The works from Daniel Bernoulli's youth contained in this first volume of his Collected Works bear witness above all of his versatility; they deal with subjects as different as physiology, formal logic, mathematical analysis, hydrodynamics and positional astronomy. Daniel Bernoulli's contacts with Italian scientists gave rise to several controversies. The present volume documents both sides in each of these debates, which culminated with the publication of Bernoulli's first book Exercitationes mathe- maticae in 1724. The discussions with the renowned mathematician Jacopo Riccati on second-order differential equations and on the Newtonian theory of the out-flow of fluids from vessels deserve particular interest. A third group of texts goes back to the time Bernoulli spent at the newly- founded Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, where he had been appointed in 1725. There he worked out two more contributions to physiological research - on muscle movement and on the blind spot in the human eye - as well as his only paper in positional astronomy. This last work - suggested by a prize question of the Paris Academie des Sciences - became the occasion for a vehement conflict; the present volume documents these "Zankereien" (squabbles) and also reproduces three competing treatises. To complete the documentation of Daniel Bernoulli's work on physiology, the volume also includes his academic ceremonial speech De Vita of 1737, where he sketches for the first time the circulation of the work done by the human heart, and its elaboration by Bernoulli's student Daniel Passavant.

In 1500 few Europeans considered nature an object worthy of study, yet within fifty years the first museums of natural history had appeared, chiefly in Italy. Vast collections of natural curiosities - including living human dwarves, "toad-stones", and unicorn horns - were gathered by Italian patricians as a means of knowing their world. The museums built around these collections became the center of a scientific culture that over the next century and a half served as a microcosm of Italian society and as the crossroads where the old and new sciences met. In Possessing Nature, Paula Findlen vividly recreates the lost world of late Renaissance and Baroque Italian museums and demonstrates its significance in the history of science and culture. Based on exhaustive research into natural histories, letters, travel journals, memoirs, and pleas for patronage, Findlen describes collections and collectors great and small, beginning with Ulisse Aldrovandi, professor of natural history at the University of Bologna. Aldrovandi, whose museum was known as the "eighth wonder" of the world, was a great popularizer of collecting among the upper classes. From the universities, Findlen traces the spread of natural history in the seventeenth century to other learned sectors of society: religious orders, scientific societies, and princely courts. There was, as Findlen shows, no separation between scientific culture and general political culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. The community of these early naturalists was, in many ways, a mirror of the humanist "republic of letters". Archival documents point to the currying of patrons and the hierarchical nature of the scientific professions, characteristicscommon to the larger world around them. Examining anew the society and accomplishments of the first collectors of nature, Findlen argues that the accepted distinction between the "old" Aristotelian, text-based science and the "new" empirical science during the period is false. Rather, natural history as a discipline blurred the border between the ancients and the moderns, between collecting in order to recover ancient wisdom and collecting in order to develop new scholarship. In this way, as in others, the Scientific Revolution grew from the constant mediation between the old form of knowledge and the new. Possessing Nature is a unique cross-disciplinary study. Not only does its detailed description of the earliest natural history collections make an important contribution to museum studies and cultural history, but by placing these museums in a continuum of scientific inquiry, it also adds to our understanding of the history of science.

In a fast-moving world, the necessity of making decisions, and preferably good ones, has become even more difficult. One reason is the variety and number of choices perhaps available which often are not presented or understood. Alternatives are often unclear and complex paths to them confusing and misleading. Thus the process of decision making itself requires analysis on an ongoing basis. Decision making is often made based on cultural factors whereas the best alternative might be quite different. The subject touches ethical aspects as well as psychological considerations. This book presents important research on the psychology of decision making related to law and law enforcement, health care and science.

Reputed to have performed miraculous feats in New England-restoring the hair and teeth to an aged lady, bringing a withered peach tree to fruit-Eirenaeus Philalethes was also rumored to be an adept possessor of the alchemical philosophers' stone. That the man was merely a mythical creation didn't diminish his reputation a whit-his writings were spectacularly successful, read by Leibniz, esteemed by Newton and Boyle, voraciously consumed by countless readers. Gehennical Fire is the story of the man behind the myth, George Starkey. Though virtually unknown today and little noted in history, Starkey was America's most widely read and celebrated scientist before Benjamin Franklin. Born in Bermuda, he received his A.B. from Harvard in 1646 and four years later emigrated to London, where he quickly gained prominence as a "chymist." Thanks in large part to the scholarly detective work of William Newman, we now know that this is only a small part of an extraordinary story, that in fact George Starkey led two lives. Not content simply to publish his alchemical works under the name Eirenaeus Philalethes, "A Peaceful Lover of Truth," Starkey spread elaborate tales about his alter ego, in effect giving him a life of his own.

Provided here is a simple introduction to writing scientific programs using the OS/2 presentation manager. This book shows you how to write programs in the C language and is the first to illustrate how to plot data on hard copy devices such as dot matrix printers and pen plotters. Since the C language may be somewhat hard to read for some beginners, a chapter has been included which introduces the C language and includes simple definitions to make C more readable. Discussions comprehensively cover all important areas, including: how to display images such as those obtained from scanning microscopy techniques, frame grabbers, and image capture devices; how multiple thread of execution can be used within your program so that several tasks can run at the same time; the methods of communicating between these threads; how to acquire data from acquisition cards; an introduction to the Intel 80286 assembly language; and how to make calls to OS/2's serial device driver showing how to send and receive characters simply. In addition, all program examples are complete working programs which are fully discussed so that novices can easily understand their purpose.

Richard Feynman once quipped that "Time is what happens when nothing else does." But Julian Barbour disagrees: if nothing happened, if nothing changed, then time would stop. For time is nothing but change. It is change that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. Put simply, time does not exist.

In this highly provocative volume, Barbour presents the basic evidence for a timeless universe, and shows why we still experience the world as intensely temporal. It is a book that strikes at the heart of modern physics. It casts doubt on Einstein's greatest contribution, the spacetime continuum, but also points to the solution of one of the great paradoxes of modern science, the chasm between classical and quantum physics. Indeed, Barbour argues that the holy grail of physicists--the unification of Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics--may well spell the end of time.

Barbour writes with remarkable clarity as he ranges from the ancient philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides, through the giants of science Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, to the work of the contemporary physicists John Wheeler, Roger Penrose, and Steven Hawking. Along the way he treats us to enticing glimpses of some of the mysteries of the universe, and presents intriguing ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and, above all, the illusion of motion.

The End of Time is a vibrantly written and revolutionary book. It turns our understanding of reality inside-out.

When in 1989 Chinese astrophysicist Fang Lizhi sought asylum for months in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, later escaping to the West, worldwide attention focused on the plight of liberal intellectuals in China. In Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China H. Lyman Miller examines the scientific community in China and prominent members such as Fang and physicist and historian of science Xu Liangying. Drawing on Chinese academic journals, newspapers, interviews, and correspondence with Chinese scientists, he considers the evolution of China's science policy and its impact on China's scientific community. He illuminates the professional and humanistic values that impelled scientific intellectuals on their course toward open, liberal political dissent. It is ironic that scientific dissidence in China arose in opposition to a regime supportive of and initially supported by scientists. In the late 1970s scientists were called upon to help implement reforms orchestrated by Deng Xiaoping's regime, which attached a high priority to science and technology. The regime worked to rebuild China's civilian science community and sought to enhance the standing of scientists while at the same time it continued to oppose political pluralism and suppress dissidence. The political philosophy of revolutionary China has taught generations of scientists that explanation of the entire natural world, from subatomic particles to galaxies, falls under the jurisdiction of "natural dialectics," a branch of Marxism-Leninism. Escalating debates in the 1980s questioned the relationship of Marxism to science and led some to positions of open political dissent. At issue were the autonomy of China's scientific community and the conduct of science, as well as the validity and jurisdiction of Marxist-Leninist philosophy-and hence the fundamental legitimacy of the political system itself. Miller concludes that the emergence of a renewed liberal voice in China in the 1980s was in significant part an extension into politics of what some scientists believed to be the norms of healthy science; scientific dissidence was an unintended but natural consequence of the Deng regime's reforms. This thoughtful study of science as a powerful belief system and as a source of political and social values in contemporary China will appeal to a diverse audience, including readers interested in Chinese politics and society, comparative politics, communist regimes, the political sociology of science, and the history of ideas.

Given China's current and potential impacts on the global environment and the contributions Chinese science can make to global change research, China's full participation in international research programs dealing with global change is very important. This book provides insights into how research priorities are determined and detailed information about institutional infrastructure, human resources, and other factors that will constrain or facilitate Chinese responses to and research on global change issues. An overview of research relevant to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program and the World Climate Research Program is presented. Additionally, research in certain areas of atmospheric chemistry and physical and ecological interactions of the atmosphere and land surface are explored in further detail. Table of Contents Front Matter Executive Summary Introduction China's Response to Global Change Overview of Institutions Relevant to Global Change Research Chinese Participation in International Global Change Research Programs Selected Topics Summary References Appendix A: Overviews of Selected Institutions Appendix B: Global Change Projects Listed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Appendix C: Selected Bilateral and Multilateral Global Change Projects Appendix D: Ecological Stations of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Appendix E: Contact Information for Selected Institutions Appendix F: Abbreviations and Acronyms Index

Since the publication in 1896 of Andrew Dickson White's classic "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom", no comprehensive history of the subject has appeared in the English language. Although many twentieth-century historians have written on the relationship between Christianity and science, and in the process have called into question many of White's conclusions, the image of warfare lingers in the public mind. To provide an up-to-date alternative, based on the best available scholarship and written in nontechnical language, the editors of this volume have assembled an international group of distinguished historians. In eighteen essays prepared especially for this book, these authors cover the period from the early Christian church to the twentieth century, offering fresh appraisals of such encounters as the trial of Galileo, the formulation of the Newtonian worldview, the coming of Darwinism, and the ongoing controversies over 'scientific creationism'. They explore not only the impact of religion on science, but also the influence of science and religion. This landmark volume promises not only to silence the persistent rumors of war between Christianity and science, but also serve as the point of departure for new explorations of their relationship. Scholars and general readers alike will find it provocative and readable.

Surveys are the principal source of data not only for social science, but for consumer research, political polling, and federal statistics. In response to social and technological trends, rates of survey nonresponse have risen markedly in recent years, prompting observers to worry about the continued validity of surveys as a tool for data gathering. Newspaper stories, magazine articles, radio programs, television broadcasts, and Internet blogs are filled with data derived from surveys of one sort or another. Reputable media outlets generally indicate whether a survey is representative, but much of the data routinely bandied about in the media and on the Internet are not based on representative samples and are of dubious use in making accurate statements about the populations they purport to represent. Surveys are social interactions, and like all interactions between people, they are embedded within social structures and guided by shared cultural understandings. This issue of The ANNALS examines the difficulties with finding willing respondents to these surveys and how the changing structure of society, whether it be the changing family structure, mass immigration, rising inequality, or the rise of technology, has presented new issues to conducting surveys. This volume will be of interest to faculty and students who specialize in sociological movements as well as economic and immigration movements and its effect on surveying. "