Pattern Classification Using Ensemble Methods

As we approach the end of the twentieth century, public and scientific attention is focusing increasingly on the detection and assessment of changes in our environment. This unique volume addresses the potential implications of global warming for fisheries and the societies which depend on them. Using a 'forecasting by analogy' approach, which draws upon experiences from the recent past in coping with regional fluctuations in the abundance or availability of living marine resources, it is shown how we might be able to assess our ability to respond to the consequences of future environmental changes induced by a potential global warming. The book takes the form of a series of integrated case studies from around the globe, which are presented by an interdisciplinary group of leading researchers. This important and thought-provoking volume will be of interest to a wide range of scientists working in the fields of biology, marine and environmental science, climatology, economics and anthro

Physical labels such as stable nitroxide radicals, luminescent and photochromic chromophores, so-called Mössbauer atoms and electron-dense assemblies of heavy atoms have proved to be effective tools in solving many problems at the molecular level in biological systems. These physical labels are used as 'molecular rulers' to measure the distances between chosen groups and to measure the size, form and microrelief of objects. By providing information about these factors, the label provides information that can help the scientist to understand the structure of membranes, nucleic acids, enzymes and proteins and how they function. This 1993 volume covers all aspects of this field: the theoretical bases, the experimental techniques, and it also shows how to interpret the resulting data. It also critically discusses some recent results obtained with these techniques and gives an analysis of likely developments in the future.

The past decade has seen many advances in physical layer wireless communication theory and their implementation in wireless systems. This textbook takes a unified view of the fundamentals of wireless communication and explains the web of concepts underpinning these advances at a level accessible to an audience with a basic background in probability and digital communication. Topics covered include MIMO (multi-input, multi-output) communication, space-time coding, opportunistic communication, OFDM and CDMA. The concepts are illustrated using many examples from real wireless systems such as GSM, IS-95 (CDMA), IS-856 (1 x EV-DO), Flash OFDM and UWB (ultra-wideband). Particular emphasis is placed on the interplay between concepts and their implementation in real systems. An abundant supply of exercises and figures reinforce the material in the text. This book is intended for use on graduate courses in electrical and computer engineering and will also be of great interest to practising engi

Since 1914 Cambridge has published The Elements of New Testament Greek, a best-selling textbook for scholars and students of the Bible. The original book by Nunn was replaced and succeeded in 1965 by J. W. Wenham's book of the same title; now Jeremy Duff has produced a new book to continue this long-established tradition into the twenty-first century. Learning Greek is a journey of many steps. In this book each of these steps is explained clearly, and reviewed using questions and exercises. Lessons are ordered so the most important aspects of Greek are learnt first and the vocabulary consists of the most commonly occurring words in the New Testament. Hundreds of examples cover every book of the New Testament and there is a New Testament passage to translate in almost every chapter. An audio CD containing vocabulary lists, reading passages and paradigms is also available to accompany this book. Free software and teaching resources are also available at the book's website.

Since 1914 Cambridge has published The Elements of New Testament Greek, a best-selling textbook for scholars and students of the Bible. The original book by Nunn was replaced and succeeded in 1965 by J. W. Wenham's book of the same title; now Jeremy Duff has produced a new book to continue this long-established tradition into the twenty-first century. Learning Greek is a journey of many steps. In this book each of these steps is explained clearly, and reviewed using questions and exercises. Lessons are ordered so the most important aspects of Greek are learnt first and the vocabulary consists of the most commonly occurring words in the New Testament. Hundreds of examples cover every book of the New Testament and there is a New Testament passage to translate in almost every chapter. An audio CD containing vocabulary lists, reading passages and paradigms is also available to accompany this book. Free software and teaching resources are also available at the book's website.

We are surrounded by noise; we must be able to separate the signals we want to hear from those we do not. To overcome this 'cocktail party effect' we have developed various strategies; endowing computers with similar abilities would enable the development of devices such as intelligent hearing aids and robust speech recognition systems. This book describes a system which attempts to separate multiple, simultaneous acoustic sources using strategies based on those used by humans. It is both a review of recent work on the modelling of auditory processes, and a presentation of a new model in which acoustic signals are decomposed into elements. These structures are then re-assembled in accordance with rules of auditory organisation which operate to bind together elements that are likely to have arisen from the same source. The model is evaluated by measuring its ability to separate speech from a wide variety of other sounds, including music, phones and other speech.

In the fast moving world of information technology, Java is now the number 1 programming language. Programmers and developers everywhere need to know Java to keep pace with traditional and web-based application development. COBOL Programmers Swing with Java provides COBOL programmers a clear, easy transition to Java programming by drawing on the numerous similarities between COBOL and Java. The authors introduce the COBOL programmer to the history of Java and object-oriented programming and then dive into the details of the Java syntax, always contrasting them with their parallels in COBOL. A running case study gives the reader an overall view of application development with Java, with increased functionality as new material is presented. This new edition features the development of graphical user interfaces (GUI's) using the latest in Java Swing components. The clear writing style and excellent examples make the book suitable for anyone wanting to learn Java and OO programming, whethe

Cancer touches the lives of millions worldwide each year. This is reflected not only in well-publicized mortality statistics but also in the profound - though much more difficult to measure - effects of cancer on the health-related quality of life, economic status, and overall well-being of patients and their families. In 2001, the US National Cancer Institute established the Cancer Outcomes Measurement Working Group to evaluate the state of the science in measuring the important and diverse impacts of this disease on individuals and populations. The findings and recommendations of the working group's 35 internationally recognized members are reported in Outcomes Assessment in Cancer, lucidly written and accessible to both researchers and policy makers in academia, government, and industry. Originally published in 2005, this volume provides a penetrating yet practical discussion of alternative approaches for comprehensively measuring the burden of cancer and the effectiveness of preven

The study of politics seems endlessly beset by debates about method. At the core of these debates is a single unifying concern: should political scientists view themselves primarily as scientists, developing ever more sophisticated tools and studying only those phenomena to which such tools may fruitfully be applied? Or should they instead try to illuminate the large, complicated, untidy problems thrown up in the world, even if the chance to offer definitive explanations is low? Is there necessarily a tension between these two endeavours? Are some domains of political inquiry more amenable to the building up of reliable, scientific knowledge than others, and if so, how should we deploy our efforts? In this book, some of the world's most prominent students of politics offer original discussions of these pressing questions, eschewing narrow methodological diatribes to explore what political science is and how political scientists should aspire to do their work.

The study of politics seems endlessly beset by debates about method. At the core of these debates is a single unifying concern: should political scientists view themselves primarily as scientists, developing ever more sophisticated tools and studying only those phenomena to which such tools may fruitfully be applied? Or should they instead try to illuminate the large, complicated, untidy problems thrown up in the world, even if the chance to offer definitive explanations is low? Is there necessarily a tension between these two endeavours? Are some domains of political inquiry more amenable to the building up of reliable, scientific knowledge than others, and if so, how should we deploy our efforts? In this book, some of the world's most prominent students of politics offer original discussions of these pressing questions, eschewing narrow methodological diatribes to explore what political science is and how political scientists should aspire to do their work.

When several computers have to cooperate to achieve a certain task (i.e. distributed computing) we need 'recipes' (i.e. protocols) to tell them what to do. Unfortunately, human minds are not well suited to keeping track of what might happen given even a very simple protocol. In this book Dr Schoone shows how we can derive properties of those protocols that always hold (i.e. invariants), irrespective of what actually happens in an execution of the protocol. From these invariants the basic attributes of the protocols can be obtained. Each protocol is explained intuitively, proved correct using invariants, and analysed to establish the relation between parameter settings and its essential features. The protocols belong to a wide range of layers in the ISO reference model hierarchy, and include the following: a class of communication protocols that tolerate and correct message loss, duplication, and resequencing; protocols for determining and maintaining routing information, both in a stat

Growing Public examines the question of whether social policies that redistribute income impose constraints on economic growth. Taxes and transfers have been debated for centuries, but only now can we get a clear view of the whole evolution of social spending. What kept prospering nations from using taxes for social programs until the end of the nineteenth century? Why did taxes and spending then grow so much, and what are the prospects for social spending in this century? Why did North America become a leader in public education in some ways and not others? Lindert finds answers in the economic history and logic of political voice, population aging, and income growth. Contrary to traditional beliefs, the net national costs of government social programs are virtually zero. This book not only shows that no Darwinian mechanism has punished the welfare states, but uses history to explain why this surprising result makes sense. Contrary to the intuition of many economists and the ideology

Growing Public examines the question of whether social policies that redistribute income impose constraints on economic growth. Taxes and transfers have been debated for centuries, but only now can we get a clear view of the whole evolution of social spending. What kept prospering nations from using taxes for social programs until the end of the nineteenth century? Why did taxes and spending then grow so much, and what are the prospects for social spending in this century? Why did North America become a leader in public education in some ways and not others? Lindert finds answers in the economic history and logic of political voice, population aging, and income growth. Contrary to traditional beliefs, the net national costs of government social programs are virtually zero. This book not only shows that no Darwinian mechanism has punished the welfare states, but uses history to explain why this surprising result makes sense. Contrary to the intuition of many economists and the ideology

Peter Bolt explores the impact of Mark's Gospel on its early readers in the first-century Graeco-Roman world. His book focuses upon the thirteen characters in Mark who come to Jesus for healing or exorcism and, using analytical tools of narrative and reader-response criticism, explores their crucial role in the communication of the Gospel. Bolt suggests that early readers of Mark would be persuaded that Jesus' dealings with the suppliants show him casting back the shadow of death and that this in itself is preparatory for Jesus' final defeat of death in resurrection. Enlisting a variety of ancient literary and non-literary sources in an attempt to illuminate this first-century world, this book gives special attention to illness, magic and the Roman imperial system. This is a different approach to Mark, which attempts to break the impasse between narrative and historical studies and will appeal to scholars and students alike.

Permian and Triassic rocks in the eastern Tethyan region form continuous marine sequences that record the waning phases of the Paleozoic and the early stages of the Mesozoic eras. This book describes and interprets these rocks, summarizing the distribution of major fossil groups in a way that will allow detailed comparison with strata of comparable age in the western Tethys and other parts of the world. The sixteen contributions by forty authors are the culmination of the five-year long International Geological Correlation Programme Project 203. The detailed information presented here is gathered from many areas in the eastern Tethyan region - from France to Australia - and will be of use in the evaluation of the major changes in the global marine biosphere known to have taken place at the end of the Paleozoic era. The stratigraphic record for this fascinating segment of Earth history is not widespread elsewhere in the world and is most continuous in the region covered by this book.

Following the success of The Quantum Universe, first published in 1987, a host of exciting new discoveries have been made in the field of quantum mechanics. The New Quantum Universe provides an up-to-date and accessible introduction to the essential ideas of quantum physics, and demonstrates how it affects our everyday life. Quantum mechanics gives an understanding of not only atoms and nuclei, but also all the elements and even the stars. The book explains quantum paradoxes and the eventful life of Schroedinger's Cat, along with the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox and Bell's Inequality. It then looks ahead to the nanotechnology revolution, describing quantum cryptography, quantum computing and quantum teleportation, and ends with an account of quantum mechanics and science fiction. Using simple non-mathematical language, this book is suitable for final-year school students, science undergraduates, and anyone wishing to appreciate how physics allows the new technologies that are chang

This thoroughly revised edition helps those who have already acquired the basics of German and wish to extend their fluency and confidence. Focusing on the particular needs of the English-speaking use

In Dual Models, written in the same enthusiastic style as its predecessors Polyhedron Models and Spherical Models, Magnus J. Wenninger presents the complete set of uniform duals of uniform polyhedral, thus rounding out a significant body of knowledge with respect to polyhedral forms. He begins with the simplest convex solids but then goes on to show how all the more difficult, non convex, uniform polyhedral duals can be derived from a geometric theorem on duality that unifies and systematizes the entire set of such duals. Many of these complex shapes are published here for the first time. Models made by the author are shown in photographs, and these, along with line drawings, diagrams, and commentary, invite readers to undertake the task of making the models, using index cards or tag paper and glue as construction materials. The mathematics is deliberately kept at the high school or secondary level, and hence the book presumes at most some knowledge of geometry and ordinary trigonometr

This book, first published in 2003, provides a comprehensive and structured vocabulary for all levels of undergraduate Spanish courses. It offers a broad coverage of the concrete and abstract vocabulary relating to the physical, cultural, social, commercial and political environment, as well as exposure to commonly encountered technical vocabulary. The accompanying exercises for private study and classroom use are designed to promote precision and awareness of nuance and register, develop good dictionary use, and encourage effective learning. The book includes both Iberian and Latin American vocabulary, and clearly identifies differences between the two varieties. • Consists of twenty units each treating a different area of human experience • Units are divided into three levels which allows core vocabulary in each area to be learned first, and more specialised or complex terms to be added at later stages • Vocabulary is presented in alphabetical order for ease of location.

This book addresses the question of why governments sometimes follow the law and other times choose to evade the law. The traditional answer of jurists has been that laws have an autonomous causal efficacy: law rules when actions follow anterior norms; the relation between laws and actions is one of obedience, obligation, or compliance. Contrary to this conception, the authors defend a positive interpretation where the rule of law results from the strategic choices of relevant actors. Rule of law is just one possible outcome in which political actors process their conflicts using whatever resources they can muster: only when these actors seek to resolve their conflicts by recourse to la, does law rule. What distinguishes 'rule-of-law' as an institutional equilibrium from 'rule-by-law' is the distribution of power. The former emerges when no one group is strong enough to dominate the others and when the many use institutions to promote their interest.

Using globalization as a unifying theme, Eckes and Zeiler offer a bold new approach to American history and diplomacy in the twentieth century. The American Century of global leadership, they show, resulted both from innovations and ideas. Revolutionary improvements in technology (especially satellite communications and jet transportation) combined with the leadership elite's enthusiasm for de-regulation of markets and free trade to fuel American-style globalization. Zeiler and Eckes show this formula helped the nation rise to economic power after the Spanish-American War, and win both world wars and the Cold War. In the decade after the end of the Cold War, America's power and cultural influence soared as business and financial interests pursued the long-term quest for global markets. But the tragic events of September 2001 and the growing volatility of global finance raised questions about whether the era of American-led globalization was sustainable, or vulnerable to catastrophic c

Using globalization as a unifying theme, Eckes and Zeiler offer a bold new approach to American history and diplomacy in the twentieth century. The American Century of global leadership, they show, resulted both from innovations and ideas. Revolutionary improvements in technology (especially satellite communications and jet transportation) combined with the leadership elite's enthusiasm for de-regulation of markets and free trade to fuel American-style globalization. Zeiler and Eckes show this formula helped the nation rise to economic power after the Spanish-American War, and win both world wars and the Cold War. In the decade after the end of the Cold War, America's power and cultural influence soared as business and financial interests pursued the long-term quest for global markets. But the tragic events of September 2001 and the growing volatility of global finance raised questions about whether the era of American-led globalization was sustainable, or vulnerable to catastrophic c

A multi-disciplinary team of authors analyze the economics of Brazilian deforestation using a large data set of ecological and economic variables. They survey the most up to date work in this field and present their own dynamic and spatial econometric analysis based on municipality level panel data spanning the entire Brazilian Amazon from 1970 to 1996. By observing the dynamics of land use change over such a long period the team is able to provide quantitative estimates of the long-run economic costs and benefits of both land clearing and government policies such as road building. The authors find that some government policies, such as road paving in already highly settled areas, are beneficial both for economic development and for the preservation of forest, while other policies, such as the construction of unpaved roads through virgin areas, stimulate wasteful land uses to the detriment of both economic growth and forest cover.

Numerical weather prediction is a problem of mathematical physics. The complex flows in the atmosphere and oceans are believed to be accurately modelled by the Navier-Stokes equations of fluid mechanics together with classical thermodynamics. However, due to the enormous complexity of these equations, meteorologists and oceanographers have constructed approximate models of the dominant, large-scale flows that control the evolution of weather systems and that describe, for example, the dynamics of cyclones and ocean eddies. The simplifications often result in models that are amenable to solution both analytically and numerically. The lectures in these volumes examine and explain why such simplifications to Newton's second law produce accurate, useful models and, just as the meteorologist seeks patterns in the weather, mathematicians seek structure in the governing equations, such as groups of transformations, Hamiltonian structure and stability. This 2002 book and its companion show how

Although Parliament is the principal source of authority in the British political system, it is the Cabinet which stands at the pinnacle of government. Yet what actually happens at Cabinet meetings? How are decisions made, particularly in the arena of foreign policy? Such questions have hitherto been largely overlooked by both historians and political scientists. In this book, Dr Christopher Hill presents a detailed case-study of the British government and foreign policy, during the dramatic period from the Munich Conference of 1938 to the German invasion of the Soviet Union three years later. Using extensive archival material, he examines how far the strong personalities of Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill respectively were really able to dominate their Cabinets in an area of policy where Prime Ministers have traditionally been supposed to exercise considerable freedom. This analysis concentrates on six decisions that were of key importance in committing Britain to the war wh

The Ever-Changing Sky provides a comprehensive and non-mathematical guide to spherical astronomy. The reader is guided through terrestrial and celestial co-ordinate systems, time measurement and celestial navigation, to the prediction of the rising and setting of the stars, Sun and Moon. It focuses on the geometrical aspects of the night sky without using complex trigonometry. The book progresses to a general study of the Earth and sky, including the stars and constellations (with useful star maps provided), the motions and appearance of the Moon, tides and eclipses, the orbits of the planets and the smaller bodies of the Solar System (asteroids, meteors, meteorites and comets). Finally, there is a brief overview of atmospheric phenomena (including rainbows and haloes). This text will be invaluable to students taking courses in naked-eye astronomy, amateur and professional astronomers, as well as more general readers wanting to know how the night sky changes.

Until the mid-nineteenth century, Transjordan was a frontier region of the Ottoman province of Syria. In a time of European challenges to Ottoman integrity, the region's strategic location, linking Syria to Palestine and Arabia, motivated the Ottoman state to extend direct rule over this region. Using new archival material from Ottoman, Arabic and European sources, Eugene Rogan documents the case of Transjordan to provide a theoretically informed and articulate account of how the Ottoman state restructured and redefined itself during the last decades of its empire. In so doing, he explores the idea of frontier as a geographical and cultural boundary, and sheds light on the processes of state formation which ultimately led to the creation of the Middle East as it is defined today. The book concludes with an examination of the Ottoman legacy in the modern state of Jordan. Awarded both the Albert Hourani Book Award and the Turkish Studies Association Koprulu Prize at the Middle East Studi

This book introduces the basic concepts of MathLink and explains how to extend Mathematica using MathLink. MathLink provides a simple and powerful way to write programs which communicate with Mathematica and it provides access to a wide range of network resources. Writing network programs is the most demanded skill in the Internet age and MathLink provides a sophisticated level of network programming to the non-programmer, scientist, engineer, and student. The text assumes that the reader is already familiar with Mathematica. Source code for a range of practical examples - ranging from elementary to advanced - is examined in detail, allowing the reader easily to adapt the code to suit their own needs. The purpose of this book is to show how to write MathLink programs and how to apply MathLink in a variety of situations. A CD-ROM accompanies the book, which includes the code accompanying the examples and the application CodeWarrior Lite.

Disability and the Life Course, first published in 2001, explores the global experience of disability using a novel life course approach. The book explores how disabling societies impact on disabled people's life experiences, and highlights the ways in which disabled people have acted to take more control over their own lives. It provides a unique combination of analysis, policy issues and autobiography, offering the reader a rare opportunity to make links between the theoretical, the political and the personal in a single volume. The material is set in a truly international context, with contributions from thirteen different countries bringing together established and emerging writers, both disabled and non-disabled. The book bridges some important gaps in the existing disability literature by including issues relevant to disabled people of all ages and with different kinds of impairments and also by offering a unique analysis of the relationship between disability and generation in a

Disability and the Life Course, first published in 2001, explores the global experience of disability using a novel life course approach. The book explores how disabling societies impact on disabled people's life experiences, and highlights the ways in which disabled people have acted to take more control over their own lives. It provides a unique combination of analysis, policy issues and autobiography, offering the reader a rare opportunity to make links between the theoretical, the political and the personal in a single volume. The material is set in a truly international context, with contributions from thirteen different countries bringing together established and emerging writers, both disabled and non-disabled. The book bridges some important gaps in the existing disability literature by including issues relevant to disabled people of all ages and with different kinds of impairments and also by offering a unique analysis of the relationship between disability and generation in a

Understanding and predicting the behavior of decision makers when choosing among discrete goods has been one of the most fruitful areas of applied research over the past thirty years. An understanding

This is a guide to Japanese usage for students who have acquired the basics of the language and wish to extend their knowledge. Unlike conventional grammars, it gives special attention to those areas

This text is designed for an intermediate-level, two-semester undergraduate course in mathematical physics. It provides an accessible account of most of the current, important mathematical tools required in physics these days. It is assumed that the reader has an adequate preparation in general physics and calculus. The book bridges the gap between an introductory physics course and more advanced courses in classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, quantum mechanics, and thermal and statistical physics. The text contains a large number of worked examples to illustrate the mathematical techniques developed and to show their relevance to physics. The book is designed primarily for undergraduate physics majors, but could also be used by students in other subjects, such as engineering, astronomy and mathematics.

This text is designed for an intermediate-level, two-semester undergraduate course in mathematical physics. It provides an accessible account of most of the current, important mathematical tools required in physics these days. It is assumed that the reader has an adequate preparation in general physics and calculus. The book bridges the gap between an introductory physics course and more advanced courses in classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, quantum mechanics, and thermal and statistical physics. The text contains a large number of worked examples to illustrate the mathematical techniques developed and to show their relevance to physics. The book is designed primarily for undergraduate physics majors, but could also be used by students in other subjects, such as engineering, astronomy and mathematics.

Social problems such as unemployment, poverty and drug addiction are a fact of life in industrialised societies. This book examines the sociology of social problems from interesting and challenging perspectives. It analyses how social problems emerge and are defined as such, who takes responsibility for them, who is threatened by them and how they are managed, solved or ignored. The authors examine and critique existing theories of social problems before developing their own theoretical framework. Their 'theory of residualist conversion of social problems' explains how certain social problems threaten legitimate power structures, so that problems of a social or political nature are transformed into personal problems, and the 'helping professions' are left to intervene. This book will become a key reference on class, inequality and social intervention and an important text for students in sociology and social work courses.

This book, designed for students who have already developed a basic competence in German, aims to broaden and improve their vocabulary and is invaluable as a guide to finding the right word for the co

When a mechanical system consists of two or more coupled vibrating components, the vibration of one of the component subsystems may destabilize the motion of the other components. This destabilization effect is called autoparametric resonance. It is a concept that has important engineering applications. For example, vibrations in a pipeline induced by high-speed gas flows must be considered in the design and operation of the pipeline. This book is the first completely devoted to the subject of autoparametric resonance in an engineering context. Using the tools of nonlinear analysis, the authors show how to carry out the first crucial step, that is, how to determine the regions of parameter space where the semi-trivial solution is unstable. They describe what happens in these regions and then discuss non-trivial solutions and their stability. The study of autoparametric systems is a lively area of current research in engineering and applied mathematics, and this book will appeal to gra

At present much of political science consists of a large body of formal mathematical work that remains largely unexplored empirically and an expanding use of sophisticated statistical techniques. While there are examples of noteworthy efforts to bridge the gap between these, there is still a need for much more cooperative work between formal theorists and empirical researchers in the discipline. This book explores how empirical analysis has, can, and should be used to evaluate formal models in political science. The book is intended to be a guide for active and future political scientists who are confronting the issues of empirical analysis with formal models in their work and as a basis for a needed dialogue between empirical and formal theoretical researchers in political science. These developments, if combined, are potentially a basis for a new revolution in political science.

At present much of political science consists of a large body of formal mathematical work that remains largely unexplored empirically and an expanding use of sophisticated statistical techniques. While there are examples of noteworthy efforts to bridge the gap between these, there is still a need for much more cooperative work between formal theorists and empirical researchers in the discipline. This book explores how empirical analysis has, can, and should be used to evaluate formal models in political science. The book is intended to be a guide for active and future political scientists who are confronting the issues of empirical analysis with formal models in their work and as a basis for a needed dialogue between empirical and formal theoretical researchers in political science. These developments, if combined, are potentially a basis for a new revolution in political science.

This book conveys the thrill of observing strange and surprising features of the Universe, and the satisfaction gained by understanding them through modern science. Using simple analogies and a wealth of illustrations, Professor Narlikar skilfully steers us through a cosmic journey of discovery, starting from the Earth and Solar System and stepping out to the farthest reaches of the Universe. The seven wonders represent a range of mysterious phenomena, a class of spectacular events, or remarkable cosmic objects that have challenged human curiosity and explanation. They concern the giants and dwarfs of the stellar world, the catastrophic explosion of massive stars, pulsars - the ultimate timekeepers of the cosmos, the strange effects of gravity, illusions of space, and the majestic expansion of the Universe as a whole. With lucid prose and humorous anecdotes, the author weaves together a host of exciting recent discoveries in astronomy and shows us how these motivate astronomers to unra