Nature as Measure

Nature as Measure PDF Author: Wes Jackson
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1582438935
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
An essential and timely collection of wise and compelling essays from one of the longtime leaders of the sustainable agriculture movement in America. Wes Jackson, “a well–known and admired advocate for sustainability especially as it relates to agriculture, has the rare ability to transform his convictions into captivating prose . . . Jackson’s thoughts are still as significant and profound as they were nearly 20 years ago” (Publishers Weekly) and can teach us many things about the land, soil, and conservation, but what most resonates is this: The ecosphere is self–regulating, and as often as we attempt to understand it, we are not its builders, and our manuals will often be faulty. The only responsible way to learn the nuances of the land is to study the soil and vegetation in their natural state and pass this knowledge on to future generations. “[A] small book rich in ideas” (The New York Times Book Review), Nature as Measure collects Jackson’s essays from Altars of Unhewn Stone and Becoming Native to This Place, presenting ideas of land conservation and education that are written from the point of view of a man who has practiced what he’s preached and proven that it is possible to partially restore much of the land that we’ve ravaged. Wes Jackson lays the foundation for a new farming economy, grounded in nature’s principles and located in dying small towns and rural communities. Exploding the tenets of industrial agriculture, Jackson seeks to integrate food production with nature in a way that sustains both. His longtime friend Wendell Berry provides an informative, contextual Introduction. “For those concerned about what will be left and how many billion will be starving in twenty years, this is a must read.” —Register of the Kentucky Historical Society “A good introduction to a thinker whose ideas on agriculture are radical both in their technical approach to food production as well as in terms of the economic, social, and cultural context within which it is practiced.” —Review of Radical Political Economics

Nature as Measure

Nature as Measure PDF Author: Wes Jackson
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1582438935
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Get Book

Book Description
An essential and timely collection of wise and compelling essays from one of the longtime leaders of the sustainable agriculture movement in America. Wes Jackson, “a well–known and admired advocate for sustainability especially as it relates to agriculture, has the rare ability to transform his convictions into captivating prose . . . Jackson’s thoughts are still as significant and profound as they were nearly 20 years ago” (Publishers Weekly) and can teach us many things about the land, soil, and conservation, but what most resonates is this: The ecosphere is self–regulating, and as often as we attempt to understand it, we are not its builders, and our manuals will often be faulty. The only responsible way to learn the nuances of the land is to study the soil and vegetation in their natural state and pass this knowledge on to future generations. “[A] small book rich in ideas” (The New York Times Book Review), Nature as Measure collects Jackson’s essays from Altars of Unhewn Stone and Becoming Native to This Place, presenting ideas of land conservation and education that are written from the point of view of a man who has practiced what he’s preached and proven that it is possible to partially restore much of the land that we’ve ravaged. Wes Jackson lays the foundation for a new farming economy, grounded in nature’s principles and located in dying small towns and rural communities. Exploding the tenets of industrial agriculture, Jackson seeks to integrate food production with nature in a way that sustains both. His longtime friend Wendell Berry provides an informative, contextual Introduction. “For those concerned about what will be left and how many billion will be starving in twenty years, this is a must read.” —Register of the Kentucky Historical Society “A good introduction to a thinker whose ideas on agriculture are radical both in their technical approach to food production as well as in terms of the economic, social, and cultural context within which it is practiced.” —Review of Radical Political Economics

Nature as Measure

Nature as Measure PDF Author: Wes Jackson
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1582437009
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An essential and timely collection of wise and compelling essays from one of the longtime leaders of the sustainable agriculture movement in America. Wes Jackson, “a well–known and admired advocate for sustainability especially as it relates to agriculture, has the rare ability to transform his convictions into captivating prose . . . Jackson’s thoughts are still as significant and profound as they were nearly 20 years ago” (Publishers Weekly) and can teach us many things about the land, soil, and conservation, but what most resonates is this: The ecosphere is self–regulating, and as often as we attempt to understand it, we are not its builders, and our manuals will often be faulty. The only responsible way to learn the nuances of the land is to study the soil and vegetation in their natural state and pass this knowledge on to future generations. “[A] small book rich in ideas” (The New York Times Book Review), Nature as Measure collects Jackson’s essays from Altars of Unhewn Stone and Becoming Native to This Place, presenting ideas of land conservation and education that are written from the point of view of a man who has practiced what he’s preached and proven that it is possible to partially restore much of the land that we’ve ravaged. Wes Jackson lays the foundation for a new farming economy, grounded in nature’s principles and located in dying small towns and rural communities. Exploding the tenets of industrial agriculture, Jackson seeks to integrate food production with nature in a way that sustains both. His longtime friend Wendell Berry provides an informative, contextual Introduction. “For those concerned about what will be left and how many billion will be starving in twenty years, this is a must read.” —Register of the Kentucky Historical Society “A good introduction to a thinker whose ideas on agriculture are radical both in their technical approach to food production as well as in terms of the economic, social, and cultural context within which it is practiced.” —Review of Radical Political Economics

Nature and Human Society

Nature and Human Society PDF Author: Peter H. Raven
Publisher: National Academies
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 648

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Book Description
From earliest times, human beings have noticed patterns in nature: night and day, tides and lunar cycles, the changing seasons, plant succession, and animal migration. While recognizing patterns conferred great survival advantage, we are now in danger from our own success in multiplying our numbers and altering those patterns for our own purposes. It is imperative that we engage again with the patterns of nature, but this time, with awareness of our impact as a species. How will burgeoning human populations affect the health of ecosystems? Is loss of species simply a regrettable byproduct of human expansion? Or is the planet passing into a new epoch in just a few human generations? Nature and Human Society presents a wide-ranging exploration of these and other fundamental questions about our relationship with the environment. This book features findings, insights, and informed speculations from key figures in the field: E.O. Wilson, Thomas Lovejoy, Peter H. Raven, Gretchen Daily, David Suzuki, Norman Myers, Paul Erlich, Michael Bean, and many others. This volume explores the accelerated extinction of species and what we stand to lose--medicines, energy sources, crop pollination and pest control, the ability of water and soil to renew itself through biological processes, aesthetic and recreational benefits--and how these losses may be felt locally and acutely. What are the specific threats to biodiversity? The book explores human population growth, the homogenization of biota as a result in tourism and trade, and other factors, including the social influences of law, religious belief, and public education. Do we have the tools to protect biodiversity? The book looks at molecular genetics, satellite data, tools borrowed from medicine, and other scientific techniques to firm up our grasp of important processes in biology and earth science, including the "new" science of conservation biology. Nature and Human Society helps us renew our understanding and appreciation for natural patterns, with surprising details about microorganisms, nematodes, and other overlooked forms of life: their numbers, pervasiveness, and importance to the health of the soil, water, and air and to a host of human endeavors. This book will be of value to anyone who believes that the world's gross natural product is as important as the world's gross national product.

Infinite Measure

Infinite Measure PDF Author: Rachel Fletcher
Publisher: George F Thompson Publishing
ISBN: 9781938086021
Category : Architectural design
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The desire for harmony is universal among all cultures. In Infinite Measure, we rediscover a fundamental starting point for designers of all ages: the simple act of drawing with a compass and a rule can sensitize the designer to the rich subtleties of spatial harmony, no matter how one ultimately chooses to express it.

The Measure of All Minds

The Measure of All Minds PDF Author: José Hernández-Orallo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316943208
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 739

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Book Description
Are psychometric tests valid for a new reality of artificial intelligence systems, technology-enhanced humans, and hybrids yet to come? Are the Turing Test, the ubiquitous CAPTCHAs, and the various animal cognition tests the best alternatives? In this fascinating and provocative book, José Hernández-Orallo formulates major scientific questions, integrates the most significant research developments, and offers a vision of the universal evaluation of cognition. By replacing the dominant anthropocentric stance with a universal perspective where living organisms are considered as a special case, long-standing questions in the evaluation of behavior can be addressed in a wider landscape. Can we derive task difficulty intrinsically? Is a universal g factor - a common general component for all abilities - theoretically possible? Using algorithmic information theory as a foundation, the book elaborates on the evaluation of perceptual, developmental, social, verbal and collective features and critically analyzes what the future of intelligence might look like.

The Measure of All Things

The Measure of All Things PDF Author: Ken Alder
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 074324902X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
In June 1792, amidst the chaos of the French Revolution, two intrepid astronomers set out in opposite directions on an extraordinary journey. Starting in Paris, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre would make his way north to Dunkirk, while Pierre-François-André Méchain voyaged south to Barcelona. Their mission was to measure the world, and their findings would help define the meter as one ten-millionth of the distance between the pole and the equator—a standard that would be used “for all people, for all time.” The Measure of All Things is the astonishing tale of one of history’s greatest scientific adventures. Yet behind the public triumph of the metric system lies a secret error, one that is perpetuated in every subsequent definition of the meter. As acclaimed historian and novelist Ken Alder discovered through his research, there were only two people on the planet who knew the full extent of this error: Delambre and Méchain themselves. By turns a science history, detective tale, and human drama, The Measure of All Things describes a quest that succeeded as it failed—and continues to enlighten and inspire to this day.

Instruments of the True Measure

Instruments of the True Measure PDF Author: Laura Da'
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816538964
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 89

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Book Description
Instruments of the True Measure charts the coordinates and intersections of land, history, and culture. Lyrical passages map the parallel lives of ancestral figures and connect dispossessions of the past to lived experiences of the present. Shawnee history informs the collection, and Da’s fascination with uncovering and recovering brings the reader deeper into the narrative of Shawnee homeland. Images of forced removal and frontier violence reveal the wrenching loss and reconfiguration of the Shawnee as a people. The body and history become lands that are measured and plotted with precise instruments. Surveying and geography underpin the collection, but even as Da’ investigates these signifiers of measurement, she pushes the reader to interrogate their function within the stark atrocities of American history. Da’ laments this harsh dichotomy, observing that America’s mathematical point of beginning is located in the heart of her tribe’s homeland: “I do not have the Shawnee words to describe this place; the notation that is available to me is 40°38 ́32.61 ́ ́ N 80°31 ́9.76 ́ ́ W.”

Nature's Clocks

Nature's Clocks PDF Author: Doug Macdougall
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520933443
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
"Radioactivity is like a clock that never needs adjusting," writes Doug Macdougall. "It would be hard to design a more reliable timekeeper." In Nature's Clocks, Macdougall tells how scientists who were seeking to understand the past arrived at the ingenious techniques they now use to determine the age of objects and organisms. By examining radiocarbon (C-14) dating—the best known of these methods—and several other techniques that geologists use to decode the distant past, Macdougall unwraps the last century's advances, explaining how they reveal the age of our fossil ancestors such as "Lucy," the timing of the dinosaurs' extinction, and the precise ages of tiny mineral grains that date from the beginning of the earth's history. In lively and accessible prose, he describes how the science of geochronology has developed and flourished. Relating these advances through the stories of the scientists themselves—James Hutton, William Smith, Arthur Holmes, Ernest Rutherford, Willard Libby, and Clair Patterson—Macdougall shows how they used ingenuity and inspiration to construct one of modern science's most significant accomplishments: a timescale for the earth's evolution and human prehistory.

Measure, Integration & Real Analysis

Measure, Integration & Real Analysis PDF Author: Sheldon Axler
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030331431
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
This open access textbook welcomes students into the fundamental theory of measure, integration, and real analysis. Focusing on an accessible approach, Axler lays the foundations for further study by promoting a deep understanding of key results. Content is carefully curated to suit a single course, or two-semester sequence of courses, creating a versatile entry point for graduate studies in all areas of pure and applied mathematics. Motivated by a brief review of Riemann integration and its deficiencies, the text begins by immersing students in the concepts of measure and integration. Lebesgue measure and abstract measures are developed together, with each providing key insight into the main ideas of the other approach. Lebesgue integration links into results such as the Lebesgue Differentiation Theorem. The development of products of abstract measures leads to Lebesgue measure on Rn. Chapters on Banach spaces, Lp spaces, and Hilbert spaces showcase major results such as the Hahn–Banach Theorem, Hölder’s Inequality, and the Riesz Representation Theorem. An in-depth study of linear maps on Hilbert spaces culminates in the Spectral Theorem and Singular Value Decomposition for compact operators, with an optional interlude in real and complex measures. Building on the Hilbert space material, a chapter on Fourier analysis provides an invaluable introduction to Fourier series and the Fourier transform. The final chapter offers a taste of probability. Extensively class tested at multiple universities and written by an award-winning mathematical expositor, Measure, Integration & Real Analysis is an ideal resource for students at the start of their journey into graduate mathematics. A prerequisite of elementary undergraduate real analysis is assumed; students and instructors looking to reinforce these ideas will appreciate the electronic Supplement for Measure, Integration & Real Analysis that is freely available online. For errata and updates, visit https://measure.axler.net/

Made to Measure

Made to Measure PDF Author: Philip Ball
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400865336
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
Made to Measure introduces a general audience to one of today's most exciting areas of scientific research: materials science. Philip Ball describes how scientists are currently inventing thousands of new materials, ranging from synthetic skin, blood, and bone to substances that repair themselves and adapt to their environment, that swell and flex like muscles, that repel any ink or paint, and that capture and store the energy of the Sun. He shows how all this is being accomplished precisely because, for the first time in history, materials are being "made to measure": designed for particular applications, rather than discovered in nature or by haphazard experimentation. Now scientists literally put new materials together on the drawing board in the same way that a blueprint is specified for a house or an electronic circuit. But the designers are working not with skylights and alcoves, not with transistors and capacitors, but with molecules and atoms. This book is written in the same engaging manner as Ball's popular book on chemistry, Designing the Molecular World, and it links insights from chemistry, biology, and physics with those from engineering as it outlines the various areas in which new materials will transform our lives in the twenty-first century. The chapters provide vignettes from a broad range of selected areas of materials science and can be read as separate essays. The subjects include photonic materials, materials for information storage, smart materials, biomaterials, biomedical materials, materials for clean energy, porous materials, diamond and hard materials, new polymers, and surfaces and interfaces.