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.

Max Einstein: Saves the Future

Max Einstein: Saves the Future PDF Author: James Patterson
Publisher: jimmy patterson
ISBN: 0316428841
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The world's #1 bestselling author has teamed up with the world's most famous genius to entertain, educate and inspire a generation of kids--with the first and only kids' book series officially approved by the Albert Einstein Archives. Albert Einstein + James Patterson = A Must Read! Max is back with a thrilling new adventure that involves time travel, creepy bad guys, killer drones, and a shocking mystery about her past that she will stop at nothing to solve! Under constant danger of being kidnapped by the shadowy Corporation, Max is on the run from New York to London and beyond. But soon the call comes for the Change Maker kids' next mission: make sure no kid ever goes hungry again! If anyone can tackle a problem this big, Max and her genius friends can. But mysterious clues about her past keep distracting Max's focus. She always wanted to know who her parents were and why they abandoned her as a baby. If she manages to build a time machine, she could find them and get all the answers! What's more important - her past, or the future of the Change Makers?

Breakpoint and Beyond

Breakpoint and Beyond PDF Author: George T. Ainsworth-Land
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780887306044
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
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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!

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 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.

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 Ministry for the Future

The Ministry for the Future PDF Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316300160
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 579

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Book Description
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR “The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem "If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox) The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis. "One hopes that this book is read widely—that Robinson’s audience, already large, grows by an order of magnitude. Because the point of his books is to fire the imagination."―New York Review of Books "If there’s any book that hit me hard this year, it was Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, a sweeping epic about climate change and humanity’s efforts to try and turn the tide before it’s too late." ―Polygon (Best of the Year) "Masterly." —New Yorker "[The Ministry for the Future] struck like a mallet hitting a gong, reverberating through the year ... it’s terrifying, unrelenting, but ultimately hopeful. Robinson is the SF writer of my lifetime, and this stands as some of his best work. It’s my book of the year." —Locus "Science-fiction visionary Kim Stanley Robinson makes the case for quantitative easing our way out of planetary doom." ―Bloomberg Green

The Customer of the Future

The Customer of the Future PDF Author: Blake Morgan
Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
ISBN: 1400213649
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
With emerging technology transforming customer expectations, it's important to keep a laser focus on the experience companies provide their customers. Tomorrow's customers need to be targeted today! Customer experience futurist Blake Morgan outlines ten easy-to-follow customer experience guidelines that integrate emerging technologies with effective strategies to combat disconnected processes, silo mentalities, and a lack of buyer perspective. The Customer of the Future explains how today's customers are already demanding frictionless, personalized, on-demand experiences from their products and services, and companies that don't adapt to these new expectations won't last. This book prepares your organization for these increas­ing demands by helping you do the following: Learn the ten defining strategies for a customer experience-focused company. Implement new techniques to shift the entire company from being product-focused to being customer-focused. Gain insights through case studies and examples on how the world's most innovative companies are offering new and compelling customer experiences. Tomorrow's customers will insist on experiences that make their lives significantly easier and better. Craft a leadership development and culture plan to create lasting change at your organization!

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.