Scientific Paradoxes And Problems

Author : Mark Chang
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 1466509872
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Paradoxes in Scientific Inference written by Mark Chang and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paradoxes are poems of science and philosophy that collectively allow us to address broad multidisciplinary issues within a microcosm. A true paradox is a source of creativity and a concise expression that delivers a profound idea and provokes a wild and endless imagination. The study of paradoxes leads to ultimate clarity and, at the same time, in

Author : Alfred Seabold Eli Ackermann
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Scientific Paradoxes and Problems written by Alfred Seabold Eli Ackermann and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Agustin Rayo
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262039419
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

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Download or read book On the Brink of Paradox written by Agustin Rayo and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to awe-inspiring ideas at the brink of paradox: infinities of different sizes, time travel, probability and measure theory, and computability theory. This book introduces the reader to awe-inspiring issues at the intersection of philosophy and mathematics. It explores ideas at the brink of paradox: infinities of different sizes, time travel, probability and measure theory, computability theory, the Grandfather Paradox, Newcomb's Problem, the Principle of Countable Additivity. The goal is to present some exceptionally beautiful ideas in enough detail to enable readers to understand the ideas themselves (rather than watered-down approximations), but without supplying so much detail that they abandon the effort. The philosophical content requires a mind attuned to subtlety; the most demanding of the mathematical ideas require familiarity with college-level mathematics or mathematical proof. The book covers Cantor's revolutionary thinking about infinity, which leads to the result that some infinities are bigger than others; time travel and free will, decision theory, probability, and the Banach-Tarski Theorem, which states that it is possible to decompose a ball into a finite number of pieces and reassemble the pieces so as to get two balls that are each the same size as the original. Its investigation of computability theory leads to a proof of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which yields the amazing result that arithmetic is so complex that no computer could be programmed to output every arithmetical truth and no falsehood. Each chapter is followed by an appendix with answers to exercises. A list of recommended reading points readers to more advanced discussions. The book is based on a popular course (and MOOC) taught by the author at MIT.

Author : John L. Bell
Publisher : Broadview Press
ISBN 13 : 1554813026
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Oppositions and Paradoxes written by John L. Bell and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2016-04-18 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since antiquity, opposed concepts such as the One and the Many, the Finite and the Infinite, and the Absolute and the Relative, have been a driving force in philosophical, scientific, and mathematical thought. Yet they have also given rise to perplexing problems and conceptual paradoxes which continue to haunt scientists and philosophers. In Oppositions and Paradoxes, John L. Bell explains and investigates the paradoxes and puzzles that arise out of conceptual oppositions in physics and mathematics. In the process, Bell not only motivates abstract conceptual thinking about the paradoxes at issue, but he also offers a compelling introduction to central ideas in such otherwise-difficult topics as non-Euclidean geometry, relativity, and quantum physics. These paradoxes are often as fun as they are flabbergasting. Consider, for example, the famous Tristram Shandy paradox: an immortal man composing an autobiography so slowly as to require a year of writing to describe each day of his life — he would, if he had infinite time, presumably never complete the work, although no individual part of it would remain unwritten. Or think of an office mailbox labelled “mail for those with no mailbox”—if this is a person’s mailbox, how can they possibly have “no mailbox”? These and many other paradoxes straddle the boundary between physics and metaphysics, and demonstrate the hidden difficulty in many of our most basic concepts.

Author : Gareth Southwell
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781435169968
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Paradoxes written by Gareth Southwell and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : John Donne
Publisher : Oxford : Clarendon Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Paradoxes and Problems written by John Donne and published by Oxford : Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A scholarly edition of works by John Donne. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

Author : Ryan Wasserman
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198793332
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Paradoxes of Time Travel written by Ryan Wasserman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ryan Wasserman explores a range of fascinating puzzles raised by the possibility of time travel, with entertaining examples from physics, science fiction, and popular culture, and he draws out their implications for our understanding of time, tense, freedom, fatalism, causation, counterfactuals, laws of nature, persistence, change, and mereology.

Author : Mano Singham
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190055057
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great Paradox of Science written by Mano Singham and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019-12-18 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science has revolutionized our lives and continues to show inexorable progress today. It may seem obvious that this must be because its theories are steadily getting better and approaching the truth about the world. After all, what could science be progressing toward, if not the truth? But scholarship in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science offers little support for such a sanguine view. Those opposed to specific conclusions of the scientific community-nonbelievers in vaccinations, climate change, and evolution, for example-have been able to use a superficial understanding of the nature of science to sow doubt about the scientific consensus in those areas, leaving the general public confused as to whom to trust, with damaging effects for the health of individuals and the planet. The Great Paradox of Science argues that to better counter such anti-science efforts requires us to understand the nature of scientific knowledge at a much deeper level and dispel many myths and misconceptions. It is the use of scientific logic, the characteristics of which are elaborated on in the book, that enables the scientific community to arrive at reliable consensus judgments in which the public can retain a high degree of confidence. This scientific logic is applicable not just in science but can be used in all areas of life. Scientists, policymakers, and members of the general public will not only better understand why science works: They will also acquire the tools they need to make sound, rational decisions in all areas of their lives.

Author : Gary L. Drescher
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262042339
Total Pages : 365 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Good and Real written by Gary L. Drescher and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining a series of provocative paradoxes about consciousness, choice, ethics, and other topics, Good and Real tries to reconcile a purely mechanical view of the universe with key aspects of our subjective impressions of our own existence. In Good and Real, Gary Drescher examines a series of provocative paradoxes about consciousness, choice, ethics, quantum mechanics, and other topics, in an effort to reconcile a purely mechanical view of the universe with key aspects of our subjective impressions of our own existence. Many scientists suspect that the universe can ultimately be described by a simple (perhaps even deterministic) formalism; all that is real unfolds mechanically according to that formalism. But how, then, is it possible for us to be conscious, or to make genuine choices? And how can there be an ethical dimension to such choices? Drescher sketches computational models of consciousness, choice, and subjunctive reasoning--what would happen if this or that were to occur? --to show how such phenomena are compatible with a mechanical, even deterministic universe. Analyses of Newcomb's Problem (a paradox about choice) and the Prisoner's Dilemma (a paradox about self-interest vs. altruism, arguably reducible to Newcomb's Problem) help bring the problems and proposed solutions into focus. Regarding quantum mechanics, Drescher builds on Everett's relative-state formulation--but presenting a simplified formalism, accessible to laypersons--to argue that, contrary to some popular impressions, quantum mechanics is compatible with an objective, deterministic physical reality, and that there is no special connection between quantum phenomena and consciousness. In each of several disparate but intertwined topics ranging from physics to ethics, Drescher argues that a missing technical linchpin can make the quest for objectivity seem impossible, until the elusive technical fix is at hand.

Author : Richmond Campbell
Publisher : UBC Press
ISBN 13 : 0774802154
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation written by Richmond Campbell and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology, the first to bring together the most importantphilosophical essays on the paradoxes, analyses the concepts underlyingthe Prisoner's Dilemma and Newcomb's Problem and evaluates theproposed solutions. The relevant theories have been developed over thepast four decades in a variety of disciplines: mathematics, economics,psychology, political science, biology, and philosophy. And theproblems these paradoxes uncover can arise in many different forms: indebates over nuclear disarmament, labour-management disputes, maritalconflicts, Calvinist theology, and even in the evolution of diseasethrough the "cooperation" of microorganisms. Thepossibilities for application are virtually limitless.