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Anathem
''Anathem'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Neal Stephenson, published in 2008. Major themes include the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and the philosophical debate between Platonic realism and nominalism. Plot summary ''Anathem'' is set on the fictional planet of Arbre. Thousands of years before the events in the novel, the planet's intellectuals entered ''concents'' (monastic communities) to protect their activities from the collapse of society. The ''avout'' (intellectuals separated from ''Sæcular'' society) are banned from possessing or operating most advanced technology and are supervised by the ''Inquisition'', which answers to the outside world. The avout are normally allowed to communicate with people outside the walls of the concent only once every year, decade, century, or millennium, depending on the particular vows they have taken. The narrator and protagonist, Fraa Erasmas, is an avout at the Concent of Saunt Edhar. His teacher, Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and baroque. Stephenson's work explores mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. He also writes nonfiction articles about technology in publications such as ''Wired (magazine), Wired''. He has written novels with his uncle, George Jewsbury ("J. Frederick George"), under the collective pseudonym Stephen Bury. Stephenson has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (founded by Jeff Bezos) developing a spacecraft and a space launch system, and also co-founded the Subutai Corporation, whose first offering is the interactive fiction project ''The Mongoliad''. He was Magic Leap's Chief Futurist from 2014 to 2020. Early life Born on October 31, 1959, in Fort Meade, Maryland, Stephenson came from a family of engineers and scienti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space exploration, time travel, Parallel universes in fiction, parallel universes, and extraterrestrials in fiction, extraterrestrial life. The genre often explores human responses to the consequences of projected or imagined scientific advances. Science fiction is related to fantasy (together abbreviated wikt:SF&F, SF&F), Horror fiction, horror, and superhero fiction, and it contains many #Subgenres, subgenres. The genre's precise Definitions of science fiction, definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Major subgenres include hard science fiction, ''hard'' science fiction, which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and soft science fiction, ''soft'' science fiction, which focuses on social sciences. Other no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Emperor's New Mind
''The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics'' is a 1989 book by the mathematical physicist Roger Penrose. Penrose argues that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modeled by a conventional Turing machine, which includes a digital computer. Penrose hypothesizes that quantum mechanics plays an essential role in the understanding of human consciousness. The collapse of the quantum wavefunction is seen as playing an important role in brain function. Most of the book is spent reviewing, for the scientifically-minded lay-reader, a plethora of interrelated subjects such as Newtonian physics, special and general relativity, the philosophy and limitations of mathematics, quantum physics, cosmology, and the nature of time. Penrose intermittently describes how each of these bears on his developing theme: that consciousness is not "algorithmic". Only the later portions of the book address the thesis directly. Overview ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Analemma
In astronomy, an analemma (; ) is a diagram showing the position of the Sun in the sky as seen from a fixed location on Earth at the same Solar time#Mean solar time, mean solar time over the course of a year. The change of position is a result of the shifting of the angle in the sky of the path that the Sun takes Celestial sphere, in respect to the stars (the ecliptic). The diagram resembles a lemniscate, figure eight. Globes of the Earth often display an analemma as a two-dimensional figure of equation of time ("sun fast") vs. declination of the Sun. The north–south component of the analemma results from the change in the Sun's declination due to the axial tilt, tilt of Earth's Rotation around a fixed axis, axis of rotation as it orbits around the Sun. The east–west component results from the equation of time, nonuniform rate of change of the Sun's right ascension, governed by the combined effects of Earth's axial tilt and its orbital eccentricity. An analemma can be Phot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Locus Award For Best Science Fiction Novel
The Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel is one of the annual Locus Awards presented by the science fiction and fantasy magazine Locus (magazine), ''Locus''. Awards presented in a given year are for works published in the previous calendar year. The award for Best Science Fiction Novel was first presented in 1980, and is among the awards still presented (). Previously, there had simply been an award for Locus Award for Best Novel, Best Novel. A similar award for Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, Best Fantasy Novel was introduced in 1978. The Locus Awards have been described as a prestigious prize in science fiction, fantasy and horror literature. Winners See also * Hugo Award * Nebula Award * BSFA Award References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Locus Award For Best Science Fiction Novel Lists of Locus Award winners, Science Fiction Novel American literary awards Novel awards hu:Locus-díjas sci-fi regények ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic based on analyses of intentionality. In his mature work, he sought to develop a systematic foundational science based on the so-called Bracketing (phenomenology), phenomenological reduction. Arguing that Transcendence (philosophy), transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge, Husserl redefined phenomenology as a Transcendental idealism, transcendental-idealist philosophy. Husserl's thought profoundly influenced 20th-century philosophy, and he remains a notable figure in contemporary philosophy and beyond. Husserl studied mathematics, taught by Karl Weierstrass and Leo Königsberger, and philosophy taught by Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf. He taught philosophy as a ''Privatdozent' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Gödel
Kurt Friedrich Gödel ( ; ; April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel profoundly influenced scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century (at a time when Bertrand Russell,For instance, in their "Principia Mathematica' (''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' edition). Alfred North Whitehead, and David Hilbert were using logic and set theory to investigate the foundations of mathematics), building on earlier work by Frege, Richard Dedekind, and Georg Cantor. Gödel's discoveries in the foundations of mathematics led to the proof of his completeness theorem in 1929 as part of his dissertation to earn a doctorate at the University of Vienna, and the publication of Gödel's incompleteness theorems two years later, in 1931. The incompleteness theorems address limitations of formal axiomatic systems. In parti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aperiodic Tiling
An aperiodic tiling is a non-periodic Tessellation, tiling with the additional property that it does not contain arbitrarily large periodic regions or patches. A set of tile-types (or prototiles) is aperiodic set of prototiles, aperiodic if copies of these tiles can form only non-periodic tiling, periodic tilings. The Penrose tilings are a well-known example of aperiodic tilings. In March 2023, four researchers, David Smith (amateur mathematician), David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss, announced the proof that the tile discovered by David Smith is an Einstein problem, aperiodic monotile, i.e., a solution to the einstein problem, a problem that seeks the existence of any single shape aperiodic tile. In May 2023 the same authors published a chiral aperiodic monotile with similar but stronger constraints. Aperiodic tilings serve as mathematical models for quasicrystals, physical solids that were discovered in 1982 by Dan Shechtman who subs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Jure
In law and government, ''de jure'' (; ; ) describes practices that are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. The phrase is often used in contrast with '' de facto'' ('from fact'), which describes situations that exist in reality, even if not formally recognized. Definition ''De jure'' is a Latin expression composed of the words ''de'',("from, of") and ''jure'',("law", adjectival form of '' jus''). Thus, it is descriptive of a structural argument or position derived "from law". Usage Jurisprudence and ''de jure'' law In U.S. law, particularly after '' Brown v. Board of Education'' (1954), the difference between ''de facto'' segregation (that existed because of voluntary associations and neighborhoods) and ''de jure'' segregation (that existed because of local laws) became important distinctions for court-mandated remedial purposes. Government and culture Between 1805 and 1914, the ruling dynasty of Egypt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Pulse Propulsion
Nuclear pulse propulsion or external pulsed plasma propulsion is a hypothetical method of spacecraft propulsion that uses nuclear explosions for thrust. It originated as Project ''Orion'' with support from DARPA, after a suggestion by Stanislaw Ulam in 1947. Newer designs using inertial confinement fusion have been the baseline for most later designs, including Project ''Daedalus'' and Project ''Longshot''. History Los Alamos Calculations for a potential use of this technology were made at the laboratory from and toward the close of the 1940s to the mid-1950s. Project Orion Project Orion was the first serious attempt to design a nuclear pulse rocket. A design was formed at General Atomics during the late 1950s and early 1960s, with the idea of reacting small directional nuclear explosives utilizing a variant of the Teller–Ulam two-stage bomb design against a large steel pusher plate attached to the spacecraft with shock absorbers. Efficient directional explosives maxi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum Computer
A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using specialized hardware. Classical physics cannot explain the operation of these quantum devices, and a scalable quantum computer could perform some calculations exponentially faster than any modern "classical" computer. Theoretically a large-scale quantum computer could break some widely used encryption schemes and aid physicists in performing physical simulations; however, the current state of the art is largely experimental and impractical, with several obstacles to useful applications. The basic unit of information in quantum computing, the qubit (or "quantum bit"), serves the same function as the bit in classical computing. However, unlike a classical bit, which can be in one of two states (a binary), a qubit can exist in a superposition of its two " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, Philosophy of science, philosopher of science and Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and University College London. Penrose has contributed to the mathematical physics of general relativity and physical cosmology, cosmology. He has received several prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems, and the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity". He won the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books, Royal Society Science Books Prize for ''The Emperor's New Mind'' (1989), which outlines his views on physics and con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
