Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives--where we go to school, whether we can get a job or a loan, how much we pay for health insurance--are being made not by humans, but by machines. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules.But as mathematician and data scientist Cathy O'Neil reveals, the mathematical models being used today are unregulated and uncontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination--propping up the lucky, punishing the downtrodden, and undermining our democracy in the process.

    Coauthored by his son, Francesco, the book answers age-old questions such as: Was there a mitochondrial Eve? Did the first humans originate in Africa or in several spots on the planet at about the same time? How did humans get onto North America, the tip of South America, and Australia?

    Bernard Haisch contends that there is a purpose and an underlying intelligence behind the Universe, one that is consistent with modern science, especially the Big Bang and evolution. It is based on recent discoveries that there are numerous coincidences and fine-tunings of the laws of nature that seem extraordinarily unlikely.A more rational concept of God is called for. As astrophysicist Sir James Jeans wrote, "the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine."Despite bestsellers by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris that have denounced the evils of religion and proclaimed that science has shown that there is no God, The Purpose-Guided Universe shows how one can believe in God and science.

    It is so important that it provides the fundamental underpinning of all modern sciences. Without it, we'd have no nuclear power or nuclear bombs, no lasers, no TV, no computers, no science of molecular biology, no understanding of DNA, no genetic engineering—at all. John Gribbin tells the complete story of quantum mechanics, a truth far stranger than any fiction. He takes us step-by-step into an ever more bizarre and fascinating place—requiring only that we approach it with an open mind. He introduces the scientists who developed quantum theory. He investigates the atom, radiation, time travel, the birth of the universe, superconductors and life itself. And in a world full of its own delights, mysteries and surprises, he searches for Schrödinger's Cat—a search for quantum reality—as he brings every reader to a clear understanding of the most important area of scientific study today—quantum physics.

    It is the operation of these forces, in combination with the talent of Pasteur, that Bruno Latour sets before us as a prime example of science in action.Latour argues that the triumph of the biologist and his methodology must be understood within the particular historical convergence of competing social forces and conflicting interests. Yet Pasteur was not the only scientist working on the relationships of microbes and disease. How was he able to galvanize the other forces to support his own research? Latour shows Pasteur’s efforts to win over the French public—the farmers, industrialists, politicians, and much of the scientific establishment.Instead of reducing science to a given social environment, Latour tries to show the simultaneous building of a society and its scientific facts. The first section of the book, which retells the story of Pasteur, is a vivid description of an approach to science whose theoretical implications go far beyond a particular case study. In the second part of the book, “Irreductions,” Latour sets out his notion of the dynamics of conflict and interaction, of the “relation of forces.” Latour’s method of analysis cuts across and through the boundaries of the established disciplines of sociology, history, and the philosophy of science, to reveal how it is possible not to make the distinction between reason and force. Instead of leading to sociological reductionism, this method leads to an unexpected irreductionism.

    In A Brief History of Mathematical Thought, Luke Heaton explores how the language of mathematics has evolved over time, enabling new technologies and shaping the way people think. From stone-age rituals to algebra, calculus, and the concept of computation, Heaton shows the enormous influence of mathematics on science, philosophy and the broader human story. The book traces the fascinating history of mathematical practice, focusing on the impact of key conceptual innovations. Its structure of thirteen chapters split between four sections is dictated by a combination of historical and thematic considerations. In the first section, Heaton illuminates the fundamental concept of number. He begins with a speculative and rhetorical account of prehistoric rituals, before describing the practice of mathematics in Ancient Egypt, Babylon and Greece. He then examines the relationship between counting and the continuum of measurement, and explains how the rise of algebra has dramatically transformed our world. In the second section, he explores the origins of calculus and the conceptual shift that accompanied the birth of non-Euclidean geometries. In the third section, he examines the concept of the infinite and the fundamentals of formal logic. Finally, in section four, he considers the limits of formal proof, and the critical role of mathematics in our ongoing attempts to comprehend the world around us. The story of mathematics is fascinating in its own right, but Heaton does more than simply outline a history of mathematical ideas. More importantly, he shows clearly how the history and philosophy of maths provides an invaluable perspective on human nature.

    Calhoun represented the foremost statemen of their age. In the decades preceding the Civil War, they dominated American congressional politics as no other figures have. Now Merrill D. Peterson, one of our most gifted historians, brilliantly re-creates the lives and times of these great men in this monumental collective biography. Arriving on the national scene at the onset of the War of 1812 and departing political life during the ordeal of the Union in 1850-52, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun opened--and closed--a new era in American politics. In outlook and style, they represented startling contrasts: Webster, the Federalist and staunch New England defender of the Union; Clay, the war hawk and National Rebublican leader from the West; Calhoun, the youthful nationalist who became the foremost spokesman of the South and slavery. They came together in the Senate for the first time in 1832, united in their opposition of Andrew Jackson, and thus gave birth to the idea of the Great Triumvirate. Entering the history books, this idea survived the test of time because these men divided so much of American politics between them for so long. Peterson brings to life the great events in which the Triumvirate figured so prominently, including the debates on Clay's American System, the Missouri Compromise, the Webster-Hayne debate, the Bank War, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, the annexation of Texas, and the Compromise of 1850. At once a sweeping narrative and a penetrating study of non-presidential leadership, this book offers an indelible picture of this conservative era in which statesmen viewed the preservation of the legacy of free government inherited from the Founding Fathers as their principal mission. In fascinating detail, Peterson demonstrates how precisely Webster, Clay, and Calhoun exemplify three facets of this national mind.

    They face uniquely intense dilemmas as they grapple with the basic problems of whom to trust, how to make themselves trusted, and how to handle information without being detected by rivals or police. In this book, one of the world's leading scholars of the mafia ranges from ancient Rome to the gangs of modern Japan, from the prisons of Western countries to terrorist and pedophile rings, to explain how despite these constraints, many criminals successfully stay in business.Diego Gambetta shows that as villains balance the lure of criminal reward against the fear of dire punishment, they are inspired to unexpected feats of subtlety and ingenuity in communication. He uncovers the logic of the often bizarre ways in which inveterate and occasional criminals solve their dilemmas, such as why the tattoos and scars etched on a criminal's body function as lines on a professional r�sum�, why inmates resort to violence to establish their position in the prison pecking order, and why mobsters are partial to nicknames and imitate the behavior they see in mafia movies. Even deliberate self-harm and the disclosure of their crimes are strategically employed by criminals to convey important messages.By deciphering how criminals signal to each other in a lawless universe, this gruesomely entertaining and incisive book provides a quantum leap in our ability to make sense of their actions.

    Birth of a Theorem is Villani’s own account of the years leading up to the award. It invites readers inside the mind of a great mathematician as he wrestles with the most important work of his career.But you don’t have to understand nonlinear Landau damping to love Birth of a Theorem. It doesn’t simplify or overexplain; rather, it invites readers into collaboration. Villani’s diaries, emails, and musings enmesh you in the process of discovery. You join him in unproductive lulls and late-night breakthroughs. You’re privy to the dining-hall conversations at the world’s greatest research institutions. Villani shares his favorite songs, his love of manga, and the imaginative stories he tells his children. In mathematics, as in any creative work, it is the thinker’s whole life that propels discovery—and with Birth of a Theorem, Cédric Villani welcomes you into his.

    He holds that the universe is self-aware, and that consciousness creates the physical world.

    Those same theories drove our invasion of Iraq forty-five years later, championed by RAND affiliated actors such as Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Zalmay Khalilzad. But RAND’s greatest contribution might be its least known: rational choice theory, a model explaining all human behavior through self-interest. Through it RAND sparked the Reagan-led transformation of our social and economic system but also unleashed a resurgence of precisely the forces whose existence it denied— religion, patriotism, tribalism.With Soldiers of Reason, Alex Abella has rewritten the history of America’s last half century and cast a new light on our problematic present.

    Rosa Parks, weary after a long day at work, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man…and ignited the explosion that was the civil rights movement in America. In this powerful saga, Morris tells the complete story behind the ten years that transformed America, tracing the essential role of the black community organizations that was the real power behind the civil rights movement. Drawing on interviews with more than fifty key leaders, original documents, and other moving firsthand material, he brings to life the people behind the scenes who led the fight to end segregation, providing a critical new understanding of the dynamics of social change. “An important addition to our knowledge of the strategies of social change for all oppressed peoples.” —Reverend Jesse Jackson“A benchmark study…setting the historical record straight.” —The New York Times Book Review

    First published in 1954, it details his experiences when taking mescaline. The book takes the form of Huxley's recollection of a mescaline trip that took place over the course of an afternoon in May 1953. The book takes its title from a phrase in William Blake's 1793 poem 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'. Huxley recalls the insights he experienced, which range from the "purely aesthetic" to "sacramental vision". He also incorporates later reflections on the experience and its meaning for art and religion.

    Many of the innovations that we think of as hallmarks of Western science had their roots in the Arab world of the middle ages, a period when much of Western Christendom lay in intellectual darkness. Jim al- Khalili, a leading British-Iraqi physicist, resurrects this lost chapter of history, and given current East-West tensions, his book could not be timelier. With transporting detail, al-Khalili places readers in the hothouses of the Arabic Enlightenment, shows how they led to Europe's cultural awakening, and poses the question: Why did the Islamic world enter its own dark age after such a dazzling flowering?

    Despite this, he has remained inaccessible to most modern readers, indisputably great but undeniably remote. In this witty, engaging, and often moving examination of Newton's life, David Berlinski recovers the man behind the mathematical breakthroughs. The story carries the reader from Newton's unremarkable childhood to his awkward undergraduate days at Cambridge through the astonishing year in which, working alone, he laid the foundation for his system of the world, his Principia Mathematica, and to the subsequent monumental feuds that poisoned his soul and wearied his supporters. An edifying appreciation of Newton's greatest accomplishment, Newton's Gift is also a touching celebration of a transcendent man.