From one of the most significant neuroscientists at worktoday, a pathbreaking investigation of a question that hasconfounded philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists forcenturies: how is consciousness created? Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years studying andwriting about how the brain operates, and his work has garneredacclaim for its singular melding of the scientific and thehumanistic. In Self Comes to Mind, he goes against thelong-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from thebody, presenting compelling new scientific evidence thatconsciousness—what we think of as a mind with a self—is to beginwith a biological process created by a living organism. Besides thethree traditional perspectives used to study the mind (theintrospective, the behavioral, and the neurological), Damasiointroduces an evolutionary perspective that entails a radicalchange in the way the history of conscious minds is viewed andtold. He also advances a radical hypothesis regarding the o
The object of this book is to present a complete, systematic andthorough exposition of the neoclassical theory of production anddistribution. Despite this basic objective, each chapter presentsextensions of neoclassical theory and interpretations ofestablished relations. The book has two distinct parts. In Part Ithe microeconomic theories of production, cost and derived inputdemand are explored in depth for both fixed-proportions andvariable-proportions production functions. Special emphasis isplaced upon the characteristics and implications of productionfunctions homogeneous of degree one. Part II is devoted chiefly tothe neoclassical theory of aggregate relative factor shares, theelasticity of substitution, and technological progress.
An unparalleled history of astronomy presented in the words ofthe scientists who made the discoveries. Here are the writings ofCopernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Halley, Hubble, and Einstein,as well as that of dozens of others who have significantlycontributed to our picture of the universe. From Aristotle's proof that the Earth is round to the 1998 paperthat posited an accelerating universe, this book contains 100entries spanning the history of astronomy. Award-winning sciencewriter Marcia Bartusiak provides enormously entertainingintroductions, putting the material in context and explaining itsplace in the literature. Archives of the Universe is essentialreading for professional astronomers, science history buffs, andbackyard stargazers alike.
