Even Odder PerceptionsRoutledge, 27. 3. 2017 - Počet stran: 282 Why did Newton struggle for thirty years to make gold by alchemy – and then become Master of the Mint? Why do we blush? Why do we have illusions? In this collection of essays, originally published in 1994, Richard Gregory once again delights and tantalizes with tales of his childhood, his family and friends, the famous and the infamous, and weaves them into a rich pattern to illuminate scientific principles and puzzles. If you can put the book down, each essay is complete on its own, but they are united by the magic of human perception. From seeing and hearing to feeling and believing, from the shape of traffic signs to knowledge of quantum mechanics, all our interactions with the outside world are mediated by perception. Our knowledge is further distilled by the machines which help our own biological mechanisms, like microscopes and telescopes, electric light, and even more powerfully by computer technology. But if the natural structures of perception can affect our interpretation of the world, how much more dramatically might science education and tools of information technology enhance – though sometimes mislead – our perception of reality? Even Odder Perceptions may not have all the answers, but it certainly poses more questions. |
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... things start or stop that the policeman had lost with the coming of the lights. Looking back on his life on the crossing, the new lights told him he had been an automaton all those years, for now a rotating switch in a box had replaced ...
... things, goes back to the Greeks. The Athenians of the fourth century BC used an automatic device of randomised tickets in slots, the kleroterion (Brumbaugh 1918, p. 66), for selecting juries. Jury service was an onerous duty, involving ...
... things are , there is not this consistency in British road signs , as there are arrows with cancelling cross - lines meaning Don't turn left , or Don't turn right . So why not red arrow traffic lights , meaning Don't go - straight , or ...
... thing Upon a fearful summons . Later , the ghost speaks to Hamlet : Ghost . My hour is almost come , When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself . Hamlet . Alas ! poor ghost ! Ghost . Pity me not , but lend thy ...
... thing, only the time was not ripe; theoretical knowledge was not ready for it.' Oliver Lodge demonstrated wireless telegraphy over a short distance in London at the Royal Institution in 1894. He wrote several early books on wireless ...
Obsah
1 | |
2 | |
IS SCIENCE GOOD FOR THE SOUL? | |
CRACKS OF DOOM AND KUHN | |
AT FIRST SIGHT | |
SENSES OF HUMOUR | |
ZAP | |
VIRTUALLY REAL | |
QUESTIONS OF QUANTA AND QUALIA | |
WHAT ARE PERCEPTIONS MADE | |
A NUMBER OF IDEAS | |
MIND IN A BLACK | |
WHAT IS THE CATCH IN NEURAL NETS? | |
AT FIRST BLUSH | |
SOUND SAGA | |
CONNING CORTEX | |