Engineering Infinity

Author: Charles Stross
Publisher: Solaris
ISBN: 1849972362
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
The universe shifts and changes: suddenly you understand, you get it, and are filled with wonder. That moment of understanding drives the greatest science-fiction stories and lies at the heart of Engineering Infinity. Whether it’s coming up hard against the speed of light – and, with it, the enormity of the universe – realising that terraforming a distant world is harder and more dangerous than you’d ever thought, or simply realizing that a hitchhiker on a starship consumes fuel and oxygen with tragic results, it’s hard science-fiction where a sense of discovery is most often found and where science-fiction’s true heart lies. This exciting and innovative science-fiction anthology collects together stories by some of the biggest names in the field, including Gwyneth Jones, Stephen Baxter and Charles Stross.

Edge of Infinity

Author: Hannu Rajaniemi
Publisher: Solaris
ISBN: 1849974608
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Book Description
ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND Those were Neil Armstrong’s immortal words when he became the first human being to step onto another world. All at once, the horizon expanded; the human race was no longer Earthbound. Edge of Infinity is an exhilarating new SF anthology that looks at the next giant leap for humankind: the leap from our home world out into the Solar System. From the eerie transformations in Pat Cadigan’s Hugo-award-winning “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” to the frontier spirit of Sandra McDonald and Stephen D. Covey’s “The Road to NPS,” and from the grandiose vision of Alastair Reynolds’ “Vainglory” to the workaday familiarity of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s “Safety Tests,” the thirteen stories in this anthology span the whole of the human condition in their race to colonise Earth’s nearest neighbours. Featuring stories by Hannu Rajaniemi, Alastair Reynolds, James S. A. Corey, John Barnes, Stephen Baxter, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Elizabeth Bear, Pat Cadigan, Gwyneth Jones, Paul McAuley, Sandra McDonald, Stephen D. Covey, An Owomoyela, and Bruce Sterling, Edge of Infinity is hard SF adventure at its best and most exhilarating.

Prisoner of Infinity

Author: Jasun Horsley
Publisher: Aeon Books
ISBN: 1911597124
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 399

Book Description
Prisoner of Infinity examines modern-day accounts of UFOs, alien abductions, and psychism to uncover a century-long program of psychological fragmentation, collective indoctrination, and covert cultural, social, and mythic engineering.Whether it is the forces of God, government, aliens from outer (or inner) space, or the incalculable effects of childhood sexual trauma on the human psyche, premature contact with these forces compels us to create "crucial fictions." Such semi-coherent mythic narratives make partial sense out of our experience, but in the process turn us into the unreliable narrators of our own lives.Taking UFOS and the work of "experiencer" Whitley Strieber as its departure point, Prisoner of Infinity explores how beliefs are created and perceptions are managed in the face of the inexplicably complex forces of our existence. While keeping the question of a non-human and/or paranormal element open, the book maps how all-too-human agendas (such as the CIA's MK Ultra program) have co-opted the ancient psychological process of myth-making, giving rise to dissociative, dumbed-down Hollywood versions of reality. The New Age movement, UFOs, alien abductions, psychism, psychedelic mind expansion, Transhumanism, the Space Program - what if they are all productions devised by committee in dark rooms to serve social, political, and economic goals that are largely devoid of true substance or meaning? Through an exacting and enlivening process of social, cultural and psychological examination and excavation, Prisoner of Infinity uncovers the most deeply buried treasure of all. The original, uncredited author of all mystery and meaning: the human soul.

Bridging Infinity

Author: Charlie Jane Anders
Publisher: Solaris
ISBN: 1786180499
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Book Description
BUILDING TOWARDS TOMORROW Sense of wonder is the lifeblood of science fiction. When we encounter something on a truly staggering scale – metal spheres wrapped around stars, planets rebuilt and repurposed, landscapes re-engineered, starships bigger than worlds – the only response we have is reverence, admiration, and possibly fear at something that is grand, sublime, and extremely powerful. Bridging Infinity puts humanity at the heart of that experience, as builder, as engineer, as adventurer, reimagining and rebuilding the world, the solar system, the galaxy and possibly the entire universe in some of the best science fiction stories you will experience. Bridging Infinity continues the award-winning Infinity Project series of anthologies with new stories from Alastair Reynolds, Pat Cadigan, Stephen Baxter, Charlie Jane Anders, Tobias S. Buckell, Karen Lord, Karin Lowachee, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Gregory Benford, Larry Niven, Robert Reed, Pamela Sargent, Allen Steele, Pat Murphy, Paul Doherty, An Owomoyela, Thoraiya Dyer and Ken Liu.

Naming Infinity

Author: Loren Graham
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674032934
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
In 1913, Russian imperial marines stormed an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Athos, Greece, to haul off monks engaged in a dangerously heretical practice known as Name Worshipping. Exiled to remote Russian outposts, the monks and their mystical movement went underground. Ultimately, they came across Russian intellectuals who embraced Name Worshipping—and who would achieve one of the biggest mathematical breakthroughs of the twentieth century, going beyond recent French achievements. Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor take us on an exciting mathematical mystery tour as they unravel a bizarre tale of political struggles, psychological crises, sexual complexities, and ethical dilemmas. At the core of this book is the contest between French and Russian mathematicians who sought new answers to one of the oldest puzzles in math: the nature of infinity. The French school chased rationalist solutions. The Russian mathematicians, notably Dmitri Egorov and Nikolai Luzin—who founded the famous Moscow School of Mathematics—were inspired by mystical insights attained during Name Worshipping. Their religious practice appears to have opened to them visions into the infinite—and led to the founding of descriptive set theory. The men and women of the leading French and Russian mathematical schools are central characters in this absorbing tale that could not be told until now. Naming Infinity is a poignant human interest story that raises provocative questions about science and religion, intuition and creativity.

Count to Infinity

Author: John C. Wright
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 1466882816
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Book Description
Count to Infinity is John C. Wright's spectacular conclusion to the thought-provoking hard science fiction Eschaton Sequence, exploring future history and human evolution. An epic space opera finale worthy of the scope and wonder of The Eschaton Sequence: Menelaus Montrose is locked in a final battle of wits, bullets, and posthuman intelligence with Ximen del Azarchel for the fate of humanity in the far future. The alien monstrosities of Ain at long last are revealed, their hidden past laid bare, along with the reason for their brutal treatment of Man and all the species seeded throughout the galaxy. And they have still one more secret that could upend everything Montrose has fought for and lived so long to achieve. The Eschaton Sequence #1 Count to a Trillion #2 The Hermetic Millennia #3 The Judge of Ages #4 The Architect of Aeons #5 The Vindication of Man At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Timelike Infinity

Author: Stephen Baxter
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 057512802X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Book Description
Timelike Infinity: the strange region at the end of time where the Xeelee, owners of the universe, are waiting... The second novel in Stephen Baxter's Xeelee sequence. First there were good times: humankind reached glorious heights, even immortality. Then there were bad times: Earth was occupied by the faceless, brutal Qax. Immortality drugs were confiscated, the human spirit crushed. Earth became a vast factory for alient foodstuffs. Into this new dark age appears the end of a tunnel through time. Made from exotic matter, it is humanity's greatest engineering project in the pre-Qax era, where the other end of the tunnel remains anchored near Jupiter. When a small group of humans in a makeshift craft outwit the Qax to escape to the past through the tunnel, it is not to warn the people of Earth against the Qax, who are sure to follow them. For these men and women from the future are themselves dangerous fanatics in pursuit of their own bizarre quantum grail. Michael Poole, architect of the tunnel, must boldly confront the consequences of his genius.

Up The Infinite Corridor

Author: Fred Hapgood
Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
"In Up the Infinite Corridor, Fred Hapgood explores the mental landscape of engineering a style of thought, a mode of operation, a particular form of creativity that increasingly defines the trajectory of modern life." "With the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as his point of reference, Hapgood traces the emergence of the profession from its mud-on-the-boots days preoccupied with canals and roads to its present absorption with cyber-space and micromachines. He also shows the evolution in how engineers are trained, from the apprentice working alongside the older man, to "build and test," to the postwar emergence of engineering science and its focus on developing general principles about the natural behavior of artifacts." "But it is when Hapgood explores a selection of research projects currently going on at the Institute that he actually takes us inside the process, bringing to life the struggle to design an artificial human knee that in every way mimics nature, the creation of all automated navigational system for cars, the attempt to infuse a piece of silicon with the capacity for vision, the construction of a human-powered airplane, and the development of robot mice for maze racing in international competition. In so doing, Hapgood gives us a glimpse into an alternate universe he calls "solution space," the black box of possibilities which the engineer moves inside, searching along its various pathways, confronting key to true innovation." "MIT is a rich culture that has always had its bizarre projects and its even more bizarre personalities, and Hapgood guides us through its history, the folkways and legends of undergraduate life, the twisted sense of humor emerging from the pressures and insecurities of a place in which everyone has the intellectual accelerator wired to the floor. The engineering sensibility that emerges is nothing like the dry "nuts and bolts" cliche. Rather it is an ethos based on reverence for "the fitness of things," the existential pleasure of connecting with the properties of nature. For as Hapgood points out, if scientists carry on a romance, engineers form a marriage and have progeny with nature, working within its confines day in and day out. The value system implied is one that sees our universe composed of elements whose behaviors matter to us intimately." "Hapgood's rich and insightful treatment shows engineering to be an enterprise surprisingly humane, even lyrical."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Still Facing Infinity

Author: Erwin Hauer
Publisher: Images Publishing
ISBN: 9781864707410
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
Over the course of 60-plus years, Erwin Hauer has created modular sculptures that feature penetrations and prominent interior voids yet, remarkably, are bonded by continuous surfaces. The modules of these sculptures contain the seeds of infinity: what Hauer calls 'continua'. Still Facing Infinity covers the full scope of Hauer's artistic oeuvre, from early two-dimensional works that double as room dividers to three-dimensional, space-filling sculptures that are conceptually similar to innovative architecture and engineering (works by Antoni Gaudi, Felix Candela, and Frei Otto) as well as advanced mathematical concepts (triply periodic infinite surfaces without self-intersections). Hauer offers detailed presentations in writings as well as in abundant photographs of a number of significant works, including Jerusalem Tower and Infinite Surface I-WP, the basis for numerous tabletop and large-scale sculptures as well as for two independent series that explore multiple iterations of the infinite surface concept.0.

Engineering

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 1220

Book Description