Evolving The Alien

Jack Cohen

Ian-Stewart

Penguin/Random House

The wizards discover to their cost that it’s no easy task to change history. Roundworld is in trouble again, and this time it looks fatal. Having created it in the first place, the wizards of Unseen University feel vaguely responsible for its safety. They know the creatures that lived there escaped the impending Big Freeze by inventing the space elevator — they even intervened to rid the planet of a plague of elves, who attempted to divert humanity onto a different time track. But now it’s all gone wrong — Victorian England has stagnated and the pace of progress would embarrass a limping snail. Unless something drastic is done, there won’t be time for anyone to invent space flight, and the human race will be turned into ice-pops. Why, though, did history come adrift? Was it Sir Arthur Nightingale’s dismal book about natural selection? Or was it the devastating response by an obscure country vicar called Charles Darwin whose bestselling Theology of Species made it impossible to refute the divine design of living creatures? Can the God of Evolution come to humanity’s aid and ensure Darwin writes a very different book? And who stopped him writing it in the first place?

The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch (Discworld)

Terry-Pratchett

Science & Math

Ebury Press

Science's traditional answers to the question: "How does complexity arise in nature?" are given at the beginning of this book. It shows how intelligence and human culture can be traced back to atomic structure, reducing the whole of nature to simple laws of fundamental physics. However, the book then proceeds to show that "How does complexity arise?" is really the wrong question. It proposes that a more interesting question is "Why do simple structures exist at all?". Scientific reductionism is useful but does not give the whole truth: it tells how but not why; it looks at insides but not outsides, content but not context. The subject-matter of traditional science is re-examined from a different viewpoint, focusing on the ability of complicated rules to generate simple behaviour, through the "collapse of chaos".

The Collapse of Chaos (Penguin Science)

Penguin Books, Ltd.

Life's Other Secret: New Mathematics of the Living World (Allen Lane Science)

Biological Sciences

While still in high school, Ian Stewart dreamed of exploring the world. Soon after his graduation from journalism school in 1991, he was reporting from the most far-flung and troubled corners of the globe, and by the age of 32, he was appointed West Africa bureau chief for the Associated Press. His award-winning and hard-hitting coverage while at the AP focused on the growing number of wars that continue to plague the continent. Stewart was appalled not only by the level of cruelty he witnessed but also by the indifference of the outside world. Although he had reported from some of the most dangerous places on earth, none were more dangerous than Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Few journalists dared venture there, but Ian Stewart was one of them. On January 10, 1999, Stewart and two colleagues were ambushed as they drove through the streets of Freetown. One of his colleagues was killed instantly, and Stewart, shot in the head, was left paralyzed and clinging to life. Airlifted to London, he has since made a remarkable recovery. Ambushed: A War Reporter's Life on the Line is the unforgettable, moving and at times terrifying story of a war correspondent who became a casualty of the war he covered, but who survived-against all odds-to tell the story. The Moving, sometimes terrifying story of a war reporter who became a casualty of the war he covered, but who survived to tell the tale.

Ambushed: A Reporter's Life on the Line

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Penguin??Books

We are living in the Golden Age of mathematics, with more research being done than ever before. Yet many people view mathematics as a static, completed subject.  This book for general readers aims to open the door to the rapid modern growth of mathematics and its power and beauty.  It surveys many areas of current research in non-technical terms, describing what the problems are, where they come from, how they get solved, what mathematicians are like, what you can do with the answers when you get them, and how solving them or failing to solve them changes peoples' views of mathematics and the way it is advancing.  Topics include Fermat's Last Theorem, the Riemann hypothesis, the Poincare Conjecture, prime numbers, non-Euclidean geometry, infinity, the four-color problem, probability, catastrophe theory, chaos, fractals, algorithms, and undecidable propositions. A final chapter discusses the relations between mathematics and its applications.  Each topic is developed within a historical framework, and a number of recent breakthroughs are presented for the first time in layman's terms.

The Problems of Mathematics

Oxford Univ. Pr.

This first integrated treatment of the main ideas behind René Thom's theory of catastrophes aims to make them accessible to scientists wishing to apply the theory in their own fields of research. The mathematical basis of the theory is therefore explained with a minimum of technicalities, although some knowledge of the calculus of variables is assumed.Thom's now-famous list of seven elementary catastrophes, broadly classifying various types of discontinuous change, is elucidated, as are the reasons for its appearance. Nearly half the book concentrates on detailed applications of the theory, emphasizing its uses in the physical sciences where applications can be made quantitative and can be experimentally verified. The more controversial and speculative applications to areas in the social sciences are also mentioned, but not discussed in detail.Over 200 illustrations help clarify the ideas and applications in this volume, which will be of interest to researchers and postgraduate students in such diverse disciplines as engineering, mathematics, physics, and biology. 1978 edition. Bibliography.

Catastrophe Theory and Its Applications (Surveys and Reference Works in Mathematics, 2)

Tim Poston

Mathematics

Pitman

First integrated treatment of main ideas behind René Thom's theory of catastrophes stresses detailed applications in the physical sciences. Mathematics of theory explained with a minimum of technicalities. Over 200 illustrations clarify text designed for researchers and postgraduate students in engineering, mathematics, physics and biology. 1978 edition. Bibliography.

Catastrophe Theory and Its Applications

Pitman Publishing

In 1884, Edwin A. Abbott published a brilliant novel about mathematics and philosophy that charmed and fascinated all of England. As both a witty satire of Victorian society and a means by which to explore the fourth dimension, Flatland remains a tour de force.Now, British mathematician and accomplished science writer Ian Stewart has written a fascinating, modern sequel to Abbott`s book. Through larger-than-life characters and an inspired story line, Flatterland explores our present understanding of the shape and origins of the universe, the nature of space, time, and matter, as well as modern geometries and their applications. The journey begins when our heroine, Victoria Line, comes upon her great-great-grandfather A. Square`s diary, hidden in the attic."The most exciting book I have read this year...truly amazing." A.S. Byatt, Daily Telegraph"A book in which the hard science is as gripping as the fiction"  The Times "A provocative, ambitious, and enjoyable attempt to ask and answer some of the most interesting Big Questions of modern science..." New Scientist

Flatterland

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Pan/Macmillan

The title of this book may be read in two ways. One is 'algebraic number-theory', that is, the theory of numbers viewed algebraically; the other, 'algebraic-number theory', the study of algebraic numbers. Both readings are compatible with our aims, and both are perhaps misleading. Misleading, because a proper coverage of either topic would require more space than is available, and demand more of the reader than we wish to; compatible, because our aim is to illustrate how some of the basic notions of the theory of algebraic numbers may be applied to problems in number theory. Algebra is an easy subject to compartmentalize, with topics such as 'groups', 'rings' or 'modules' being taught in comparative isolation. Many students view it this way. While it would be easy to exaggerate this tendency, it is not an especially desirable one. The leading mathematicians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries developed and used most of the basic results and techniques of linear algebra for perhaps a hundred years, without ever defining an abstract vector space: nor is there anything to suggest that they suf fered thereby. This historical fact may indicate that abstrac tion is not always as necessary as one commonly imagines; on the other hand the axiomatization of mathematics has led to enormous organizational and conceptual gains.

Algebraic number theory (Chapman and Hall Mathematics Series)

David Tall

CHAPMAN AND HALL LTD

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