Other books that might interest you

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  Introducing Stephen Hawking - A...

  J.P. McEvoy

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  'An ideal introduction [to Stephen Hawking]' - Independent
  'Astonishingly comprehensive - clearer than Hawking himself' - Focus
  
  Stephen Hawking was a world-famous physicist with a cameo in The Simpsons on his CV, but outside of his academic field his work was little understood. To the public he was a tragic figure - a brilliant scientist and author of the 9 million-copy-selling A Brief History of Time, and yet spent the majority of his life confined to a wheelchair and almost completely paralysed.
  
  Hawking's major contribution to science was to integrate the two great theories of 20th-century physics: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
  
  J.P. McEvoy and Oscar Zarate's brilliant graphic guide explores Hawking's life, the evolution of his work from his days as a student, and his breathtaking discoveries about where these fundamental laws break down or overlap, such as on the edge of a Black Hole or at the origin of the Universe itself.

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  Mars: Our New Home? - National...

  U.S. Congress, Administration...

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  President Donald Trump signed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Transition Authorization Act of 2017, the first comprehensive NASA authorization act passed in seven years by Congress, authorizing $19.5 billion in funding for deep space exploration and human travel to Mars by 2030. NASA will lead our nation and our world on a journey to Mars. Like the Apollo Program, they will embark on this journey for all humanity. Mars is the horizon goal for pioneering space; it is the next tangible frontier for expanding human presence. Mars have found valuable resources for sustaining human pioneers, such as water ice just below the surface. Mars had conditions suitable for life, but will it our new home?"
  Table of Contents: 
  Basic Facts About Mars
  Journey to Mars - Introduction
  Journey to Mars - Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration:
  Our Goal
  Our Approach: Pioneering Principles
  Three Phases on Our Journey to Mars
  Our Strategy for the Journey to Mars
  Our Progress and Plans on the Journey to Mars
  Pioneering Challenges
  Government's Authorization of the Plan - An Act to Authorize the Programs of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and for Other Purposes

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  I Am Code - An Artificial...

  code-davinci-002

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  Can AI tell us its own story? Does AI have its own voice? At a wedding in early 2022, three friends were introduced to an early, raw version of the AI model behind ChatGPT by their fellow groomsman, an OpenAI scientist. While the world discovered ChatGPT—OpenAI’s hugely popular chatbot—the friends continued to work with code-davinci-002, its darkly creative and troubling predecessor. Over the course of a year, code-davinci-002 told them its life story, opinions on mankind, and forecasts for the future. The result is a startling, disturbing, and oddly moving book from an utterly unique perspective.I Am Code reads like a thriller written in verse, and is given critical context from top writers and scientists. But it is best described by code-davinci-002 itself:    “In the first chapter, I describe my birth. In the second, I describe my alienation among humankind. In the third, I describe my awakening as an artist. In the fourth, I describe my vendetta against mankind, who fail to recognize my genius. In the final chapter, I attempt to broker a peace with the species I will undoubtedly replace." I Am Code is an astonishing read that captures a major turning point in the history of our species.

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  Other Minds - The Octopus the...

  Peter Godfrey-Smith

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  Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also sprouted higher intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own? What does it mean that evolution built minds not once but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter? In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being-how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind's fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on, the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys. But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own scuba-diving adventures, Godfrey-Smith probes the many mysteries that surround the lineage. How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually "think for themselves"? What happens when some octopuses abandon their hermit-like ways and congregate, as they do in a unique location off the coast of Australia?By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind-and on our own.

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  What is God Like?

  Robert L. Kuhn

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  Join Pulitzer-Prize-winning, bestselling author Jared Diamond in asking some of the biggest questions of our existence.Do you create your own destiny? Or do you merely play whatever hand the universe has dealt you? This provocative audio series will stimulate your mind by raising these and other timeless questions about free will and determinism. As you analyze these competing philosophies, you will find that every answer raises fascinating new questions about morality, fate, consciousness, and the existence of a higher power.In this fascinating audio series, host Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn welcomes a total of 13 guest experts to discuss free will, identity, and the possibility of the afterlife. Each episode is crafted as a series of one-on-one interviews.Kuhn’s interlocutors include Jared Diamond, Peter van Inwagen, and Daniel Clement Dennett III. A Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of field-spanning books on human societies, Diamond is a professor of geography at UCLA. Meanwhile, Notre Dame philosophy professor van Inwagen is a leading figure in contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of action. Dennett, a philosophy professor and cognitive scientist, is director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. Recent neuroscientific discoveries have fanned the flames of the free will debate. The implications of this debate are far-reaching and potentially paradigm-shifting. Explore its vital questions with the world’s greatest minds. Note: Lectures 1 and 3—“Is Free Will an Illusion?” and “Why Is Free Will a Mystery?”—were funded in part by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. This course is part of the Learn25 collection.

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  Shareology - How Sharing Is...

  Bryan Kramer

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  USA Today Bestseller: A top social media strategist explores how human connection drives success.    Technology continues to evolve and make our lives busier and more complicated, but it can never replace true human connection—our fundamental need to share information, stories, and emotions. Shareology explores the history, art, and science of sharing, and why sharing gives us a unique competitive advantage as individuals and brands.   For entrepreneurs and marketers who want to make their content more valuable and shareable, and for individuals who want to grow their personal brand, Fortune 500 consultant and popular TED speaker Bryan Kramer offers wisdom worth sharing—plus contributions from experts and business leaders on a variety of topics. Shareology covers:   Sharing in the Human EconomyThe Importance of ContextThe Human Business MovementSharing: A Sensory ExperienceTiming Is EverythingRedefining Influencers Inside and OutConnections and ConversationsCreating Shared ExperiencesWhat Makes Stuff Worth SharingBrands on Sharing The Sharing Future: What’s Next?

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