Are mathematical equations the best way to model nature? For many years it had been assumed that they were. But in the early 1980s, Stephen Wolfram made the radical proposal that one should instead build models that are based directly on simple computer programs. Wolfram made a detailed study of a class of such models known as cellular automata, and discovered a remarkable fact: that even when the underlying rules are very simple, the behavior they produce can be highly complex, and can mimic many features of what we see in nature. And based on this result, Wolfram began a program of research to develop what he called “A Science of Complexity.”The results of Wolfram's work found many applications, from the so-called Wolfram Classification central to fields such as artificial life, to new ideas about cryptography and fluid dynamics. This book is a collection of Wolfram's original papers on cellular automata and complexity. Some of these papers are widely known in the scientific community; others have never been published before. Together, the papers provide a highly readable account of what has become a major new field of science, with important implications for physics, biology, economics, computer science and many other areas.

Our fates lie in our genes and not in the stars, said James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. But Watson could not have predicted the scale of the industry now dedicated to this new frontier. Since the launch of the multibillion-dollar Human Genome Project, the biosciences have promised miraculous cures and radical new ways of understanding who we are. But where is the new world we were promised? Now updated with a new afterword, Genes, Cells and Brains asks why the promised cornucopia of health benefits has failed to emerge and reveals the questionable enterprise that has grown out of bioethics. The authors, feminist sociologist Hilary Rose and neuroscientist Steven Rose, examine the establishment of biobanks, the rivalries between public and private gene sequencers, and the rise of stem cell research. The human body is becoming a commodity, and the unfulfilled promises of the science behind this revolution suggest profound failings in genomics itself.

Called "the most important critic of his time" by Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin has emerged as one of the most compelling thinkers of our time as well, his work assuming a crucial place in current debates over the interactions of art, culture, and meaning. A "natural and extraordinary talent for letter writing was one of the most captivating facets of his nature", writes Gershom Scholem in his Foreword; and indeed, Benjamin's correspondence reveals the evolution of some of his most powerful ideas. Published here in English for the first time, these letters offer an intimate picture of Benjamin himself and the times in which he lived. Written in a day when letters were an important vehicle for the presentation and development of intellectual matters, Benjamin's correspondence is rich in insight into the circumstances behind his often difficult work. These letters provide a lively view of Benjamin's life and thought from his days as a student to his melancholy experiences as an exile in Paris. As he defends his changing ideas to admiring and skeptical friends – poets, philosophers, and radicals – we witness the restless self-analysis of a creative mind far in advance of his own time. Writing at length to Scholem and Theodor Adorno, and exchanging letters with Rainer Maria Rilke, Hannah Arendt, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Max Horkheimer, Max Brod, Bertolt Brecht, and Kafka's friend Felix Weltsch, Benjamin elaborates his ideas about metaphor and language. He reflects on literary figures from Kafka to Karl Kraus, the "Jewish Question" and anti-Semitism, Marxism and Zionism. And he expounds his personal attitudes toward such subjects as the role of quotations in criticism, history, and tradition; the meaning of being a "collector"; and French culture and the national character. In sum, this magnificent collection is an exceptionally rich source of information and an essential key to understanding one of the preeminent figures of modern culture. --

Explores the many escape attempts slaves throughout the country made in order to break away, as well as the various battles fought by slaves against their captors in their struggle to be free. Reprint.

Many thousands of years ago, a group of extraterrestrials from another planet guided the evolution of life on Earth—determining the existence and nature of humankind as we know it today. How did the master builders from the stars construct the miracle called man? Is the DNA that is at the core of all life in the universe a "cosmic code" that links Earth to heaven and man to God? In this sixth volume of The Earth Chronicles , Zecharia Sitchin unveils writings from the past to decipher prophesies, and reveals how the DNA-matched Hebrew alphabet and the numerical values of its letters serve as a code that bares the secrets of mortal man’s fate and mankind’s celestial destiny.

Eons ago, the Earth was a battlefield. Mighty armies clashed, led by giant warriors meticulously skilled in the art of combat. These wars would shape man's destiny and live on for centuries in legend, song and religious lore -- brutal and terrible conflicts that began lifetimes earlier on another planet. In the astonishing third volume of Zecharia Sitchin's The Earth Chronicles, the internationally renowned scholar parts the mists of myth and time to return to the violent beginnings of humanity -- employing ancient text, religious documents and archaeological findings to reconstruct epic events that support the existence of extraterrestrial "god" who once set nation against nation, army against army, and man against man.

Winter takes us on an intimate tour of the artists, poets, composers, writers, explorers, scientists and thinkers who helped shape a new and modern idea of winter.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Paris, 1938. As the shadow of war darkens Europe, democratic forces on the Continent struggle against fascism and communism, while in Spain the war has already begun. Alan Furst, whom Vince Flynn has called “the most talented espionage novelist of our generation,” now gives us a taut, suspenseful, romantic, and richly rendered novel of spies and secret operatives in Paris and New York, in Warsaw and Odessa, on the eve of World War II. Cristián Ferrar, a brilliant and handsome Spanish émigré, is a lawyer in the Paris office of a prestigious international law firm. Ferrar is approached by the embassy of the Spanish Republic and asked to help a clandestine agency trying desperately to supply weapons to the Republic’s beleaguered army—an effort that puts his life at risk in the battle against fascism. Joining Ferrar in this mission is a group of unlikely men and women: idealists and gangsters, arms traders and aristocrats and spies. From shady Paris nightclubs to white-shoe New York law firms, from brothels in Istanbul to the dockyards of Poland, Ferrar and his allies battle the secret agents of Hitler and Franco. And what allies they are: there’s Max de Lyon, a former arms merchant now hunted by the Gestapo; the Marquesa Maria Cristina, a beautiful aristocrat with a taste for danger; and the Macedonian Stavros, who grew up “fighting Bulgarian bandits. After that, being a gangster was easy.” Then there is Eileen Moore, the American woman Ferrar could never forget. In Midnight in Europe, Alan Furst paints a spellbinding portrait of a continent marching into a nightmare—and the heroes and heroines who fought back against the darkness. Praise for Alan Furst and Midnight in Europe “Furst never stops astounding me.” —Tom Hanks “Furst is the best in the business.” —Vince Flynn “Elegant, gripping . . . [Furst] remains at the top of his game.” —The New York Times “Suspenseful and sophisticated . . . No espionage author, it seems, is better at summoning the shifting moods and emotional atmosphere of Europe before the start of World War II than Alan Furst.” —The Wall Street Journal “Endlessly compelling . . . Furst delivers an observant, sexy, and thrilling tale set in the outskirts of World War II. In Furst’s hands, Paris once again comes alive with intrigue.” —Erik Larson “Too much fun to put down . . . [Furst is] a master of the atmospheric thriller.” —The Boston Globe

From the New York Times bestselling author of Fermat?s Last Theorem , ?an extraordinary story?( Philadelphia Inquirer ) of discovery, evolution, science, and faith. In 1929, French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a part of a group of scientists that uncovered a skull that became known as Peking Man, a key evolutionary link that left Teilhard torn between science and his ancient faith, and would leave him ostracized by his beloved Catholic Church. His struggle is at the heart of The Jesuit and the Skull , which takes readers across continents and cultures in a fascinating exploration of one of the twentieth century?s most important discoveries, and one of the world?s most provocative pieces of evidence in the roiling debate between creationism and evolution.

"In Roman Year, André Aciman captures the period of his adolescence that began when he and his family first set foot in Rome, after being expelled from Egypt. Though Aciman's family had been well-off in Alexandria, all vestiges of their status vanished when they fled, and the author, his younger brother, and his deaf mother moved into a rented apartment (eventually revealed to be a recently vacated brothel) on Via Clelia. Though dejected, Aciman's mother and brother found their way into life in Rome, while Aciman burrowed into his bedroom. The world of novels eventually allowed him to open up to the city and, through them, discover the beating heart of the Eternal City.Aciman's time in Rome did not last long before he and his family moved across the ocean, but by the time they did, he was leaving behind a city he loved. In this memoir, the author, a genius of "the poetry of the place" (John Domini, The Boston Globe), conjures the sights, smells, tastes, and people of Rome as only he can. Aciman captures, as if in amber, a living portrait of himself on the brink of adulthood and the city he worshipped at that pivotal moment. Roman Year is a treasure, unearthed by one of our greatest prose stylists" --Amazon.com.

"With signature "sharp wit" (NPR), Annabelle Gurwitch gives irreverent and empathetic voice to a generation hurtling into their next chapter with no safety net and proving that our no-frills new normal doesn't mean a deficit of humor. In these essays, Gurwitch embraces homesharing, welcoming a housing-insecure young couple and a bunny rabbit into her home. The mother of a college student in recovery who sheds the gender binary, she relearns to parent, one pronoun at a time. She wades into the dating pool with a reupholstered vagina and flunks the magic of tidying up. You're Leaving When? is for anybody who thought they had a semblance of security but wound up with a fragile economy and a blankie. "What do we do when we've already reinvented in midlife?" Gurwitch offers stories of resilience, adaptability, low-rent redemption, and the kindness of strangers. Even in a Zoom"--

A romantic saga about a family of doctors during the early years of the 20th century.

Robert and Lynn Ferguson are a picture-perfect couple with two beautiful daughters and a lovely home in an exclusive Connecticut community. Robert is on the fast track of a major corporation. Lynn is devoted to her family and good works. But in the Ferguson's closed doors hide a painful secret Lynn must keep from the world-and her children-at any cost... Not even the Fergusons's best friends, Josie and Bruce Lehman, know of Lynn's shame. Social worker Josie sees her bruises distrusts the too-ambitious, too perfect Robert, and suspects the real cause of the children's increasingly disturbed behavior. But not even Josie can pierce Lynn's wall of silence, a wall that will not crumble until Lynn is forced to face herself-and the truth-at last. Belva Plain's searing novel of a family's heartbreak, a woman's courage, and a subject too often talked about only in whispers.

[This book offers an] account of the author's transition from pioneer of abortion rights to champion of the pro-life cause. [In the book, he] gives ... personal witness to the "Gospel of Life." -Back cover.

A report on the daily activities at a center for the treatment of children with emotional problems

Illustrated with over 300 stills and drawings, including the complete screenplay, the only book on the making of the spectacular X-Men 2 and the X-Men film franchise. Outcasts from society, the X-Men are genetic mutants, born with superhuman powers, who harness their special abilities for the greater good. But the human race they fight to protect rejects and fears—even hates—them. Initially realized in the Marvel Comic Book adventures, the first X-Men major feature film was released by Fox in 2000, directed by Bryan Singer, who had previously directed Apt Pupil and The Usual Suspects. Its stunning success—theatrically grossing nearly $300 million worldwide, and becoming a video and DVD phenomenon—signaled the current wave of comics to film adaptations and guaranteed the sequel, which reunites the principal cast members and the original's key creative team, including director Bryan Singer, cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel, and production designer Guy Dyas. The new X2 will feature several surprises, including favorite mutant characters from the vast X-Men comics universe, who are new to the film franchise. 300 color illustrations.

The story of Garden, Ashes is narrated by Andreas (“Andi”) Scham in a series of loosely connected reminiscences about his childhood. At the beginning of the novel, he is a five-year-old boy who remembers vividly the incomprehensible happenings around the constant comings and goings, the changing places in which he lives, the numerous older relatives whom he cannot quite remember, and the mysterious disappearances of his father, Eduard Scham. Only later does Andi fully understand these happenings; at the time, surrounded by an aura of anxiety... -enotes.comAndreas Scham's father disappeared during the Holocaust--as Kis's father did--and the family is forced into leaving its neighborhood in the city of Novi Sad. They become a family of rootless wanderers. Andreas, always searching for his lost father, finds that his memories of him grow ever stronger. --Overstock.com

In a devastating story of the Holocaust, a fifty-three-year-old minor functionary of the Royal Hungarian Railways, E.S., investigates the reduction of his pension, while the Nazis plot the extermination of the European Jews