The Principles of Uncertainty

Author: Maira Kalman
Publisher: Penguin Press HC
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Book Description
Maira Kalman paints her highly personal worldview in an inimitable combination of image and text. The Principles of Uncertaintyis an irresistible invitation to experience life through the psyche of Maira Kalman, one of this country's most beloved artists. The result is a book that is part personal narrative, part documentary, part travelogue, part chapbook, and all Kalman. Her brilliant, whimsical paintings, ideas, and images-which initially appear random-ultimately form an intricately interconnected worldview, an idiosyncratic inner monologue. Kalman contends with some existential questions-What is identity? What is happiness? Why do we fight wars? And then, of course, death, love, and candy (not necessarily in that order). The tremendous success of Kalman's 2005 illustrated edition of Strunk and White's The Elements of Styleestablished her as an original, inspirational voice, and the quirky, hilarious, heartbreaking style of The Principles of Uncertaintyreveals Maira Kalman for what she truly is: a national treasure.

Uncertainty

Author: David Lindley
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307389480
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
The gripping, entertaining, and vividly-told narrative of a radical discovery that sent shockwaves through the scientific community and forever changed the way we understand the world. Werner Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” challenged centuries of scientific understanding, placed him in direct opposition to Albert Einstein, and put Niels Bohr in the middle of one of the most heated debates in scientific history. Heisenberg’s theorem stated that there were physical limits to what we could know about sub-atomic particles; this “uncertainty” would have shocking implications. In a riveting and lively account, David Lindley captures this critical episode and explains one of the most important scientific discoveries in history, which has since transcended the boundaries of science and influenced everything from literary theory to television.

An Introduction to the Uncertainty Principle

Author: Sundaram Thangavelu
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0817681647
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Book Description
In 1932 Norbert Wiener gave a series of lectures on Fourier analysis at the Univer sity of Cambridge. One result of Wiener's visit to Cambridge was his well-known text The Fourier Integral and Certain of its Applications; another was a paper by G. H. Hardy in the 1933 Journalofthe London Mathematical Society. As Hardy says in the introduction to this paper, This note originates from a remark of Prof. N. Wiener, to the effect that "a f and g [= j] cannot both be very small". ... The theo pair of transforms rems which follow give the most precise interpretation possible ofWiener's remark. Hardy's own statement of his results, lightly paraphrased, is as follows, in which f is an integrable function on the real line and f is its Fourier transform: x 2 m If f and j are both 0 (Ix1e- /2) for large x and some m, then each is a finite linear combination ofHermite functions. In particular, if f and j are x2 x 2 2 2 both O(e- / ), then f = j = Ae- / , where A is a constant; and if one x 2 2 is0(e- / ), then both are null.

The Uncertainty Principle in Harmonic Analysis

Author: Victor Havin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642783775
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 547

Book Description
The present book is a collection of variations on a theme which can be summed up as follows: It is impossible for a non-zero function and its Fourier transform to be simultaneously very small. In other words, the approximate equalities x :::::: y and x :::::: fj cannot hold, at the same time and with a high degree of accuracy, unless the functions x and yare identical. Any information gained about x (in the form of a good approximation y) has to be paid for by a corresponding loss of control on x, and vice versa. Such is, roughly speaking, the import of the Uncertainty Principle (or UP for short) referred to in the title ofthis book. That principle has an unmistakable kinship with its namesake in physics - Heisenberg's famous Uncertainty Principle - and may indeed be regarded as providing one of mathematical interpretations for the latter. But we mention these links with Quantum Mechanics and other connections with physics and engineering only for their inspirational value, and hasten to reassure the reader that at no point in this book will he be led beyond the world of purely mathematical facts. Actually, the portion of this world charted in our book is sufficiently vast, even though we confine ourselves to trigonometric Fourier series and integrals (so that "The U. P. in Fourier Analysis" might be a slightly more appropriate title than the one we chose).

Principles of Risk Analysis

Author: Charles Yoe
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1439857504
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 576

Book Description
In every decision context there are things we know and things we do not know. Risk analysis uses science and the best available evidence to assess what we know-and it is intentional in the way it addresses the importance of the things we don't know. Principles of Risk Analysis: Decision Making Under Uncertainty lays out the tasks of risk analysis i

The Uncertainty Principle

Author: Martin Herbert
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 3956790014
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Within the realm of science, the uncertainty principle speaks of the fundamental limits of knowledge and measurement vis-à-vis the external world, and how the very act of seeing alters what is seen. Martin Herbert's The Uncertainty Principle is a collection of essays that reveals layers of unknowing and open-endedness within a diversity of contemporary art practices since the 1970s. If a work of art is always completed by the viewer, as Marcel Duchamp put it, then the works considered here equate completion with construction. In navigating us through a succession of artists' approaches, Herbert also discloses how constructed experiences of “not knowing” can lead to deep engagements with a range of specific issues and themes: from history to politics, from epistemology to mortality. Martin Herbert is a writer and critic living in Tunbridge Wells, UK, and Berlin. He is associate editor of ArtReview and a regular contributor to Artforum, frieze, and Art Monthly, and has lectured in art schools internationally. His monograph Mark Wallinger, a comprehensive study of the British artist's career, was published in 2011.

Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain

Author: Paul W. Glimcher
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262572279
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Book Description
In this provocative book, Paul Glimcher argues that economic theory may provide an alternative to the classical Cartesian model of the brain and behavior. Glimcher argues that Cartesian dualism operates from the false premise that the reflex is able to describe behavior in the real world that animals inhabit. A mathematically rich cognitive theory, he claims, could solve the most difficult problems that any environment could present, eliminating the need for dualism by eliminating the need for a reflex theory. Such a mathematically rigorous description of the neural processes that connect sensation and action, he explains, will have its roots in microeconomic theory. Economic theory allows physiologists to define both the optimal course of action that an animal might select and a mathematical route by which that optimal solution can be derived. Glimcher outlines what an economics-based cognitive model might look like and how one would begin to test it empirically. Along the way, he presents a fascinating history of neuroscience. He also discusses related questions about determinism, free will, and the stochastic nature of complex behavior.

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit

Author: Frank H. Knight
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
ISBN: 1602060053
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Book Description
A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.

Management of Uncertainty

Author: Gudela Grote
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1848823738
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Book Description
As I write, the financial systems of the world are collapsing with still no clear indication of what the consequences will be and which measures should be taken to avoid such a crisis in the future. There seems to be agreement though, that the financial instruments introduced in the past few decades entailed far too much complexity and uncertainty and that there was too little regulatory control over the use of these instruments. Management of uncertainty with the aim of achieving self-control is the core concern of this book. It was not written with a focus on financial systems, but many concepts developed in this book are applicable to this field as well. The - neric principles of reducing, maintaining or increasing uncertainties in view of the different contingencies an organization is faced with, the fundamental issue of how much control is possible and who should be in control, and the question of how much and what kind of regulation is necessary with the overall aim of finding an appropriate balance between system stability and flexibility are at the centre of heated debates on the future of finance.

Great by Choice

Author: Jim Collins
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062121006
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns withanother groundbreaking work, this time to ask: why do some companies thrive inuncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research,buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins andhis colleague Morten Hansen enumerate the principles for building a truly greatenterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous and fast-moving times. This book isclassic Collins: contrarian, data-driven and uplifting.