Models of Time and Space from Astrophysics and World Cultures


Book Description

Models of Time and Space from Astrophysics and World Cultures explores how our conceptions of time, space, and the physical universe have evolved across cultures throughout the centuries. Developed with a humanistic approach, this book blends historical sources, biographical profiles of exceptional scientists, and the latest discoveries in both astrophysics and particle physics. This rich read describes the incredible insights and ultimate limits of our knowledge, the physical universe, and how ideas old and new have converged, across the world, to build our current understanding of reality. From the Large Hadron Collider to the James Webb Space Telescope, we have mapped the universe from the smallest to largest scales; allowing us to gain fundamental knowledge that has transformed our understanding of the universe. The chapters herein will teach you about dark matter and dark energy, gravitational waves and other complex parts of the cosmos. Along the way, you will learn a thing or two about quantum mechanics, parallel universes, and the ultimate boundaries of the observable universe. This book cultivates insight from a variety of cultural traditions, including perspectives from both modern and ancient cultures, in order to show how our modern conceptions of space and time have arisen from the ongoing explorations within ancient world civilizations. It is a valuable, intriguing and insightful volume for those interested in the fields of historical astronomy and cultural astronomy, as well as for anyone interested in learning about the latest finds from the field of physics and astrophysics.




Models of Time and Space from Astrophysics and World Cultures


Book Description

Models of Time and Space from Astrophysics and World Cultures explores how our conceptions of time, space, and the physical universe have evolved across cultures throughout the centuries. Developed with a humanistic approach, this book blends historical sources, biographical profiles of exceptional scientists, and the latest discoveries in both astrophysics and particle physics. This rich read describes the incredible insights and ultimate limits of our knowledge, the physical universe, and how ideas old and new have converged, across the world, to build our current understanding of reality. From the Large Hadron Collider to the James Webb Space Telescope, we have mapped the universe from the smallest to largest scales; allowing us to gain fundamental knowledge that has transformed our understanding of the universe. The chapters herein will teach you about dark matter and dark energy, gravitational waves and other complex parts of the cosmos. Along the way, you will learn a thing or two about quantum mechanics, parallel universes, and the ultimate boundaries of the observable universe. This book cultivates insight from a variety of cultural traditions, including perspectives from both modern and ancient cultures, in order to show how our modern conceptions of space and time have arisen from the ongoing explorations within ancient world civilizations. It is a valuable, intriguing and insightful volume for those interested in the fields of historical astronomy and cultural astronomy, as well as for anyone interested in learning about the latest finds from the field of physics and astrophysics.




Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases XXVI


Book Description

Within the last three decades, information modelling and knowledge bases have become essential subjects, not only for academic communities related to information systems and computer science, but also for businesses where information technology is applied. This book presents the proceedings of EJC 2014, the 24th International Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases, held in Kiel, Germany, in June 2014. The main themes of the conference were: conceptual modelling, including modelling and specification languages, domain specific conceptual modelling, and validating and communicating conceptual models; knowledge and information modelling and discovery, including knowledge representation and knowledge management, advanced data mining and analysis methods, as well as information recognition and information modelling; linguistics modelling; cross-cultural communication and social computing; environmental modelling; and multimedia data modelling and systems, which includes modelling multimedia information and knowledge, content-based multimedia data management, content-based multimedia retrieval as well as privacy and context enhancing technologies. This book will be of interest to all those who wish to keep abreast of new developments in the field of information modelling and knowledge bases.




The Disordered Cosmos


Book Description

From a star theoretical physicist, a journey into the world of particle physics and the cosmos—and a call for a more liberatory practice of science. Winner of the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology A Finalist for the 2022 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A Smithsonian Magazine Best Science Book of 2021 A Symmetry Magazine Top 10 Physics Book of 2021 An Entropy Magazine Best Nonfiction Book of 2020-2021 A Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 A Booklist Top 10 Sci-Tech Book of the Year In The Disordered Cosmos, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein shares her love for physics, from the Standard Model of Particle Physics and what lies beyond it, to the physics of melanin in skin, to the latest theories of dark matter—along with a perspective informed by history, politics, and the wisdom of Star Trek. One of the leading physicists of her generation, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is also one of fewer than one hundred Black American women to earn a PhD from a department of physics. Her vision of the cosmos is vibrant, buoyantly nontraditional, and grounded in Black and queer feminist lineages. Dr. Prescod-Weinstein urges us to recognize how science, like most fields, is rife with racism, misogyny, and other forms of oppression. She lays out a bold new approach to science and society, beginning with the belief that we all have a fundamental right to know and love the night sky. The Disordered Cosmos dreams into existence a world that allows everyone to experience and understand the wonders of the universe.




The Power of Stars


Book Description

Completely revised and updated, this new edition provides a readable, beautifully illustrated journey through world cultures and the vibrant array of sky mythology, creation stories, models of the universe, temples and skyscrapers that each culture has created to celebrate and respond to the power of the night sky. Sections on the archaeoastronomy of South Asia and South East Asia have been expanded, with original photography and new research on temple alignments in Southern India, and new material describing the astronomical practices of Indonesia, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries. Beautiful photographs of temples in India and Asia have been added, as well as new diagrams explaining the alignment of these structures and the astronomical underpinnings of temples within the Pallava and Chola cultures. From new fieldwork in the Four Corners region of North America, Dr. Penprase has included accounts of Pueblo skywatching and photographs of ceremonial kivas that help elucidate the rich astronomical knowledge of the Pueblo people. The popular “Archaeoastronomy of Skyscrapers” section of the book has been updated as well, with new interpretations of skyscrapers in Indonesia, Taiwan and China.With the rapid pace of discovery in astronomy and astrophysics, entirely new perspectives are emerging about dark matter, inflation and the future of the universe. The Power of Stars puts these discoveries in context and describes how they fit into the modern perspective of cosmology, which has arisen from the universal human response to the sky that has inspired both ancient and modern cultures.




The End of Everything


Book Description

Mack looks at five ways the universe could end, and the lessons each scenario reveals about the most important concepts in cosmology. --From publisher description.




On the Heavens


Book Description

On the Heavens (Greek: Περὶ οὐρανοῦ, Latin: De Caelo or De Caelo et Mundo) is Aristotle’s chief cosmological treatise: written in 350 BC it contains his astronomical theory and his ideas on the concrete workings of the terrestrial world. It should not be confused with the spurious work On the Universe (De mundo, also known as On the Cosmos).




STEM Education for the 21st Century


Book Description

This book chronicles the revolution in STEM teaching and learning that has arisen from a convergence of educational research, emerging technologies, and innovative ways of structuring both the physical space and classroom activities in STEM higher education. Beginning with a historical overview of US higher education and an overview of diversity in STEM in the US, the book sets a context in which our present-day innovation in science and technology urgently needs to provide more diversity and inclusion within STEM fields. Research-validated pedagogies using active learning and new types of research-based curriculum is transforming how physics, biology and other fields are taught in leading universities, and the book gives profiles of leading innovators in science education and examples of exciting new research-based courses taking root in US institutions. The book includes interviews with leading scientists and educators, case studies of new courses and new institutions, and descriptions of site visits where new trends in 21st STEM education are being developed. The book also takes the reader into innovative learning environments in engineering where students are empowered by emerging technologies to develop new creative capacity in their STEM education, through new centers for design thinking and liberal arts-based engineering. Equally innovative are new conceptual frameworks for course design and learning, and the book explores the concepts of Scientific Teaching, Backward Course Design, Threshold Concepts and Learning Taxonomies in a systematic way with examples from diverse scientific fields. Finally, the book takes the reader inside the leading centers for online education, including Udacity, Coursera and EdX, interviews the leaders and founders of MOOC technology, and gives a sense of how online education is evolving and what this means for STEM education. This book provides a broad and deep exploration into the historical context of science education and into some of the cutting-edge innovations that are reshaping how leading universities teach science and engineering. The emergence of exponentially advancing technologies such as synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and materials sciences has been described as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the book explores how these technologies will shape our future will bring a transformation of STEM curriculum that can help students solve many the most urgent problems facing our world and society.




Cosmic Horizons


Book Description

Leading scientists offer a collection of essays that furnish illuminating explanations of recent discoveries in modern astrophysics--from the Big Bang to black holes--the possibility of life on other worlds, and the emerging technologies that make such research possible, accompanied by incisive profiles of such key figures as Carl Sagan and Georges Lemaetre. Original.




A Quantum Life


Book Description

In this inspiring coming-of-age memoir, a world-renowned astrophysicist emerges from an impoverished childhood and crime-filled adolescence to ascend through the top ranks of research physics. Navigating poverty, violence, and instability, a young James Plummer had two guiding stars-a genius IQ and a love of science. But a bookish nerd was a soft target in his community, where James faced years of bullying and abuse. As he struggled to survive his childhood in some of the country's toughest urban neighborhoods in New Orleans, Houston, and LA, and later in the equally poor backwoods of Mississippi, he adopted the persona of "gangsta nerd"-dealing weed in juke joints while winning state science fairs with computer programs that model Einstein's theory of relativity. Once admitted to the elite physics PhD program at Stanford University, James found himself pulled between the promise of a bright future and a dangerous crack cocaine habit he developed in college. With the encouragement of his mentor and the sole Black professor in the physics department, James confronted his personal demons as well as the entrenched racism and classism of the scientific establishment. When he finally seized his dream of a life in astrophysics, he adopted a new name, Hakeem Muata Oluseyi, to honor his African ancestors. Alternately heartbreaking and hopeful, A QUANTUM LIFE narrates one man's remarkable quest across an ever-expanding universe filled with entanglement and choice.




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