Pure mathematics, the area of Bourbaki's work, seems on the surface to be an abstract field of human study with no direct connection with the real world. In reality, however, it is closely intertwined with the general culture that surrounds it. Major developments in mathematics have often followed important trends in popular culture; developments in mathematics have acted as harbingers of change in the surrounding human culture. The seeds of change, the beginnings of the revolution that swept the Western world in the early decades of the twentieth century — both in mathematics and in other areas — were sown late in the previous century. This is the story both of Bourbaki and the world that created him in that time. It is the story of an elaborate intellectual joke — because Bourbaki, one of the foremost mathematicians of his day — never existed.

    But then the English-major-turned-award-winning-science-writer had a change of heart and decided to revisit the equations and formulas that had haunted her for years. The Calculus Diaries is the fun and fascinating account of her year spent confronting her math phobia head on. With wit and verve, Ouellette shows how she learned to apply calculus to everything from gas mileage to dieting, from the rides at Disneyland to shooting craps in Vegas-proving that even the mathematically challenged can learn the fundamentals of the universal language.

    Devlin's Textbook of Biochemistry with Clinical Correlations presents the biochemistry of mammalian cells, relates events at a cellular level to the subsequent physiological processes in the whole animal, and cites examples of human diseases derived from aberrant biochemical processes. The organization and content are tied together to provide students with the complete picture of biochemistry and how it relates to humans. Loaded with new material and chapters and brimming with detailed, full-color illustrations that clearly explain associated concepts, this sixth edition is an indispensable tool for students and professionals in the medical or health sciences. Key Features of the Sixth Edition Over 250 Clinical Correlations highlighting the significance of the biochemistry to clinical conditions and diseases MCAT-Style Questions with annontated answers in every chapter - in a format similar to that used by the National Board of Medical Examiners More than 1,200 high-quality, full-color illustrations A concise appendix reviewing important Organic Chemistry Concepts New to the Sixth Edition: Fully Updated with a significant revision of all chapters and major topics Two new chapters: Fundamentals of Signal Transduction and Cell Cycle, Programmed Cell Death, and Cancer A Glossary that explains important biochemical terms New sections on the Basal Lamina Protein Complex and Molecular Motors

    The word conjures up images of horrific diseases sweeping the globe and killing everyone in their path. But such highly lethal illnesses almost never create pandemics. The reality is deadly serious but far more subtle.In Pandemics: What Everyone Needs to Know�, Peter Doherty, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on how the immune system recognizes virus-infected cells, offers an essential guide to one of the truly life-or-death issues of our age. In concise, question-and-answer format, he explains the causes of pandemics, how they can be counteracted with vaccines and drugs, and how we can better prepare for them in the future. Doherty notes that the term "pandemic" refers not to a disease's severity but to its ability to spread rapidly over a wide geographical area. Extremely lethal pathogens are usually quickly identified and confined. Nevertheless, the rise of high-speed transportation networks and the globalization of trade and travel have radically accelerated the spread of diseases. A traveler from Africa arrived in New York in 1999 carrying the West Nile virus; one mosquito bite later, it was loose in the ecosystem. Doherty explains how the main threat of a pandemic comes from respiratory viruses, such as influenza and SARS, which disseminate with incredible speed through air travel. The climate disruptions of global warming, rising population density, and growing antibiotic resistance all complicate efforts to control pandemics. But Doherty stresses that pandemics can be fought effectively. Often simple health practices, especially in hospitals, can help enormously. And research into the animal reservoirs of pathogens, from SARS in bats to HIV in chimpanzees, show promise for our prevention efforts.Calm, clear, and authoritative, Peter Doherty's Pandemics is one of the most critically important additions to the What Everyone Needs to Know� series.What Everyone Needs to Know� is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

    We chase ‘winning streaks’ that are often just illusions, and we are all too predictable exactly when we try hardest not to be.In the 1970s, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky coined the phrase ‘representativeness’ to describe the psychology of this behaviour. Since then representativeness has been used by auditors to catch people fiddling their tax returns and by hedge fund managers to reap billions from the emotions of small investors. Now Poundstone for the first time makes these techniques fun, easy, and profitable for everyone, in the everyday situations that matter. You’ll learn how to tackle multiple choice tests, what internet passwords to avoid, how to up your odds of winning the office Premier League sweepstakes, and the best ways to invest your money.

    For real.If you're like most people, geometry is a sterile and dimly remembered exercise you gladly left behind in the dust of ninth grade, along with your braces and active romantic interest in pop singers. If you recall any of it, it's plodding through a series of miniscule steps only to prove some fact about triangles that was obvious to you in the first place. That's not geometry. Okay, it is geometry, but only a tiny part, which has as much to do with geometry in all its flush modern richness as conjugating a verb has to do with a great novel.Shape reveals the geometry underneath some of the most important scientific, political, and philosophical problems we face. Geometry asks: Where are things? Which things are near each other? How can you get from one thing to another thing? Those are important questions. The word "geometry," from the Greek for "measuring the world." If anything, that's an undersell. Geometry doesn't just measure the world—it explains it. Shape shows us how.

    Developed for the professional Master's program in Computational Finance at Carnegie Mellon, the leading financial engineering program in the U.S.Has been tested in the classroom and revised over a period of several yearsExercises conclude every chapter; some of these extend the theory while others are drawn from practical problems in quantitative finance

    Provides a review of introductory noncalculus-based physics for those who do not have a strong background in mathematics.

    The presentation develops physical insight by stressing the microscopic content of the theory.

    The Red Queen answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture -- including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening notions of beauty, and the disquieting fact that a woman is more likely to conceive a child by an adulterous lover than by her husband. Brilliantly written, The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.

    GRAPH THEORY WITH APPLICATIONS TO ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE-PHI-DEO, NARSINGH-1979-EDN-1

    and a Professor of Life Sciences at UCLA who is immersed in the debate on religion. In Anarchy Evolution, Graffin puts forth his bold ideas about “naturalism” and the connection between science religion and art. In this provocative and timely book, Graffin tackles head on the “intellectual dishonestly” of creationism; he also shares compelling stories about his childhood and how science saved him when he ran into trouble as a teenager. Anarchy Evolution will appeal to the fans of Bad Religion (which as sold over 2.8 million albums) as well as readers of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The book coincides with a major national Bad Religion reunion tour that will start in October of 2010.

    But that doesn’t mean that mathematics isn’t a crucial tool for understanding love. Love, like most things in life, is full of patterns. And mathematics is ultimately the study of patterns—from predicting the weather to the fluctuations of the stock market, the movement of planets or the growth of cities. These patterns twist and turn and warp and evolve just as the rituals of love do. In The Mathematics of Love, Dr. Hannah Fry takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the patterns that define our love lives, applying mathematical formulas to the most common yet complex questions pertaining to love: What’s the chance of finding love? What’s the probability that it will last? How do online dating algorithms work, exactly? Can game theory help us decide who to approach in a bar? At what point in your dating life should you settle down? From evaluating the best strategies for online dating to defining the nebulous concept of beauty, Dr. Fry proves—with great insight, wit, and fun—that math is a surprisingly useful tool to negotiate the complicated, often baffling, sometimes infuriating, always interesting, mysteries of love.

    Chown fearlessly addresses the big questions on the nature of the universe, the nature of reality, and the place of life in the universe. Ultimately, he says, science is about the down-to-earth things that matter to all of us. Where did the universe come from? Where did we come from? What the hell are we doing here?

    In their new book, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow present the most recent scientific thinking about the mysteries of the universe, in nontechnical language marked by both brilliance and simplicity. In The Grand Design they explain that according to quantum theory, the cosmos does not have just a single existence or history, but rather that every possible history of the universe exists simultaneously. When applied to the universe as a whole, this idea calls into question the very notion of cause and effect. But the “top-down” approach to cosmology that Hawking and Mlodinow describe would say that the fact that the past takes no definite form means that we create history by observing it, rather than that history creates us. The authors further explain that we ourselves are the product of quantum fluctuations in the very early universe, and show how quantum theory predicts the “multiverse”—the idea that ours is just one of many universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature.Along the way Hawking and Mlodinow question the conventional concept of reality, posing a “model-dependent” theory of reality as the best we can hope to find. And they conclude with a riveting assessment of M-theory, an explanation of the laws governing us and our universe that is currently the only viable candidate for a complete “theory of everything.” If confirmed, they write, it will be the unified theory that Einstein was looking for, and the ultimate triumph of human reason.A succinct, startling, and lavishly illustrated guide to discoveries that are altering our understanding and threatening some of our most cherished belief systems, The Grand Design is a book that will inform—and provoke—like no other.'