Meetings are a crucial part of all our lives, but too often they go nowhere and waste valuable time. In Six Thinking Hats, Edward de Bono shows how meetings can be transformed to produce quick, decisive results every time. The Six Hats method is a devastatingly simple technique based on the brain's different modes of thinking. The intelligence, experience and information of everyone is harnessed to reach the right conclusions quickly. These principles fundamentally change the way you work and interact. They have been adopted by businesses and governments around the world to end conflict and confusion in favour of harmony and productivity. 'An inspiring man with brilliant ideas. De Bono never ceases to amaze with his clarity of thought' Richard Branson.Edward de Bono invented the concept of lateral thinking. A world-renowned writer and philosopher, he is the leading authority in the field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. Dr de Bono has written more than 60 books, in 40 languages, with people now teaching his methods worldwide. He has chaired a special summit of Nobel Prize laureates, and been hailed as one of the 250 people who have contributed most to mankind

    Based on a course of lectures delivered by the author at Columbia University, the text is elementary in treatment and remarkable for its clarity and organization. Although it is assumed that the reader is familiar with the fundamental facts of thermometry and calorimetry, no advanced mathematics beyond calculus is assumed.Partial contents: thermodynamic systems, the first law of thermodynamics (application, adiabatic transformations), the second law of thermodynamics (Carnot cycle, absolute thermodynamic temperature, thermal engines), the entropy (properties of cycles, entropy of a system whose states can be represented on a (V, p) diagram, Clapeyron and Van der Waals equations), thermodynamic potentials (free energy, thermodynamic potential at constant pressure, the phase rule, thermodynamics of the reversible electric cell), gaseous reactions (chemical equilibria in gases, Van't Hoff reaction box, another proof of the equation of gaseous equilibria, principle of Le Chatelier), the thermodynamics of dilute solutions (osmotic pressure, chemical equilibria in solutions, the distribution of a solute between 2 phases vapor pressure, boiling and freezing points), the entropy constant (Nernst's theorem, thermal ionization of a gas, thermionic effect, etc.).

    With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot. Holt offers a painless and playful introduction to many of our most beautiful but least understood ideas, from Einsteinian relativity to string theory, and also invites us to consider why the greatest logician of the twentieth century believed the U.S. Constitution contained a terrible contradiction--and whether the universe truly has a future.

    A unique combination of authoritative content and stimulating applications. * Numerous improvements in the text, based on feedback from the many users of the sixth edition (both instructors and students) * Several thousand end-of-chapter problems have been rewritten to streamline both the presentations and answers * 'Chapter Puzzlers' open each chapter with an intriguing application or question that is explained or answered in the chapter * Problem-solving tactics are provided to help beginning Physics students solve problems and avoid common error * The first section in every chapter introduces the subject of the chapter by asking and answering, "What is Physics?" as the question pertains to the chapter * Numerous supplements available to aid teachers and students The extended edition provides coverage of developments in Physics in the last 100 years, including: Einstein and Relativity, Bohr and others and Quantum Theory, and the more recent theoretical developments like String Theory.

    Travel fast enough and you could weigh as much as a jumbo jet, be flattened thinner than a CD without feeling a thing-and live forever! As for the angles of a triangle, they do not always have to add up to 180 degrees. And then, of course, there are black holes. These are but a few of the extraordinary consequences of Einstein's theory of relativity. It is now over a hundred years since he made these discoveries, and yet the general public is still largely unaware of them. Filled with illuminating anecdotes and fascinating accounts of experiments, this book aims to introduce the interested lay person to the subject of relativity in a way which is accessible and engaging and at the same time scientifically rigorous. With relatively few mathematical equations--nothing more complicated than the Pythagoras's Theorem--this VSI packs a lot time into very little space, and for anyone who has felt intimidated by Einstein's groundbreaking theory, it offers the perfect place to start. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it.Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer?How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God.Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.

    Republished in book form shortly thereafter, it has since gone through four hardcover and sixteen paperback printings. It is a revolutionary work, astounding in its foresight and contemporaneity. The University of Illinois Press is pleased and honored to issue this commemorative reprinting of a classic.

    He explains what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life. And he does it with the wit that prompted Mark Ridley to write in the New York Times Book Review, "No other science writer makes me laugh so much. . . . [Pinker] deserves the superlatives that are lavished on him."  The arguments in the book are as bold as its title. Pinker rehabilitates some unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection, and challenges fashionable ones, such as that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, and that nature is good and modern society corrupting. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize A New York Times Notable Book of the Year and Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1997 Featured in Time magazine, the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Nature, Science, Lingua Franca, and Science Times Front-page reviews in the Washington Post Book World, the Boston Globe Book Section, and the San Diego Union Book Review

    In this new, innovative overview textbook, the authors put special emphasis on the deep ideas of mathematics, and present the subject through lively and entertaining examples, anecdotes, challenges and illustrations, all of which are designed to excite the student's interest. The underlying ideas include topics from number theory, infinity, geometry, topology, probability and chaos theory. Throughout the text, the authors stress that mathematics is an analytical way of thinking, one that can be brought to bear on problem solving and effective thinking in any field of study.

    Now, in his most comprehensive book yet on the topic, Buzan reveals exciting new ways to improve one's memory, concentration, creativity, ability to learn, and more.

    In The Constants of Nature, Cambridge Professor and bestselling author John D.Barrow takes us on an exploration of these governing principles. Drawing on physicists such as Einstein and Planck, Barrow illustrates with stunning clarity our dependence on the steadfastness of these principles. But he also suggests that the basic forces may have been radically different during the universe’s infancy, and suggests that they may continue a deeply hidden evolution. Perhaps most tantalizingly, Barrow theorizes about the realities that might one day be found in a universe with different parameters than our own.

    Along the way she considers how to use a chessboard to plan a worldwide dinner party, how to make a chicken-sandwich sandwich, and how to create infinite cookies from a finite ball of dough. Beyond Infinity shows how this little symbol holds the biggest idea of all. "Beyond Infinity is a spirited and friendly guide--appealingly down to earth about math that's extremely far out." --Jordan Ellenberg, author of How Not to Be Wrong "Dr. Cheng . . . has a knack for brushing aside conventions and edicts, like so many pie crumbs from a cutting board." --Natalie Angier, New York Times

    Raymond M. Smullyan — a celebrated mathematician, logician, magician, and author — presents a logical labyrinth of more than 200 increasingly complex problems. The puzzles delve into Gödel’s undecidability theorem and other examples of the deepest paradoxes of logic and set theory. Detailed solutions follow each puzzle.