This book explores fascinating topics at the edge of life, guiding the reader all the way from the relation of life processes to the second law of thermodynamics and the abundance of complex organic c
This book addresses key conceptual issues relating to the modern scientific and engineering use of computer simulations. It analyses a broad set of questions, from the nature
In this largely nontechnical book, eminent physicists and philosophers address the philosophical impact of recent advances in quantum physics. These are shown to shed new light on profound questions a
This collection of prize-winning essays addresses the controversial question of how meaning and goals can emerge in a physical world governed by mathematical laws. What are the prerequisites for a sys
This book is about the mechanisms of wealth creation, or what we like to think of as evolutionary "progress." The massive circular flow of goods and services between producers and consumers is not a p
This volume contains a selection of authoritative essays exploring thecentral questions raised by the conjectured technological singularity.In informed yet jargon-free contributions written by ac
This volume presents essays by pioneering thinkers including Tyler Burge, Gregory Chaitin, Daniel Dennett, Barry Mazur, Nicholas Humphrey, John Searle and Ian Stewart. Together they illuminate the Map
In this thought-provoking book Küppers, an internationally renowned physicist, philosopher and theoretical biologist, addresses a number of science's deepest questions: Can physics advance to the orig
The essence of this book can be found in a line written by the ancient Roman Stoic Philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca: "Fortune is of sluggish growth, but ruin is rapid". This sentence summarizes the f
This book provides an outline of theoretical concepts and their experimental verification in studies of self-organization phenomena in chemical systems, as they emerged in the mid-20th century and hav
This volume contains a selection of authoritative essays exploring thecentral questions raised by the conjectured technological singularity.In informed yet jargon-free contributions written by ac
In this essay collection, leading physicists, philosophers, and historians attempt to fill the empty theoretical ground in the foundations of information and address the related question of the limits
This self-contained essay collection is published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bell’s theorem. Like its much acclaimed predecessor “Quantum [Un]Speakables: From Bell to Quantum Information”
In the last hundred years, modern physics and cosmology have shown that there exist regions of the universe forever beyond our reach, hidden by truly ultimate horizons. Such regions exist in those rem
This books sets out to explain how and why religion came into being. Today this question is as fascinating as ever, especially since religion has moved to the centre of socio-political relationships.
This book presents a multidisciplinary perspective on chance, with contributions from distinguished researchers in the areas of biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, genetics, general history, l
The prize-winning essays in this book address the fascinating but sometimes uncomfortable relationship between physics and mathematics. Is mathematics merely another natural science? Or is it the resu
The release of this second volume of CHIPS 2020 coincides with the 50th anniversary of Moore’s Law, a critical year marked by the end of the nanometer roadmap and by a significantly reduced annual ris
The essays in this book look at the question of whether physics can be based on information, or – as John Wheeler phrased it – whether we can get “It from Bit”. They are based on the prize-winning ess
The essays in this book look at way in which the fundaments of physics might need to be changed in order to make progress towards a unified theory. They are based on the prize-winning essays submitted
The classical mechanistic idea of nature that prevailed in science during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was an essentially mindless conception: the physically described aspects of nature wer
Extraterrestrial Altruism examines a basic assumption of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI): that extraterrestrials will be transmitting messages to us for our benefit. This question
This book is a collection of essays written by the very scientists and engineers who have led, and continue to lead, the scientific quest known as SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. D
When we use science to describe and understand the world around us, we are in essence grasping nature through symmetry. In fact, modern theoretical physics suggests that symmetry is a, if not the, fou
'The Essential Tension' explores how agents that naturally compete come to act together as a group. The author argues that the controversial concept of multilevel selection is essential to biological
In this compendium of essays, some of the world’s leading thinkers discuss our notions of space and time, including observations about the limits of human understanding. The book will appeal to all re
This book describes the evolution and mechanisms of natural wealth creation. The author explains how natural wealth consists of complex physical structures of condensed (“frozen”) energy and what the
Physics underlies all complexity, including our own existence: how is this possible? How can our own lives emerge from interactions of electrons, protons, and neutrons? This book considers the interac
The present book gives a multi-disciplinary perspective on the physics of life and the particular role played by lipids (fats) and the lipid-bilayer component of cell membranes. The emphasis is on the
The fourteen award-winning essays in this volume discuss a range of novel ideas and controversial topics that could decisively influence the course of human life on Earth. Their authors address, in ac
This book explores the limits of our knowledge. Vagueness, uncertainty and indefiniteness define borders which confine our understanding. Starting with physics the author collects examples from econom
