Aimed at undergraduate students in mathematics, physics, and engineering, the book's intuitive explanations, lack ofadvanced prerequisites, and consciously user-friendly prose style will help students to master the subject more readily than was previously possible. The key to this is the book's use of new geometric arguments in place of the standard calculational ones. These geometric arguments are communicatedwith the aid of hundreds of diagrams of a standard seldom encountered in mathematical works. A new approach to a classical topic, this work will be of interest to students in mathematics, physics, and engineering, as well as to professionals in these fields.

    A backstage glimpse of the realities of the new Hollywood focuses on the film releases and strategies of the summer of 1998, showing why Godzilla was fated to fail and how Spielberg triumphed.

    History textbook is a college-level, introductory textbook that covers the exciting subject of U.S. History. Volume II covers 1865 through the present day. Boundless works with subject matter experts to select the best open educational resources available on the web, review the content for quality, and create introductory, college-level textbooks designed to meet the study needs of university students.This textbook covers:Reconstruction: 1865-1877 -- The End of the War, The Aftermath of the War, The Battle over Reconstruction, Reconstruction in the South, The Reconstructed South, The Grant PresidencyThe Gilded Age: 1870-1900 -- The Gilded Age, The Second Industrial Revolution, The Rise of the City, The Rise of Big Business, The Rise of Immigration, Work in Industrial America, The Transformation of the West, Conquest in the West, The Transformation of the South, Politics in the Gilded Age, Urban Reform, Corruption and Reform, The Agrarian and Populist Movements, The Silver SolutionRace, Empire, and Culture in the Gilded Age: 1870-1900 -- Culture in the Gilded Age, Popular Culture, Cheap Amusements, Education, The Rise of Realism, Labor and Domestic Tensions, The Labor Wars, War, Empire, and an Emerging American World PowerThe Progressive Era: 1890-1917 -- The Progressive Era, Labor, Local, and Political Reform, The Politics of Progressivism, Grassroots Progressivism, Progressivism: Theory and Practice, Changing Ideas of Freedom, Roosevelt's Progressivism, Roosevelt's Second Term, From Roosevelt to Taft, Woodrow Wilson and Progressivism, The Limits of ProgressivismWorld War I: 1914-1919 -- The Wilson Administration, American Neutrality, America's Entry into the War, America and WWI, The War at Home, The "American", The Fight for Peace, Diplomacy & Negotiations at the War's End, The Transition to Peace: 1919-21From the New Era to the Great Depression: 1920-1933 -- The New Era, The Roaring Twenties, The Culture of Change, Resistance to Change, Wall Street Crash of 1929, The Great DepressionThe New Deal: 1933-1940 -- Franklin D. Roosevelt and the First New Deal, The New Deal, Critical Interpretations of the New Deal, The Social Cost of the Depression, Toward a Welfare State, Roosevelt's Second Term, Culture in the Thirties, The Second New Deal, The Legacy of the New DealFrom Isolation to World War II: 1930-1943 -- Non-Interventionism, The Beginning of the War, Conflict in Europe, Conflict in the Pacific, America's Early Involvement, Mobilization in the U.S., Social Effects of the War, The War in Germany, The War in the Pacific, The End of WWIIThe Cold War: 1947-1991 -- Origins of the Cold War, The Cold War, Truman and the Fair Deal, The Cold War and KoreaThe Politics and Culture of Abundance: 1943-1960 -- The Politics of Abundance, The Culture of Abundance, The Eisenhower Administration, The Policy of Containment, The Emergence of the Civil Rights MovementThe Sixties: 1960-1969 -- The Election of 1960, The Expansion of the Civil Rights Movement, Counterculture, The John F. Kennedy Administration, The Lyndon B. Johnson AdministrationThe Conservative Turn of America: 1968-1989 -- The Nixon Administration, Watergate, The Ford Administration, The Carter Administration, The Reagan AdministrationThe Challenges of Globalization and the Coming Century: After 1989 -- The George H.W. Bush Administration, America's Emerging Culture, The Clinton Administration, Globalization and the U.S.

    

    His size and pace seemed to make him unstoppable - and he was still just 20, having only recently learned to play on the wing. How much better would he get? But a year later, a rare and serious kidney disorder threatened more than his career. He fought back, and continued to score tries at a remarkable rate.Lomu's astonishing story is not just about tries, but about adapting to becoming rugby's first superstar of the professional era, a life lived in the spotlight. This is an extraordinary tale from an extraordinary man.

    Now astrophysicist John Gribbin draws on his expertise to explore, in prose that communicates not only the wonder but the substance of cutting-edge science, the principles behind chaos and complexity. He reveals the remarkable ways these two revolutionary theories have been applied over the last twenty years to explain all sorts of phenomena–from weather patterns to mass extinctions.Grounding these paradigm-shifting ideas in their historical context, Gribbin also traces their development from Newton to Darwin to Lorenz, Prigogine, and Lovelock, demonstrating how–far from overturning all that has gone before–chaos and complexity are the triumphant extensions of simple scientific laws. Ultimately, Gribbin illustrates how chaos and complexity permeate the universe on every scale, governing the evolution of life and galaxies alike.

    Monk's life of Wittgenstein is such a one."--"The Christian Science Monitor."

    The study of knots has led to important applications in DNA research and the synthesis of new molecules, and has had a significant impact on statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. Colin Adams’s The Knot Book is the first book to make cutting-edge research in knot theory accessible to a non-specialist audience. Starting with the simplest knots, Adams guides readers through increasingly more intricate twists and turns of knot theory, exploring problems and theorems mathematicians can now solve, as well as those that remain open. He also explores how knot theory is providing important insights in biology, chemistry, physics, and other fields. The new paperback edition has been updated to include the latest research results, and includes hundreds of illustrations of knots, as well as worked examples, exercises and problems. With a simple piece of string, an elementary mathematical background, and The Knot Book, anyone can start learning about some of the most advanced ideas in contemporary mathematics.

    Maxwell's brilliant and inspiring book is a simple premise: to do well in life we must first think well. But can we actually learn new mental habits? thinking for a change answers that with a resounding 'yes' - and shows how changing your thinking can indeed change your life. Drawing on the words and deeds of many of the world's greatest leaders and using interactive quizzes this empowering book helps you assess your thinking style guides you to new ones and step by step teaches you the secrets of: big-picture thinking - seeing the world beyond your own needs and how that leads to great ideas. Focused thinking - removing mental clutter and distractions to realize your full potential. Creative thinking - stepping out of the 'box' and making breakthroughs. Shared thinking - working with others to compound results. Reflective thinking - looking at the past to gain a better understanding of the future and much more. Here america's most trusted and admired motivational teacher examines the very foundation of success and self-transformation. Illuminating and life-changing thinking for a change is a unique primer not on what to think but how to best use one of your most precious possessions: your mind.

    The quality of our thinking, in turn, is determined by the quality of our questions, for questions are the engine, the driving force behind thinking. Without questions, we have nothing to think about. Without essential questions, we often fail to focus our thinking on the significant and substantive. When we ask essential questions, we deal with what is necessary, relevant, and indispensable to a matter at hand. We recognize what is at the heart of the matter. Our thinking is grounded and disciplined. We are ready to learn. We are intellectually able to find our way about. To be successful in life, one needs to ask essential questions: essential questions when reading, writing, and speaking; when shopping, working, and parenting; when forming friendships, choosing life-partners, and interacting with the mass media and through the internet. This thinker’s guide is a starting place for understanding concepts that, when applied, lead to essential questions.

    Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts’ predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight, and Tetlock has spent the past decade trying to figure out why. What makes some people so good? And can this talent be taught?   In Superforecasting, Tetlock and coauthor Dan Gardner offer a masterwork on prediction, drawing on decades of research and the results of a massive, government-funded forecasting tournament. The Good Judgment Project involves tens of thousands of ordinary people—including a Brooklyn filmmaker, a retired pipe installer, and a former ballroom dancer—who set out to forecast global events. Some of the volunteers have turned out to be astonishingly good. They’ve beaten other benchmarks, competitors, and prediction markets. They’ve even beaten the collective judgment of intelligence analysts with access to classified information. They are "superforecasters."   In this groundbreaking and accessible book, Tetlock and Gardner show us how we can learn from this elite group. Weaving together stories of forecasting successes (the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound) and failures (the Bay of Pigs) and interviews with a range of high-level decision makers, from David Petraeus to Robert Rubin, they show that good forecasting doesn’t require powerful computers or arcane methods. It involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course. Superforecasting offers the first demonstrably effective way to improve our ability to predict the future—whether in business, finance, politics, international affairs, or daily life—and is destined to become a modern classic.

    This text provides a basic treatment of discrete-event simulation, including the proper collection and analysis of data, the use of analytic techniques, verification and validation of models, and designing simulation experiments. It offers an up-to-date treatment of simulation of manufacturing and material handling systems, computer systems, and computer networks. Students and instructors will find a variety of resources at the associated website, www.bcnn.net, including simulation source code for download, additional exercises and solutions, web links and errata.

    Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable.In this groundbreaking book, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines. He describes the near-term benefits we can expect, from intelligent personal assistants to vastly accelerated scientific research, and outlines the AI breakthroughs that still have to happen before we reach superhuman AI. He also spells out the ways humans are already finding to misuse AI, from lethal autonomous weapons to viral sabotage.If the predicted breakthroughs occur and superhuman AI emerges, we will have created entities far more powerful than ourselves. How can we ensure they never, ever, have power over us? Russell suggests that we can rebuild AI on a new foundation, according to which machines are designed to be inherently uncertain about the human preferences they are required to satisfy. Such machines would be humble, altruistic, and committed to pursue our objectives, not theirs. This new foundation would allow us to create machines that are provably deferential and provably beneficial.In a 2014 editorial co-authored with Stephen Hawking, Russell wrote, "Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last." Solving the problem of control over AI is not just possible; it is the key that unlocks a future of unlimited promise.

    The presentation is never awkward or dry, as it sometimes is in other "modern" textbooks; it is as unconventional as one has come to expect from the author. The book contains about 350 well placed and instructive problems, which cover a considerable part of the subject. All in all, this is an excellent work, of equally high value for both student and teacher." Zentralblatt f�r Mathematik

    This book introduces you to the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, its implications, and how it should affect your play. Other chapters discuss the value of deception, bluffing, raising, the slow-play, the value of position, psychology, heads-up play, game theory, implied odds, the free card, and semibluffing. Many of today's top poker players will tell you that this is the book that really made a difference in their play. That is, these are the ideas that separate the experts from the typical players. Those who read and study this book will literally leave behind those who don't, and most serious players wear the covers off their copies. This is the best book ever written on poker.