图书标签: 科普 混沌 复杂 数学 哲学 complexity 思想·科学·社会 非线性
发表于2024-11-26
Ubiquity pdf epub mobi txt 电子书 下载 2024
Why do catastrophes happen? What sets off earthquakes, for example? What about mass extinctions of species? The outbreak of major wars? Massive traffic jams that seem to appear out of nowhere? Why does the stock market periodically suffer dramatic crashes? Why do some forest fires become superheated infernos that rage totally out of control?
Experts have never been able to explain the causes of any of these disasters. Now scientists have discovered that these seemingly unrelated cataclysms, both natural and human, almost certainly all happen for one fundamental reason. More than that, there is not and never will be any way to predict them.
Critically acclaimed science journalist Mark Buchanan tells the fascinating story of the discovery that there is a natural structure of instability woven into the fabric of our world. From humble beginnings studying the physics of sandpiles, scientists have learned that an astonishing range of things–Earth’s crust, cars on a highway, the market for stocks, and the tightly woven networks of human society–have a natural tendency to organize themselves into what’s called the “critical state,” in which they are poised on what Buchanan describes as the “knife-edge of instability.” The more places scientists have looked for the critical state, the more places they’ve found it, and some believe that the pervasiveness of instability must now be seen as a fundamental feature of our world.
Ubiquity is packed with stories of real-life catastrophes, such as the huge earthquake that in 1995 hit Kobe, Japan, killing 5,000 people; the forest fires that ravaged Yellowstone National Park in 1988; the stock market crash of 1987; the mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs; and the outbreak of World War I. Combining literary flair with scientific rigor, Buchanan introduces the researchers who have pieced together the evidence of the critical state, explaining their ingenious work and unexpected insights in beautifully lucid prose.
At the dawn of this new century, Buchanan reveals, we are witnessing the emergence of an extraordinarily powerful new field of science that will help us comprehend the bewildering and unruly rhythms that dominate our lives and may even lead to a true science of the dynamics of human culture and history.
From the Hardcover edition.
MARK BUCHANAN is a science writer who has worked on the editorial staff of Nature and as a features editor for New Scientist. He earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Virginia. He is also the author of Nexus, The Social Atom and Forecast.
看世界看历史看市场有一个新角度
评分2002年出版的书,当中大部分观念现在看来已经有些陈旧。作者的第一本书,文字啰嗦浅白,简单道理翻来覆去地讲,太过冗余。开头的伏笔埋的好,而后面的物理学知识却过于浅显,大多数时候只是复述模型本身,却没有更为深入的物理分析,也是失望的。
评分看世界看历史看市场有一个新角度
评分看世界看历史看市场有一个新角度
评分看世界看历史看市场有一个新角度
首先,让人崩溃的是,书面上的那个英文压根不是英文书名。从中文也根本无法猜到英文书名是Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen。这似乎也预示了本书的阅读体验。 从译本中,可以感觉到原作非常具有科普文学的趣味性和严谨性。原作者旁征博引,深入简出,飞梭在很多个学科的经纬...
评分译者明显没有物理学背景,书里面好多名词、人名都翻译得莫名其妙,连薛定谔、麦克斯韦这样的名字都翻译得不知道是谁。专业名词错误也是比比皆是,相变被翻译成“阶段转移”,真够奇葩。地名也有错误,比如康奈尔大学
评分这本科普的内容大致勾起了我本科选修《非线性物理》的内容,只不过它举的例子比当年的老师多了一些(尤其是中间和后面几章),并且表达的更具体和更丰富。 作为一本科普书,这本书的前面几章写的一般,开头似乎有点陈词滥调,但至少如果耐心读下去,明白他要讲的实际上是不同...
评分 评分近幾年來台灣發生的天然災害,以颱風與地震的影響最為嚴重,颱風的路徑尚有可觀測預防的機制,但對地震的預測卻沒有突破性的進展。許多人試圖找尋大地震的成因,認為大規模地震一定和小規模地震的成因不同,本書卻告訴我們,事實並非如此。 對混沌現象有所認識的讀者該記得下...
Ubiquity pdf epub mobi txt 电子书 下载 2024