Problems Science

Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine tells the story of a precocious young girl who uses her intelligence and accelerating technology to solve humanity's grandest challenges. Written as an alternative history, Danielle's journey as a driven young girl brings her face-to-face with many important figures from recent history and our modern world.

In the coming decades, the technology that enables virtual and augmented reality will improve beyond recognition. Within a century, world-renowned philosopher David J. Chalmers predicts, we will have virtual worlds that are impossible to distinguish from non-virtual worlds. But is virtual reality just escapism? In a highly original work of 'technophilosophy', Chalmers argues categorically, no: virtual reality is genuine reality. Virtual worlds are not second-class worlds. We can live a meaningful life in virtual reality - and increasingly, we will.

Russell's The Problems of Philosophy, first published in 1912, is both a primer for the philosophy-curious and the practicing philosopher. He introduces his readers to his thoughts on the difference between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, and asks the question: If we cannot be certain that external objects exist, how can we then have knowledge of them but by probability? There is no reason to doubt the existence of external objects simply because of sense data.

Everything All at Once is an exciting, inspiring call to unleash the power of the nerd mindset that exists within us all. Nye believes we'll never be able to tackle our society's biggest, most complex problems if we don't even know how to solve the small ones. Step by step, he shows his listeners the key tools behind his everything-all-at-once approach: radical curiosity, a deep desire for a better future, and a willingness to take the actions needed to make it a reality.

The Sisters Grimm books are hits with young readers and critics. In their third outing, Sabrina and Daphne confront the menace behind the family's troubles, Little Red Riding Hood. After meeting their recently returned uncle Jake, the girls embark on a harrowing quest to reconstruct the mythical vorpal blade, the only weapon capable of killing Red's pet and bodyguard, the dreaded Jabberwocky.

Physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs. Drawing on the science of phase transitions, Bahcall reveals why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them.

A deadly force has been unleashed into the world. With apocalypse on the horizon, a girl and a god have joined in order to turn back the coming end. Young, brash, and desperate, they are willing to destroy anything and everything that stands between them and their goals. The structures of the Craft are theirs to overturn, with billions of lives in the balance. And it is all Tara Abernathy's fault.

The last thing Sanda remembers is her gunship exploding. She expected to be recovered by salvage medics and to awaken in friendly hands, patched up and ready to rejoin the fight. Instead she wakes up 230 years later, on a deserted enemy starship called The Light of Berossus - or, as he prefers to call himself, 'Bero'. Bero tells Sanda the war is lost. That the entire star system is dead. But is that the full story? After all, in the vastness of space, anything is possible.

In this irreverent and illuminating audiobook, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, chance, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious causes, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance.

What if you could guide others towards their own realizations, revealing hidden truths and fostering deeper connections? The frustration of feeling unheard, of struggling to articulate your thoughts, is a familiar feeling, right? But what if there was a way to break through that barrier, to become a master of communication, a champion of clarity? This book unveils the secrets of the Socratic method, a powerful tool for unlocking wisdom and revealing truths through insightful questioning.

What skills do you need to succeed today? How can you make better choices? In today's fast world, it's important to have certain skills for success. With so much fake news and information everywhere, critical thinking and logic are crucial. These skills help us think well and make good decisions. They help us understand why things are how they are, figure out what influences them, and come up with ways to make things better. One of the reasons most of us fall short in thinking critically is that our educational system doesn't teach critical thinking.

Everything we know about solving the world’s problems is wrong. Out: Plans, experts and above all, leaders. In: Adapting - improvise rather than plan; fail, learn, and try again. In this groundbreaking new book, Tim Harford shows how the world’s most complex and important problems - including terrorism, climate change, poverty, innovation, and the financial crisis - can only be solved from the bottom up by rapid experimenting and adapting.

There is an old saying about problems that you may have heard before, "There are no problems, only opportunities." To this simple-minded approach, Bill Gibson says, "Hogwash." Problems do exist. And you need to prepare for them and understand them before you can overcome them. Even the great problem solvers can't make problems go away, but they often find opportunities linked to them.

This reissue of Thomas Sowell’s classic study of decision making, which includes a preface by the author, updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Anointed. Sowell, one of America’s most celebrated public intellectuals, describes in concrete detail how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society. He warns that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making—a gap that threatens not only our economic and political efficiency but our very freedom.

Humans are unique in our ability to understand time, able to comprehend the past and future like no other species. Yet modern-day technology and capitalism have supercharged our short-termist tendencies and trapped us in the present, at the mercy of reactive politics, quarterly business targets and 24-hour news cycles. It wasn't always so.

We all know there are major, overlapping, global crises ahead of humanity: climate change, mass migration, new warfare, big tech, further pandemics, authoritarian capitalism. Rather than be daunted, this book charts a way that we can respond. With expertise from his work at the highest levels of international politics, education, activism and business, Tom Fletcher offers a practical manifesto that can help us transform the way we learn, live and work together. Amongst its key survival skills, this book offers ideas on how we renew education, restore society and reimagine the future.

Uncertainty pervades the big decisions we all make in our lives. How much should we pay into our pensions each month? Should we take regular exercise? Expand the business? Change our strategy? Enter a trade agreement? Take an expensive holiday? We do not know what the future will hold. But we must make decisions anyway. So we crave certainties which cannot exist and invent knowledge we cannot have.

Warlock Holmes is dealing with a jerk who just so happens to be a stockbroker. There may be a link. He's also trying to hunt down some tokens to control something magical (it's all rather complicated), and Moriarty just won't stop taking over people's bodies. And of course Dr. John Watson is by his side (mostly) but not quite as useful as he once was....

Escucha ahora el primer libro de la «Trilogía de los Tres Cuerpos», el fenómeno editorial chino que ha conquistado al mundo y ha ganado el premio Hugo 2015 a la mejor novela. El problema de los tres cuerpos es la primera novela no escrita originariamente en inglés galardonada con el premio Hugo, el Nobel del género de la ciencia ficción. Su autor, Cixin Liu, ha sido considerado el gran descubrimiento del género y es capaz de vender cuatro millones de ejemplares solamente en China y de hacerse con prescriptores de la talla de Barack Obama....

British food has changed remarkably in the last half century. As we have become wealthier and more discerning, our food has Europeanised (pizza is children's favourite food) and internationalised (we eat the world's cuisines), yet our food culture remains fragmented, a mix of mass 'ultra-processed' substances alongside food as varied and good as anywhere else on the planet. This book takes stock of the UK food system: where it comes from, what we eat, its impact, fragilities and strengths. It is a book on the politics of food.