infectious enthusiasm, he conveys the substance, methods, and profound oddities of the field. Treiman begins with an overview of quantum mechanics. He sketches the early development of the field by Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, and others, and he makes clear how the quantum outlook flies in the face of common sense. As he explains, the quantum world is intrinsically probabilistic. For example, a particle is not in general in some particular place at a given instant, nor does it have a definite momentum. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, there is a limit to how well both location and momentum can be specified simultaneously. In addition, particles can move through barriers and otherwise move in regions of space that are forbidden by classical mechanics. If a particle has a choice of different paths, it pursues all of them at once. Particles display wave-like characteristics and waves show particle-like characteristics. Treiman pays special attention to the more fundamental wave outlook and its expression in quantum field theory. He deals here with the remarkable fact that all the particles of a given species are strictly identical, and with the unnerving fact that particles can be created and destroyed. As Treiman introduces us to these and other wonders, he also touches--without resolution--on some of the deep philosophical problems of quantum mechanics, notably how probabilities become facts. Weaving together impeccable and up-to-date science, engaging writing, and a talent for clear explanation honed over Treiman's distinguished career as a physicist and teacher, The Odd Quantum is a remarkable survey of a field that changed the course of modern scientific and philosophical thought.

Intended for all readers--including magicians, detectives, musicians, orthopedic surgeons, and anthropologists--this book offers a thorough account of that most intriguing and most human of appendages: the hand. In this illustrated work, John Napier explores a wide range of absorbing subjects such as fingerprints, handedness, gestures, fossil remains, and the making and using of tools.

This classic work in the philosophy of physical science is an incisive and readable account of the scientific method. Pierre Duhem was one of the great figures in French science, a devoted teacher, and a distinguished scholar of the history and philosophy of science. This book represents his most mature thought on a wide range of topics.

What is life? Is it just the biologically familiar - birds, trees, snails, people - or is it an infinitely complex set of patterns that a computer could simulate? This book outlines many of the challenges and controversies involved in the dynamic and curious science of artificial life.

Using shells to explore major areas of biology, the author of this celebration of the shell examines such issues as the evolution of shells and their function. He demonstrates how shells provide insight into the lives of animals of this era, as well as those of the distant past.

Astronomers believe that a supernova is a massive explosion signaling the death of a star, causing a cosmic recycling of the chemical elements and leaving behind a pulsar, black hole, or nothing at all. This book tells how early astronomers identified supernovae, and how later scientists came to their current understanding.

Chemists have created superconducting ceramics for brain scanners, designed liquid crystal flat screens for televisions and watch displays, and made fabrics that change color while you wear them. This book lets the lay reader into the world of modern chemistry.

This work looks at polyominoes, invented by Solomon Golomb, which have contributed to the study of combinatorial geometry and tiling theory. This work takes readers on a mathematical journey through the world of the polyomino.

Presenting the story of Poincare's work, this book traces the history of attempts to solve the problems of celestial mechanics posed in Isaac Newton's "Principia" in 1686. It introduces the people whose ideas led to the field called nonlinear dynamics.

After his famous visit to the Galapagos Islands, Darwin speculated that "e;one might fancy that, from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends."e; This book is the classic account of how much we have since learned about the evolution of these remarkable birds. Based upon over a decade's research, Grant shows how interspecific competition and natural selection act strongly enough on contemporary populations to produce observable and measurable evolutionary change. In this new edition, Grant outlines new discoveries made in the thirteen years since the book's publication. Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches is an extraordinary account of evolution in action.Originally published in 1986.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

How do scientists look at chance, or randomness, and chaos in physical systems? This book answers this question for a general audience.

More than fifty illustrations highlight a provocative study tracing the origins of culture as man now knows it back to the early biological evolution of animals.

There has been an explosive increase in scientists' ability to explain the structure and functioning of the human brain. This title elucidates knowledge of the human brain, taking an interdisciplinary approach and explaining in layman's terms the complex theories and scientific breakthroughs.

How is our fate linked to the earth's creatures, and the cycle of flourishing and extinction? Does human activity accelerate extinction? And what really causes it? This account of the widespread reduction of the world's wildlife examines humankind's role in the larger life cycles of the earth, composing a provocative general theory of extinction.

JBS Haldane (1892-1964), one of the founders of the science of population genetics, was also one of the greatest practitioners of the art of explaining science to the layperson. This title provides accessible introduction to the genetical basis of evolution by natural selection.

Are the problems we define and pursue freely chosen according to our conscious interests? Or does the historical process itself determine which phenomena merit examination at any one time? This title discusses these issues in the far-ranging philosophical terms, while illustrating them with specific examples.

Explores the complex problem of mental life. This book argues that the roots of creativity for lie not in consciousness, but in the long unconscious work of incubation, and in the unconscious aesthetic selection of ideas that thereby pass into consciousness.