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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > General
HISTORY of BRIDGE ENGINEERING - 1911 - PREFACE - PROFICIENCY in any
art or science is not attained until its history is known. . Many a
student and a designer finds, after weary hours of thought, that
the problems over which he studied were considered a
Faraday's detailed examination of the candle, its composition, and
the physical nature of its flames, is published here complete with
the original illustrations and explanatory tables. Although
involved in developing several of the cutting-edge advances in
thermodynamics during his era, Michael Faraday recognized that the
essential principles of physics underpinned earlier innovations.
This book outlines the three essential ingredients for fire; a
supply of oxygen, a supply of fuel, and heat. The fundamental
design of the candle, with its slow-melting wax and wick, is
detailed. As well as being a great scientist in his own right,
Faraday was respected as a lecturer capable of explaining with
clarity principles which his contemporaries struggled to present to
the general population. It can be argued that Michael Faraday was
among the first of the 'popular scientists' capable of presenting
science in a manner interesting and stimulating: it is in this
spirit that he published this book.
The Revolutionary Phenotype is a science book that brings us four
billion years into the past, when the first living molecules showed
up on Planet Earth. Unlike what was previously thought, we learn
that DNA-based life did not emerge from random events in a
primordial soup. Indeed, the first molecules of DNA were fabricated
by a previous life form. By describing the fascinating events
referred to as Phenotypic Revolutions, this book provides a dire
warning to humanity: if humans continue to play with their own
genes, we will be the next life form to fall to our own creation.
The arena of sport is filled with marvelous performances and feats
that, at times, seem almost beyond belief. As curious onlookers, we
often wonder whether or not athletes will reach certain peaks and
what determines their limits of athletic performance. Science, with
its emphasis on theoretical development and experimental results,
is uniquely equipped to answer these kinds of questions. Over the
past two decades, I have been asked innumerable questions related
to how science can provide these kinds of insights. Science in the
Arena is written as an outgrowth of those interactions with the
primary goal of communicating useful and understandable scientific
explanations of athletic performance.
This is a set of lecture notes that developed out of courses on the
lambda calculus that the author taught at the University of Ottawa
in 2001 and at Dalhousie University in 2007 and 2013. Topics
covered in these notes include the untyped lambda calculus, the
Church-Rosser theorem, combinatory algebras, the simply-typed
lambda calculus, the Curry-Howard isomorphism, weak and strong
normalization, polymorphism, type inference, denotational
semantics, complete partial orders, and the language PCF.
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