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Gravity's Ghost: Scientific Discovery in the Twenty-first Century
by Harry CollinsIn theory, at least, gravitational waves do exist. We are constantly bathed in gravitational radiation, which is generated when stars explode or collide and a portion of their mass becomes energy that ripples out like a disturbance on the surface of a serene pond. But unfortunately no gravitational wave has ever been directly detected even though the search has lasted more than forty years. As the leading chronicler of the search for gravitational waves, Harry Collins has been right there with the scientists since the start. The result of his unprecedented access to the front lines of physical science is Gravity’s Ghost, a thrilling chronicle of high-stakes research and cutting-edge discovery. Here, Collins reveals that scientific discovery and nondiscovery can turn on scientific traditions and rivalries, that ideal statistical analysis rests on impossible procedures and unattainable knowledge, and that fact in one place is baseless assumption in another. He also argues that sciences like gravitational wave detection, in exemplifying how the intractable is to be handled, can offer scientific leadership a moral beacon for the twenty-first century. In the end, Gravity’s Ghost shows that discoveries are the denouements of dramatic scientific mysteries.
Gravity's Ghost: Scientific Discovery in the Twenty-first Century
by Harry CollinsA gripping look at gravitational wave research and what it says about scientific discovery and the future of the scientific community.&“This fine book pairs exploratory analysis with the pulse of a detective story. Giving a portrait of the way a community chose to test itself on the threshold of new knowledge, Collins offers the rich sociological insight that can only be won from uncommon experience, from a long-standing dialogue with the community he studies, and from a moral engagement in the future of science.&” —Richard Staley, author of Einstein&’s Generation: The Origins of the Relativity Revolution In theory, at least, gravitational waves do exist. We are constantly bathed in gravitational radiation, which is generated when stars explode or collide and a portion of their mass becomes energy that ripples out like a disturbance on the surface of a serene pond. But unfortunately no gravitational wave has ever been directly detected even though the search has lasted more than forty years. As the leading chronicler of the search for gravitational waves, Harry Collins has been right there with the scientists since the start. The result of his unprecedented access to the front lines of physical science is Gravity&’s Ghost, a thrilling chronicle of high-stakes research and cutting-edge discovery. Here, Collins reveals that scientific discovery and nondiscovery can turn on scientific traditions and rivalries, that ideal statistical analysis rests on impossible procedures and unattainable knowledge, and that fact in one place is baseless assumption in another. He also argues that sciences like gravitational wave detection, in exemplifying how the intractable is to be handled, can offer scientific leadership a moral beacon for the twenty-first century. In the end, Gravity&’s Ghost shows that discoveries are the denouements of dramatic scientific mysteries. &“A sociologist embedded (with full access!) in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration chronicles the search for gravitational waves. Though physicists, with very few exceptions, are in no doubt that gravitational waves exist, evidence for their passage through the new kilometer-length interferometers would nevertheless represent the scientific event of the twenty-first century. Harry Collins has turned the initial joined search exploiting the LIGO and Virgo instruments into a detective novel that exquisitely describes the social processes associated with discovery (and statistical analysis) in a large collaborative effort.&”—Francis Halzen, University of Wisconsin–Madison and Director of Icecube Neutrino Detector Project
Great Accomplishment
by PadmasambhavaThe Vajrayana system of Tibetan Buddhism has many techniques and "skillful means" for clearing away the impurities that prevent us from fully realizing our essential enlightenment, our Buddha nature. One of the most powerful Vajrayana practices is drubchen, an intensive traditional form of meditation retreat that lasts for about 10 days, during which practitioners recite prayers and the drubchen mantra in shifts for twenty-four hours continuously throughout the period of the retreat. The tradition for practicing drubchen ceremonies has been continued in an unbroken lineage until the present day; the late master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche revived this tradition at his seat in Nepal, the Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery, where the drubchen is performed every spring with hundreds of lamas, monks, and lay people in attendance.In Great Accomplishment, modern masters such as Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Orgyen Topgyal Rinpoche offer perspectives on this rigorous practice. Tibetan teachers often draw an analogy between our enlightened essence and pure gold; if our natures were made of brass, we could spend lifetimes polishing and cleaning them but the base metal would never turn into gold. However, since we already have a divine nature, if we engage in Vajrayana practice, which acts like an alchemical polish, we can realize what we actually are and discover our higher possibilities. The effect of drubchen is multiplied when many people participate in a drubchen ceremony; then many enlightened essences are gathered together in one place, and spiritual practice in such conditions will be more effective than practicing alone. Circumstances will be perfect if we recognize and realize our enlightened essence, but even if we do not, just by taking part in the ceremony we can receive great benefit.Great Accomplishment offers detailed explanations of these practices and the underlying theories that they are based upon. It gives hands-on advice on the meaning, the application, and the profound results of working together with other practitioners to accomplish the goal of taming our minds and benefiting others. From the most esoteric to the subtlest of practical details, masters Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Orgyen Topgyal Rinpoche, and Lama Putse give a complete guide to this hidden treasure.
Great Books of The Western World 9: The Works of Aristotle Volume II
by Mortimer J. Adler W. D. RossThe volume II contains the works of Aristotle.
Great Books, Bad Arguments: Republic, Leviathan, and The Communist Manifesto
by W. G. RuncimanWhy Plato, Hobbes, and Marx are great—despite their argumentsPlato's Republic, Hobbes's Leviathan, and Marx's Communist Manifesto are universally acknowledged classics of Western political thought. But how strong are the core arguments on which they base their visions of the good society that they want to bring into being? In this lively and provocative book, W. G. Runciman shows where and why they fail, even after due allowance has been made for the different historical contexts in which they wrote. Plato, Hobbes, and Marx were all passionately convinced that justice, peace, and order could be established if only their teachings were implemented and the right people put into power. But Runciman makes a powerful case to the effect that all three were irredeemably naive in their assumptions about how human societies function and evolve and how human behavior could be changed. Yet despite this, Runciman insists that Republic, Leviathan, and The Communist Manifesto remain great books. Born of righteous anger and frustration, they are masterfully eloquent pleas for better worlds—worlds that Plato, Hobbes, and Marx cannot bring themselves to admit to be unattainable.
Great Books, Honors Programs, and Hidden Origins: The Virginia Plan and the University of Virginia in the Liberal Arts Movement (Studies in the History of Education)
by William HaarlowFirst Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Great Britain and the Unifying of Italy: A Special Relationship? (Britain and the World)
by O. J. WrightThis book explores the interests of British leaders, diplomats and consuls in the unifying of Italy. It is the first study to provide a comprehensive narrative of British policy on Italian affairs between the formation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 and its consolidation as a new nation-state through the acquisitions of Venice in 1866 and Rome in 1870. Commencing with an investigation of the place of Italy within the context of mid-Victorian Britain’s global interests, the book investigates the origins of British sympathy for Italian nationalism during the 1850s, before charting the development of British foreign policy regarding Italy during its unification and consolidation. Emphasis is placed upon the tendency of British leaders and representatives to consider it their responsibility to guide the new Italy through its formative years, and upon their desire to draw Italy into a ‘special relationship’ with Britain as the dominant power within the Mediterranean.
Great Dialogues of Plato
by Plato W. H. D. Rouse Eric H. Warmington Philip G. RouseOne of the world's most respected classical scholars offers translations of the complete texts of "The Republic, Apology of Socrates, " "Crito, " "Phaedo, " "Ion, " "Meno, " and "Symposium. "
Great Disciples of the Buddha
by Hellmuth Hecker Bhikkhu Bodhi Nyanaponika TheraA perennial favorite, Great Disciples of the Buddha is now relaunched in our best-selling Teachings of the Buddha series. Twenty-four of the Buddha's most distinguished disciples are brought to life in ten chapters of rich narration. Drawn from a wide range of authentic Pali sources, the material in these stories has never before been assembled in a single volume. Through these engaging tales, we meet all manner of human beings - rich, poor, male, female, young, old - whose unique stories are told with an eye to the details of ordinary human concerns. When read with careful attention, these stories can sharpen our understanding of the Buddhist path by allowing us to contemplate the living portraits of the people who fulfilled the early Buddhist ideals of human perfection. The characters detailed include: Sariputta Nanda Mahamoggallana Mahakassapa Ananda Isidasi Anuruddha Mahakaccana Angulimala Visakha and many more. Conveniently annotated with the same system of sutta references used in each of the other series volumes, Great Disciples of the Buddha allows the reader to easily place each student in the larger picture of Buddha's life. It is a volume that no serious student of Buddhism should miss.
Great Empires, Small Nations: The Uncertain Future of the Sovereign State
by Josep M. Colomer'Colomer's book is a stimulating read, certainly for anyone willing to entertain nonconventional observations that hold up well in what is happening in the world. His most important argument is that global public services, such as security, a trading system, an international monetary regime, and communication networks provided by large democratic entities such as the United States and the European Union provide opportunities for small countries and regions to prosper. The successful smaller units – like Ireland or Catalonia – trade more in proportion to their economies than large ones, are generally more democratic, and have more multilingual populations. I expect this book to be widely read and greatly admired.’ – Sidney Weintraub, William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, USA
Great Jewish Wisdom
by Rabbi Moshe BambergerA compact gift volume featuring short, philosophical quotations on life and living by noted Jewish scholars and Torah greats. Each citation is accompanied by a brief biography of its author, and placed against a stunning visual, which adds a whole new dimension to the meaning of the words.
Great Minds Don’t Think Alike: Debates on Consciousness, Reality, Intelligence, Faith, Time, AI, Immortality, and the Human
by Marcelo GleiserDoes technology change who we are, and if so, in what ways? Can humanity transcend physical bodies and spaces? Will AI and genetic engineering help us reach new heights or will they unleash dystopias? How do we face mortality, our own and that of our warming planet? Questions like these—which are only growing more urgent—can be answered only by drawing on different kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing. They challenge us to bridge the divide between the sciences and the humanities and bring together perspectives that are too often kept apart.Great Minds Don’t Think Alike presents conversations among leading scientists, philosophers, historians, and public intellectuals that exemplify openness to diverse viewpoints and the productive exchange of ideas. Pulitzer and Templeton Prize winners, MacArthur “genius” grant awardees, and other acclaimed writers and thinkers debate the big questions: who we are, the nature of reality, science and religion, consciousness and materialism, and the mysteries of time. In so doing, they also inquire into how uniting experts from different areas of study to consider these topics might help us address the existential risks we face today. Convened and moderated by the physicist and author Marcelo Gleiser, these public dialogues model constructive engagement between the sciences and the humanities—and show why intellectual cooperation is necessary to shape our collective future.Contributors include David Chalmers and Antonio Damasio; Sean Carroll and B. Alan Wallace; Patricia Churchland and Jill Tarter; Rebecca Goldstein and Alan Lightman; Jimena Canales and Paul Davies; Ed Boyden and Mark O’Connell; Elizabeth Kolbert and Siddhartha Mukherjee; Jeremy DeSilva, David Grinspoon, and Tasneem Zehra Husain.
Great Philosophers Volume One: The Road to Inner Freedom, The Art of Philosophizing, and Pilgrimage to Humanity
by Bertrand Russell Albert Schweitzer Baruch SpinozaEssential teachings, brilliant musings, and provocative theories from three of history&’s greatest thinkers.The Road to Inner Freedom: The seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza views the ability to experience rational love of God as the key to mastering the contradictory and violent human emotions. The Art of Philosophizing: These groundbreaking essays by Bertrand Russell deal with &“the art of reckoning&” in the fields of mathematics, logic, and philosophy. With great clarity and simple exposition, Russell gets to the core of philosophical inquiry and analysis. Pilgrimage to Humanity: Albert Schweitzer discusses his philosophy of culture, the course of his life, his ministry to human needs in Africa, the idea of reverence for life, the ideal of world peace, the significance of liberal Christianity, and the lives, world-views, and contributions of Johann Goethe, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Jesus of Nazareth.
Great Philosophers Volume Two: Science and Philosophy, The Preservation of Youth, and Understanding History
by Bertrand Russell Alfred North Whitehead Moses MaimonidesThree essential philosophers on the nature of reality, the health of the human body, and the meaning of history.Science and Philosophy: An essential introduction to Alfred North Whitehead&’s life and philosophy. From personal reflections to his groundbreaking essay &“Process and Reality&” to an enlightening discussion of Einstein&’s theories, Science and Philosophy is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand one of the modern world&’s greatest thinkers. The Preservation of Youth: Capitalizing on his experience as a physician as well as his knowledge of classical and medieval principles of healing, Moses Maimonides provides a comprehensive theory of wellbeing. In this work he addresses common medical conditions including asthma, diabetes, hepatitis, and pneumonia, and makes recommendations on diet and exercise, sex life, and the underlying psychological causes of illness. Understanding History: Written during the height of World War II, these vigorous essays by Bertrand Russell present his influential theories on the nature of history. The title piece exposes the deadliness of the academic approach to the past, and shows how the reading of history can be a vivid intellectual pleasure.
Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love
by Andrew ShafferFew people have failed at love as spectacularly as the great philosophers. Although we admire their wisdom, history is littered with the romantic failures of the most sensible men and women of every age, including:Friedrich Nietzsche: "Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent." (Rejected by everyone he proposed to, even when he kept asking and asking.)Jean-Paul Sartre: "There are of course ugly women, but I prefer those who are pretty." (Adopted his mistress as his daughter.)Louis Althusser: "The trouble is there are bodies and, worse still, sexual organs." (Accidentally strangled his wife to death.)And dozens of other great thinkers whose words we revere—but whose romantic decisions we should avoid at all costs.Includes an excerpt from Andrew Shaffer's new book Literary Rogues.
Great Plains Politics (Discover the Great Plains)
by Peter J. LongoThe Great Plains has long been home to unconventional and leading-edge politics, from the fiery Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan to the country’s first female U.S. representative and first female governor to the nation’s only single-house state legislature. Great Plains Politics provides a lively tour of the Great Plains region through the civic and political contributions of its citizens, demonstrating the importance of community in the region.Great Plains Politics profiles six men and women who had a profound impact on the civic and community life of the Great Plains: Wilma Mankiller, the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma and a political activist at both the local and the national levels; Virginia Smith, an educator from Nebraska who served as a U.S. representative in Congress; Junius Groves, an African American farmer and community builder from Kansas; George McGovern, a South Dakota senator whose 1972 presidential campaign galvanized widespread grassroots support; Robert Dole, a Kansas congressman and longtime senator as well as the Republican candidate for U.S. president in 1988; and Harriet Elizabeth Byrd, the first African American elected as a state representative in Wyoming. The lives of these individuals illustrate the robust and enduring civic and community involvement of inhabitants of the Great Plains and presage a hopeful continuation of its storied political tradition.
Great Powers and International Hierarchy
by Daniel McCormackHierarchical relationships—rules that structure both international and domestic politics—are pervasive. Yet we know little about how these relationships are constructed, maintained, and dismantled. This book fills this lacuna through a two-pronged research approach: first, it discusses how great power negotiations over international political settlements both respond to domestic politics within weak states and structure the specific forms that hierarchy takes. Second, it deduces three sets of hypotheses about hierarchy maintenance, construction, and collapse during the post-war era. By offering a coherent theoretical model of hierarchical politics within weaker states, the author is able to answer a number of important questions, including: Why does the United States often ally with autocratic states even though its most enduring relationships are with democracies? Why do autocratic hierarchical relationships require interstate coercion? Why do some hierarchies end violently and others peacefully? Why does hierarchical competition sometimes lead to interstate conflict and sometimes to civil conflict?
Great Powers and the Quest for Hegemony: The World Order since 1500 (War, History And Politics Ser.)
by Jeremy BlackThis timely book provides a general overview of Great Power politics and world order from 1500 to the present. Jeremy Black provides several historical case-studies, each of which throws light on both the power in question and the international system of the period, and how it had developed from the preceding period. The point of departure for this
Great Scenes from the Bible: 230 Magnificent 17th-Century Engravings (Dover Pictorial Archive)
by Matthaeus MerianRemarkably detailed illustrations depict Adam and Eve Driven Out of the Garden of Eden, The Flood, David Slaying Goliath, Christ in the Manger, The Raising of Lazarus, The Crucifixion, and many other scenes. A wonderful pictorial dimension to age-old stories. All 230 plates from the classic 1625 edition.
Great Society: A New History
by Amity ShlaesThe New York Times bestselling author of The Forgotten Man and Coolidge offers a stunning revision of our last great period of idealism, the 1960s, with burning relevance for our contemporary challenges."Great Society is accurate history that reads like a novel, covering the high hopes and catastrophic missteps of our well-meaning leaders." —Alan GreenspanToday, a battle rages in our country. Many Americans are attracted to socialism and economic redistribution while opponents of those ideas argue for purer capitalism. In the 1960s, Americans sought the same goals many seek now: an end to poverty, higher standards of living for the middle class, a better environment and more access to health care and education. Then, too, we debated socialism and capitalism, public sector reform versus private sector advancement. Time and again, whether under John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, or Richard Nixon, the country chose the public sector. Yet the targets of our idealism proved elusive. What’s more, Johnson’s and Nixon’s programs shackled millions of families in permanent government dependence. Ironically, Shlaes argues, the costs of entitlement commitments made a half century ago preclude the very reforms that Americans will need in coming decades.In Great Society, Shlaes offers a powerful companion to her legendary history of the 1930s, The Forgotten Man, and shows that in fact there was scant difference between two presidents we consider opposites: Johnson and Nixon. Just as technocratic military planning by “the Best and the Brightest” made failure in Vietnam inevitable, so planning by a team of the domestic best and brightest guaranteed fiasco at home. At once history and biography, Great Society sketches moving portraits of the characters in this transformative period, from U.S. Presidents to the visionary UAW leader Walter Reuther, the founders of Intel, and Federal Reserve chairmen William McChesney Martin and Arthur Burns. Great Society casts new light on other figures too, from Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, to the socialist Michael Harrington and the protest movement leader Tom Hayden. Drawing on her classic economic expertise and deep historical knowledge, Shlaes upends the traditional narrative of the era, providing a damning indictment of the consequences of thoughtless idealism with striking relevance for today. Great Society captures a dramatic contest with lessons both dark and bright for our own time.
Great Traditions in Ethics (12th edition)
by Sheldon P. Peterfreund Nicholas P. White Theodore DeniseThis anthology contains readings in Western ethical theory by 27 philosophers from Plato to Bernard Williams. The late Denise (Syracuse U.) et al. begin with a section on classic ethical traditions and topics such as knowledge, virtue, and morality, and conclude with modern continuations and critiques of ideas such as social justice and religion. The introductions to philosophers have been revised, and the appendix on applied ethics (using the preceding readings) has been expanded. There is no index. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Greater Expectations: Nuturing Children's Natural Moral Growth
by William DamonGreater Expectations is the book that exposed the low standards that children are confronted with in our homes, our schools, and throughout our culture. It exploded many of the misconceptions about children and how to raise them, including the cult of self-esteem, "child-centered" learning, and other overly indulgent practices that have been watering down the education and guidance that we are providing our young people. It disclosed how the self-centered ethic is damaging our youth. Greater Expectations started America talking about these issues and about how young people need to be provided with challenges and a sense of purpose if we want them to survive and thrive in life.Provocative and challenging, Greater Expectations was a wake-up call, a must-read for anyone concerned about the growing youth crisis in America and what we can do about it.
Greater than Equal
by Sarah Caroline ThuesenDuring the half century preceding widespread school integration, black North Carolinians engaged in a dramatic struggle for equal educational opportunity as segregated schooling flourished. Drawing on archival records and oral histories, Sarah Thuesen gives voice to students, parents, teachers, school officials, and civic leaders to reconstruct this high-stakes drama. She explores how African Americans pressed for equality in curricula, higher education, teacher salaries, and school facilities; how white officials co-opted equalization as a means of forestalling integration; and, finally, how black activism for equality evolved into a fight for something "greater than equal--integrated schools that served as models of civic inclusion. These battles persisted into the Brown era, mobilized black communities, narrowed material disparities, fostered black school pride, and profoundly shaped the eventual movement for desegregation. Thuesen emphasizes that the remarkable achievements of this activism should not obscure the inherent limitations of a fight for equality in a segregated society. In fact, these unresolved struggles are emblematic of fault lines that developed across the South, and serve as an urgent reminder of the inextricable connections between educational equality, racial diversity, and the achievement of first-class citizenship.
Greece and the Reinvention of Politics: On Greece
by Alain BadiouOne of the world’s leading radical philosophers analyses the failure of the Syriza experience in GreeceIn a series of seven trenchant interventions Alain Badiou analyses the decisive developments in Greece since 2011. Badiou considers this Mediterranean country “a sort of open-air political lesson”, with much to tell us about the wider situation. Greece is exemplary of “our fundamental contradictions in Europe, which are also ultimately the fundamental contradictions of the world such as it is—the world served up to the authoritarian anarchy of capitalism.”Notwithstanding the Greeks’ heartening opposition to the financial markets’ hegemony, Badiou considers it also important to address the reasons why this opposition failed. “Movementist” politics may arouse widespread sympathy, but for the French philosopher they have “absolutely no effect other than to temporarily trap the movement in the negative weakness of its affects.”Badiou argues that a consequential opposition inspired by the emancipatory politics of the past—or by what he calls “the communist hypothesis”—should set its compass by the “orienting maxims” proposed in this book, defining a direction for political action.
Greed Is Dead: Politics After Individualism
by Paul Collier John KayTwo of the UK's leading economists call for an end to extreme individualism as the engine of prosperity 'provocative but thought-provoking and nuanced' TelegraphThroughout history, successful societies have created institutions which channel both competition and co-operation to achieve complex goals of general benefit. These institutions make the difference between societies that thrive and those paralyzed by discord, the difference between prosperous and poor economies. Such societies are pluralist but their pluralism is disciplined.Successful societies are also rare and fragile. We could not have built modernity without the exceptional competitive and co-operative instincts of humans, but in recent decades the balance between these instincts has become dangerously skewed: mutuality has been undermined by an extreme individualism which has weakened co-operation and polarized our politics.Collier and Kay show how a reaffirmation of the values of mutuality could refresh and restore politics, business and the environments in which people live. Politics could reverse the moves to extremism and tribalism; businesses could replace the greed that has degraded corporate culture; the communities and decaying places that are home to many could overcome despondency and again be prosperous and purposeful. As the world emerges from an unprecedented crisis we have the chance to examine society afresh and build a politics beyond individualism.