This book looks at how three kinds of strongly electric fishes literally became "electrical," and how they helped to change the sciences and medicine. These fishes are the flat torpedo rays common to the Mediterranean, the electric catfishes of Africa, and an "eel" from South America. The discovery of the electrical nature of these fishes in the second half of the 18th century was the starting point of the two fundamental advances in the sciences: on the physiological side, the demonstration that nerve conduction and muscle excitation are electrical phenomena, and on the physical side, the invention of the electric battery. Starting with catfish tomb drawings from Ancient Egypt and colorful descriptions of torpedoes from the Classical Era, the authors show how these fishes were both fascinating and mysterious to the ancients. After all, not only could they produce torpor and temporary numbness when touched, they could stun through intermediaries, such as wet nets and spears.
Various explanations were given for these remarkable actions in ancient times, including the idea that they might release some sort of cold venom. Through the Renaissance, they also tended to be associated with occult and magical qualities. During the 1600s, natural philosophers speculated that rapid movements of specialized muscles could account for their actions. This idea was widely accepted until the 1750s, when the possibility that their shocks might be electrical began to be discussed.
Showing how researchers set forth to provide support for fish electricity is a major focus of this book. Here the authors transport us into the jungles of South America and later show how some live eels were transported to London, where John Walsh demonstrated in1776 that they can actually spark.
Subsequent chapters deal with further evidence for specialized fish electricity and how electric fishes helped to change ideas about even our own physiology. The authors also show how these fish remained a part of medicine, and how Volta modeled his revolutionary "pile" or electric battery on their anatomy.
From beginning to end, this drama is firmly anchored in the philosophy and science of the day. Moreover, with biographical information about the key players, readers can fully appreciate what they were thinking as they tried to understand one of Nature's greatest puzzles - a mystery that would transform nerve and muscle physiology in ways that earlier generations could not have anticipated. Although a scholarly volume, the book's style is generally narrative and, with its hundreds of magnificent illustrations, it should appeal to a large audience.

..". and still we could never suppose that fortune were to be so friendly to us, such as to allow us to be perhaps the first in handling, as it were, the electricity concealed in nerves, in extracting it from nerves, and, in some way, in putting it under everyone's eyes."
With these words, Luigi Galvani announced to the world in 1791 his discovery that nervous conduction and muscle excitation are electrical phenomena. The result of more than years of intense experimental work, Galvani's milestone achievement concluded a thousand-year scientific search, in a field long dominated by the antiquated beliefs of classical science. Besides laying the grounds for the development of the modern neurosciences, Galvani's discovery also brought to light an invention that would forever change humankind's everyday life: the electric battery of Alessandro Volta.
In an accessible style, written for specialists and general readers alike, Shocking Frogs retraces the steps of both scientific discoveries, starting with the initial hypotheses of the Enlightenment on the involvement of electricity in life processes. So doing, it also reveals the inconsistency of the many stereotypes that an uncritical cultural tradition has imparted to the legacies of Galvani and Volta, and proposes a decidedly new image of these monumental figures.

Galileo is known as a pioneer of science - especially of mechanics and astronomy, but far less attention has been paid to his work on the senses, and on vision in particular. In this book, two experts on the history of science look at the novel ways in which Galileo looked at the heavens through his telescope, and, in the process, emphasised the importance of contrast phenomena and visual resolution within astronomical observations. He also described the senses and their perception in terms that found an echo in doctrines advanced by nineteenth century sensory physiologists. In a fascinating and accessible style, Marco Piccolino and Nick Wade analyse the scientific and philosophical work of Galileo Galilei from the particular viewpoint of his approach to the senses (and especially vision) as a means of acquiring trustworthy knowledge about the constitution of the world. For Galileo the senses were potentially ambiguous, hence reliable information capable of penetrating the complexity of reality could only be obtained by interpreting the sensory data critically. The philosophical background of Galileo's attitude to the senses was his awareness that nature had not developed a specific language aimed at communicating with senses generally and human senses in particular. The culture of his age was based mainly on mechanistic approaches to the world. In this context, Galileo's analysis of the senses corresponded closely to a fundamental tenet of modern sensory physiology and psychophysics - the absence in the world of specific sensory signals like sounds, colours, tastes, and odours. Fully illustrated throughout, this book is an important contribution to psychology and the vision sciences, but more broadly to our knowledge of a pioneering figure in the history of science.

Learn the complete Qt ecosystem and its tools and build UIs for mobile and desktop applications Key Features Unleash the power of the latest Qt 5.9 with C++14 Easily compile, run, and debug your applications from the powerful Qt Creator IDE Build multi-platform projects that target Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, Linux, and more Book DescriptionQt 5.9 is an application development framework that provides a great user experience and develops full-capability applications with Qt Widgets, QML, and even Qt 3D. This learning path demonstrates the power and flexibility of the Qt framework for desktop application development and shows how you can write an application once and deploy it to multiple operating systems. It will address all the challenges while developing cross-platform applications with the Qt framework. This course will give you a better understanding of the Qt framework and tools to resolve serious issues such as linking, debugging, and multithreading. It will also upskill you by explaining how to create a to-do-style app and taking you through all the stages in building a successful project. You will build a suite of apps; while developing these apps, you'll deepen your knowledge of Qt Quick's layout systems, and see Qt 3D and widgets in action. The next project will be in the industrial and agricultural sectors: making sense of sensor data via a monitoring system. Your apps should run seamlessly across devices and operating systems such as Android, iOS, Windows, or Mac, and be cost-effective by integrating with existing web technologies. You take the role of lead developer and prototype a monitoring system. In doing so, you'll get to know Qt's Bluetooth and HTTP APIs, as well as the Charts and Web Engine UI modules. These projects will help you gain a holistic view of the Qt framework. What you will learn Install and configure the Qt Framework and Qt Creator IDE Implement a rich user interface with QML Learn the fundamentals of QtTest and how to integrate unit testing Create stunning UIs with Qt Widget and Qt Quick Develop powerful, cross-platform applications with the Qt framework Design GUIs with Qt Designer and build a library in it for UI previews Build a desktop UI with widgets and Designer Get familiar with multimedia components to handle visual input and output Who this book is forThis book will appeal to developers and programmers who would like to build GUI-based applications. Knowledge of C++ is necessary and a basic familiarity with Qt would be helpful.