Subwavelength and Nanometer Diameter Optical Fibers providesacomprehensive and up-to-date coverage of research onnanoscaleoptical fibers including the basic physics and engineeringaspects ofthe fabrication, properties and applications. The bookdiscusses opti-cal micro/nanofibers that represent a perfect fusionof optical fibersand nanotechnology on subwavelength scale andcovers a broadrange of topics in modern optical engineering,photonics and nano-technology spanning from fiber optics,near-field optics, nonlinearoptics, atom optics to nanofabricationand microphotonic compo-nents/devices. It is intended forresearchers and graduate students inthe fields of photonics,nanotechnology, optical engineering and ma-terials science.
Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spendtwenty years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos studyingnatural selection. They recognize each individual bird on theisland, when there are four hundred at the time of the author'svisit, or when there are over a thousand. They have observed abouttwenty generations of finches -- continuously. Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin'sfinches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.
A veritable rock star in the book world some five centuriesafter his birth, Leonardo Da Vinci is a man for the ages. Millionsof readers hungrily ponder the mysteries behind his sketch-fillednotebooks, radical inventions, and enigmatic paintings. Thisstunning book, like no other on the market, explores the master’sinsights and synthesizes his relationship with art and science in amagnificently illustrated and informative style. Every pageresonates with Leonardo’s genius, demonstrated by his own art andwritings as well as modern diagrams and workable re-creations ofhis inventions. Physicist and artist Bulent Atalay, author of Math and the MonaLisa, deftly explains Leonardo’s interest in topics ranging fromarchitecture to botany to philosophy. Engaging prose and splendidimages point up the science and mathematics underlying Leonardo’sgenius, showing how attention to proportions, patterns, shapes, andsymmetries informed his art. The story flows chronologically, withquotations revealing the near-magical
Details on a Major New Discovery included in a NewAfterwordWhy do we look the way we do? Neil Shubin, thepaleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discoveredTiktaalik, the “fish with hands,” tells the story of our bodies asyou've never heard it before. By examining fossils and DNA, heshows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads areorganized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of ourgenomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria. YourInner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in anilluminating new light. This is science writing at itsfinest—enlightening, accessible and told with irresistibleenthusiasm.
In his bestselling The Moral Animal, Robert Wright applied theprinciples of evolutionary biology to the study of the human mind.Now Wright attempts something even more ambitious: explaining thedirection of evolution and human history–and discerning wherehistory will lead us next. In Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Wright asserts that, eversince the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern.Organisms and human societies alike have grown more complex bymastering the challenges of internal cooperation. Wright'snarrative ranges from fossilized bacteria to vampire bats, fromstone-age villages to the World Trade Organization, uncovering suchsurprises as the benefits of barbarian hordes and the usefulstability of feudalism. Here is history endowed with moralsignificance–a way of looking at our biological and culturalevolution that suggests, refreshingly, that human morality hasimproved over time, and that our instinct to discover meaning mayitself serve a higher purpose. Insightful, wi
Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm ofthe senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica anda professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kissesand tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planetEarth. "Delightful . . . gives the reader the richest possiblefeeling of the worlds the senses take in."--The New York Times.(Literature--Classics Contemporary)