The Medea Hypothesis

Author: Peter Ward
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400829887
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Book Description
In The Medea Hypothesis, renowned paleontologist Peter Ward proposes a revolutionary and provocative vision of life's relationship with the Earth's biosphere--one that has frightening implications for our future, yet also offers hope. Using the latest discoveries from the geological record, he argues that life might be its own worst enemy. This stands in stark contrast to James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis--the idea that life sustains habitable conditions on Earth. In answer to Gaia, which draws on the idea of the "good mother" who nurtures life, Ward invokes Medea, the mythical mother who killed her own children. Could life by its very nature threaten its own existence? According to the Medea hypothesis, it does. Ward demonstrates that all but one of the mass extinctions that have struck Earth were caused by life itself. He looks at our planet's history in a new way, revealing an Earth that is witnessing an alarming decline of diversity and biomass--a decline brought on by life's own "biocidal" tendencies. And the Medea hypothesis applies not just to our planet--its dire prognosis extends to all potential life in the universe. Yet life on Earth doesn't have to be lethal. Ward shows why, but warns that our time is running out. Breathtaking in scope, The Medea Hypothesis is certain to arouse fierce debate and radically transform our worldview. It serves as an urgent challenge to all of us to think in new ways if we hope to save ourselves from ourselves.

The Flooded Earth

Author: Peter D Ward
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465021719
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
Sea level rise will happen no matter what we do. Even if we stopped all carbon dioxide emissions today, the seas would rise one meter by 2050 and three meters by 2100. This -- not drought, species extinction, or excessive heat waves -- will be the most catastrophic effect of global warming. And it won't simply redraw our coastlines -- agriculture, electrical and fiber optic systems, and shipping will be changed forever. As icebound regions melt, new sources of oil, gas, minerals, and arable land will be revealed, as will fierce geopolitical battles over who owns the rights to them. In The Flooded Earth, species extinction expert Peter Ward describes in intricate detail what our world will look like in 2050, 2100, 2300, and beyond -- a blueprint for a foreseeable future. Ward also explains what politicians and policymakers around the world should be doing now to head off the worst consequences of an inevitable transformation.

The Little Book of String Theory

Author: Steven S. Gubser
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400834430
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Book Description
The essential beginner's guide to string theory The Little Book of String Theory offers a short, accessible, and entertaining introduction to one of the most talked-about areas of physics today. String theory has been called the "theory of everything." It seeks to describe all the fundamental forces of nature. It encompasses gravity and quantum mechanics in one unifying theory. But it is unproven and fraught with controversy. After reading this book, you'll be able to draw your own conclusions about string theory. Steve Gubser begins by explaining Einstein's famous equation E = mc2, quantum mechanics, and black holes. He then gives readers a crash course in string theory and the core ideas behind it. In plain English and with a minimum of mathematics, Gubser covers strings, branes, string dualities, extra dimensions, curved spacetime, quantum fluctuations, symmetry, and supersymmetry. He describes efforts to link string theory to experimental physics and uses analogies that nonscientists can understand. How does Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu relate to quantum mechanics? What would it be like to fall into a black hole? Why is dancing a waltz similar to contemplating a string duality? Find out in the pages of this book. The Little Book of String Theory is the essential, most up-to-date beginner's guide to this elegant, multidimensional field of physics.

Here on Earth

Author: Tim Fridtjof Flannery
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241950732
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Book Description
'Here on Earth' is a revolutionary dual biography of the planet and of our species. Tim Flannery reimagines the history of Earth, from its earliest origins as a chaotic ball of elemental dust and gases to the teeming landscape we currently call home.

An Introduction to Greek Tragedy

Author: Ruth Scodel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139493493
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
This book provides an accessible introduction for students and anyone interested in increasing their enjoyment of Greek tragic plays. Whether readers are studying Greek culture, performing a Greek tragedy, or simply interested in reading a Greek play, this book will help them to understand and enjoy this challenging and rewarding genre. An Introduction to Greek Tragedy provides background information, helps readers appreciate, enjoy and engage with the plays themselves, and gives them an idea of the important questions in current scholarship on tragedy. Ruth Scodel seeks to dispel misleading assumptions about tragedy, stressing how open the plays are to different interpretations and reactions. In addition to general background, the book also includes chapters on specific plays, both the most familiar titles and some lesser-known plays - Persians, Helen and Orestes - in order to convey the variety that the tragedies offer readers.

Portraits of Medea in Portugal during the 20th and 21st Centuries

Author: Andrés Pociña Pérez
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004383395
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
The theme of Medea in Portuguese literature has mainly given rise to the writing of new plays on the subject. The central episode in the Portuguese rewritings in the last two centuries is the one that takes place in Corinth, i.e., the break between Medea and Jason, on the one hand, and Medea’s killing of their children in retaliation, on the other. Besides the complex play of feelings that provides this episode with very real human emotions, gender was a key issue in determining the interest that this story elicited in a society in search of social renovation, after profound political transformations – during the transition between dictatorship and democracy which happened in 1974 – that generated instability and established a requirement to find alternative rules of social intercourse in the path towards a new Portugal.

Gaia

Author: James Lovelock
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198784880
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Book Description
Gaia, in which James Lovelock puts forward his inspirational and controversial idea that the Earth functions as a single organism, with life influencing planetary processes to form a self-regulating system aiding its own survival, is now a classic work that continues to provoke heated scientific debate.

Oxygen

Author: Donald E. Canfield
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168369
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Book Description
The remarkable scientific story of how Earth became an oxygenated planet The air we breathe is twenty-one percent oxygen, an amount higher than on any other known world. While we may take our air for granted, Earth was not always an oxygenated planet. How did it become this way? Donald Canfield—one of the world's leading authorities on geochemistry, earth history, and the early oceans—covers this vast history, emphasizing its relationship to the evolution of life and the evolving chemistry of the Earth. Canfield guides readers through the various lines of scientific evidence, considers some of the wrong turns and dead ends along the way, and highlights the scientists and researchers who have made key discoveries in the field. Showing how Earth’s atmosphere developed over time, Oxygen takes readers on a remarkable journey through the history of the oxygenation of our planet.

Nature's Compass

Author: James L. Gould
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691140456
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Book Description
Explores how animals are able to navigate around the world with accuracy.

Tragedy in Ovid

Author: Dan Curley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107244528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
Ovid is today best known for his grand epic, Metamorphoses, and elegiac works like the Ars Amatoria and Heroides. Yet he also wrote a Medea, now unfortunately lost. This play kindled in him a lifelong interest in the genre of tragedy, which informed his later poetry and enabled him to continue his career as a tragedian – if only on the page instead of the stage. This book surveys tragic characters, motifs and modalities in the Heroides and the Metamorphoses. In writing love letters, Ovid's heroines and heroes display their suffering in an epistolary theater. In telling transformation stories, Ovid offers an exploded view of the traditional theater, although his characters never stray too far from their dramatic origins. Both works constitute an intratextual network of tragic stories that anticipate the theatrical excesses of Seneca and reflect the all-encompassing spirit of Roman imperium.