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Author: Helge Kragh
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 1999-03-14
Total Pages: 518
ISBN-13: 9780691005461
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBetween 1920 and 1970, cosmology became a branch of physics. This text examines how the big bang theory drew inspiration from, and eventually triumphed over, rival views, mainly the steady-state theory and its concept of a stationary universe.
Author: Peter Dickens
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2007-11-08
Total Pages: 271
ISBN-13: 113418980X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSpace weaponry, satellite surveillance and communications, and private space travel are all means in which outer space is being humanized: incorporated into society’s projects. But what are the political implications of society not only being globalized, but becoming ‘cosmic’? Our ideas about society have long affected, and been affected by, our understanding of the universe: large sections of our economy and society are now organized around humanity’s use of outer space. Our view of the universe, our increasingly ‘cosmic’ society, and even human consciousness are being transformed by new relations with the cosmos. As the first sociological book to tackle humanity’s relationship with the universe, this fascinating volume links social theory to classical and contemporary science, and proposes a new ‘cosmic’ social theory. Written in a punchy, student-friendly style, this timely book engages with a range of topical issues, including cyberspace, terrorism, tourism, surveillance and globalization.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2001-06-30
Total Pages: 225
ISBN-13: 0743215079
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is about the great moral issues underlying many of the headline-making political controversies of our times. It is not a comforting book but a book about disturbing and dangerous trends. The Quest for Cosmic Justice shows how confused conceptions of justice end up promoting injustice, how confused conceptions of equality end up promoting inequality, and how the tyranny of social visions prevents many people from confronting the actual consequences of their own beliefs and policies. Those consequences include the steady and dangerous erosion of fundamental principles of freedom -- amounting to a quiet repeal of the American revolution. The Quest for Cosmic Justice is the summation of a lifetime of study and thought about where we as a society are headed -- and why we need to change course before we do irretrievable damage.
Author: Eric J. Chaisson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2001-02-16
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 0674009878
DOWNLOAD EBOOKChaisson addresses some of the most basic issues we can contemplate: the origin of matter and the origin of life, and the ways matter, life, and radiation interact and change with time. He designs for us an expansive yet intricate model depicting the origin and evolution of all material structures.
Author: Bentley B. Allan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2018-04-19
Total Pages: 362
ISBN-13: 110827143X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKScientific Cosmology and International Orders shows how scientific ideas have transformed international politics since 1550. Allan argues that cosmological concepts arising from Western science made possible the shift from a sixteenth century order premised upon divine providence to the present order centred on economic growth. As states and other international associations used scientific ideas to solve problems, they slowly reconfigured ideas about how the world works, humanity's place in the universe, and the meaning of progress. The book demonstrates the rise of scientific ideas across three cases: natural philosophy in balance of power politics, 1550–1815; geology and Darwinism in British colonial policy and international colonial orders, 1860–1950; and cybernetic-systems thinking and economics in the World Bank and American liberal order, 1945–2015. Together, the cases trace the emergence of economic growth as a central end of states from its origins in colonial doctrines of development and balance of power thinking about improvement.
Author: Bentley B. Allan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2018-04-19
Total Pages: 361
ISBN-13: 1108265979
DOWNLOAD EBOOKScientific Cosmology and International Orders shows how scientific ideas have transformed international politics since 1550. Allan argues that cosmological concepts arising from Western science made possible the shift from a sixteenth-century order premised upon divine providence to the present order centred on economic growth. As states and other international associations used scientific ideas to solve problems, they slowly reconfigured ideas about how the world works, humanity's place in the universe, and the meaning of progress. The book demonstrates the rise of scientific ideas across three cases: natural philosophy in balance of power politics, 1550–1815; geology and Darwinism in British colonial policy and international colonial orders, 1860–1950; and cybernetic-systems thinking and economics in the World Bank and American liberal order, 1945–2015. Together, the cases trace the emergence of economic growth as a central end of states from its origins in colonial doctrines of development and balance of power thinking about improvement.
Author: Richard R. Nelson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 1985-10-15
Total Pages: 456
ISBN-13: 9780674041431
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.
Author: Dr. Ahmed Sayeed
Publisher: Authors Tree Publishing
Published: 2021-04-03
Total Pages: 186
ISBN-13: 8195077528
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTHE ORIGIN OF THINGS has always been a central concern for humanity; the origin of the stones, the animals, the plants, the planets, the stars and we ourselves. Yet the most fundamental origin of them all would seem to be the origin of the universe as a whole – of everything that exists, without which there could be none of the creatures and things mentioned above, including ourselves. Perhaps that is why the existence of the universe, its origin and nature, has been a subject of explanation in almost all civilizations and cultures. In fact, every culture known to anthropology has had a cosmogony – a history of how the world began and continues, of how mankind was created and of what the gods expect of us. The understanding these civilizations had of the universe is very different to what science teaches us today. However, the absence of a cosmology in these societies, of some explanation for the world in which we live, would be just as unthinkable as the absence of language itself. These explanations, for want of other frameworks from which to approach the subject, always had religious, mythological or philosophical foundations. Only recently has science been able to give its version of the facts, chiefly because science is recent itself. In terms of experimental scientific method, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642, Italian astronomer, physicist and mathematician) is something of a milestone, though the Greeks had already developed sophisticated geometrical methods for measuring the orbits and sizes of celestial bodies and for predicting astronomical events. Nor can we forget that the Egyptians and Chinese, like the Incas, Mayas and Aztecs, also knew how to read the movements of the stars. It is surprising how we can understand the physical universe in a rational manner and that it can be researched through the methods of physics and astronomy developed in our laboratories and observatories. The perception of this scientific dimension and capacity was revealed to us most clearly in the first, second and third decades of the 20th Century.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2001-07-15
Total Pages: 203
ISBN-13: 0309073421
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPhysics at the beginning of the twenty-first century has reached new levels of accomplishment and impact in a society and nation that are changing rapidly. Accomplishments have led us into the information age and fueled broad technological and economic development. The pace of discovery is quickening and stronger links with other fields such as the biological sciences are being developed. The intellectual reach has never been greater, and the questions being asked are more ambitious than ever before. Physics in a New Era is the final report of the NRC's six-volume decadal physics survey. The book reviews the frontiers of physics research, examines the role of physics in our society, and makes recommendations designed to strengthen physics and its ability to serve important needs such as national security, the economy, information technology, and education.
Author: Alexandru Popescu
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-01-16
Total Pages: 379
ISBN-13: 1351911597
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPetre Tutea (1902-91) was one of the outstanding Christian dissident intellectuals of the Communist era in Eastern Europe. Revered as a saint by some, he spent thirteen years as a prisoner of conscience and twenty-eight years under house arrest at the hands of the Securitate. This book explores his unique response to the horrors of torture and 're-education' and reveals the experience of a whole generation detained in the political prisons. Tutea’s understanding of human needs and how they can be fulfilled even amidst extreme adversity not only reflects huge learning and great brilliance of mind, but also offers a spiritual vision grounded in personal experience of the Romanian Gulag. Following the fall of the Ceausescus, he has begun to emerge as a significant contributor to ecumenical Christian discourse and to understanding of wider issues of truth and reconciliation in the contemporary world. As Tutea's pupil and scribe for twelve years, as a psychiatrist, and as a theologian, Alexandru Popescu is uniquely placed to present the work of this twentieth-century Confessor of the faith. Drawing on bibliographical sources which include unpublished or censored manuscripts and personal conversations with Tutea and with other prisoners of conscience in Romania, Popescu presents extensive translations of Tutea, which make his thought accessible to the English-speaking reader for the first time. Through his stature as a human being and his authority as a thinker, Petre Tutea challenges us to question many of our assumptions. The choice he presents between ’sacrifice’ and ’moral suicide’ focuses us on the very essence of religion and human personhood. Resisting any ultimate separation of theology and spirituality, his work affirms hope and love as the sole ground upon which truth can be based. At the same time, hope and love are not mere ideal emotions, but are known and lived in engagement with the real world - in politics, economics, science, ecol
