The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann

The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann PDF Author: Ananyo Bhattacharya
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324004002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
An electrifying biography of one of the most extraordinary scientists of the twentieth century and the world he made. The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Nuclear weapons and self-replicating spacecrafts. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable, yet largely overlooked, man: John von Neumann. Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. A child prodigy, he mastered calculus by the age of eight, and in high school made lasting contributions to mathematics. In Germany, where he helped lay the foundations of quantum mechanics, and later at Princeton, von Neumann’s colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet—bar none. He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and the design of the atom bomb; he helped formulate the bedrock of Cold War geopolitics and modern economic theory; he created the first ever programmable digital computer; he prophesized the potential of nanotechnology; and, from his deathbed, he expounded on the limits of brains and computers—and how they might be overcome. Taking us on an astonishing journey, Ananyo Bhattacharya explores how a combination of genius and unique historical circumstance allowed a single man to sweep through a stunningly diverse array of fields, sparking revolutions wherever he went. The Man from the Future is an insightful and thrilling intellectual biography of the visionary thinker who shaped our century.

The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann

The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann PDF Author: Ananyo Bhattacharya
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324004002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Get Book Here

Book Description
An electrifying biography of one of the most extraordinary scientists of the twentieth century and the world he made. The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Nuclear weapons and self-replicating spacecrafts. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable, yet largely overlooked, man: John von Neumann. Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. A child prodigy, he mastered calculus by the age of eight, and in high school made lasting contributions to mathematics. In Germany, where he helped lay the foundations of quantum mechanics, and later at Princeton, von Neumann’s colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet—bar none. He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and the design of the atom bomb; he helped formulate the bedrock of Cold War geopolitics and modern economic theory; he created the first ever programmable digital computer; he prophesized the potential of nanotechnology; and, from his deathbed, he expounded on the limits of brains and computers—and how they might be overcome. Taking us on an astonishing journey, Ananyo Bhattacharya explores how a combination of genius and unique historical circumstance allowed a single man to sweep through a stunningly diverse array of fields, sparking revolutions wherever he went. The Man from the Future is an insightful and thrilling intellectual biography of the visionary thinker who shaped our century.

Pricing the Future

Pricing the Future PDF Author: George G Szpiro
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465028152
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Options have been traded for hundreds of years, but investment decisions were based on gut feelings until the Nobel Prize -- winning discovery of the Black-Scholes options pricing model in 1973 ushered in the era of the "quants." Wall Street would never be the same. In Pricing the Future, financial economist George G. Szpiro tells the fascinating stories of the pioneers of mathematical finance who conducted the search for the elusive options pricing formula. From the broker's assistant who published the first mathematical explanation of financial markets to Albert Einstein and other scientists who looked for a way to explain the movement of atoms and molecules, Pricing the Future retraces the historical and intellectual developments that ultimately led to the widespread use of mathematical models to drive investment strategies on Wall Street.

The Future

The Future PDF Author: Neil Hilborn
Publisher: Button Poetry
ISBN: 1943735395
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Neil Hilborn's highly anticipated second collection of poems, The Future, invites readers to find comfort in hard nights and better days. Filled with nostalgia, love, heartbreak, and the author's signature wry examinations of mental health, this book helps explain what lives inside us, what we struggle to define. Written on the road over two years of touring, The Future is rugged, genuine, and relatable. Grabbing attention like gravity, Hilborn reminds readers that no matter how far away we get, we eventually all drift back together. These poems are fireworks for the numb. In the author's own words, The Future is a blue sky and a full tank of gas, and in it, we are alive.

Think Big

Think Big PDF Author: Grace Lordan
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241987768
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
What are you doing today to make your dream future come true? 'A rare self-help book that's actually informed by evidence. A host of perceptive, practical tips for getting out of your own way and making progress toward your career goals.' Adam Grant, bestselling author of Think Again and Originals 'A practical and accessible guide to using behavioural science in your career.' Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women ________________ We all have big ambitions for the future but those dreams only become reality if we do something towards them regularly. To achieve audacious goals, we need to take action and make small changes every day. We need to think big and act small. Drawing on cutting-edge research from behavioural science, Dr Grace Lordan offers immediate actionable solutions and tips that will help you get closer to your dream future, every day. Focusing on six key areas - your time, goal planning, self-narratives, other people, your environment, and resilience - Dr Lordan reveals practical, science-backed hacks that will help you get ahead. Each chapter introduces us to behavioural science concepts like the 'halo effect', 'confirmation bias', 'affect heuristic' and the 'ostrich effect', to help you better understand yourself and others, so that you can get the most out of your career. Whether you fantasise about changing industry, landing that big promotion, writing a screenplay or setting up your own company, Think Big creates a clear pathway to the future you want now. Some of the things you'll learn include how to: · Overcome a fear of failure and throw yourself at opportunity · Craft the optimum environment for work and give yourself ample time for tasks · Rewrite self-narratives and tackle imposter syndrome · Watch out for other people's biases and stop them from holding you back Think Big provides a practical framework to keep you moving in the right direction towards any goal. It will help you get out of your own way and propel you on the path to success, transforming you from dreamer to doer!

The Genius

The Genius PDF Author: Eliyahu Stern
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300179308
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Elijah ben Solomon, the "Genius of Vilna,” was perhaps the best-known and most understudied figure in modern Jewish history. This book offers a new narrative of Jewish modernity based on Elijah's life and influence. While the experience of Jews in modernity has often been described as a process of Western European secularization—with Jews becoming citizens of Western nation-states, congregants of reformed synagogues, and assimilated members of society—Stern uses Elijah’s story to highlight a different theory of modernization for European life. Religious movements such as Hasidism and anti-secular institutions such as the yeshiva emerged from the same democratization of knowledge and privatization of religion that gave rise to secular and universal movements and institutions. Claimed by traditionalists, enlighteners, Zionists, and the Orthodox, Elijah’s genius and its afterlife capture an all-embracing interpretation of the modern Jewish experience. Through the story of the “Vilna Gaon,” Stern presents a new model for understanding modern Jewish history and more generally the place of traditionalism and religious radicalism in modern Western life and thought.

Genius Weapons

Genius Weapons PDF Author: Louis A. Del Monte
Publisher:
ISBN: 163388452X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
"A technology expert describes the ever-increasing role of artificial intelligence in weapons development, the ethical dilemmas these weapons pose, and the potential threat to humanity."--Provided by publisher.

The Star Drive

The Star Drive PDF Author: Phillip Hills
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
ISBN: 1788853008
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Discover the technology that may take humanity to the stars. In May 2018 NASA called a press conference to announce the successful test-run of their tiny nuclear reactor KRUSTY (Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology). This revolutionary technology, which runs on heat alone, may have profound consequences for the future of mankind, enabling us to maintain permanent bases on the Moon, on Mars and other planets, and eventually power a starship. On earth too it could have enormous benefits as a new way to generate power at a time when climate change is threatening our very existence. This book is the amazing story behind this invention, which began with Robert Stirling's original designs for a heat exchange engine in 1816. An invention truly ahead of its time, the practical application of the Stirling Engine has taxed the minds of scientists and inventors for almost 200 years. Only now is it possible for its full potential to be realised. Phillip Hills weaves science and history together to tell the story of one of the most exciting scientific developments the world has ever seen.

WTF?

WTF? PDF Author: Tim O'Reilly
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062565729
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
WTF? can be an expression of amazement or an expression of dismay. In today’s economy, we have far too much dismay along with our amazement, and technology bears some of the blame. In this combination of memoir, business strategy guide, and call to action, Tim O'Reilly, Silicon Valley’s leading intellectual and the founder of O’Reilly Media, explores the upside and the potential downsides of today's WTF? technologies. What is the future when an increasing number of jobs can be performed by intelligent machines instead of people, or done only by people in partnership with those machines? What happens to our consumer based societies—to workers and to the companies that depend on their purchasing power? Is income inequality and unemployment an inevitable consequence of technological advancement, or are there paths to a better future? What will happen to business when technology-enabled networks and marketplaces are better at deploying talent than traditional companies? How should companies organize themselves to take advantage of these new tools? What’s the future of education when on-demand learning outperforms traditional institutions? How can individuals continue to adapt and retrain? Will the fundamental social safety nets of the developed world survive the transition, and if not, what will replace them? O'Reilly is "the man who can really can make a whole industry happen," according to Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet (Google.) His genius over the past four decades has been to identify and to help shape our response to emerging technologies with world shaking potential—the World Wide Web, Open Source Software, Web 2.0, Open Government data, the Maker Movement, Big Data, and now AI. O’Reilly shares the techniques he's used at O’Reilly Media to make sense of and predict past innovation waves and applies those same techniques to provide a framework for thinking about how today’s world-spanning platforms and networks, on-demand services, and artificial intelligence are changing the nature of business, education, government, financial markets, and the economy as a whole. He provides tools for understanding how all the parts of modern digital businesses work together to create marketplace advantage and customer value, and why ultimately, they cannot succeed unless their ecosystem succeeds along with them. The core of the book's call to action is an exhortation to businesses to DO MORE with technology rather than just using it to cut costs and enrich their shareholders. Robots are going to take our jobs, they say. O'Reilly replies, “Only if that’s what we ask them to do! Technology is the solution to human problems, and we won’t run out of work till we run out of problems." Entrepreneurs need to set their sights on how they can use big data, sensors, and AI to create amazing human experiences and the economy of the future, making us all richer in the same way the tools of the first industrial revolution did. Yes, technology can eliminate labor and make things cheaper, but at its best, we use it to do things that were previously unimaginable! What is our poverty of imagination? What are the entrepreneurial leaps that will allow us to use the technology of today to build a better future, not just a more efficient one? Whether technology brings the WTF? of wonder or the WTF? of dismay isn't inevitable. It's up to us!

The Genius

The Genius PDF Author: David Harris
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0345499123
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
The Genius is the gripping account of Bill Walsh’s career and how, through tactical and organizational skill, he transformed the San Francisco Forty Niners from a fallen franchise into a football dynasty. Along with his right-hand man John McVay, Walsh built the foundation for this success by drafting or trading for a durable core of stars, including Joe Montana, Fred Dean, and Hacksaw Reynolds. (Walsh would later restock the team with such players as Jerry Rice, Steve Young, and Charles Haley.) The key to Walsh’s genius perhaps lay in his keen understanding of his athletes’ psyches–he knew what brought out the best in each of them. With unmatched access to players, fellow coaches, executives, beat reporters, and Walsh himself, David Harris recounts the whole story–including Walsh’s pre-Niners odyssey, the demons that pushed him throughout his career, and the scope of his impact on the game beyond the field and locker room. In the end, Harris reveals the brilliant man behind the coaching legend.

The 46 Rules of Genius

The 46 Rules of Genius PDF Author: Marty Neumeier
Publisher: Pearson Education
ISBN: 0133900061
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
Marty Neumeier, acclaimed author of The Brand Gap and other books on business creativity, has compressed decades of practical experience into The 46 Rules of Genius--46 glittering gems that will light students path to creative brilliance. This is an essential handbook for students in graphic design, branding, marketing, business, Journalism and writing courses, and more. The rules in this book are timeless. None of them are new, yet they can help students create something new. Michelangelo didn't invent the hammer and chisel, but by using these tools he sculpted the Pietá. And just as you can't shape a block of marble with your bare hands, you can't shape ideas with your bare mind. You need rules. Rules are the tools of genius. Use them when they help, put them aside when they don't. Most creative people are focused on their projects, and reading a long book is a luxury they can ill afford. So here's a slim volume with bite-size advice. Students can reach into it randomly, underline its salient points, and return to its rules as needed. Neumeier starts with advice on strategy--or how to get the right idea. He continues with practical tips on execution--how to get the idea right. From there, he moves on to building creative skills over time, and finally to putting your brilliance to work in the larger world.