The Living Cosmos
The Living Cosmos

Author: Chris Impey

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2007-12-11

Total Pages: 522

ISBN-13: 1588367029

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Astrobiology–the study of life in space–is one of today’s fastest growing and most popular fields of science. In this compelling, accessible, and elegantly reasoned new book, award-winning scholar and researcher Chris Impey explores the foundations of this rapidly developing discipline, where it’s going, and what it’s likely to find. The journey begins with the earliest steps of science, gaining traction through the revelations of the Renaissance, including Copernicus’s revolutionary declaration that the Earth was not the center of the universe but simply a planet circling the sun. But if Earth is not the only planet, it is so far the only living one that we know of. In fascinating detail, The Living Cosmos reveals the incredible proliferation and variety of life on Earth, paying special tribute to some of its hardiest life forms, extremophiles, a dizzying array of microscopic organisms compared, in Impey’s wise and humorous prose, to superheroes that can survive extreme heat and cold, live deep within rocks, or thrive in pure acid. From there, Impey launches into space, where astrobiologists investigate the potential for life beyond our own world. Is it to be found on Mars, the “death planet” that has foiled most planetary missions, and which was wet and temperate billions of years ago? Or on Venus, Earth’s “evil twin,” where it rains sulfuric acid and whose heat could melt lead? (“Whoever named it after the goddess of love had a sorry history of relationships.”) The answer may lie in a moon within our Solar System, or it may be found in one of the hundreds of extra-solar planets that have already been located. The Living Cosmos sees beyond these explorations, and imagines space vehicles that eschew fuel for solar- or even nuclear-powered rockets, all sent by countries motivated by the millions to be made in space tourism. But The Living Cosmos is more than just a riveting work about experiment and discovery. It is also an affecting portrait of the individuals who have devoted their lives to astrobiology. Illustrated throughout, The Living Cosmos is a revelatory book about a science that is changing our view of the universe, a mesmerizing guide to what life actually means and where it may–or may not–exist, and a stunning work that explains our past as it predicts our future. From the Hardcover edition.

The Medieval English Universities
The Medieval English Universities

Author: Alan B. Cobban

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 1351885804

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

First published in 1988, this book traces the evolution of Oxford and Cambridge from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries. An overall view of the functioning of the universities, touching on the development of the academic hierarchy and teaching offered by these institutions, is given in this single-volume reappraisal of the institutions.

A Brief History of Universities
A Brief History of Universities

Author: John C. Moore

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-10

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13: 3030013197

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this book, John C. Moore surveys the history of universities, from their origin in the Middle Ages to the present. Universities have survived the disruptive power of the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific, French, and Industrial Revolutions, and the turmoil of two world wars—and they have been exported to every continent through Western imperialism. Moore deftly tells this story in a series of chronological chapters, covering major developments such as the rise of literary humanism and the printing press, the “Berlin model” of universities as research institutions, the growing importance of science and technology, and the global wave of campus activism that rocked the twentieth century. Focusing on significant individuals and global contexts, he highlights how the university has absorbed influences without losing its central traditions. Today, Moore argues, as universities seek corporate solutions to twenty-first-century problems, we must renew our commitment to a higher education that produces not only technicians, but citizens.

Oxbridge Men
Oxbridge Men

Author: Paul R. Deslandes

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2005-05-04

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780253111258

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The mythic status of the Oxbridge man at the height of the British Empire continues to persist in depictions of this small, elite world as an ideal of athleticism, intellectualism, tradition, and ritual. In his investigation of the origins of this myth, Paul R. Deslandes explores the everyday life of undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge to examine how they experienced manhood. He considers phenomena such as the dynamics of the junior common room, the competition of exams, and the social and athletic obligations of intercollegiate boat races to show how rituals, activities, relationships, and discourses all contributed to gender formation. Casting light on the lived experience of undergraduates, Oxbridge Men shows how an influential brand of British manliness was embraced, altered, and occasionally rejected as these students grew from boys into men.

The Origins of the University
The Origins of the University

Author: Stephen C. Ferruolo

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1985-06

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 0804765839

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The University of Paris is generally regarded as the first true university, the model for others not only in France but throughout Europe, including Oxford and Cambridge. This book challenges two prevailing myths about the university's origins: first, that the university naturally developed to meet the utilitarian and professional needs of European society in the late Middle Ages, and second, that it was the product of the struggle by scholars to gain freedom and autonomy from external authorities, most notably church officials. In the twelfth century, Paris was the educational center of Europe, with a large number of schools and masters attracting and competing for students. Over the decades, the schools of Paris had many critics--monastic reformers, humanists, satirists, and moralists--and the focus of this book is the role such critics played in developing the schools into a university. Ferruolo argues that it was the educational values and ideas promoted by the critics--ideas of the unity of knowledge, the need to share learning freely and willingly, and the higher purposes and social importance of education--that first inspired the scholars of Paris to join together to form a single guild. Their programs for educational reforms can be seen in the first set of statues promulgated for the nascent University of Paris in 1215.

Reading Ireland
Reading Ireland

Author: Raymond Gillespie

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2005-07-22

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9780719055270

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This fascinating and innovative study explores the lives of people living in early modern Ireland through the books and printed ephemera which they bought, borrowed or stole from others. While the importance of books and printing in influencing the outlook of early modern people is well known, recent years have seen significant changes in our understanding of how writing and print shaped lives, and was in turn shaped by those who appropriated the written word.

Logica modernorum in Prague about 1400
Logica modernorum in Prague about 1400

Author: E.P. Bos

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2004-11-01

Total Pages: 502

ISBN-13: 9047406044

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This anonymous source publication of a university discussion held in Prague about 1400 provides us with new information about medieval semantics after Peter of Spain and Richard Billingham. The edition is the basis of a partial reconstruction of Thomas of Cleves' "Logica,"