Hgs Molecular Structure Models: Organic Chemistry
by Benjamin Maruzen
from Addison Wesley Publishing Company
Particle Physics: A Very Short Introduction
by Frank Close
from Oxford University Press, USA
In Particle Physics: A Very Short Introduction, best-selling author Frank Close provides a compelling and lively introduction to the fundamental particles that make up the universe. The book begins with a guide to what matter is made up of and how it evolved, and goes on to describe the fascinating and cutting-edge techniques used to study it. The author discusses particles such as quarks, electrons, and the neutrino, and exotic matter and antimatter. He also investigates the forces of nature, accelerators and detectors, and the intriguing future of particle physics. This book is essential reading for general readers interested in popular science, students of physics, and scientists at all levels.
Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos
by Isaac Asimov
from Plume
The legendary Isaac Asimov starts what is perhaps the finest of all his books with a simple query: How finely can a piece of matter be divided? But like many simple questions, this one leads readers on a far-flung quest for a final answer, a search that encompasses such fascinating phenomena as light and electricity and their components--strange but real bits of matter that challenge our assumptions about the very nature of time and space. 40 illustrations.
Absorption and Scattering of Light by Small Particles (Wiley Science Paperback Series)
by Craig F. Bohren
from Wiley-Interscience
Absorption and Scattering of Light by Small Particles
Treating absorption and scattering in equal measure, this self-contained, interdisciplinary study examines and illustrates how small particles absorb and scatter light. The authors emphasize that any discussion of the optical behavior of small particles is inseparable from a full understanding of the optical behavior of the parent material-bulk matter. To divorce one concept from the other is to render any study on scattering theory seriously incomplete.
Special features and important topics covered in this book include:
* Classical theories of optical properties based on idealized models
* Measurements for three representative materials: magnesium oxide, aluminum, and water
* An extensive discussion of electromagnetic theory
* Numerous exact and approximate solutions to various scattering problems
* Examples and applications from physics, astrophysics, atmospheric physics, and biophysics
* Some 500 references emphasizing work done since Kerker's 1969 work on scattering theory
* Computer programs for calculating scattering by spheres, coated spheres, and infinite cylinders
Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness
by Roger Penrose
from Oxford University Press, USA
A New York Times bestseller when it appeared in 1989, Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind was universally hailed as a marvelous survey of modern physics as well as a brilliant reflection on the human mind, offering a new perspective on the scientific landscape and a visionary glimpse of the possible future of science. Now, in Shadows of the Mind, Penrose offers another exhilarating look at modern science as he mounts an even more powerful attack on artificial intelligence. But perhaps more important, in this volume he points the way to a new science, one that may eventually explain the physical basis of the human mind.
Penrose contends that some aspects of the human mind lie beyond computation. This is not a religious argument (that the mind is something other than physical) nor is it based on the brain's vast complexity (the weather is immensely complex, says Penrose, but it is still a computable thing, at least in theory). Instead, he provides powerful arguments to support his conclusion that there is something in the conscious activity of the brain that transcends computation--and will find no explanation in terms of present-day science. To illuminate what he believes this "something" might be, and to suggest where a new physics must proceed so that we may understand it, Penrose cuts a wide swathe through modern science, providing penetrating looks at everything from Turing machines (computers programmed from artificial intelligence) to the implications of Godel's theorem maintaining that conscious thinking must indeed involve ingredients that cannot adequately be stimulated by mere computation. Of particular interest is Penrose's extensive examination of quantum mechanics, which introduces some new ideas that differ markedly from those advanced in The Emperor's New Mind, especially concerning the mysterious interface where classical and quantum physics meet. But perhaps the most interesting wrinkle in Shadows of the Mind is Penrose's excursion into microbiology, where he examines cytoskeletons and microtubules, minute substructures lying deep within the brain's neurons. (He argues that microtubules--not neurons--may indeed be the basic units of the brain, which, if nothing else, would dramatically increase the brain's computational power.) Furthermore, he contends that in consciousness some kind of global quantum state must take place across large areas of the brain, and that it within microtubules that these collective quantum effects are most likely to reside.
For physics to accommodate something that is as foreign to our current physical picture as is the phenomenon of consciousness, we must expect a profound change--one that alters the very underpinnings of our philosophical viewpoint as to the nature of reality. Shadows of the Mind provides an illuminating look at where these profound changes may take place and what our future understanding of the world may be.
Binding and Kinetics for Molecular Biologists
by James A. Goodrich
from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
This handbook is a practical guide to the principles of quantitative analysis in biological experiments. The material is primarily aimed at working molecular biologists, but the scope and clarity of presentation make it equally suitable as an introduction for students. Topics covered range from the basics such as measuring the concentrations of macromolecules through considerations of binding constants and the kinetics of molecular interactions, and ends with a consideration of data analysis. This handbook is a practical guide to the principles of quantitative analysis in biological experiments. The material is primarily aimed at working molecular biologists, but the scope and clarity of presentation make it equally suitable as an introduction for students. Topics covered range from the basics such as measuring the concentrations of macromolecules through considerations of binding constants and the kinetics of molecular interactions, and ends with a consideration of data analysis.
From the Publisher
This title is part of a series of books, published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, aimed at postgraduates and researchers in the life sciences. The books provide key practical advice and data to make your life in the lab as easy as possible. The books are:
At the Bench (9780879697082);
At the Helm (9780879695835);
Binding and Kinetics for Molecular Biologists (9780879697365);
Experimental Design for Biologists (9780879697358);
Lab Dynamics (9780879697419);
Lab Math (9780879696344);
Lab Ref (9780879696306);
Lab Ref, Volume 2 (9780879698157)
More Related Titles: Basic Methods in Microscopy
Epigenetics
Imaging in Neuroscience and Development: A Laboratory Manual
Safety Sense: A Laboratory Guide, 2nd Edition
Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom
by Ben Hammersley
from O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Perhaps the most explosive technological trend over the past two years has been blogging. As a matter of fact, it's been reported that the number of blogs during that time has grown from 100,000 to 4.8 million-with no end to this growth in sight. What's the technology that makes blogging tick? The answer is RSS--a format that allows bloggers to offer XML-based feeds of their content. It's also the same technology that's incorporated into the websites of media outlets so they can offer material (headlines, links, articles, etc.) syndicated by other sites. As the main technology behind this rapidly growing field of content syndication, RSS is constantly evolving to keep pace with worldwide demand. That's where Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom steps in. It provides bloggers, web developers, and programmers with a thorough explanation of syndication in general and the most popular technologies used to develop feeds. This book not only highlights all the new features of RSS 2.0-the most recent RSS specification-but also offers complete coverage of its close second in the XML-feed arena, Atom. The book has been exhaustively revised to explain:
- metadata interpretation
- the different forms of content syndication
- the increasing use of web services
- how to use popular RSS news aggregators on the market
Theoretical Microfluidics (Oxford Master Series in Physics)
by Henrik Bruus
from Oxford University Press, USA
Microfluidics is a young and rapidly expanding scientific discipline, which deals with fluids and solutions in miniaturized systems, the so-called lab-on-a-chip systems. It has applications in chemical engineering, pharmaceutics, biotechnology and medicine. As the lab-on-a-chip systems grow in complexity, a proper theoretical understanding becomes increasingly important.
The basic idea of the book is to provide a self-contained formulation of the theoretical framework of microfluidics, and at the same time give physical motivation and example from lab-on-a-chip technology. After three chapters introducing microfluidics, the governing questions for mass, momentum and energy, and some basic flow solutions, the following 14 chapters treat hydraulic resistance/compliance, diffusion/dispersion, time-dependent flow, capillarity, electro-and magneto-hydydrodynamics, thermal transport, two-phase flow, complex flow patterns and acousto-fluidics, as well as the new fields of opto-and nano-fluidics. Throughout the book simple models with analytical solutions are presented to provide the student with a thorough physical understanding of order of magnitudes and various selected micorfluidic phenomena and devices.
The book grew out of a set of well-tested lecture notes. It is with its many pedagogical exercises designed as a textbook for an advanced undergraduate or first-year graduate course. IT is also well suited for self-study.
Why Things Break: Understanding the World By the Way It Comes Apart
by Mark Eberhart
from Three Rivers Press
Did you know—
• It took more than an iceberg to sink the Titanic.
• The Challenger disaster was predicted.
• Unbreakable glass dinnerware had its origin in railroad lanterns.
• A football team cannot lose momentum.
• Mercury thermometers are prohibited on airplanes for a crucial reason.
• Kryptonite bicycle locks are easily broken.
“Things fall apart” is more than a poetic insight—it is a fundamental property of the physical world. Why Things Break explores the fascinating question of what holds things together (for a while), what breaks them apart, and why the answers have a direct bearing on our everyday lives.
When Mark Eberhart was growing up in the 1960s, he learned that splitting an atom leads to a terrible explosion—which prompted him to worry that when he cut into a stick of butter, he would inadvertently unleash a nuclear cataclysm. Years later, as a chemistry professor, he remembered this childhood fear when he began to ponder the fact that we know more about how to split an atom than we do about how a pane of glass breaks.
In Why Things Break, Eberhart leads us on a remarkable and entertaining exploration of all the cracks, clefts, fissures, and faults examined in the field of materials science and the many astonishing discoveries that have been made about everything from the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger to the crashing of your hard drive. Understanding why things break is crucial to modern life on every level, from personal safety to macroeconomics, but as Eberhart reveals here, it is also an area of cutting-edge science that is as provocative as it is illuminating.
“An engaging personal account not just of the physics and chemistry of materials but of the ethics, economics, and politics of innovation, with delightful bonuses on topics from the origins of ‘ghostly’ noises in old houses to the amazing coevolution of armor and armor-piercing projectiles. If it ain’t broke, Mark Eberhart can tell you why—and explain equally well why a shatterproof world remains beyond our reach.”
—Edward Tenner, author of Our Own Devices and Why Things Bite Back
“I don’t remember a book that has taught me so much, nor previously encountering a teacher like the marvelous Mark Eberhart, who in Why Things Break provides enlightening and thoroughly captivating scientific explanations of subjects ranging from the structural failures leading to the sinking of the Titanic to everyday, no-less-fascinating topics such as the reason why, even at the same temperature, winter days always seem so much colder in Boston than in Denver.”—Richard Restak, M.D., author of Mozart’s Brain and The Fighter Pilot
“Eberhart brings his insights to the reader by weaving personal anecdotes—from his childhood fear that cutting a stick of butter would release the energy of the atoms within to his arrival in Boston for an interview with MIT without a suitable winter coat—into a fascinating discussion of the forces that hold atoms and molecules together. A lively, unvarnished look at chemistry on the cutting edge.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Molecules: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
by Philip Ball
from Oxford University Press, USA
The processes in a single living cell are akin to that of a city teeming with molecular inhabitants that move, communicate, cooperate, and compete. In this Very Short Introduction, Philip Ball explores the role of the molecule in and around us--how, for example, a single fertilized egg can grow into a multi-celled Mozart, what makes spider's silk insoluble in the morning dew, and how this molecular dynamism is being captured in the laboratory, promising to reinvent chemistry as the central creative science of the century.
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