Important scientific reading

[Raisa]

This is a thread for you to tell everyone all about literature and art you think are making a scientific point about nature, human beings, space.. etc.

Art is a very strong way to bring points into importance because it communicates to people on other levels to make its point.

So if you have seen any movies, or read any good books that have opened your eyes to something, or that you think are important, and you want to share them, then this is the place to do it!

Post on beautiful people!

[DaCuBaN]

Well... It's not art, as such - but it's very much necessary reading. Best of all, there's not too much depth to it.


Opposites Attract: Quantum Computing's Strange World

By Aaron Ricadela, InformationWeek
May 10, 2004
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showA...icleID=20000168

Quantum computing exists in a looking-glass world in which things are both up and down, black and white, clockwise and counterclockwise--at the same time. Instead of storing binary bits of information with electrical currents that represent either 0 or 1, quantum computers use the spin of particles or nuclei in atoms or charged ions, the polarization of photons of light, or other methods to represent 0 and 1.

These quantum bits, or qubits, possess the strange properties of the subatomic realm, where electrons and photons appear to occupy more than one place at once and exist in indeterminate states. Quantum computing is difficult in part because those states exist at speed-of-light velocities, within unimaginably short distances, and at extremely low energy levels. Experiments at MIT and the National Institute of Standards and Technology are conducted at fractions of a degree above absolute zero, at which all molecular activity stops.

Qubits used in the experiments can spin clockwise and counterclockwise simultaneously, embodying both 0 and 1, in a phenomenon called superposition. Measuring the system causes the superposition to collapse, yielding answers to computations. Two qubits physically separate in space can be entangled, so the fate of one affects the other--even over great distances. Scientists can coax those quantum bits into performing simple computations using magnetic fields or laser pulses. Each atom is like a tiny switch capable of performing two calculations at once.

That means exponentially higher performance than an electronic computer: Two atoms can perform four computations at the same time, three atoms eight. A quantum computer of 10 qubits could perform 1,024 simultaneous calculations. Twenty qubits would be able to execute a million simultaneous computations; 40, 10 trillion. Mathematicians have proven that a quantum computer with thousands of atoms could find quickly the factors of numbers hundreds of digits long, a feat that would take conventional supercomputers billions of years.

Quantum computers wouldn't perform all tasks better, but for problems where algorithms can be designed--factoring and database searching, for example--the promise is mind-boggling.

View the whole thread (at another board) here (http://s7.invisionfree.com/I_P_F/index.php?showtopic=363)

[Raisa]

Thanks for your post, DaCuban :)

You know, I recently saw the movie The Day After Tomorrow.
I think this movie was filmed well and makes a very strong point, while still being entertaining. I heard it sucked, but it did not!

In the movie , the wrath of nature is provoked by the negligence of human beings.
A great flood is unleashed from the melting of polar ice caps, and soon the entire nothern hemisphere is covered in snow and ice as the water is frozen and only the tops of our tallest buildings peak out of the snow.

Only a few survivors must live in the New York Library and burn books to keep warm. Everything we worked for in our civilizations are destroyed, and now the world is upside down.

The people of the northern industrialized countries are forced to humble themselves and take refuge in the third world nations they used to neglect ignore and exploit and swarms of Americans are climbing over the Rio Grande into Mexico to escape the storm.

It is almost as though the world ends in a bitter iorny. And even though all the events in The Day After Tomorrow happening in that sequence just like that, may be improbable, the movie makes a very good point that we need to show more reguard for our planet, it made us what we are.

It is very ironic, because when this movie came out, it was around the time that my state was being devoured by a string of vicious hurricanes and at that time the last thing on my mind was going to the movies.
But the Day After Tomorrow is out now to rent, so maybe you should check it out on a rainy day or something. :blink:

[Vallegrande]

Have any of you read "Return of the King" from Lord of the Rings? The very ending suggests something quite compelling to me. The hobbits get their pipeweed confiscated everytime they grow it and so they must grow it in secret. The big people always come along and take it away if they see a hobbit growing pipeweed around their place. Remind yall of anything? I can see it.

Also, the Shire has been turned into an area with big smoke-stacks, which suggests some form of a new age of industry, and the hobbits are forced to live in a state of poverty.

Reading Tolkien's books, I have realized that he too noticed both drug war and industrial exploitation going on. No one will ever know if he ever meant this in reality. But I can truly see by just reading.

The movie never mentions these parts, they just like to show violence and never mention the greatest part of the book. Those pigs!!! :angry:

[Zingu]

"Hyperspace" and the "Quark and the Jaguar".

[SpeCtrE]

:unsure: :blink:

Movies Suck.

Oh yes they do,

No, thy Ears do not decieve thee

No, how could I be crazy if I don't like movies.

:lol: :lol:

[Motorcycle_diAries]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2004, 08:26 AM
Have any of you read "Return of the King" from Lord of the Rings? The very ending suggests something quite compelling to me. The hobbits get their pipeweed confiscated everytime they grow it and so they must grow it in secret. The big people always come along and take it away if they see a hobbit growing pipeweed around their place. Remind yall of anything? I can see it.

Also, the Shire has been turned into an area with big smoke-stacks, which suggests some form of a new age of industry, and the hobbits are forced to live in a state of poverty.

Reading Tolkien's books, I have realized that he too noticed both drug war and industrial exploitation going on. No one will ever know if he ever meant this in reality. But I can truly see by just reading.

The movie never mentions these parts, they just like to show violence and never mention the greatest part of the book. Those pigs!!! :angry:
Yea, Vallegrande, The movie and the book are like poles apart. They have left a lof of things out of the movie. If someone really want to say I know the lord of the Rings, he/she should read the book.
The movie? well it's not even close to the books when compared.

[Motorcycle_diAries]

How bout "All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots
of Middle East Terror"
Honeslty, i was so dumb that i had no idea what the reason behind all these Arabian and Iranian hate to America was. When i read the book, i was like "Man!! I know nothing."

Check it out. it's by Stephen Kinzer.

[ComradeRed]

"Theoretical Physics" by george Joss (I think that's his name, I already forgot :lol: )
And, of course, "The Quark and the Jaguar".

[chaval]

"the master and margarita" by mikhail bulgakov. brilliant russian literature that critisizes very well and in a very entertaining way the stalinist regime. the devil comes to wreak havoc among the people of moscow but no one can accept it since theres no devil in atheism!! also, the devil makes everyone dissapear...an allusion to the fact that many people would just "disappear" back in those days during the middle of the night. also speaks of the lengths to go for love

[Raisa]

Im not sure how thats scientific, but thank you for posting us some literature. :)

[rahul]

recently i've read a book called " Sidhartha "by hermann hess

"veronika decides to die" by pauo coelho

they did change someways which i think about the life!

[Pawn Power]

Anthropology and Modern Life- Franz Boas

[workersunity]

Gaia- Lovelock

Charles Darwin- On the Origin of Species
Also check out his grandfathers work- Erasmus Darwin

[I Watch The Watchers]

Peter Watts is a brilliant writer. Beginning as a marine biologist he applies what he knows about deep sea exploration to a near-future fiction in which underwater geo-thermal power plants are as necessary as they are insanely dangerous. Through a three book series his protagonist (Lennie Clark, a woman stress addicted enough to want a job on these power plants) weaves through a near-distopic Canada as all forms of ecological, political, and resource based catastrophes plague the earth. You might want to read up on every form of science known to humanity before reading it but it's worth it.

Starfish (book one)
Maelstrom (book two)
Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes (related short stories)
Beta-Max and Sepukka (both parts of book three)

This guy’s worth a read for all the brainy lefties out there.

[Hegemonicretribution]

I can't believer there is no Popper or Kuhn, especially Popper. Forget major texts, even basic looks at his work are essential, and of course he makes direct references to Marxism, although further reading is required to get the most out of him. Shroedeger (sp?) is also worth a look, although I am not professing to be capable of understanding his waves or anything, his cat however is legendry.

[ComradeRed]

Side-note: for the love of Marx don't study the Copenhagen interpretation! (For Quantum Mechanics) study the Bohm interpretation or, if you must, the path integral formulation...but not the Copenhagen interpretation!

Lemme give a few good ones on theoretical physics:
Best Theoretical Physics book ever
The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe By Roger Penrose -- A whopping 1100 pages! Be sure to know calculus before hand!

Bohm Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
Tired of stuff randomly happening in Quantum Theory? Too bad.
No, just kidding. The best book on this is definately The Quantum Theory of Motion, by Holland. Be sure to know classical mechanics (Euler-Lagrange equations) beforehand, it helps!

General Relativity
Gravitation by Wheeler, Misner, and Thorne. The Bible of General Relativity.

Spinors and Twistors
Spinors in Physics by Jean Hladik. A good introduction to spinors if you know vector calculus.

Geometry, Spinors and Applications by Donal J. Hurley and Michael A. Vandyck. A very technical introduction to the applicable aspects of spinors.

Twistor Geometry and Field Theory by Ward and Wells. This is a fairly technical work, but a great introduction if you know spinors.

Quantum Gravity
Three Roads to Quantum Gravity by Smolin. One of the best books on theoretical physics I read written for the layperson. Similiar to Hawking's A Brief History of Time but more in depth (no math too!).

Euclidean Quantum Gravity by Gibbons and Hawking. The technical work on Euclidean Quantum Gravity.

Conformal Field Theories
Conformal Field Theory, Anomalies, and Superstrings by Baaquie, Chw, Oh, and Phua. One of the more technical pieces on a technical subject.

Conformal Field Theories and Integrable Models Harvoth, Pall (ed.). Again, because conformal field theory is such a modern topic (a few years old maybe?), it is fairly technical. This is not for the average joe lazy layperson, but the wannabe Stephen Hawking layperson.

[Cult of Reason]

One very interesting book on human evolution, that I first read a year before starting secondary school (I was about 10) is Robert L. Lehrman's The Long Road to Man (1961) which covers from the jawless fishes through to amphibians, reptiles and mammals, and from primitive tree shrews through to lemurs, tarsiers, apes and hominids.

[razboz]

Along the same lines i might also recomend the Ancestors Tale by richard Dawkins, about evolution. Pretty interresting.

[Niall]

black holes, worm holes and time machines

[TomRK1089]

Psha, quantum's been left in the dust. Read up on superstring theory. Admittedly, it's deeply theoretical. But elegantly so. My favorite resource? The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. It uses real-world anecdotes and metaphors, rather than complex mathematical theoroms, which is perfect for someone like me who struggles with PreCal.

[Eleutherios]

One of my favorite books of all time: Cosmos by Carl Sagan. It's filled with pretty pictures, inspiring language, and down-to-earth rationality. Plus it gives you some sense of perspective as to what a tiny speck we are in the universe (as well as how freaking huge we are compared to the atoms). The Demon-Haunted World and Pale Blue Dot are other must-reads by Sagan.

[Cult of Reason]

Best Theoretical Physics book ever
The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe By Roger Penrose -- A whopping 1100 pages! Be sure to know calculus before hand!


How much calculus? And what for, just reading the text or doing all the proofs (I am stuck on the first one on hyperbolic geometry, if I remember correctly. It was an early one, anyway)?

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2006, 10:55 PM

Best Theoretical Physics book ever
The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe By Roger Penrose -- A whopping 1100 pages! Be sure to know calculus before hand!


How much calculus? And what for, just reading the text or doing all the proofs (I am stuck on the first one on hyperbolic geometry, if I remember correctly. It was an early one, anyway)?
It's actually got calculus in there, it teaches it and all the pre-requisite math too.