Structural Stability and Morphogenesis

Structural Stability and Morphogenesis PDF Author: René Thom
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description

Structural Stability and Morphogenesis

Structural Stability and Morphogenesis PDF Author: René Thom
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description


Structural Stability And Morphogenesis

Structural Stability And Morphogenesis PDF Author: Rene Thom
Publisher: Westview Press
ISBN: 9780201406856
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description


Morphogenesis

Morphogenesis PDF Author: Paul Bourgine
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642131743
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
What are the relations between the shape of a system of cities and that of fish school? Which events should happen in a cell in order that it participates to one of the finger of our hands? How to interpret the shape of a sand dune? This collective book written for the non-specialist addresses these questions and more generally, the fundamental issue of the emergence of forms and patterns in physical and living systems. It is a single book gathering the different aspects of morphogenesis and approaches developed in different disciplines on shape and pattern formation. Relying on the seminal works of D’Arcy Thompson, Alan Turing and René Thom, it confronts major examples like plant growth and shape, intra-cellular organization, evolution of living forms or motifs generated by crystals. A book essential to understand universal principles at work in the shapes and patterns surrounding us but also to avoid spurious analogies.

The Seduction of Curves

The Seduction of Curves PDF Author: Allan McRobie
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691175330
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
In this large-format book, lavishly illustrated in color throughout, Allan McRobie takes the reader on an alluring exploration of the beautiful curves that shape our world--from our bodies to Salvador Dalí's paintings and the space-time fabric of the universe itself. The book focuses on seven curves--the fold, cusp, swallowtail, and butterfly, plus the hyperbolic, elliptical, and parabolic "umbilics"--and describes the surprising origins of their taxonomy in the catastrophe theory of mathematician René Thom.

Intermediate Quantum Mechanics

Intermediate Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Roman Jackiw
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 0429973276
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Graduate students in both theoretical and experimental physics will find this third edition of Intermediate Quantum Mechanics , refined and updated in 1986, indispensable. The first part of the book deals with the theory of atomic structure, while the second and third parts deal with the relativistic wave equations and introduction to field theory, making Intermediate Quantum Mechanics more complete than any other single-volume work on the subject.

Semio Physics

Semio Physics PDF Author: René Thom
Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description


Perspectives on Organisms

Perspectives on Organisms PDF Author: Giuseppe Longo
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642359388
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This authored monograph introduces a genuinely theoretical approach to biology. Starting point is the investigation of empirical biological scaling including their variability, which is found in the literature, e.g. allometric relationships, fractals, etc. The book then analyzes two different aspects of biological time: first, a supplementary temporal dimension to accommodate proper biological rhythms; secondly, the concepts of protension and retention as a means of local organization of time in living organisms. Moreover, the book investigates the role of symmetry in biology, in view of its ubiquitous importance in physics. In relation with the notion of extended critical transitions, the book proposes that organisms and their evolution can be characterized by continued symmetry changes, which accounts for the irreducibility of their historicity and variability. The authors also introduce the concept of anti-entropy as a measure for the potential of variability, being equally understood as alterations in symmetry. By this, the book provides a mathematical account of Gould's analysis of phenotypic complexity with respect to biological evolution. The target audience primarily comprises researchers interested in new theoretical approaches to biology, from physical, biological or philosophical backgrounds, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students who want to enter this field.

Mathematical Methods For Physics

Mathematical Methods For Physics PDF Author: H. W. Wyld
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 0429978642
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
This classic book helps students learn the basics in physics by bridging the gap between mathematics and the basic fundamental laws of physics. With supplemental material such as graphs and equations, Mathematical Methods for Physics creates a strong, solid anchor of learning. The text has three parts: Part I focuses on the use of special functions in solving the homogeneous partial differential equations of physics, and emphasizes applications to topics such as electrostatics, wave guides, and resonant cavities, vibrations of membranes, heat flow, potential flow in fluids, plane and spherical waves. Part II deals with the solution of inhomogeneous differential equations with particular emphasis on problems in electromagnetism, Green's functions for Poisson's equation, the wave equation and the diffusion equation, and the solution of integral equations by iteration, eigenfunction expansion and the Fredholm series. Finally, Part II explores complex variable techniques, including evalution of itegrals, dispersion relations, special functions in the complex plane, one-sided Fourier transforms, and Laplace transforms.

Growing Explanations

Growing Explanations PDF Author: M. Norton Wise
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822390086
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
For much of the twentieth century scientists sought to explain objects and processes by reducing them to their components—nuclei into protons and neutrons, proteins into amino acids, and so on—but over the past forty years there has been a marked turn toward explaining phenomena by building them up rather than breaking them down. This collection reflects on the history and significance of this turn toward “growing explanations” from the bottom up. The essays show how this strategy—based on a widespread appreciation for complexity even in apparently simple processes and on the capacity of computers to simulate such complexity—has played out in a broad array of sciences. They describe how scientists are reordering knowledge to emphasize growth, change, and contingency and, in so doing, are revealing even phenomena long considered elementary—like particles and genes—as emergent properties of dynamic processes. Written by leading historians and philosophers of science, these essays examine the range of subjects, people, and goals involved in changing the character of scientific analysis over the last several decades. They highlight the alternatives that fields as diverse as string theory, fuzzy logic, artificial life, and immunology bring to the forms of explanation that have traditionally defined scientific modernity. A number of the essays deal with the mathematical and physical sciences, addressing concerns with hybridity and the materials of the everyday world. Other essays focus on the life sciences, where questions such as “What is life?” and “What is an organism?” are undergoing radical re-evaluation. Together these essays mark the contours of an ongoing revolution in scientific explanation. Contributors. David Aubin, Amy Dahan Dalmedico, Richard Doyle, Claus Emmeche, Peter Galison, Stefan Helmreich, Ann Johnson, Evelyn Fox Keller, Ilana Löwy, Claude Rosental, Alfred Tauber

The Nonlinear World

The Nonlinear World PDF Author: Yoshitsugu Oono
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 4431540296
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
The most important characteristic of the “world filled with nonlinearity” is the existence of scale interference: disparate space–time scales interfere with each other. Thus, the effects of unknowable scales invade the world that we can observe directly. This leads to various peculiar phenomena such as chaos, critical phenomena, and complex biological phenomena, among others. Conceptual analysis and phenomenology are the keys to describe and understand phenomena that are subject to scale interference, because precise description of unfamiliar phenomena requires precise concepts and their phenomenological description. The book starts with an illustration of conceptual analysis in terms of chaos and randomness, and goes on to explain renormalization group philosophy as an approach to phenomenology. Then, abduction is outlined as a way to express what we have understood about the world. The book concludes with discussions on how we can approach genuinely complex phenomena, including biological phenomena. The main target of this volume is young people who have just started to appreciate the world seriously. The author also wishes the book to be helpful to those who have been observing the world, but who wish to appreciate it afresh from a different angle.