Author: Charles Jencks
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
ISBN: 9780711232341
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Landforms are a fast-developing art form that enjoy a wide following today, because of their multiple uses and their enveloping beauty. As formal landscapes that often arise from necessity - recycling a coal site for human use or making new use of excess earth - they are a pleasure to walk over and through. In this collection of his recent work, Charles Jencks explains his particular approach to the landform. Like the prehistoric earthworks of Britain that have been an inspiration, such as Stonehenge, his landforms contain cosmic symbolism, and they draw together sculpture, epigraphy, water, gardens, scrap metal and architecture. They address perennial themes - identity, patterns of nature, death and the power of life - but in a contemporary way, based on the insights of science. So Jencks portrays universal aspects of DNA, the spacetime warp of a black hole, the extraordinary way cells divide and unite and some basic forms of life. Other designs include sharp comments on recent events: a water garden of war in France critiques the 2003 invasion of Iraq using 'waterpults' and 'hose-guns' among other interactive features; a white garden made from birch trees, flying bones and computer graphics deals with some fatal consequences of modernity. Jencks addresses, with wit and irony, some of the strange possibilities that arise with extra-large landforms. Northumberlandia, perhaps the largest human figure ever made, presents the question of which body parts one can walk on safely, which are dangerous and which need to be suppressed. What became perhaps the heaviest work of art in the world, at 20 million tons, was also the opportunity to transform a large open-cast mine into a dynamic landscape of giant mounds and sculpted lakes. As in his The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, to which this book is a sequel, Jencks seeks to define a new landscape iconography based on forms and themes that may be eternal, in the sense that they crystallise nature's laws, some of which have been recently discovered. To see a world in a grain of sand was a poetic quest of William Blake and, in a different sense, to find the universe in a ritual landscape was a goal of prehistoric cultures. Jencks allies these spiritual affinities with the view of science that stresses the common patterns that underlie all parts of the cosmos, thus making them like our home planet, and the universe in a landscape.
Author: Leonard Susskind
Publisher: Back Bay Books
ISBN: 0316055581
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 431
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Book Description
In his first book ever, the father of string theory reinvents the world's concept of the known universe and man's unique place within it. Line drawings.
Author: Max Tegmark
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307744256
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434
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Book Description
Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate multiverse. In a dazzling combination of both popular and groundbreaking science, he not only helps us grasp his often mind-boggling theories, but he also shares with us some of the often surprising triumphs and disappointments that have shaped his life as a scientist. Fascinating from first to last—this is a book that has already prompted the attention and admiration of some of the most prominent scientists and mathematicians.
Author: Bernard Carr
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521848411
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 544
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Book Description
Physicists argue from different perspectives for and against the idea of the existence of multiple universes.
Author: Sam Harris
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143917122X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.
Author: Alan Lightman
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307908593
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 108
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Book Description
The bestselling author of Einsteins Dreams explores the emotional and philosophical questions raised by recent discoveries in science with passion and curiosity. He looks at the dialogue between science and religion; the conflict between our human desire for permanence and the impermanence of nature; the possibility that our universe is simply an accident; the manner in which modern technology has separated us from direct experience of the world; and our resistance to the view that our bodies and minds can be explained by scientific logic and laws. Behind all of these considerations is the suggestion--at once haunting and exhilarating--that what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the extraordinary, perhaps unfathomable whole.
Author: Jacques Vanier
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1848166028
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 533
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Book Description
In this book the author gives a complete picture of the physical laws that appear to regulate the functioning of the Universe from the atomic to the cosmic world. The book makes a description of the main fields of physics: classical physics, relativity, quantum mechanics and particle physics as they are applied to the atomic world and the cosmos to describe how the whole Universe has evolved to the present state. The description concentrates on the essentials, describing our present knowledge of those physical laws and outlining our limitations in understanding the whole picture. The description is done essentially without equations, except for a few important and simple ones. The text includes a short Annex for mathematically inclined readers who wish to see how the physical principles and laws expressed in words can be visualized in the language of mathematics. However, the book can be read totally without referring to that Annex. Also, The Universe explains in depth those laws and outlines their limitations. However, the author does it in a simple language that should be understandable to non-specialists. In particular, the author occasionally uses two young characters placed in various situations to explain the physics involved in those situations by means of their observations. The author uses also numerous simple pictures and graphics that make the text more easily comprehensible.
Author: Andrew Harrison
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134481977
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
The whole landscape of space use is undergoing a radical transformation. In the workplace a period of unprecedented change has created a mix of responses with one overriding outcome observable worldwide: the rise of distributed space. In the learning environment the social, political, economic and technological changes responsible for this shift have been further compounded by constantly developing theories of learning and teaching, and a wide acceptance of the importance of learning as the core of the community, resulting in the blending of all aspects of learning into one seamless experience. This book attempts to look at all the forces driving the provision and pedagogic performance of the many spaces, real and virtual, that now accommodate the experience of learning and provide pointers towards the creation and design of learning-centred communities. Part 1 looks at the entire learning universe as it now stands, tracks the way in which its constituent parts came to occupy their role, assesses how they have responded to a complex of drivers and gauges their success in dealing with renewed pressures to perform. It shows that what is required is innovation within the spaces and integration between them. Part 2 finds many examples of innovation in evidence across the world – in schools, the higher and further education campus and in business and cultural spaces – but an almost total absence of integration. Part 3 offers a model that redefines the learning landscape in terms of learning outcomes, mapping spatial requirements and activities into a detailed mechanism that will achieve the best outcome at the most appropriate scale. By encouraging stakeholders to creating an events-based rather than space-based identity, the book hopes to point the way to a fully-integrated learning landscape: a learning community.
Author: Carlos I. Calle, Ph.D
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1615922849
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
Does recent evidence reveal a purpose behind the order of the universe? A NASA senior research scientist explores this tantalizing question and many more in this wide-ranging introduction to the very latest and sundry theories about the enormous cosmos.
Author: David A. Weintraub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691147310
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382
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Book Description
"Tells the story of how astronomers solved one of the most compelling mysteries in science and, along the way, introduces readers to fundamental concepts and cutting-edge advances in modern astronomy"--From publisher description.
