Títulos en Historia y filosofía

Who are we, and how did we get here? These are two of the most fundamental and far-reaching questions facing scientists and cosmologists alike and have rested at the center of human intellectual endeavor since its beginning. They are questions that stretch across numerous disciplines. Philosophy, theology, evolutionary biology, and mathematics are just some of the fields looking to explain the emergence of human life.

New insights from the science of science Facts change all the time. Smoking has gone from doctor recommended to deadly. We used to think the Earth was the center of the universe and that Pluto was a planet. For decades, we were convinced that the brontosaurus was a real dinosaur. In short, what we know about the world is constantly changing. But it turns out there’s an order to the state of knowledge, an explanation for how we know what we know.

Naxos AudioBooks launches a new introductory series 'In a Nutshell' with Darwin, marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of the English naturalist. Peter Whitfield explains how Darwin came to his revolutionary views following his voyage on the Beagle - and his initial reluctance to publish his findings.

Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne here explores this controversial theorem and the human obsessions surrounding it.

The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention, more than 2,500 years ago. In this groundbreaking account of the earliest expressions of the timeless impulse to create artificial life, Adrienne Mayor tells the fascinating story of how ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese myths envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices, and human enhancements - and how these visions relate to and reflect the ancient invention of real animated machines.

Hoof Beats transforms our understanding of both horses and humanity's ancient past and asks us to consider what our relationship with horses means for the future of humanity and the world around us.

Ask a scientist about Hollywood, and you'll probably get eye rolls. But ask someone in Hollywood about science, and they'll see dollar signs: Moviemakers know that science can be the source of great stories, with all the drama and action that blockbusters require. That's a huge mistake, says Randy Olson: Hollywood has a lot to teach scientists about how to tell a story - and, ultimately, how to do science better. With Houston, We Have a Narrative, he lays out a stunningly simple method for turning the dull into the dramatic. 

Written in 1791 as a response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man is a seminal work on human freedom and equality. Using the French Revolution and its ideals as an example, he demonstrates his belief that any government must put the inherent rights of its citizens above all else, especially politics.

Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.

La voce di Gabriella Greison, fisica, scrittrice e attrice teatrale, racconta in maniera semplice la fisica quantistica, facendo un percorso suggestivo tra le menti che l'hanno creata e le loro geniali intuizioni. La fisica quantistica è nata dall'incrocio dei pensieri dei cervelli più grandi della scienza del XX secolo, e Gabriella Greison traccia questo sentiero fatto anche di slanci emotivi e colpi di scena, di litigi e di lunghe riflessioni.

The Quantum Rules applies the laws of physics to explain everything from relationships and human nature to the effects of globalization. It achieves the impossible task of making quantum physics deeply relevant to all listeners - even those with no interest in science. With a lively and engaging tone, author Kunal Das ponders the underlying truths and patterns in our shared and common life experiences, using insights derived from the fundamental laws of physics.

The History of Science offers a fascinating overview of the major leaps forward in science across the ages. From the mathematical and medical advances of the ancient world, to the Scientific Revolution in the Renaissance, to the ground-breaking developments of the 20th century, a precise chronological account of progress is given.

History's greatest breakthroughs weren't planned-they happened by accident. Discover 12 incredible stories of serendipity that changed the world: coal-tar waste becomes life-saving quinine, a chef's angry revenge creates potato chips, mold contamination leads to penicillin, and a frozen gas cylinder invents Teflon. From 1820 to 1938, explore how curiosity turned mistakes into miracles across chemistry, medicine, food, and industry. Perfect for science lovers, history buffs, and anyone inspired by the power of unexpected discovery.

Vaccine hesitancy in America didn't begin with the uproar over the mRNA vaccines for Covid-19. The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries saw resistance to a wide variety of vaccines. In Unvaccinated Under God, Kira Ganga Kieffer shows that debates over vaccine safety and mandatory...

Brought to you by Penguin. Is modernity really failing? Or have we failed to appreciate progress and the ideals that make it possible? If you follow the headlines, the world in the 21st century appears to be sinking into chaos, hatred and irrationality. Yet, as Steven Pinker shows, if you follow...

Why is the genome of a salamander 40 times larger than that of a human? Why does the avocado tree produce a million flowers and only a hundred fruits? Why, in short, is there so much waste in nature? In this lively and wide-ranging meditation on the curious accidents and unexpected detours on the path of life, Daniel Milo argues that we ask these questions because we’ve embraced a faulty conception of how evolution - and human society - really works.

In this collection of lectures that Richard Feynman originally gave in 1963, unpublished during his lifetime, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist discusses several of the ultimate questions of science. What is the nature of the tension between science and religious faith? Why does uncertainty play such a crucial role in the scientific imagination? Is this really a scientific age?

You are inside the universe you are trying to understand. This single fact — so obvious it barely seems worth stating — has consequences that reach from quantum physics to the structure of your own mind. In this audiobook, Boris Kriger shows that being inside changes everything. Drawing on a monograph that proves its claims with mathematical rigour, but written entirely in words and metaphors for the non-specialist listener, The Right to Be Wrong establishes three results that overturn common assumptions about knowledge, science, and consciousness.

Brought to you by Penguin. If you met an alien, what might it be like? Ever since childhood, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has wanted to be abducted by aliens. Here, he draws upon a lifetime’s fascination to explore the science of alien life – and to offer a practical guide to your...

The first human organ transplant in 1950 at a suburban hospital is the focus of The Graft: How a Pioneering Operation Sparked the Modern Age of Organ Transplants. The book examines the controversies the operation generated and the progress medicine has made in organ transplantation.