This is a book for those who enjoy thinking about how and why Nature can be described using mathematical tools. Approximating Perfection considers the background behind mechanics as well as the mathematical ideas that play key roles in mechanical applications. Concentrating on the models of applied mechanics, the book engages the reader in the types of nuts-and-bolts considerations that are normally avoided in formal engineering courses: how and why models remain imperfect, and the factors that motivated their development. The opening chapter reviews and reconsiders the basics of calculus from a fully applied point of view; subsequent chapters explore selected topics from solid mechanics, hydrodynamics, and the natural sciences. Emphasis is placed on the logic that underlies modeling in mechanics and the many surprising parallels that exist between seemingly diverse areas. The mathematical demands on the reader are kept to a minimum, so the book will appeal to a wide technical audience.
An anthology of 50 classic essays with an active table of contents to make it easy to quickly find the book you are looking for. Works Include: An Accursed Race by Elizabeth Gaskell The Apology by Xenophon The Appetite of Tyranny by G.K. Chesterton The Art of Money Getting by P. T. Barnum The Art of Writing and Other Essays by Robert Louis Stevenson As We Go by Charles Dudley Warner "Bethink Yourselves" by Leo Tolstoi The Californiacs by Inez Haynes Irwin The City That Was by Will Irwin Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells Clocks by Jerome K. Jerome A Confession by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy The Defendant by G.K. Chesterton An Essay on Professional Ethics by George Sharswood An Essay on Satire Particularly on the Dunciad by Walter Harte Evergreens by Jerome K. Jerome An Exhortation to Peace and Unity Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan Get Next! by Hugh McHugh How to Become Rich by William Windsor How to Fail in Literature by Andrew Lang Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. Jerome If I May by A. A. Milne "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" by Charles Francis Adams Irish Impressions by G.K. Chesterton Is Shakespeare Dead? by Mark Twain Laugh and Live by Douglas Fairbanks Laughter by Henri Bergson The Man of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie Marriage and Love by Emma Goldman Maxims for Revolutionists by George Bernard Shaw The Native Son by Inez Haynes Irwin Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson Never Again! by Edward Carpenter 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man' by Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb and Mary Roberts Rinehart On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain On the Significance of Science and Art by Leo Tolstoy Optimism by Helen Keller Sea Warfare by Rudyard Kipling The Superstition of Divorce by G.K. Chesterton Through the Magic Door by Arthur Conan Doyle A Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke Twelve Types by G.K. Chesterton Waiting for Daylight by Henry Major Tomlinson Walking by Henry David Thoreau War of the Classes by Jack London What to Do? by Leo Tolstoy When a Man Comes to Himself by Woodrow Wilson Why Worry? by George Lincoln Walton, M.D. Wild Apples by Henry David Thoreau Zionism and Anti-Semitism by Max Simon Nordau and Gustav Gottheil DISCLAIMER: There has been concern about the table of contents (or lack thereof) in the ""50 Classic Books"" Series. Golgotha Press has addressed this problem and readers who download the books as of November 2011 can access a functional table of contents by going to the front of the book and paging forward two pages. Because of the size of this book, the ""active"" feature in the conversion is removed. We are trying resolve this problem, but until then, please follow the steps above. If you still experience the problem, please contact us so we can investigate exactly what is happening. Please note, however, that the table of contents does not become active until you purchase the book--preview mode does not currently support active TOC's. We apologize for any confusion or frustration this has caused.
In 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers now allow musicians and engineers to create the illusion of performances that never were. In between lies a century of sonic exploration into the balance between the real and the represented. Tracing the contours of this history, Greg Milner takes us through the major breakthroughs and glorious failures in the art and science of recording. An American soldier monitoring Nazi radio transmissions stumbles onto the open yet revolutionary secret of magnetic tape. Japanese and Dutch researchers build a first-generation digital audio format and watch as their "compact disc" is marketed by the music industry as the second coming of Edison yet derided as heretical by analog loyalists. The music world becomes addicted to volume in the nineties and fights a self-defeating "loudness war" to get its fix. From Les Paul to Phil Spector to King Tubby, from vinyl to pirated CDs to iPods, Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever pulls apart musical history to answer a crucial question: Should a recording document reality as faithfully as possible, or should it improve upon or somehow transcend the music it records? The answers he uncovers will change the very way we think about music.
Comprehensive in its ambitions and meticulous in its approach, The Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon is a new and unique interpretation of one of early modernity's more important thinkers. Whereas recent works on Bacon tend to confine themselves either to interpreting his historical context or to considering the founder of Baconianism from the perspective of one work in particular or the history of science in general, Tom van Malssen argues, through detailed and provocative interpretations of a number of Baconian writings, that the unity of Bacon's thought can only be revealed if these writings are read in historical and philosophical conjunction as well as on the assumption that they are all somehow part of the whole of Bacon's political philosophy. In addition to restoring Bacon to the pantheon of great philosophers, Van Malssen demonstrates that a proper understanding of Bacon's political philosophy contributes significantly to our understanding of the nature of philanthropic science, the modern project, and ultimately ourselves.
