[PDF] A World Beyond Physics eBook

Author : Stuart A. Kauffman
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 11,3 MB
Release : 2019-04-01
Category : Science
ISBN : 0190871342

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How did life start? Is the evolution of life describable by any physics-like laws? Stuart Kauffman's latest book offers an explanation-beyond what the laws of physics can explain-of the progression from a complex chemical environment to molecular reproduction, metabolism and to early protocells, and further evolution to what we recognize as life. Among the estimated one hundred billion solar systems in the known universe, evolving life is surely abundant. That evolution is a process of "becoming" in each case. Since Newton, we have turned to physics to assess reality. But physics alone cannot tell us where we came from, how we arrived, and why our world has evolved past the point of unicellular organisms to an extremely complex biosphere. Building on concepts from his work as a complex systems researcher at the Santa Fe Institute, Kauffman focuses in particular on the idea of cells constructing themselves and introduces concepts such as "constraint closure." Living systems are defined by the concept of "organization" which has not been focused on in enough in previous works. Cells are autopoetic systems that build themselves: they literally construct their own constraints on the release of energy into a few degrees of freedom that constitutes the very thermodynamic work by which they build their own self creating constraints. Living cells are "machines" that construct and assemble their own working parts. The emergence of such systems-the origin of life problem-was probably a spontaneous phase transition to self-reproduction in complex enough prebiotic systems. The resulting protocells were capable of Darwin's heritable variation, hence open-ended evolution by natural selection. Evolution propagates this burgeoning organization. Evolving living creatures, by existing, create new niches into which yet further new creatures can emerge. If life is abundant in the universe, this self-constructing, propagating, exploding diversity takes us beyond physics to biospheres everywhere.

Author : Dara O Briain
Publisher : Scholastic UK
Page : 311 pages
File Size : 48,10 MB
Release : 2018-10-04
Category :
ISBN : 1407191322

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A brand-new book from the UK and Ireland's best-loved comedian, Dara O Briain! So you think everyday life is boring?! WHAT?! Hoo-ee, are you wrong! No, seriously. There's so much EXTRAORDINARY science going on right from the minute you wake up to when you go to sleep. Actually, while you're asleep, too. Science is a non-stop EVERYWHERE, everything adventure with some incredibly cool stuff going on, too. You've got your incredible brain, which has worked out how to read these words and make playing a video game feel as EXCITING as real life; you've got aeroplanes that can somehow get from the ground into the sky with all those people AND their luggage on board; you've got electricity and artificial intelligence and GPS and buses coming in threes (that's science too) and LOADS more. In Secret Science, Dara O Briain takes you on a journey from the comfort of your favourite chair to the incredible science behind your everyday life and on into the future!

Author : Stuart A. Kauffman
Publisher : ReadHowYouWant.com
Page : 534 pages
File Size : 16,28 MB
Release : 2010-11-29
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN : 1458722066

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Consider the complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awesome to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell at a stroke, or to realize that it evolved with no Almighty Hand, but arose on its own in the c...

Author : Stuart A. Kauffman
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 26,8 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Science
ISBN : 0199390452

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Much of Stuart Kauffman's work in the philosophy of evolutionary biology has centered on the question of what he calls "prestatability" in evolution: that is, whether or not science can precisely predict the future development of biological features in organisms, using a singular "FinalTheory" of evolution. In this book, Kauffman argues that the development of life on earth is not prestatable, because no theory could ever fully account for the limitless variability of evolution. He believes that the biological universe's primary trait is that it is creative, and that acknowledgingthis creativity will lead to a radically different way in which humans view themselves and all other living beings. It is an argument against Reductive Materialism.Kauffman also asserts that man's Modern preoccupation to explain all things with scientific law has deadened our creative natures. In his words, he aims for the book to be "one that revises our scientific world view of the universe as entirely entailed by law." Instead, he advocates an approach toscience that accounts for "unprestatable" creativity, thus allowing humans to fully realize their creative selves. The book will build off the ideas developed in his last two works, Reinventing the Sacred and Investigations. Incorporating philosophers like Kant and Descartes, as well as the scienceof Newton and Darwin, Humanity in a Creative Universe is Stuart Kauffman's argument for a creative and unpredictable view of modern science.

Author : Nick Herbert
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 35,99 MB
Release : 2011-09-21
Category : Science
ISBN : 030780674X

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This clearly explained layman's introduction to quantum physics is an accessible excursion into metaphysics and the meaning of reality. Herbert exposes the quantum world and the scientific and philosophical controversy about its interpretation.

Author : Philip Ball
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 382 pages
File Size : 46,96 MB
Release : 2018-10-18
Category : Science
ISBN : 022655838X

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“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that it’s not really telling us that “weird” things happen out of sight, on the tiniest level, in the atomic world: rather, everything is quantum. But if quantum mechanics is correct, what seems obvious and right in our everyday world is built on foundations that don’t seem obvious or right at all—or even possible. An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what quantum physics really means—and what it doesn’t. Science writer Philip Ball offers an up-to-date, accessible account of the quest to come to grips with the most fundamental theory of physical reality, and to explain how its counterintuitive principles underpin the world we experience. Over the past decade it has become clear that quantum physics is less a theory about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information and knowledge—about what can be known, and how we can know it. Discoveries and experiments over the past few decades have called into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and, ultimately, of knowledge itself. The quantum world Ball shows us isn’t a different world. It is our world, and if anything deserves to be called “weird,” it’s us.

Author : Michael Silberstein
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 445 pages
File Size : 49,7 MB
Release : 2018-02-02
Category : Science
ISBN : 0192533835

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Theoretical physics and foundations of physics have not made much progress in the last few decades. Whether we are talking about unifying general relativity and quantum field theory (quantum gravity), explaining so-called dark energy and dark matter (cosmology), or the interpretation and implications of quantum mechanics and relativity, there is no consensus in sight. In addition, both enterprises are deeply puzzled about various facets of time including above all, time as experienced. The authors argue that, across the board, this impasse is the result of the "dynamical universe paradigm," the idea that reality is fundamentally made up of physical entities that evolve in time from some initial state according to dynamical laws. Thus, in the dynamical universe, the initial conditions plus the dynamical laws explain everything else going exclusively forward in time. In cosmology, for example, the initial conditions reside in the Big Bang and the dynamical law is supplied by general relativity. Accordingly, the present state of the universe is explained exclusively by its past. This book offers a completely new paradigm (called Relational Blockworld), whereby the past, present and future co-determine each other via "adynamical global constraints," such as the least action principle. Accordingly, the future is just as important for explaining the present as is the past. Most of the book is devoted to showing how Relational Blockworld resolves many of the current conundrums of both theoretical physics and foundations of physics, including the mystery of time as experienced and how that experience relates to the block universe.

Author : I.-Juliana Christy
Publisher : World Scientific
Page : 366 pages
File Size : 36,56 MB
Release : 2013
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9814460257

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Robert F Christy was a fascinating physicist who was one of the key players in some of the most dramatic events of the 20th century.He was one of Oppenheimer''s students, whom Oppenheimer hailed as OC one of the best in the world.OCO He was a co-creator of the world''s first nuclear reactor and the first atom bombs, of which the most practical design was called the OC Christy Gadget.OCO Later, he became a leader in the effort to contain nuclear proliferation, leading up to the SALT talks, and headed a study on long-term health effects of radiation crucial for medical safety standards. He also made pioneering contributions in the field of astrophysics, working on the variable stars (Cepheids) that are key distance indicators in the universe.Robert was equally fascinating as a person. He remarried at nearly 60 to an astrophysicist 26 years younger from some 6,000 miles initial separation. They had two daughters late in his life. Robert stayed active both professionally and physically into his nineties. He would still gallop on his horse at the age of 93.This biography is brought alive not only with words, but also with the many treasured photographs of Robert, his family, and his colleagues.

Author : Amadeo F. Giannini
Publisher : Health Research Books
Page : 236 pages
File Size : 21,54 MB
Release : 1996-09
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780787303471

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1959 Physical continuity of the universe. Contents: the Changing Scene; Extrasensory Perception; Connected Universe; Modern Columbus Seeks Queen Isabella; Disclosing Southern Land Corridor into the Heavens Above; Stratosphere Revelations; Journey.

Author : Eduardo de Campos Valadares
Publisher : Prentice Hall
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 49,30 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Science
ISBN :

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Curious people of all ages, teachers, and students will love this unique book. With many hands-on experiments based on simple items such as balloons, mirrors, and flashlights, a focus on creativity, perception, and innovation, this open-ended book covers a wide range of topics, from everyday phenomena to cutting-edge technology demonstrated in the kitchen. In a recent editorial in Chemical and Engineering News, Dick Zare clearly stated what our aspirations should be: '...to give each student the opportunity to explore and to pursue the answers to open-ended questions...Let's work harder to avoid telling students too much about everything, and instead encourage them to become independent thinkers.' This book will help the reader to become that independent thinker.