This book explores the relationship between cultural psychology and aesthetics, by integrating the historical, theoretical and phenomenological perspectives. It offers a comprehensive discussion of the history of aesthetics and psychology from an international perspective, with contributions by leading researchers from Serbia, Austria, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, and Brazil. The first section of the book aims at summarizing the debate of where the song comes from. It discusses undeveloped topics, methodological hints, and epistemological questions in the different areas of contemporary psychological sciences. The second section of the book presents concrete examples of case-studies and methodological issues (the new melodies in psychological research) to stimulate further explorations. The book aims to bring art back into psychology, to provide an understanding for the art of psychology. An Old Melody in a New Song will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in the fields of educational and developmental psychology, cultural psychology, history of ideas, aesthetics, and art-based research.

In early April 1911 Albert Einstein arrived in Prague to become full professor of theoretical physics at the German part of Charles University. It was there, for the first time, that he concentrated primarily on the problem of gravitation. Before he left Prague in July 1912 he had submitted the paper Relativitat und Gravitation: Erwiderung auf eine Bemerkung von M. Abraham in which he remarkably anticipated what a future theory of gravity should look like.

At the occasion of the Einstein-in-Prague centenary an international meeting was organized under a title inspired by Einstein's last paper from the Prague period: "Relativity and Gravitation, 100 Years after Einstein in Prague." The main topics of the conference included: classical relativity, numerical relativity, relativistic astrophysics and cosmology, quantum gravity, experimental aspects of gravitation and conceptual and historical issues.

The conference attracted over 200 scientists from 31 countries, among them a number of leading experts in the field of general relativity and its applications. This volume includes abstracts of the plenary talks and full texts of contributed talks and articles based on the posters presented at the conference. These describe primarily original results of the authors. Full texts of the plenary talks are included in the volume "General Relativity, Cosmology and Astrophysics--Perspectives 100 Years after Einstein in Prague," eds. J. Bi ak and T. Ledvinka, published also by Springer Verlag."

Biology and history are often viewed as closely related disciplines, with biology informed by history, especially in its task of charting our evolutionary past. Maximizing the opportunities for cross-fertilization in these two fields requires an accurate reckoning of their commonalities and differences-precisely what this volume sets out to achieve. Specially commissioned essays by a team of recognized international researchers cover the full panoply of topics in these fields and include notable contributions on the correlativity of evolutionary and historical explanations, applying to history the latest causal-mechanical approach in the philosophy of biology, and the question of generalized laws that might pertain across the two subjects.

The collection opens with a vital interrogation of general issues on explanation that apart from potentially fruitful areas of interaction (could the etiology of the causal-mechanical perspective in biology account for the historical trajectory of the Roman Empire?) this volume also seeks to chart relative certainties distinguishing explanations in biology and history. It also assesses techniques such as the use of probabilities in biological reconstruction, deployed to overcome the inevitable gaps in physical evidence on early evolution. Methodologies such as causal graphs and semantic explanation receive in-depth analysis. Contributions from a host of prominent and widely read philosophers ensure that this new volume has the stature of a major addition to the literature.

In this consideration of religious and scientific beliefs, Keith Simpson offers a provocative challenge to Darwinian thinking through conversations with a close friend.

"An important tool for parenting and college preparation. Having taught on all levels of academia, I am convinced that it takes great wisdom to take complex and sophisticated issues and present them in a way that the non-expert can comprehend and evaluate. Simpson has done a masterful job of synthesizing, exposing, and presenting-in an understandable and engaging way for our evaluation-the embedded philosophies of Darwinism that intertwine our cultural thinking."
-David P. Ferreira, Ph.D.

"Keith Simpson provides an enjoyable and highly personal account of how respectful and well-informed interactions with atheists can change hearts and minds for the better."
-Casey Luskin, Discovery Institute

Scientists have always attempted to explain the world in terms of a few unifying principles. In the fifth century B.C. Democritus boldly claimed that reality is simply a collection of indivisible and eternal parts or atoms. Over the centuries his doctrine has remained a landmark, and much progress in physics is due to its distinction between subjective perception and objective reality. This book discusses theory reduction in physics, which states that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts: the properties of things are directly determined by their constituent parts. Reductionism deals with the relation between different theories that address different levels of reality, and uses extrapolations to apply that relation in different sciences. Reality shows a complex structure of connections, and the dream of a unified interpretation of all phenomena in several simple laws continues to attract anyone with genuine philosophical and scientific interests. If the most radical reductionist point of view is correct, the relationship between disciplines is strictly inclusive: chemistry becomes physics, biology becomes chemistry, and so on. Eventually, only one science, indeed just a single theory, would survive, with all others merging in the Theory of Everything. Is the current coexistence of different sciences a mere historical venture which will end when the Theory of Everything has been established? Can there be a unified description of nature?
Rather than an analysis of full reductionism, this book focuses on aspects of theory reduction in physics and stimulates reflection on related questions: is there any evidence of actual reduction? Are the examples used in the philosophy of science too simplistic? What has been endangered by the search for (the) ultimate truth? Has the dream of reductionist reason created any monsters? Is big science one such monster? What is the point of embedding science Y within science X, if predictions cannot be made on that basis?

This book provides a chronological introduction to the sciences of astronomy and cosmology based on the reading and analysis of significant selections from classic texts, such as Ptolemy s "The Almagest," Kepler s "Epitome of Copernican Astronomy," Shapley s "Galaxies" and Lemaitre s "The Primeval Atom."

Each chapter begins with a short introduction followed by a reading selection. Carefully crafted study questions draw out key points in the text and focus the reader s attention on the author s methods, analysis, and conclusions. Numerical and observational exercises at the end of each chapter test the reader s ability to understand and apply key concepts from the text.

"The Heavens and the Earth" is the first of four volumes in "A Student s Guide Through the Great Physics Texts." This book grew out of a four-semester undergraduate physics curriculum designed to encourage a critical and circumspect approach to natural science, while at the same time preparing students for advanced coursework in physics.

This book is particularly suitable as a college-level textbook for students of the natural sciences, history or philosophy. It also serves as a textbook for advanced high-school students, or as a thematically-organized source-book for scholars and motivated lay-readers. In studying the classic scientific texts included herein, the reader will be drawn toward a lifetime of contemplation."

The years 2012/2013 mark the 50th anniversary of the theoretical prediction that Brown Dwarfs, i.e. degenerate objects which are just not massive enough to sustain stable hydrogen fusion, exist. Some 20 years after their discovery, how Brown Dwarfs form is still one of the main open questions in the theory of star formation. In this volume, the pioneers of Brown Dwarf research review the history of the theoretical prediction and the subsequent discovery of Brown Dwarfs. After an introduction, written by Viki Joergens, reviewing Shiv Kumar's theoretical prediction of the existence of brown dwarfs, Takenori Nakano reviews his and Hayashi's calculation of the Hydrogen Burning Minimum Mass. Both predictions happened in the early 1960s. Jill Tarter then writes on the introduction of the term 'Brown Dwarf', before Ben Oppenheimer, Rafael Rebolo and Gibor Basri describe their first discovery of Brown Dwarfs in the 1990s. Lastly, Michael Cushing and Isabelle Baraffe describe the development of the field to the current state of the art. While the book is mainly aimed at the Brown Dwarf research community, the description of the pioneering period in a scientific field will attract general readers interested in astronomy as well.

Tobern Bergman, considered one of the greatest chemists of the 18th century, edited this collection of lectures in chemistry by H.T. Scheffer and published it in 1775. It is thought to be the first book designed to be used as a textbook for university classes in chemistry. Bergman presented the first of his successively improved Tables of Elective Attractions in this book, a table of the chemical elements which was one of the earliest attempts to present all the chemical elements and their properties in a single table. This table preceded the modern periodic table of the elements by nearly a century. It is on the basis of this table that Bergman is considered to be the father of physical chemistry. One of the discoveries described in this book is Scheffer's "pelican experiment" which disproved the transmutation of elements and preceded by two decades the identical experiment carried out by Antoine Lavoisier. This book should be of interest to historians of science and chemists in particular, scientists in general and educators. It can be used as additional reading in history courses.

In 1938, one year into the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese military found itself in dire medical straits. Soldiers were suffering from deadly illnesses, and were unable to receive blood transfusions for their wounds. The urgent need for medical assistance prompted an unprecedented flowering of scientific knowledge in China and Taiwan throughout the twentieth century. Wayne Soon draws on archives from three continents to argue that Overseas Chinese were key to this development, utilizing their global connections and diasporic links to procure much-needed money, supplies, and medical expertise. The remarkable expansion of care and education that they spurred saved more than four million lives and trained more than fifteen thousand medical personnel. Moreover, the introduction of military medicine shifted biomedicine out of elite, urban civilian institutions and laboratories and transformed it into an adaptive field-based practice for all. Universal care, practical medical education, and mobile medicine are all lasting legacies of this effort.

Translated from the original French by Bernard Sheehan; Edited and with an introduction byDr. William Sheehan, a neuroscientist and amateur astronomer who is also a research fellow of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona

Le Verrier was a superb scientist. His discovery of Neptune in 1846 made him the most famous astronomer of his time. He produced a complete theory of the motions of the planets which served as a basis for planetary ephemeris for a full century. Doing this, he discovered an anomaly in the motion of Mercury which later became the first proof of General Relativity. He also founded European meteorology. However his arrogance and bad temper created many enemies, and he was even fired from his position of Director of the Paris Observatory."

Based on extensive primary sources, many never previously translated into English, this is the definitive account of the discovery of Pallas as it went from being classified as a new planet to reclassification as the second of a previously unknown group of celestial objects. Cunningham, a dedicated scholar of asteroids, includes a large set of newly translated correspondence as well as the many scientific papers about Pallas in addition to sections of Schroeter's 1805 book on the subject. It was Olbers who discovered Pallas, in 1802, the second of many asteroids that would be officially identified as such. From the Gold Medal offered by the Paris Academy to solve the mystery of Pallas' gravitational perturbations to Gauss' Pallas Anagram, the asteroid remained a lingering mystery to leading thinkers of the time. Representing an intersection of science, mathematics, and philosophy, the puzzle of Pallas occupied the thoughts of an amazing panorama of intellectual giants in Europe in the early 1800s.

Those convicted of homicide were hanged on the public gallows before being dissected under the Murder Act in Georgian England. Yet, from 1752, whether criminals actually died on the hanging tree or in the dissection room remained a medical mystery in early modern society. Dissecting the Criminal Corpse takes issue with the historical cliche of corpses dangling from the hangman's rope in crime studies. Some convicted murderers did survive execution in early modern England. Establishing medical death in the heart-lungs-brain was a physical enigma. Criminals had large bull-necks, strong willpowers, and hearty survival instincts. Extreme hypothermia often disguised coma in a prisoner hanged in the winter cold. The youngest and fittest were capable of reviving on the dissection table. Many died under the lancet. Capital legislation disguised a complex medical choreography that surgeons staged. They broke the Hippocratic Oath by executing the Dangerous Dead across England from 1752 until 1832. This book is open access under a CC-BY license.

This book investigates the origins and development of human rights discourse in Finnish legal scholarship in the twentieth century. It provides a detailed account of how human rights were understood before they had legal relevance in a positivist sense, how they were adapted to Finnish legal thinking in the post-Second World War decades, how they developed into a mode of legal rhetoric and a type of legal argument during the 1970s and 1980s, and how they eventually became a significant paradigm in legal thinking in the 1990s. The book also demonstrates how rights discourse infiltrated the discussion regarding problems that were previously addressed in arguments concerning morals, social justice and equity. Although the book focuses on the history of Finnish legal scholarship, it is also interesting from a global perspective for two reasons: Firstly, it demonstrates how an idea of international law is transplanted and diffused into national legal thinking; Finland is an illustrative example in this regard. Secondly, it offers insights into the general history of human rights.

How do Documents Become Sources? Perspectives from Asia and Science Florence Bretelle-Establet From Documents to Sources in Historiography The present volume develops a specific type of critical analysis of the written documents that have become historians' sources. For reasons that will be explained later, the history of science in Asia has been taken as a framework. However, the issue addressed is general in scope. It emerged from reflections on a problem that may seem common to historians: why, among the huge mass of written documents available to historians, some have been well studied while others have been dismissed or ignored? The question of historical sources and their (unequal) use in historiography is not new. Which documents have been used and favored as historical sources by historians has been a key historiographical issue that has occupied a large space in the historical production of the last four decades, in France at least.

A History of Chinese Science and Technology (Volumes 1, 2 & 3) presents 44 individual lectures, beginning with Ancient Chinese Science and Technology in the Process of Human Civilizations and an Overview of Chinese Science and Technology, and continuing with in-depth discussions of several issues in the History of Science and the Needham Puzzle, interspersed with topics on Astronomy, Arithmetic, Agriculture and Medicine, The Four Great Inventions, and various technological areas closely related to clothing, food, shelter and transportation. This book is the most authoritative work on the history of Chinese Science and Technology. It is the Winner of the China Book Award, the Shanghai Book Award (1st prize), and the Classical China International Publishing Project (GAPP, General Administration of Press and Publication of China) and offers an essential resource for academic researchers and non-experts alike. It originated with a series of 44 lectures presented to top Chinese leaders, which received very positive feedback. Written by top Chinese scholars in their respective fields from the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences and many other respected Chinese organizations, the book is intended for scientists, researchers and postgraduate students working in the history of science, philosophy of science and technology, and related disciplines. Yongxiang Lu is a professor, former president and member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), and Vice Chairman of the National Congress of China.

Thabit ibn Qurra (826a "901) was one of historya (TM)s most original thinkers and displayed expertise in the most difficult disciplines of this time: geometry, number theory, and astronomy as well as ontology, physics, and metaphysics. Approximately a dozen of this shorter mathematical and philosophical writings are collected in this volume. Critically edited with accompanying commentary, these writings show how Thabit Ibn Qurra developed and reconceived the intellectual inheritance of ancient Greece in all areas of knowledge.

This book concentrates on the properties of the stationary states in chaotic systems of particles or fluids, leaving aside the theory of the way they can be reached. The stationary states of particles or of fluids (understood as probability distributions on microscopic configurations or on the fields describing continua) have received important new ideas and data from numerical simulations and reviews are needed. The starting point is to find out which time invariant distributions come into play in physics. A special feature of this book is the historical approach. To identify the problems the author analyzes the papers of the founding fathers Boltzmann, Clausius and Maxwell including translations of the relevant (parts of) historical documents. He also establishes a close link between treatment of irreversible phenomena in statistical mechanics and the theory of chaotic systems at and beyond the onset of turbulence as developed by Sinai, Ruelle, Bowen (SRB) and others: the author gives arguments intending to support strongly the viewpoint that stationary states in or out of equilibrium can be described in a unified way. In this book it is the "chaotic hypothesis," which can be seen as an extension of the classical ergodic hypothesis to non equilibrium phenomena, that plays the central role. It is shown that SRB - often considered as a kind of mathematical playground with no impact on physical reality - has indeed a sound physical interpretation; an observation which to many might be new and a very welcome insight. Following this, many consequences of the chaotic hypothesis are analyzed in chapter 3 - 4 and in chapter 5 a few applications are proposed. Chapter 6 is historical: carefully analyzing the old literature on the subject, especially ergodic theory and its relevance for statistical mechanics; an approach which gives the book a very personal touch. The book contains an extensive coverage of current research (partly from the authors and his coauthors publications) presented in enough detail so that advanced students may get the flavor of a direction of research in a field which is still very much alive and progressing. Proofs of theorems are usually limited to heuristic sketches privileging the presentation of the ideas and providing references that the reader can follow, so that in this way an overload of this text with technical details could be avoided.