Best of
Popular-Science

1983

Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History


Stephen Jay Gould - 1983
    Exploring the "peculiar and mysterious particulars of nature," Gould introduces the reader to some of the many and wonderful manifestations of evolutionary biology.

Wheels, Life, and Other Mathematical Amusements


Martin Gardner - 1983
    And when he does stop, I complain. In WHEELS, the prestidigistating master is better than ever.' -Isaac Asimov

The Human Body


Jonathan Miller - 1983
    

The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes


Subrahmanijan Chandrasekhar - 1983
    When it was written in 1983 there was little physical evidence for the existence of black holes. Recent discoveries have only served to underscore the elegant theory developed here, and the book remains one of the clearest statements of the relevant mathematics.

Nuclear Power: Both Sides: The Best Arguments For and Against the Most Controversial Technology


Michio Kaku - 1983
    If you read one book about nuclear energy, this should be the one. In twenty-one provocative essays, those who have shaped the course of nuclear power substantiate their views and set forth refutations of their opponents' views.

The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce


Umberto Eco - 1983
    fascinating throughout.... the book is recreative in the highest sense." --Arthur C. Danto, The New Republic"A gem for Holmes fans and armchair detectives with a penchant for logical reflection, and Peirce scholars." --Library Journal

The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art


Linda Dalrymple Henderson - 1983
    The possibility of a spatial fourth dimension suggested that our world might be merely a shadow or section of a higher dimensional existence. That iconoclastic idea encouraged radical innovation by a variety of early twentieth-century artists, ranging from French Cubists, Italian Futurists, and Marcel Duchamp, to Max Weber, Kazimir Malevich, and the artists of De Stijl and Surrealism.In an extensive new Reintroduction, Henderson surveys the impact of interest in higher dimensions of space in art and culture from the 1950s to 2000. Although largely eclipsed by relativity theory beginning in the 1920s, the spatial fourth dimension experienced a resurgence during the later 1950s and 1960s. In a remarkable turn of events, it has returned as an important theme in contemporary culture in the wake of the emergence in the 1980s of both string theory in physics (with its ten- or eleven-dimensional universes) and computer graphics. Henderson demonstrates the importance of this new conception of space for figures ranging from Buckminster Fuller, Robert Smithson, and the Park Place Gallery group in the 1960s to Tony Robbin and digital architect Marcos Novak.