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Energy is typically regarded as understandable, despite its multiple forms of storage and transfer. Entropy, however, is an enigma, in part because of the common view that it represents disorder. That view is flawed and hides entropy’s connection with energy. In fact, macroscopic matter stores internal energy, and that matter’s entropy is determined by how the energy is stored. Energy and entropy are intimately linked. Energy and Entropy: A Dynamic Duo illuminates connections between energy and entropy for students, teachers, and researchers. Conceptual understanding is emphasised where possible through examples, analogies, figures, and key points. Features: Qualitative demonstration tha...
About 120 years ago, James Clerk Maxwell introduced his now legendary hypothetical "demon" as a challenge to the integrity of the second law of thermodynamics. Fascination with the demon persisted throughout the development of statistical and quantum physics, information theory, and computer science--and linkages have been established between Maxwell's demon and each of these disciplines. The demon's seductive quality makes it appealing to physical scientists, engineers, computer scientists, biologists, psychologists, and historians and philosophers of science. Until now its important source material has been scattered throughout diverse journals. This book brings under one cover twenty-five...
Over 130 years ago, James Clerk Maxwell introduced his hypothetical "demon" as a challenge to the scope of the second law of thermodynamics. Fascination with the demon persisted throughout the development of statistical and quantum physics, information theory, and computer science, and links have been established between Maxwell's demon and each of
The book explains the laws of thermodynamics for science buffs and neophytes alike. It has a lively presentation of the historical development of thermodynamics. It also describes how the law follows from the atomic theory of matter with examples of their applicability to such diverse phenomena as the radiation of light from hot bodies, the formation of diamonds from graphite, how blood carries oxygen. the history of the earth, and the laws of energy.
The first full-length biography of a brilliant, self-taught inventor whose innovations in information and energy technology continue to shape our world. The Economist called Stanford R. Ovshinsky (1922–2012) “the Edison of our age,” but this apt comparison doesn't capture the full range of his achievements. As an independent, self-educated inventor, Ovshinsky not only created many important devices but also made fundamental discoveries in materials science. This book offers the first full-length biography of a visionary whose energy and information innovations continue to fuel our post-industrial economy. In The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, Lillian Hoddeson and Peter Garrett tell the story of...
The Skin of the System objects to the idea that there is only one modernitythat of liberal capitalism. Starting from the simple conviction that whatever else East German socialism was, it was real, this book focuses on what made historical socialism different from social systems in the West. In this way, the study elicits the general question: what must we think in order to think an other system at all? To approach this question, Robinson turns to the remarkable writer Franz Fühmann, the East German who most single-mindedly dedicated himself to understanding what it means to transform from fascism to socialism. Fühmann's own serial loyalties to Hitler and Stalin inform his existential meditations on change and difference. By placing Fühmann's politically alert and intensely personal literary inventions in the context of an inquiry into radical social rupture, The Skin of the System wrests the brutal materiality of twentieth-century socialism from attempts to provincialize both its desires and its failures as antimodern ideological follies.
This entertaining, eye-opening account of how the laws of thermodynamics are essential to understanding the world today—from refrigeration and jet engines to calorie counting and global warming—is “a lesson in how to do popular science right” (Kirkus Reviews). Einstein’s Fridge tells the incredible epic story of the scientists who, over two centuries, harnessed the power of heat and ice and formulated a theory essential to comprehending our universe. “Although thermodynamics has been studied for hundreds of years…few nonscientists appreciate how its principles have shaped the modern world” (Scientific American). Thermodynamics—the branch of physics that deals with energy an...
A Science journalist reveals the existence of the world's first quantum computer--created by a team of Silicon Valley researchers and able to simultaneously compute all possible solutions to a problem, making it the most powerful computer in the world.
The book is designed to highlight the utility of supramolecular systems in diverse areas such as sensing of ionic and molecular analytes, aggregation, artificial molecular machines, biology, and medicine. The synthetic chemistry of a diverse set of supramolecules encompassing various supramolecular interactions involved in driving macrocyclic architectures is discussed. Attempts have been made to cover unique features of macrocycles viz. control over shape, size, and valency along with supramolecular interactions, which direct complex supramolecular systems. The book also provides a discussion on the similarity between macrocyclic host-guest systems and biomolecules, which lay the foundation of building modern artificial molecular motors and switches like protein machines for application in diverse areas. The authors hope that the book will appeal to a wider audience of students and researchers in academics and/or industries.
The HOPE Supplement contains the proceedings of the History of Political Economy Conference held at Duke in April, 1996. The conference and the volume are devoted to the history of economic thought of recent, on-going economics. Traditionally, historian