Showing results by author "James Gleick" in All Categories

James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the 20th century's third revolution.

James Gleick has long been fascinated by the making of science: how ideas order visible appearances, how equations can give meaning to molecular and stellar phenomena, how theories can transform what we see. In Chaos, he chronicled the emergence of a new way of looking at dynamic systems; in Genius, he portrayed the wondrous dimensions of Richard Feymnan's mind.

James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Ge­nius, brings us his crowning work: a revelatory chronicle that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.

These stories from Quanta Magazine map the routes of mathematical exploration, showing listeners how cutting-edge research is done, while illuminating the productive tension between conjecture and proof, theory and intuition. Listeners of The Prime Number Conspiracy are headed on "breathtaking intellectual journeys to the bleeding edge of discovery strapped to the narrative rocket of humanity's never-ending pursuit of knowledge," says Quanta editor-in-chief Thomas Lin. 

James Gleick's story begins at the turn of the 20th century, with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation: The Time Machine. A host of forces were converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological - the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks.

Most of us suffer some degree of "hurry sickness" - a malady that has launched us into the "epoch of the nanosecond", a need-everything-yesterday sphere dominated by cell phones, computers, faxes, and remote controls. Yet for all the hours, minutes, and even seconds being saved, we're still filling our days to the point that we have no time for such basic human activities as eating, sex, and relating to our families.

From the author of the national best seller Chaos comes an outstanding biography of one of the most dazzling and flamboyant scientists of the 20th century that "not only paints a highly attractive portrait of Feynman but also . . . makes for a stimulating adventure in the annals of science." ( The New York Times).

Explore the secrets of the universe with selections from the works of three of the greatest scientific minds of our lifetime. Widely regarded as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein, Stephen W. Hawking has delved into today's most important scientific ideas about the cosmos, expanded upon the rich history of scientific thought, and reveled in the complexities of the universe in which we live.

As one of our leading science writers, James Gleick has always been ahead of the curve. He chronicled the genius of the great physicist Richard Feynman and explained chaos theory in a way all of us could understand. Now, in a collection of previously published pieces, he muses on the Internet revolution that has taken place all around us.

L'histoire commence au tournant du 20e siècle, avec le jeune H. G. Wells qui écrit et réécrit le conte fantastique qui est devenu son premier livre et qui fait sensation dans le monde entier : "The Time Machine". C'était une époque où de nombreuses forces convergeaient pour transformer la compréhension humaine du temps, tant philosophique que technologique : le télégraphe électrique, le chemin de fer à vapeur, la découverte de civilisations enfouies et la "perfection" des horloges.