Humans perceive the three-dimensional structure of the world with apparent ease. However, despite all of the recent advances in computer vision research, the dream of having a computer interpret an image at the same level as a two-year old remains elusive. Why is computer vision such a challenging problem and what is the current state of the...

It's a jungle out there. And survival is never a given. Somehow, a blind, defenseless tiger kitten must evolve into a deadly, efficient predator; a chimp must learn to distinguish edible plants from lethal poisons; a baby buffalo must be able to pick its mother out of a herd of hundreds. Contrary to common belief, not everything is...

Welcome to Science of Everyday Things. Our aim is to explain how scientific phenomena can be understood by observing common, real-world events. From luminescence to echolocation to buoyancy, the series will illustrate the chief principles that underlay these phenomena and explore their application in everyday life. To encourage...

When the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize went to former Vice President Al Gore and an international scientific body that warned of serious consequences if Earth's temperatures continue to rise, the award underscored the international concern about the Earth's changing climate. Most scientists agree that global warming is a serious threat, and...

By the end of the 1970s, it was clear that all the known forces of nature (including, in a sense, gravity) were examples of gauge theories, characterized by invariance under symmetry transformations chosen independently at each position and each time. These ideas culminated with the finding of the W and Z gauge bosons (and perhaps also the...

This unique book provides a meaningful resource for applied mathematics through Fourier analysis. It develops a unified theory of discrete and continuous (univariate) Fourier analysis, the fast Fourier transform, and a powerful elementary theory of generalized functions and shows how these mathematical ideas can be used to study sampling...

Research on the biochemistry and molecular biology of lipids and lipoproteins has experienced remarkable growth in the last 20 years, particularly with the realization that many different classes of lipids play fundamental roles in diseases such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. The 5th edition of...

In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us. These luminous, entertaining essays travel both the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of the human mind, posing such fascinating questions as how did the universe originate and how will...

Mathematica by Example, 4e is designed to introduce the Mathematica programming language to a wide audience. This is the ideal text for all scientific students, researchers, and programmers wishing to learn or deepen their understanding of Mathematica. The program is used to help professionals, researchers, scientists, students and...

Medical advances have been occurring at breathtaking speed, with diagnostic and treatment options becoming available for conditions for which none previously existed. However, several aspects of health care remain the same. Patients continue to rely heavily on clinicians for help in understanding the burgeoning evidence in medical research...

The Center for Process Studies in Claremont, California held a conference on Physics and Time in August 1984 with David Bohm, Ilya Prigogine, Henry Stapp, and other leading scientists and philosophers. During that conference, a spontaneous conjunction of energies emerged from a conversation between two participants who also appear in these...