An accessible illustrated introducton to the networks we use every day, from Facebook and Google to WiFi and the Internet What makes WiFi faster at home than at a coffee shop? How does Google order search results? Why do Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube use...

The history, formulas, and most famous puzzles of graph theoryGraph theory goes back several centuries and revolves around the study of graphs—mathematical structures showing relations between objects. With applications in biology, computer science,...

Today complex numbers have such widespread practical use--from electrical engineering to aeronautics--that few people would expect the story behind their derivation to be filled with adventure and enigma. In An Imaginary Tale, Paul Nahin tells the...

The essential textbook for learning game theory strategiesGame Theory in Action is a textbook about using game theory across a range of real-life scenarios. From traffic accidents to the sex lives of lizards, Stephen Schecter and Herbert Gintis show...

On April 26, 1986, Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in then Soviet Ukraine. More than 3.5 million people in Ukraine alone, not to mention many citizens of surrounding countries, are still suffering the effects. Life Exposed is the...

From 1900 to 1924 Spain experienced a stage of vigorous academic freedom and unfettered scientific inquiry that strikingly contrasted with the repressive atmosphere of the periods before and after. Thomas Glick explores this "recovery of science" by...

How do scientists develop new explanations of disease? How do those explanations become accepted as true? And how does medical diagnosis change when physicians are confronted with new scientific evidence? These are some of the questions that Paul Thagard...

Winner of the Ida and Studs Terkel Prize "A brilliant account" of the controversial 2005 legal battle between evolution and creationism in public education "by a first-rate journalist" (Howard Zinn). In 2004, the School Board of Dover, Pennsylvania,...

Tens of thousands of people enjoyed the first edition of The Quotable Einstein. This enlarged and updated version offers even more fascinating insight into Time magazine's "Man of the Century." The Expanded Quotable Einstein includes about 375 new...

The philosophical theory of scientific explanation proposed here involves a radically new treatment of causality that accords with the pervasively statistical character of contemporary science. Wesley C. Salmon describes three fundamental conceptions of...

In Questioning the Millennium, Stephen Jay Gould applies his wit and erudition to one of today's most pressing subjects: the significance of the millennium.In this beautiful inquiry into time and its milestones, he shares his interest and insights with...