Book Description
A clear, concise and fascinating guide to philosophical thought experiments and how they've shaped our understanding of the world.
Author : Joel Levy
Publisher : Michael O'Mara Books
Page : 189 pages
File Size : 33,69 MB
Release : 2016-09-29
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1782436383
A clear, concise and fascinating guide to philosophical thought experiments and how they've shaped our understanding of the world.
Author : Lewis Carroll
Publisher : Lindhardt og Ringhof
Page : 9 pages
File Size : 39,7 MB
Release : 2021-09-06
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 8726645726
When a tortoise challenges a great Greek hero to use his logic in order to decipher a simple philosophical argument, slight chaos ensues. ‘What the Tortoise Said to Achilles’ is an endless cycle of suppositions and deductions. A refined piece of philosophical writing, Caroll’s discussion was one of the first steps towards paradoxically explaining logical truth. His clever prose makes this novel an essential read for budding philosophers and logic aficionados. Lewis Caroll (1832-1898) was a British author. He was famed for his novel ‘Alice in Wonderland' and its sequel ‘Through the Looking-Glass’. Both of which have been successfully adapted to film and stage. Aside from this, he was also a mathematician, professional photographer, and clergyman. His colorful plotlines, powerful imagery, and endless imagination earned him the title of one of the most notable authors of the nineteenth century. Among his other notable works are the poetic collection "Phantasmagoria and Other Poems", the poem "The Hunting of the Snark", and the fairy novel "Sylvie and Bruno".
Author : Larry Ottman
Publisher :
Page : 132 pages
File Size : 29,14 MB
Release : 2011-02
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 9781882564248
Calculus is the study of the infinite and since much of secondary mathematics is designed to prepare one for the study of calculus, wrestling with the ideas of the infinite, even if informally, is extremely important for a student's mathematical development. That is the purpose of this book. Among the first to discuss these ideas was the Greek philosopher / mathematician Zeno, and not long after him, Archimedes came the closest to "discovering" Calculus without the tools of modern mathematics. Though none of Zeno's actual writings survive, Aristotle recorded accounts of Zeno's thoughts on the infinite, time and space in what have come to be known as Zeno's Paradoxes. One of those specifically involves the idea of a race in which a slower runner is given a head start and investigates the possibilities of the faster runner "catching up." This has come to be known as "Achilles and the Tortoise." These characters are our hosts as we use Geometry Expressions to investigate Archimedes methods, ideas of the infinite, and Zeno's Paradoxes in an introduction to Calculus, without using Calculus.
Author : John D. Barrow
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 41,50 MB
Release : 2007-12-18
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0307428761
For a thousand years, infinity has proven to be a difficult and illuminating challenge for mathematicians and theologians. It certainly is the strangest idea that humans have ever thought. Where did it come from and what is it telling us about our Universe? Can there actually be infinities? Is matter infinitely divisible into ever-smaller pieces? But infinity is also the place where things happen that don't. All manner of strange paradoxes and fantasies characterize an infinite universe. If our Universe is infinite then an infinite number of exact copies of you are, at this very moment, reading an identical sentence on an identical planet somewhere else in the Universe. Now Infinity is the darling of cutting edge research, the measuring stick used by physicists, cosmologists, and mathematicians to determine the accuracy of their theories. From the paradox of Zeno’s arrow to string theory, Cambridge professor John Barrow takes us on a grand tour of this most elusive of ideas and describes with clarifying subtlety how this subject has shaped, and continues to shape, our very sense of the world in which we live. The Infinite Book is a thoroughly entertaining and completely accessible account of the biggest subject of them all–infinity.
Author : Wesley C. Salmon
Publisher : Hackett Publishing
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 33,83 MB
Release : 2001-01-01
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780872205604
A reprint of the Bobbs-Merrill edition of 1970. These essays lead the reader through the land of the wonderful shrinking genie to the warehouse where the infinity machines are kept. By careful examination of a lamp that is switched on and off infinitely many times, or the workings of a machine that prints out an infinite decimal expansion of pi, we begin to understand how it is possible for Achilles to overtake the tortoise. The concepts that form the basis of modern science---space, time, motion, change, infinity---are examined and explored in this edition. Includes an updated bibliography.
Author : Joseph Mazur
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 28,8 MB
Release : 2007
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780525949923
Traces the epic history of Greek philosopher Zeno's yet-unsolved paradox of motion, citing the contributions of top minds to the scientific community's understanding of the elusive basic structure of time and space.
Author : Jayant Burde
Publisher : Motilal Banarsidass
Page : 189 pages
File Size : 36,50 MB
Release : 2019
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 8120841689
This book explores the bizarre but fascinating world of infinity in different disciplines of knowledge; mathematics, science, philosophy and religion. It projects the views of eastern as well as western scholars. This world is not only mysterious but also treacherous and conceals many conundrums such as a multitude of infinities, the mystic's experience of the infinite, conception of God as absolute infinity. The author also discusses many paradoxes relating to space and time. It is interesting to discover that some eastern philosophies try to reconcile two opposite concepts of sunya (zero) and Ananta (the infinite). The author also ventures to address a difficult question: Does infinity exist as a physical reality?
Author : Simon Blackburn
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 349 pages
File Size : 50,43 MB
Release : 2010-09-30
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0199548056
Simon Blackburn presents a selection of his philosophical essays from 1995 to 2010. He offers engaging and illuminating discussions of a wide range of topics, including moral philosophy, the theory of meaning, pragmatism, and the theory of reason and reasoning.
Author : Philippe Cousteau
Publisher : Chronicle Books
Page : 49 pages
File Size : 25,47 MB
Release : 2016-04-05
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 1452154120
"A book about loggerhead sea turtles, and a girl's attempts to help save their babies from man-made light."--
Author : Douglas R. Hofstadter
Publisher : Penguin Group(CA)
Page : 832 pages
File Size : 32,16 MB
Release : 2000
Category : Art and music
ISBN : 9780140289206
'What is a self and how can a self come out of inanimate matter?' This is the riddle that drove Douglas Hofstadter to write this extraordinary book. In order to impart his original and personal view on the core mystery of human existence - our intangible sensation of 'I'-ness - Hofstadter defines the playful yet seemingly paradoxical notion of 'strange loop', and explicates this idea using analogies from many disciplines.