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A complete overview of quantum mechanics, covering essential concepts and results, theoretical foundations, and applications and techniques. This undergraduate textbook offers a comprehensive overview of quantum mechanics, beginning with essential concepts and results, proceeding through the theoretical foundations that provide the field’s conceptual framework, and concluding with the tools and applications students will need for advanced studies and for research. Drawn from lectures created for MIT physics majors and for the popular MITx online course, “Mastering Quantum Mechanics,” the text presents the material in a modern and approachable manner while still including the traditional topics necessary for a well-rounded understanding of the subject. As the book progresses, the treatment gradually increases in difficulty, paralleling students’ increasingly sophisticated understanding of the material Part 1, on essentials, offers a sound introduction to the subject, touching on such to

Experiments in architectural education in the post–World War II era that challenged and transformed architectural discourse and practice. In the decades after World War II, new forms of learning transformed architectural education. These radical experiments sought to upend disciplinary foundations and conventional assumptions about the nature of architecture as much as they challenged modernist and colonial norms, decentered building, imagined new roles for the architect, and envisioned participatory forms of practice. Although many of the experimental programs were subsequently abandoned, terminated, or assimilated, they nevertheless helped shape and in some sense define architectural discourse and practice. This book explores and documents these radical pedagogies and efforts to defy architecture’s status quo. The experiments include the adaptation of Bauhaus pedagogy as a means of “unlearning” under the conditions of decolonization in Africa; a movement to design for “every body,

The life and work of Freeman Dyson―renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast―and his particular way of thinking about deep questions.Freeman Dyson (1923–2020)―renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast―helped invent modern physics. Not bound by disciplinary divisions, he went on to explore foundational topics in mathematics, astrophysics, and the origin of life. General readers were introduced to Dyson’s roving mind and heterodox approach in his 1979 book Disturbing the Universe, a poignant autobiographical reflection on life and science. “Well, Doc, You’re In” (the title quotes Richard Feynman’s remark to Dyson at a physics conference) offers a fresh examination of Dyson’s life and work, exploring his particular way of thinking about deep questions that range from the nature of matter to the ultimate fate of the universe. The chapters―written by leading scientists, historians, and science journalists, including some of Dyson’s colleagues―trace Dyson’s formative years, his buddi

An alternative history of art in Berlin, detaching artistic innovation from art world narratives and connecting it instead to collective creativity and social solidarity.In pre- and post-reunification Berlin, socially engaged artists championed collective art making and creativity over individual advancement, transforming urban space and civic life in the process. During the Cold War, the city’s state of exception invited artists on both sides of the Wall to detour from artistic tradition; post-Wall, art became a tool of resistance against the orthodoxy of economic growth. In Free Berlin, Briana Smith explores the everyday peculiarities, collective joys, and grassroots provocations of experimental artists in late Cold War Berlin and their legacy in today’s city.These artists worked intentionally outside the art market, believing that art should be everywhere, freed from its confinement in museums and galleries. They used art as a way to imagine new forms of social and creative life. Sm

An illustrated guide to the amazingly multifarious sex lives of animals, from elephants and bonobos to butterflies and bedbugs.There may be nothing unnatural in nature, but nature still encompasses much that seems fantastically strange―the amazingly multifarious sex lives of animals, for example. Sexus Animalis tells us everything we never dreamed we wanted to know about the reproductive systems, genital organs, and sexual practices of animals, from elephants (who masturbate with their trunks) to fruit flies (who produce spermatozoa twenty times their size). In the animal kingdom we find heterosexual, lesbian, gay, and bisexual behavior, as well as monogamy, polygamy, and polyandry, not to mention fellatio and many varieties of erections and orgasms. Emmanuelle Pouydebat, a natural history researcher, tells us about gutter penises, double penises, detachable penises, and corkscrew-shaped penises, as well as vaginas built for storage and clitorises with thorns. (Perhaps unsurprisingly

The new edition of a comprehensive and rigorous but concise introduction to symbolic logic.Logic Primer offers a comprehensive and rigorous introduction to symbolic logic, providing concise definitions of key concepts, illustrative examples, and exercises. After presenting the definitions of validity and soundness, the book goes on to introduce a formal language, proof theory, and formal semantics for sentential logic (chapters 1–3) and for first-order predicate logic (chapters 4–6) with identity (chapter 7). For this third edition, the material has been reorganized from four chapters into seven, increasing the modularity of the text and enabling teachers to choose alternative paths through the book. New exercises have been added, and all exercises are now arranged to support students moving from easier to harder problems. Its spare and elegant treatment makes Logic Primer unique among textbooks. It presents the material with minimal chattiness, allowing students to proceed more dire

A detailed and up-to-date introduction to machine learning, presented through the unifying lens of probabilistic modeling and Bayesian decision theory.This book offers a detailed and up-to-date introduction to machine learning (including deep learning) through the unifying lens of probabilistic modeling and Bayesian decision theory. The book covers mathematical background (including linear algebra and optimization), basic supervised learning (including linear and logistic regression and deep neural networks), as well as more advanced topics (including transfer learning and unsupervised learning). End-of-chapter exercises allow students to apply what they have learned, and an appendix covers notation. Probabilistic Machine Learning grew out of the author’s 2012 book, Machine Learning: A Probabilistic Perspective. More than just a simple update, this is a completely new book that reflects the dramatic developments in the field since 2012, most notably deep learning. In addition, the ne

Ancient history, midcentury modernism, Cinemascope, humanism and monumentality, totalitarianism and democracy: transformations in American culture and architecture.In Flintstone Modernism, Jeffrey Li

Describes the advantages and disadvantages of being an architect, looks at the educational requirements, and explains how architects work and find clients

An accessible guide to cybersecurity for the everyday user, covering cryptography and public key infrastructure, malware, blockchain, and other topics.It seems that everything we touch is connected to the internet, from mobile phones and wearable technology to home appliances and cyber assistants. The more connected our computer systems, the more exposed they are to cyber attacks--attempts to steal data, corrupt software, disrupt operations, and even physically damage hardware and network infrastructures. In this volume of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, cybersecurity expert Duane Wilson offers an accessible guide to cybersecurity issues for everyday users, describing risks associated with internet use, modern methods of defense against cyber attacks, and general principles for safer internet use. Wilson describes the principles that underlie all cybesecurity defense: confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, authorization, and non-repudiation (validating the

A concise and nontechnical introduction to microeconomics, emphasizing concepts over mathematics, with real-world examples and applications.This concise and nontechnical introduction to microeconomics

Over the last half century, "smartness"―the drive for ubiquitous computing―has become a mandate: a new mode of managing and governing politics, economics, and the environment.Smart phones. Smart cars. Smart homes. Smart cities. The imperative to make our world ever smarter in the face of increasingly complex challenges raises several questions: What is this "smartness mandate?" How has it emerged, and what does it say about our evolving way of understanding―and managing―reality? How have we come to see the planet and its denizens first and foremost as data-collecting instruments? In The Smartness Mandate, Orit Halpern and Robert Mitchell radically suggest that "smartness" is not primarily a technology, but rather an epistemology. Through this lens, they offer a critical exploration of the practices, technologies, and subjects that such an understanding relies upon―above all, artificial intelligence and machine learning. The authors approach these not simply as techniques for solving pr

How to co-create―and why: the emergence of media co-creation as a concept and as a practice grounded in equity and justice.Co-creation is everywhere: It’s how the internet was built; it generated massive prehistoric rock carvings; it powered the development of vaccines for COVID-19 in record time. Co-creation offers alternatives to the idea of the solitary author privileged by top-down media. But co-creation is easy to miss, as individuals often take credit for―and profit from―collective forms of authorship, erasing whole cultures and narratives as they do so. Collective Wisdom offers the first guide to co-creation as a concept and as a practice, tracing co-creation in a media-making that ranges from collaborative journalism to human–AI partnerships. Why co-create―and why now? The many coauthors, drawing on a remarkable array of professional and personal experience, focus on the radical, sustained practices of co-creating media within communities and with social movements. They explore

More than sixty speculative art and design projects explore how art, food, and creative thinking can prepare us for future catastrophes.In the Age of the Anthropocene―a era characterized by human-caused climate disaster―catastrophes and dystopias loom. The Anthropocene Cookbook takes our planetary state of emergency as an opportunity to seize the moment to imagine constructive change and new ideas. How can we survive in an age of constant environmental crises? How can we thrive? The Anthropocene Cookbook answers these questions by presenting a series of investigative art and design projects that explore how art, food, and creative thinking can prepare us for future catastrophes. This cookbook of ideas rethinks our eating habits and traditions, challenges our food taboos, and proposes new recipes for humanity’s survival. These more than sixty projects propose new ways to think and make food, offering tools for creative action rather than traditional recipes. They imagine modifying the h

In praise of imperfection: how life on our planet is a catalog of imperfections, errors, alternatives, and anomalies.In the beginning, there was imperfection, which became the source of all things. Anomalies and asymmetries caused planets to take shape from the bubbling void and sent light into darkness. Life on earth is a catalog of accidents, alternatives, and errors that turned out to work quite well. In this book, Telmo Pievani shows that life on our planet has flourished and survived not because of its perfection but despite (and perhaps because of) its imperfection. He begins his story with the disruption-filled birth of the universe and proceeds through the random DNA copying errors that fuel evolution, the transformations of advantages into handicaps by natural selection, the anatomical and functional jumble that is the human brain, and our many bodily mismatches. Along the way, Pievani tells readers about the Irish elk (incidentally, neither Irish nor elk), whose enormous antl

How the way we perceive our bodies plays a critical role in the way we perceive ourselves: stories of phantom limbs, rubber hands, anorexia, and other phenomena.The body is central to our sense of identity. It can be a canvas for self-expression, decorated with clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, tattoos, and piercings. But the body is more than that. Bodily awareness, says scientist-writer Moheb Costandi, is key to self-consciousness. In Body Am I, Costandi examines how the brain perceives the body, how that perception translates into our conscious experience of the body, and how that experience contributes to our sense of self. Along the way, he explores what can happen when the mechanisms of bodily awareness are disturbed, leading to such phenomena as phantom limbs, alien hands, and amputee fetishes. Costandi explains that the brain generates maps and models of the body that guide how we perceive and use it, and that these maps and models are repeatedly modified and reconstructed. Drawing

Following the trails of Hawai‘i’s snails to explore the simultaneously biological and cultural significance of extinction.In this time of extinctions, the humble snail rarely gets a mention. And yet snails are disappearing faster than any other species. In A World in a Shell, Thom van Dooren offers a collection of snail stories from Hawai‘i―once home to more than 750 species of land snails, almost two-thirds of which are now gone. Following snail trails through forests, laboratories, museums, and even a military training facility, and meeting with scientists and Native Hawaiians, van Dooren explores ongoing processes of ecological and cultural loss as they are woven through with possibilities for hope, care, mourning, and resilience. Van Dooren recounts the fascinating history of snail decline in the Hawaiian Islands: from deforestation for agriculture, timber, and more, through the nineteenth century shell collecting mania of missionary settlers, and on to the contemporary impacts of

Why higher education in the United States has lost its way, and how universities and colleges can focus sharply on their core mission.For The Real World of College, Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner analyzed in-depth interviews with more than 2,000 students, alumni, faculty, administrators, parents, trustees, and others, which were conducted at ten institutions ranging from highly selective liberal arts colleges to less selective state schools. What they found challenged characterizations in the media: students are not preoccupied by political correctness, free speech, or even the cost of college. They are most concerned about their GPA and their resumes; they see jobs and earning potential as more important than learning. Many say they face mental health challenges, fear that they don’t belong, and feel a deep sense of alienation. Given this daily reality for students, has higher education lost its way? Fischman and Gardner contend that US universities and colleges must focus sharply

A primer on nuclear weapons, from the science of fission and fusion to the pursuit of mutual assured destruction, the SALT treaties, and the Bomb in pop culture.Although the world’s attention has shifted to drone-controlled bombing and cyberwarfare, the threat of nuclear war still exists. There are now fourteen thousand nuclear weapons in the hands of the nine declared nuclear powers. Even though the world survived the Cold War, we need to understand what it means to live with nuclear weapons. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Mark Wolverton offers a primer on nuclear weapons, from the science of fission and fusion to the pursuit of mutual assured destruction, the SALT and START agreements, and the Bomb in pop culture. Wolverton explains the basic scientific facts, offers historical perspective, and provides a nuanced view of the unique political, social, and moral dilemmas posed by nuclear weapons. He describes the birth of the Bomb in 1945 and its use agai

Empirical studies and theoretical analyses examine the causes and consequences of disruptions in cross-border economic relationships, including political conflict, economic sanctions, and institutiona

A cartography of fragrance that charts the botany and geography of perfume composition.For perfume makers, each smell carries with it a multitude of associations and impressions that must be carefully analyzed and understood before the sum of all its parts emerges. All perfumers have their own idiosyncratic methods, drawn from their individual olfactory experiences, for classifying fragrances. In Atlas of Perfumed Botany, virtuoso perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena leads readers on a poetic, geographic, and botanical journey of perfume discovery. Ellena offers a varied and fascinating cartography of fragrances, tracing historical connections and cultural exchanges. Full-page entries on plants ranging from bergamot to lavender are accompanied by detailed and vivid full-color botanical illustrations.

Experts discuss the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and conservation, integrating disciplines that range from plant and biological sciences to economics and political science.Wide-ranging environ

Exploring and exposing the national and transnational global processes and practices of resource extraction, the content of this book features a collection of essays, int

This book offers a cogent and concise treatment of econometric theory and methods along with the underlying ideas from statistics, probability theory, and linear algebra.

To philosophize is to communicate philosophically. From its inception, philosophy hascommunicated forcefully. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle talk a lot, and talk ardently. Becausephilosophy and commun

A philosopher who has experienced psychosis argues that recovery requires regaining agency and autonomy within a therapeutic relationship based on mutual trust.In Mental Patient, philosopher Abigail Gosselin uses her personal experiences with psychosis and the process of recovery to explore often overlooked psychiatric ethics. For many people who struggle with psychosis, she argues, psychosis impairs agency and autonomy. She shows how clinicians can help psychiatric patients regain agency and autonomy through a positive therapeutic relationship characterized by mutual trust. Patients, she says, need to take an active role in regaining their agency and autonomy―specifically, by giving testimony, constructing a narrative of their experience to instill meaning, making choices about treatment, and deciding to show up and participate in life activities. Gosselin examines how psychotic experience is medicalized and describes what it is like to be a patient receiving mental health care treatm

A comprehensive neurocognitive theory of dreaming based on the theories, methodologies, and findings of cognitive neuroscience and the psychological sciences.G. William Domhoff’s neurocognitive theory of dreaming is the only theory of dreaming that makes full use of the new neuroimaging findings on all forms of spontaneous thought and shows how well they explain the results of rigorous quantitative studies of dream content. Domhoff identifies five separate issues―neural substrates, cognitive processes, the psychological meaning of dream content, evolutionarily adaptive functions, and historically invented cultural uses―and then explores how they are intertwined. He also discusses the degree to which there is symbolism in dreams, the development of dreaming in children, and the relative frequency of emotions in the dreams of children and adults. During dreaming, the neural substrates that support waking sensory input, task-oriented thinking, and movement are relatively deactivated. Domh

An examination of children’s causal reasoning capacities and how those capacities serve as the foundation of their scientific thinking.Young children have remarkable capacities for causal reasoning, which are part of the foundation of their scientific thinking abilities. In Constructing Science, Deena Weisberg and David Sobel trace the ways that young children’s sophisticated causal reasoning abilities combine with other cognitive, metacognitive, and social factors to develop into a more mature set of scientific thinking abilities. Conceptualizing scientific thinking as the suite of skills that allows people to generate hypotheses, solve problems, and explain aspects of the world, Weisberg and Sobel argue that understanding how this capacity develops can offer insights into how we can become a more scientifically literate society.Investigating the development of causal reasoning and how it sets the stage for scientific thinking in the elementary school years and beyond, Weisberg and So

Fundamental theory and practical algorithms of weakly supervised classification, emphasizing an approach based on empirical risk minimization.Standard machine learning techniques require large amounts of labeled data to work well. When we apply machine learning to problems in the physical world, however, it is extremely difficult to collect such quantities of labeled data. This book presents theory and algorithms for weakly supervised learning, a paradigm of machine learning from weakly labeled data. Emphasizing an approach based on empirical risk minimization and drawing on state-of-the-art research in weakly supervised learning, the book provides both the fundamentals of the field and the advanced mathematical theories underlying them. It can be used as a reference for practitioners and researchers and in the classroom.The book first mathematically formulates classification problems, defines common notations, and reviews various algorithms for supervised binary and multiclass classif

A comprehensive reference for financial economics, balancing theoretical explanations, empirical evidence, and the practical relevance of knowledge in the field. This volume offers a comprehensive, integrated treatment of financial economics, tracking the major milestones in the field and providing methodological tools. Doing so, it balances theoretical explanations, empirical evidence, and practical relevance. It illustrates nearly a century of theoretical advances with a vast array of models, showing how real phenomena (and, at times, market practice) have helped economists reformulate existing theories. Throughout, the book offers examples and solved problems that help readers understand the main lessons conveyed by the models analyzed. The book provides a unique and authoritative reference for the field of financial economics. Part I offers the foundations of the field, introducing asset evaluation, information problems in asset markets and corporate finance, and methods of stat

The current state of the art in cognitive robotics, covering the challenges of building AI-powered intelligent robots inspired by natural cognitive systems.A novel approach to building AI-powered intelligent robots takes inspiration from the way natural cognitive systems―in humans, animals, and biological systems―develop intelligence by exploiting the full power of interactions between body and brain, the physical and social environment in which they live, and phylogenetic, developmental, and learning dynamics. This volume reports on the current state of the art in cognitive robotics, offering the first comprehensive coverage of building robots inspired by natural cognitive systems. Contributors first provide a systematic definition of cognitive robotics and a history of developments in the field. They describe in detail five main approaches: developmental, neuro, evolutionary, swarm, and soft robotics. They go on to consider methodologies and concepts, treating topics that include c

A history of the relationship between art and geometry in the early modern period.In The Polyhedrists, Noam Andrews unfolds a history of the relationship between art and geometry in early modern Europe, told through a collective of groundbreaking artist-artisans (among them, Albrecht Dürer, Wenzel Jamnitzer, and Lorentz Stöer) and by detailed analysis of a rich visual panoply of their work, featuring paintings, prints, decorative arts, cabinetry, and lavishly illustrated treatises. But this is also a history of polyhedra themselves, one that charts their progressive estrangement from text-bound instruction in mathematics and philosophy and their subsequent transformation into emblems of virtuosity and bravura. Whether the Platonic tetrahedron or the “irregular” rhombicosidodecahedron, it was polyhedra that came to constitute an iconography of geometrical abundance. The Polyhedrists argues that the geometrical oeuvre of Dürer, Jamnitzer et al consisted of more than perspectival follie

How design can transcend the logics, structures, and subjectivities of capitalism: a framework, theoretical grounding, and practical principles.The designed things, experiences, and symbols that we use to perceive, understand, and perform our everyday lives are much more than just props. They directly shape how we live. In Design after Capitalism, Matthew Wizinsky argues that the world of industrial capitalism that gave birth to modern design has been dramatically transformed. Design today needs to reorient itself toward deliberate transitions of everyday politics, social relations, and economies. Looking at design through the lens of political economy, Wizinsky calls for the field to transcend the logics, structures, and subjectivities of capitalism―to combine design entrepreneurship with social empowerment in order to facilitate new ways of producing those things, symbols, and experiences that make up everyday life. After analyzing the parallel histories of capitalism and design, W

Essays and projects examine the ethical questions and moral tensions that arise during the ideation, development, completion, and aftermath of the architectural design process.In architecture, ethics

Grand strategist and founder of modern Singapore offers key insights and controversial opinions on globalization, geopolitics, economic growth, and democracy.When Lee Kuan Yew speaks, presidents, prim

Writings, including articles, letters, and unpublished work, by one of the twentieth century's most influential figures in mathematical logic and philosophy.Alonzo Church's long and distinguished care

Public economics studies how government taxing and spending activities affect theeconomy -- economic efficiency and the distribution of income and wealth. This comprehensive text onpublic economics co

Essays and artists' projects explore the ubiquity of cloth in everyday life and theeffect of globalization on art and labor; with more than 100 color images.

Six classic science fiction stories and commentary that illustrate and explain key algorithms or principles of artificial intelligence.This book presents six classic science fiction stories and commen

Corrupt, mismanaged, and seemingly hopeless: that's how the international communityviewed Nigeria in the early 2000s. Then Nigeria implemented a sweeping set of economic and politicalchanges and began