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Is anything truly random? Does infinity actually exist? Could we ever see into other dimensions?
In this delightful journey of discovery, David Darling and extraordinary child prodigy Agnijo Banerjee draw connections between the cutting edge of modern maths and life as we understand it, delving into the strange would we like alien music? and venturing out on quests to consider the existence of free will and the fantastical future of quantum computers. Packed with puzzles and paradoxes, mind-bending concepts and surprising solutions, this is for anyone who wants life s questions answered even those you never thought to ask.
Maths is everywhere, in everything. It's in the finest margins of
modern sport. It's in the electrical pulses of our hearts and the
flight of every bird. It is our key to secret messages, lost
languages and perhaps even the shape of the universe of itself.
David Darling and Agnijo Banerjee reveal the mathematics at the
farthest reaches of our world - from its role in the plots of
novels to how animals employ numerical skills to survive. Along the
way they explore what makes a genius, why a seemingly simple
problem can confound the best and brightest for decades, and what
might be the great discovery of the twenty-first century. As
Bertrand Russell once said, 'mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses
not only truth, but supreme beauty'. Banerjee and Darling make sure
we see it right again.
From cells in our bodies to measuring the universe, big numbers are
everywhere We all know that numbers go on forever, that you could
spend your life counting and never reach the end of the line, so
there can't be such a thing as a 'biggest number'. Or can there? To
find out, David Darling and Agnijo Banerjee embark on an epic
quest, revealing the answers to questions like: are there more
grains of sand on Earth or stars in the universe? Is there enough
paper on Earth to write out the digits of a googolplex? And what is
a googolplex? Then things get serious. Enter the strange realm
between the finite and the infinite, and float through a universe
where the rules we cling to no longer apply. Encounter the highest
number computable and infinite kinds of infinity. At every turn, a
cast of wild and wonderful characters threatens the status quo with
their ideas, and each time the numbers get larger.
Even the most enthusiastic of maths students probably at one time wondered when exactly it would all prove useful in ‘real life’. Well, maths reaches so far and wide through our world that, love it or hate it, we’re all doing maths almost every minute of every day.
David Darling and Agnijo Banerjee go in search of the perfect labyrinth, journey back to the second century in pursuit of ‘bubble maths’, reveal the weirdest mathematicians in history and transform the bewildering into the beautiful, delighting us once again.
Acclaimed astrophysicist David Darling comes well-armed with both
science and mysticism to provide a theory of consciousness and its
final conclusion. His well -researched ideas on psychology,
neuro-biology, quantum physics and a host of others meld with Zen
mysticism to provide a step by step approach to what consciousness
is, and what it is not. The urban myth of 'who we are' is peeled
back to reveal a terrible-wonderful truth. We are a fragmented
assortment of often biased memories held together by a selfish
brain whose primary concern is its own immortality. So how does
this amalgam of 'I' manage to create what is considered the highest
life-form on earth? You start at conception, add some biology and
evolutionary theory, and what emerges is an organism using its
every meager power to construct its own unique reality. Or is it
that unique? Are we truly disconnected from all those other 'unique
realities' of the past, present and future? Darling launches into a
frank discussion of consciousness. How each of our stories is
pieced together from a constantly changing conglomerate of
memories. It is these stories that make us who we are. If the
memories are changed - we change. If they are erased then we are
erased. Our consciousness lives and dies dependent on our memories.
When the physical brain dies with the rest of the body what happens
to 'us'? Do not look here for comforting ideas of lounging in
heaven with friends and family. Darling also does not support utter
annihilation. Darling instead shows where mysticism may provide
some insight for science. A well-grounded theory emerges of what
happens when you can no longer observe scientifically those moments
beyond our last breath. Darling provides a compelling answer for
what lies beyond the end as we know it. Darling has acquired a
profound insight into the process of death and the many
misconceptions we have about it. He systematically walks you
through the scientific process of death as well as other scientific
phenomenon and lets you see for yourself that there isn't a huge
mystery behind it all. Darling doesn't give you the answer to "the
great question," but points you in the correct direction with
style. Darling uses logic to explain how quantum physics may be
bound with personality, but never pretends that Zen can be
explained rationally. This collection of thoughts is extremely
well-organized and well-written. David Darling's book explains
quantum mechanics in a way anyone can understand. He also presents
an intelligent thesis on the nature of life after death. His answer
may not be what we wish to hear, but it makes sense. Author Bio -
David Darling is the author of more than 40 titles including
narrative science titles: Megacatastrophes , We Are Not Alone,
Gravity's Arc, Equations of Eternity, a New York Times Notable
Book, and Deep Time. He is also the author of the bestseller-The
Universal Book of Mathematics: From Abracadabra to Zeno's
Paradoxes. Darling's other titles include The Universal Book of
Astronomy, and The Complete Book of Spaceflight, as well as more
than 30 children's books. His articles and reviews have appeared in
Astronomy, Omni, Penthouse, New Scientist, the New York Times, and
the Guardian, among others. David Darling was born in Glossop,
Derbyshire, England, on July 29, 1953, and grew up in the beautiful
Peak District, close to Kinder Scout for those who know the area.
He went to New Mills Grammar School and then on to Sheffield
University, where he earned his B.Sc. in physics in 1974, and
Manchester University, for my Ph.D. in astronomy in 1977. David
Darling's interests, apart from his work and family, include
singing, song-writing, and playing guitar, walking, and travel.
In a world without aircraft, to believe flight might be possible
required a certain kind of character. You had to be starry-eyed, a
possessor of practical ingenuity, nerves of steel and a level of
sanity that would be best described as deficient. In Mayday!, David
Darling tells the stories of the unconventional aviators across
history who have been willing to risk all to further their craft.
Meet Sophie Blanchard, a balloonist of nervous disposition whom
Napoleon charged with organizing balloon displays at all major
ceremonies in France. Then there's the daredevil stuntman Lincoln
Beachey, the dogfighter aces of WWI, the man who performed the
dance of death - switching planes in mid-air, the real "X-Men" who
flew at the edge of space, and the BASE jumpers who want to fly
without wings. The cast are eccentric, reckless and extraordinary,
and Mayday! is made up of their riveting tales, bizarre
contraptions, magnificent achievements and, sometimes, startling
folly.
This Is A New Release Of The Original 1916 Edition.
You are roughly eighteen billion years old and made of matter that
has been cycled through the multimillion-degree heat of innumerable
giant stars. You are composed of particles that once were scattered
across thousands of light-years of interstellar space, particles
that were blasted out of exploding suns and that for eons drifted
through the cold, starlit vacuum of the Galaxy. You are very much a
child of the cosmos. In giving birth to us, the universe has
performed its most astonishing creative act. Out of a hot, dense
melee of subatomic particles - which is all that once existed - it
has fashioned intelligence and consciousness. Some of those tiny,
primordial pinpoints of matter from the infant cosmos have become
temporarily arranged to make your brain and mine. Your thoughts at
this very moment derive from energy transactions between particles
born at the dawn of time. Somehow the anarchy of genesis has given
way to exquisite, intricate order, so that now there are portions
of the universe that can reflect upon themselves and ask: Why am I
here? What is the purpose of life, consciousness, and reality? In
posing these questions, we are, in a sense, the universe
questioning itself - a most extraordinary realization. It helps
dispel permanently the notion that we are irrelevant and
insignificant in nature's broad scheme. The fact is, we stand at
the known apex of cosmic evolution. Small though we may be
physically, we are giants when measured on the scale of complexity.
And it is that complexity, of our brains in particular, that is an
essential prerequisite to awareness. Yet the universe did not set
out to be aware. During the first few chaotic microseconds, when
all the matter and energy there would ever be was erupting from the
primeval fireball, there was no great plan to make conscious minds.
Nature is congenitally blind. Evolution is not, and never was, a
steady march toward a certain type of order, or life, or
consciousness. There is no way of knowing in advance what forms
nature will take, no favorites, no movement toward a predetermined
goal. On the other hand, it is hard to believe that we are here by
chance. Why are we aware? Key words - Death, Reincarnation,
Consciousness, Cosmos, Science, Soul, Mind, Universe Author Bio -
David Darling is the author of more than 40 titles including
narrative science titles: Megacatastrophes , We Are Not Alone,
Gravity's Arc, Equations of Eternity, a New York Times Notable
Book, and Deep Time. He is also the author of the bestseller-The
Universal Book of Mathematics: From Abracadabra to Zeno's
Paradoxes. Darling's other titles include The Universal Book of
Astronomy, and The Complete Book of Spaceflight, as well as more
than 30 children's books. His articles and reviews have appeared in
Astronomy, Omni, Penthouse, New Scientist, the New York Times, and
the Guardian, among others. David Darling was born in Glossop,
Derbyshire, England, on July 29, 1953, and grew up in the beautiful
Peak District, close to Kinder Scout for those who know the area.
He went to New Mills Grammar School and then on to Sheffield
University, where he earned his B.Sc. in physics in 1974, and
Manchester University, for my Ph.D. in astronomy in 1977. David
Darling's interests, apart from his work and family, include
singing, song-writing, and playing guitar, walking, and travel.
What happens when we die? Does everything we are just stop? Is
consciousness lost forever? Or does some vital spark inside us, a
spirit or a soul, live on? We find it almost impossible to think
about not having a mind, of our awareness being snuffed out like a
candle. Yet the stark fact is that within a century or so, everyone
alive today - all six billion of us - will be dead. Humans are the
only creatures on earth that know they are going to die. But that
foreknowledge has come fairly recently and it flies in the face of
four billion years of evolution. Those eons have genetically
conditioned us to do all we can to preserve ourselves and our kin.
The result is that we are caught in a dilemma. We are programmed to
survive by our genes yet made painfully aware of our mortality by
our forward-looking brain. If we admit that death is inevitable,
then our will to survive may be fatally weakened. On the other
hand, if we deny death, we have to turn a blind eye to a patent
fact of the real world. Only one avenue of escape is possible -
belief in an afterlife. With this we can face the nightmare that
death poses to the rational mind. We distance ourselves from death
by institutionalizing it. Whereas in earlier times most people
spent their last days at home in the bosom of family and friends,
today four-fifths of us are removed to hospitals or nursing homes.
We are hidden from the gaze of the young and healthy and tended to
by strangers. As the end approaches, we are discreetly moved to
wards for the terminally ill and plugged into life-support
machines. Technology takes over. And when we do eventually die, it
is often the inadequacy of the equipment or the shortcomings of the
treatment that are blamed. Instead of accepting death as a natural
and inevitable fact of life, we are in danger of convincing
ourselves that, given further medical advances, we shall be able to
stave it off for as long as we like. "Some people want to achieve
immortality through their works or their descendants," said Woody
Allen. "I want to achieve it through not dying." Now, for the first
time, science seems to be holding out the slender hope of cheating
death. Already, some of our vital parts can be replaced with
natural or synthetic substitutes. In time, it seems, the transplant
surgeon will be able to do for a human being what any competent
mechanic in a well-equipped garage can do for a car. Key words -
Death, Reincarnation, Consciousness, Cosmos, Science, Soul,
Afterlife, Universe Author Bio - David Darling is the author of
more than 40 titles including narrative science titles:
Megacatastrophes , We Are Not Alone, Gravity's Arc, Equations of
Eternity, a New York Times Notable Book, and Deep Time. He is also
the author of the bestseller-The Universal Book of Mathematics:
From Abracadabra to Zeno's Paradoxes. Darling's other titles
include The Universal Book of Astronomy, and The Complete Book of
Spaceflight, as well as more than 30 children's books. His articles
and reviews have appeared in Astronomy, Omni, Penthouse, New
Scientist, the New York Times, and the Guardian, among others.
David Darling was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, England, on July 29,
1953, and grew up in the beautiful Peak District, close to Kinder
Scout for those who know the area. He went to New Mills Grammar
School and then on to Sheffield University, where he earned his
B.Sc. in physics in 1974, and Manchester University, for my Ph.D.
in astronomy in 1977. David Darling's interests, apart from his
work and family, include singing, song-writing, and playing guitar.
What would it be like to see the whole history of the universe,
from the moment of creation to the farthest future? Deep Time shows
us - through the eyes of a single particle that emerges from the
fires of genesis then journeys across countless billions of years
to glimpse the ultimate fate of the cosmos. Along the way, we watch
the formation of stars and galaxies, narrowly avoid falling into a
black hole, witness the birth of the sun and earth, trace the
evolution of life and intelligence, and blast off into space again
with our particle now part of the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Then we
travel on, across immense vistas of space and time, toward the end
of all things - and a strange new beginning." David Darling is the
author of about 50 books, including narrative science titles
Megacatastrophes , We Are Not Alone, Gravity's Arc, Equations of
Eternity, a New York Times Notable Book, and Deep Time. He is also
the author of Teleportation: The Impossible Leap, Zen Physics, The
Universal Book of Astronomy, The Complete Book of Spaceflight, and
The Universal Book of Mathematics, as well as more than 30
children's books. His articles and reviews have appeared in
Astronomy, Omni, Penthouse, New Scientist, the New York Times, and
the Guardian among others. He has lectured widely, including at the
Royal Institution in London. David Darling was born in Glossop,
Derbyshire, England, lived in the United States for many years, and
now lives in Dundee, Scotland. He earned his B.Sc. in physics from
Sheffield University in 1974 and his Ph.D. in astronomy from
Manchester University in 1977. David Darling is also a professional
singer/songwriter and runs a major science website. Please visit
the Worlds of David Darling - www.daviddarling.info Keywords -
Universe, Astrophysics, Astronomy, Particle, Space, Cosmos,
Evolution, David Darling, Sun, Earth, Travel
1916. Contents: A Plea for the Honest Doubter; Is There a God?;
What are the Scriptures?; Is Christ the Son of God?; The Reality of
Christianity; Has God Revealed Himself to Man?; The Testimony of
the Christian; Is the Bible the Word of God?; and The Living Word
and Life Eternal.
THIS 48 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Doubters and
Their Doubts, by Charles David Darling. To purchase the entire
book, please order ISBN 1417901039.
THIS 48 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Doubters and
Their Doubts, by Charles David Darling. To purchase the entire
book, please order ISBN 1417901039.
1916. Contents: A Plea for the Honest Doubter; Is There a God?;
What are the Scriptures?; Is Christ the Son of God?; The Reality of
Christianity; Has God Revealed Himself to Man?; The Testimony of
the Christian; Is the Bible the Word of God?; and The Living Word
and Life Eternal.
1916. Contents: A Plea for the Honest Doubter; Is There a God?;
What are the Scriptures?; Is Christ the Son of God?; The Reality of
Christianity; Has God Revealed Himself to Man?; The Testimony of
the Christian; Is the Bible the Word of God?; and The Living Word
and Life Eternal.
Praise for David Darling
The Universal Book of Astronomy
""A first-rate resource for readers and students of popular
astronomy and general science. . . . Highly recommended.""
-Library Journal
""A comprehensive survey and . . . a rare treat.""
-Focus
The Complete Book of Spaceflight
""Darling's content and presentation will have any reader moving
from entry to entry.""
-The Observatory magazine
Life Everywhere
""This remarkable book exemplifies the best of today's popular
science writing: it is lucid, informative, and thoroughly
enjoyable.""
-Science Books & Films
""An enthralling introduction to the new science of
astrobiology.""
-Lynn Margulis
Equations of Eternity
""One of the clearest and most eloquent expositions of the quantum
conundrum and its philosophical and metaphysical implications that
I have read recently.""
-The New York Times
Deep Time
""A wonderful book. The perfect overview of the universe.""
-Larry Niven
A commanding encyclopedia of the history and principles of
spaceflight-from earliest conceptions to faster-than-light
galaxy-hopping
Here is the first truly comprehensive guide to space exploration
and propulsion, from the first musings of the Greeks to current
scientific speculation about interstellar travel using ""warp
drives"" and wormholes. Space buffs will delight in its in-depth
coverage of all key manned and unmanned missions and space
vehicles-past, present, and projected-and its clear explanations of
the technologies involved.
Over the course of more than 2,000 extensively cross-referenced
entries, astronomer David Darling also provides fascinating
insights into the cultural development of spaceflight. In vivid
accounts of the major characters and historical events involved, he
provides fascinating tales of early innovators, the
cross-pollination that has long existed between science fiction and
science fact, and the sometimes obscure links between geopolitics,
warfare, and advances in rocketry.
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