The apex of Soviet science as seen through the lives of twelve of the USSR's most eminent researchers Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery is the final resting place of some of Russia's most celebrated figures, from Khrushchev and Yeltsin to Anton Chekhov, Sergei Eisenstein, Nikolai Gogol, and Mikhail Bulgakov. Using this famed cemetery as symbolic starting point, Buried Glory profiles a dozen eminent Soviet scientists-nine of whom are buried at Novodevichy-men who illustrate both the glorious heights of Soviet research as well as the eclipse of science since the collapse of the USSR. Drawing on extensive archival research and his own personal memories, renowned chemist Istvan Hargittai bring these figures back to life, placing their remarkable scientific achievements against the tense political backdrop of the Cold War. Among the eminent scientists profiled here are Petr L. Kapitza, one of the most brilliant representatives of the great generation of Soviet physicists, a Nobel-Prize winner who risked his career-and his life-standing up for fellow scientists against Stalin. Yulii B. Khariton, who ran the highly secretive Soviet nuclear weapons laboratory, Arzamas-16, despite being Jewish and despite the fact that his father Boris had been sent to the labor camps. And Andrei D. Sakharov, the "father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb " and a brilliant fighter for human rights, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Along the way, Hargittai shines a light on the harrowing conditions under which these brilliant researchers excelled. Indeed, in the post-war period, Stalin's anti-Semitism and ongoing anti-science measures devastated biology, damaged chemistry, and nearly destroyed physics. The latter was saved only because Stalin realized that without physics and physicists there could be no nuclear weapons. The extraordinary scientific talent nurtured by the Soviet regime belongs almost entirely to the past. Buried Glory is both a fitting tribute to these great scientists and a fascinating account of scientific work behind the Iron Curtain.

NOW A MAJOR SERIES 'GENIUS' ON NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, PRODUCED BY RON HOWARD AND STARRING GEOFFREY RUSH Einstein is the great icon of our age: the kindly refugee from oppression whose wild halo of hair, twinkling eyes, engaging humanity and extraordinary brilliance made his face a symbol and his name a synonym for genius. He was a rebel and nonconformist from boyhood days. His character, creativity and imagination were related, and they drove both his life and his science. In this marvellously clear and accessible narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked and the mysteries of the universe that he discovered. Einstein's success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marvelling at mysteries that struck others as mundane. This led him to embrace a worldview based on respect for free spirits and free individuals. All of which helped make Einstein into a rebel but with a reverence for the harmony of nature, one with just the right blend of imagination and wisdom to transform our understanding of the universe. This new biography, the first since all of Einstein's papers have become available, is the fullest picture yet of one of the key figures of the twentieth century. This is the first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available -- a fully realised portrait of this extraordinary human being, and great genius. Praise for EINSTEIN by Walter Isaacson:- 'YOU REALLY MUST READ THIS.' Sunday Times 'As pithy as Einstein himself.' New Scientist '[A] brilliant biography, rich with newly available archival material.' Literary Review 'Beautifully written, it renders the physics understandable.' Sunday Telegraph 'Isaacson is excellent at explaining the science. ' Daily Express

This book relates how, between 1954 and 1961, the biologist Seymour Benzer mapped the fine structure of the rII region of the genome of the bacterial virus known as phage T4. Benzer's accomplishments are widely recognized as a tipping point in mid-twentieth-century molecular biology when the nature of the gene was recast in molecular terms. More often than any other individual, he is considered to have led geneticists from the classical gene into the molecular age.
Drawing on Benzer's remarkably complete record of his experiments, his correspondence, and published sources, this book reconstructs how the former physicist initiated his work in phage biology and achieved his landmark investigation. The account of Benzer's creativity as a researcher is a fascinating story that also reveals intriguing aspects common to the scientific enterprise.

This book explores the changing perspective of astrology from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era. It introduces a framework for understanding both its former centrality and its later removal from legitimate knowledge and practice. The discussion reconstructs the changing roles of astrology in Western science, theology, and culture from 1250 to 1500. The author considers both the how and the why. He analyzes and integrates a broad range of sources. This analysis shows that the history of astrology-in particular, the story of the protracted criticism and ultimate removal of astrology from the realm of legitimate knowledge and practice-is crucial for fully understanding the transition from premodern Aristotelian-Ptolemaic natural philosophy to modern Newtonian science. This removal, the author argues, was neither obvious nor unproblematic. Astrology was not some sort of magical nebulous hodge-podge of beliefs. Rather, astrology emerged in the 13th century as a richly mathematical system that served to integrate astronomy and natural philosophy, precisely the aim of the "New Science" of the 17th century. As such, it becomes a fundamentally important historical question to determine why this promising astrological synthesis was rejected in favor of a rather different mathematical natural philosophy-and one with a very different causal structure than Aristotle's.

This book explores ancient efforts to explain the scientific, philosophical, and spiritual aspects of water. From the ancient point of view, we investigate many questions including: How does water help shape the world? What is the nature of the ocean? What causes watery weather, including superstorms and snow? How does water affect health, as a vector of disease or of healing? What is the nature of deep-sea-creatures (including sea monsters)? What spiritual forces can protect those who must travel on water? This first complete study of water in the ancient imagination makes a major contribution to classics, geography, hydrology and the history of science alike. Water is an essential resource that affects every aspect of human life, and its metamorphic properties gave license to the ancient imagination to perceive watery phenomena as the product of visible and invisible forces. As such, it was a source of great curiosity for the Greeks and Romans who sought to control the natural world by understanding it, and who, despite technological limitations, asked interesting questions about the origins and characteristics of water and its influences on land, weather, and living creatures, both real and imagined.

Artisans travelled all over Europe in the pre-modern period, and they were responsible for many technical innovations and new consumer products. This volume moves away from the model of knowledge 'transfer' and, drawing on new understandings of artisan work, considers the links between artisan creativity and mobility. Through case studies of different industries, it emphasizes traditions of migration, the experience of moving, and the stimulus provided by new economic and work environments. For both male and female artisans, the weight of these factors varied from one trade to another, and from place to place.

This book provides a unique survey displaying the power of Riccati equations to describe reversible and irreversible processes in physics and, in particular, quantum physics. Quantum mechanics is supposedly linear, invariant under time-reversal, conserving energy and, in contrast to classical theories, essentially based on the use of complex quantities. However, on a macroscopic level, processes apparently obey nonlinear irreversible evolution equations and dissipate energy. The Riccati equation, a nonlinear equation that can be linearized, has the potential to link these two worlds when applied to complex quantities. The nonlinearity can provide information about the phase-amplitude correlations of the complex quantities that cannot be obtained from the linearized form. As revealed in this wide ranging treatment, Riccati equations can also be found in many diverse fields of physics from Bose-Einstein-condensates to cosmology. The book will appeal to graduate students and theoretical physicists interested in a consistent mathematical description of physical laws.

For almost three quarters of a century, the United States has spent billions of dollars and countless person-hours in the pursuit of a national missile defense system that would protect the country from intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) carrying nuclear warheads. The system currently in place consists of 44 long-range antiballistic missiles stationed in Alaska and California to protect the United States from a possible nuclear weapon carrying ICBM attack from North Korea. After all this effort, this systemis still imperfect, being successful only 10 out of 18 tests. This book will provide an historical description of past efforts in national missile defenses to understand the technical difficulties involved. It will also explain how national security concerns, the evolving international environment, and the complexities of US politics have all affected the story. The book will also describe the current systems in place to protect allies and troops in the field from the threat of shorter range missiles. Finally, the book will describe the current US vision for the future of missile defenses and provide some suggestions for alternative paths.

Science and Catholicism in Argentina (1750-1960) is the first comprehensive study on the relationship between science and religion in a Spanish-speaking country with a Catholic majority and a "Latin" pattern of secularisation. The text takes the reader from Jesuit missionary science in colonial times, through the conflict-ridden 19th century, to the Catholic revival of the 1930s in Argentina. The diverse interactions between science and religion revealed in this analysis can be organised in terms of their dynamic of secularisation. The indissoluble identification of science and the secular, which operated at rhetorical and institutional levels among the liberal elite and the socialists in the 19th century, lost part of its force with the emergence of Catholic scientists in the course of the 20th century. In agreement with current views that deny science the role as the driving force of secularisation, this historical study concludes that it was the process of secularisation that shaped the interplay between religion and science, not the other way around.

This study offers an engaging reassessment of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (the Columbian Exposition), generally regarded as the preeminent civic pageant in Victorian America. Based on exhaustive research, Downey uses the Exposition as a representative cultural symbol to challenge established interpretations of the event and to suggest a new approach to writing American cultural history. Adopting the approach of culture as conversation, he stresses the manner in which the Chicago fair reflected the main currents and conflicting tendencies in American life at the end of the 19th century.

Viewing the Exposition as a cultural moment, Downey emphasizes the theme of renewal as central to the cultural aspirations of the enterprise and its engagement of public life. Throughout the narrative, the divergent voices that comprised a great cultural conversation on the salient issues of the day emerge through their presence at, and participation in, the Exposition. This lively account offers new insights into the cultural climate of the period, while introducing readers to the sheer majesty and splendor of an event that captivated the city and the nation more than a century ago.

Why write a book about science, technology, and medicine in Lisbon? No one questions the value of similar studies of European capital cities such as Paris or London, but they are not reflective of the norm. Alongside its unique characteristics, Lisbon more closely represents the rule and deserves attention as such. This book offers the first urban history of science, technology and medicine in Lisbon, 1840-1940. It addresses the hybrid character of a European port city, scientific capital and imperial metropolis. It discusses the role of science, technology, and medicine in the making of Lisbon, framed by the analysis of invisibilities, urban connections, and techno-scientific imaginaries. The book is accompanied by a virtual interactive map.

What difference does a worldview make? These eclectic essays from twenty scholars show how embodying a biblical Christian worldview helps transform mere existence into fullness of life. Read them to discover . . . How Genesis answers the four most important human questions of pre-modern and post-modern times (W. Brouwer); Why the concept "Christian worldview" fits the unique experience of reality Christianity affords, despite recent criticisms of the term and concept (R. Kurka); How worldview competition in the global South differs from the West (D. Button); How Western civilization lost its Christian mind and can find it again (M. E. Roberts); How well the reasons celebrity scholar Bart Ehrman gives for his "deconversion" stack up (E. Meadors); How higher education has abandoned its own source by expelling "religion of the heart" (R. Wenyika & W. Adrian); How an "engineering mindset" helps evaluate worldviews and how a Christian worldview fares (D. Halsmer); Christian Humanism as an exodus from the cultural wasteland for today's youth (R. Williams); The worldview John Grisham's fiction expresses (J. Han & M. Bagley); How Intelligent Design strengthens its status as science by using the concept of "design" in a new way (D. Leonard); In the spirit of "The Screwtape Letters," a new epistle to Wormwood that praises compartmentalized Christianity (D. K. Naugle); How an orphaned Japanese girl experienced "the American dream," God's way (K. Takeuchi); How words, grammar, and style embody one's worldview, for good or ill (S. Robbins); What happens to preaching-and the church-when emotional response to visual stimuli preempts thought (W. Wilson II); . . . and much more. "That which God has created and sin has divided Christ is reuniting . . ., and this includes the divisions generated by our . . . compartmentalizations. Our gracious, redeeming God is putting Humpty Dumpty back together again For Christian scholars and teachers, this magnificent truth is fraught with implications for us . . . personally and professionally." - David K. Naugle, "Squashing Screwtape: Debunking Dualism and Restoring Integrity in Christian Educational Thought and Practice"

This book explains the development of theoretical computer science in its early stages, specifically from 1965 to 1990. The author is among the pioneers of theoretical computer science, and he guides the reader through the early stages of development of this new discipline. He explains the origins of the field, arising from disciplines such as logic, mathematics, and electronics, and he describes the evolution of the key principles of computing in strands such as computability, algorithms, and programming. But mainly it's a story about people - pioneers with diverse backgrounds and characters came together to overcome philosophical and institutional challenges and build a community. They collaborated on research efforts, they established schools and conferences, they developed the first related university courses, they taught generations of future researchers and practitioners, and they set up the key publications to communicate and archive their knowledge. The book is a fascinating insight into the field as it existed and evolved, it will be valuable reading for anyone interested in the history of computing.

The two decades between the first and second world wars saw the emergence of nuclear physics as the dominant field of experimental and theoretical physics, owing to the work of an international cast of gifted physicists. Prominent among them were Ernest Rutherford, George Gamow, the husband and wife team of Frederic and Irene Joliot-Curie, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, Gregory Breit and Eugene Wigner, Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch, the brash Ernest Lawrence, the prodigious Enrico Fermi, and the incomparable Niels Bohr. Their experimental and theoretical work arose from a quest to understand nuclear phenomena; it was not motivated by a desire to find a practical application for nuclear energy. In this sense, these physicists lived in an 'Age of Innocence'. They did not, however, live in isolation. Their research reflected their idiosyncratic personalities; it was shaped by the physical and intellectual environments of the countries and institutions in which they worked. It was also buffeted by the political upheavals after the Great War: the punitive postwar treaties, the runaway inflation in Germany and Austria, the Great Depression, and the intellectual migration from Germany and later from Austria and Italy. Their pioneering experimental and theoretical achievements in the interwar period therefore are set within their personal, institutional, and political contexts. Both domains and their mutual influences are conveyed by quotations from autobiographies, biographies, recollections, interviews, correspondence, and other writings of physicists and historians.

Ada's Legacy illustrates the depth and diversity of writers, thinkers, and makers who have been inspired by Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician and writer. The volume, which commemorates the bicentennial of Ada's birth in December 1815, celebrates Lovelace's many achievements as well as the impact of her life and work, which reverberated widely since the late nineteenth century. In the 21st century we have seen a resurgence in Lovelace scholarship, thanks to the growth of interdisciplinary thinking and the expanding influence of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Ada's Legacy is a unique contribution to this scholarship, thanks to its combination of papers on Ada's collaboration with Charles Babbage, Ada's position in the Victorian and Steampunk literary genres, Ada's representation in and inspiration of contemporary art and comics, and Ada's continued relevance in discussions around gender and technology in the digital age. With the 200th anniversary of Ada Lovelace's birth on December 10, 2015, we believe that the timing is perfect to publish this collection of papers. Because of its broad focus on subjects that reach far beyond the life and work of Ada herself, Ada's Legacy will appeal to readers who are curious about Ada's enduring importance in computing and the wider world.

Dorothy Wrinch, a complicated and ultimately tragic figure, is remembered today for her much publicized feud with Linus Pauling over the shape of proteins, known as "the cyclol controversy." Pauling emerged victorious and is now seen as one of the 20th century's greatest scientists. History has proven less kind to Wrinch. Although some of Wrinch's theories did not pass the test of time, her contributions to the fields of Darwinism, probability and statistics, quantum mechanics, x-ray diffraction, and computer science were anything but inconsequential. Wrinch's story is also the story of the science of crystals and the ever-changing notion of symmetry fundamental to that science. Drawing on her own personal relationship with Wrinch as well as the papers archived at Smith College and elsewhere, Marjorie Senechal explores the life of this brilliant and controversial figure in I Died for Beauty. This biography provides a coherent biographical narration, a detailed account of the cyclol controversy, and a personal memoir of the author's relationship with Wrinch. Senechal presents a sympathetic portrait of the life and science of a luminous but tragically flawed character.

Forty articles expertly curated by biographer Andrew Robinson provide an unrivalled account of the lives and personalities behind the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time. Who made us see the atom, our minds, our planet and the universe afresh? How did we uncover the mysteries of life on earth? What next? The theories, discoveries and inventions of scientists have revolutionized our consciousness. Think of gravity, evolution, relativity, radioactivity and the Big Bang; electric motors, vaccines, nuclear power and computers. Behind these breakthroughs lie the personal stories of men and women with vision and determination: singular thinkers who defied adversity in their quest for answers. This book tells the remarkable lives of the pioneers - from Galileo, Faraday and Darwin, through Pasteur and Marie Curie, to Einstein, Freud and Turing. Written by an international team of distinguished scientists, historians and science writers, it will intrigue budding scientists; those fascinated by the lives of great individuals; and anyone curious to know how we came to understand the exterior world and the pulse of life within.