An advanced, practical approach to the first and second laws of thermodynamicsAdvanced Engineering Thermodynamics bridges the gap between engineering applications and the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Going beyond the basic coverage offered by most textbooks, this authoritative treatment delves into the advanced topics of energy and work as they relate to various engineering fields. This practical approach describes real-world applications of thermodynamics concepts, including solar energy, refrigeration, air conditioning, thermofluid design, chemical design, constructal design, and more. This new fourth edition has been updated and expanded to include current developments in energy storage, distributed energy systems, entropy minimization, and industrial applications, linking new technologies in sustainability to fundamental thermodynamics concepts. Worked problems have been added to help students follow the thought processes behind various applications, and additional homework problems give them the opportunity to gauge their knowledge. The growing demand for sustainability and energy efficiency has shined a spotlight on the real-world applications of thermodynamics. This book helps future engineers make the fundamental connections, and develop a clear understanding of this complex subject. Delve deeper into the engineering applications of thermodynamicsWork problems directly applicable to engineering fieldsIntegrate thermodynamics concepts into sustainability design and policyUnderstand the thermodynamics of emerging energy technologiesCondensed introductory chapters allow students to quickly review the fundamentals before diving right into practical applications. Designed expressly for engineering students, this book offers a clear, targeted treatment of thermodynamics topics with detailed discussion and authoritative guidance toward even the most complex concepts. Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics is the definitive modern treatment of energy and work for today's newest engineers. Read more

Does matter feel?Do flowers enjoy blooming?Do springs dislike being stretched? Modern science denies that matter feels anything at all, let alone pleasure or pain.But modern science is yet to explain how anything can feel—even us.In What Matter Feels, Robert Pepperell PhD—a UK-based professor of interdisciplinary research—presents an innovative scientific framework that explores how consciousness might emerge from material systems.By rethinking foundational principles of physics, Pepperell proposes that psychological properties of matter can be measured with the same accuracy as its physical properties like mass and energy.The tools and methods offered in this treatise introduce a groundbreaking way of predicting and testing the psychological behaviour of both living and non-living systems, opening a new frontier in scientific inquiry.In this book, you will discover:An innovative scientific framework that explores how consciousness might emerge from material systems,Tools and methods to predict and test the psychological behaviour of both living and non-living systems,A new scientific explanation for the relation between brain activity and mental states,Profound insights into the evolutionary forces that shape living organisms,An exploration of how science can explain minds.At the heart of the book is a provocative idea: experience is a fundamental property of nature, deeply tied to the flow of energy within material systems.Building on this hypothesis, Pepperell proposes a scientific model that may not only explain the correlation between neural activity and mental states but also their causal relationship. His approach offers testable predictions about, for example, how pleasure and pain are encoded in the brain and sheds light on the evolutionary forces that shape living organisms.What Matter Feels invites you, the reader, to engage with a living scientific document, one that encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and experimental exploration.Explore how science can explain minds and challenge your way of thinking! Read more

Statistical Rethinking: A Bayesian Course with Examples in R and Stan builds your knowledge of and confidence in making inferences from data. Reflecting the need for scripting in today's model-based statistics, the book pushes you to perform step-by-step calculations that are usually automated. This unique computational approach ensures that you understand enough of the details to make reasonable choices and interpretations in your own modeling work.The text presents causal inference and generalized linear multilevel models from a simple Bayesian perspective that builds on information theory and maximum entropy. The core material ranges from the basics of regression to advanced multilevel models. It also presents measurement error, missing data, and Gaussian process models for spatial and phylogenetic confounding.The second edition emphasizes the directed acyclic graph (DAG) approach to causal inference, integrating DAGs into many examples. The new edition also contains new material on the design of prior distributions, splines, ordered categorical predictors, social relations models, cross-validation, importance sampling, instrumental variables, and Hamiltonian Monte Carlo. It ends with an entirely new chapter that goes beyond generalized linear modeling, showing how domain-specific scientific models can be built into statistical analyses.FeaturesIntegrates working code into the main textIllustrates concepts through worked data analysis examplesEmphasizes understanding assumptions and how assumptions are reflected in codeOffers more detailed explanations of the mathematics in optional sectionsPresents examples of using the dagitty R package to analyze causal graphsProvides the rethinking R package on the author's website and on GitHub. Read more

A biologist’s firsthand account of the hunt for life beneath earth’s surface—and how new discoveries are challenging our most basic assumptions about the nature of life on EarthLife thrives in the deepest, darkest recesses of Earth’s crust—from methane seeps in the ocean floor to the highest reaches of Arctic permafrost—and it is unlike anything seen on the surface. Intraterrestrials shares what scientists are learning about these strange types of microbial life—and how research expeditions to some of the most extreme locales on the planet are broadening our understanding of what life is and how its earliest forms may have evolved.Drawing on her experiences and those of her fellow scientists working in challenging and often dangerous conditions, Karen Lloyd takes readers on an adventure from the bottom of the ocean through the jungles of Central America to the high-altitude volcanoes of the Andes. Only discovered in recent decades, “intraterrestrials”—subsurface beings that are truly alien—are demonstrating how life can exist in boiling water, pure acid, and bleach. They enable us to peer back to the very dawn of life on Earth, disclosing deep branches on the tree of life that push the limits of what we thought possible. Some can “breathe” rocks or even electrons. Others may live for hundreds of thousands of years or longer. All of them are living in ways that are totally foreign to us surface dwellers.Blending captivating storytelling with the latest science, Intraterrestrials reveals what microbes in Earth’s deep subsurface biosphere can tell us about the prospects for finding life on other planets—and the future of life on our own. Read more

J. S. Dewes is back with her acclaimed and action packed Divide series (The Last Watch, The Exiled Fleet) where The Expanse meets the Night's Watch.The Sentinels have rallied under the leadership of Adequin Rake, and Cavalon Mercer has uncovered the horrifying genetic solution his grandfather is about to unleash on the unsuspecting outer colonies.Both Rake and Cavalon race against time to save the universe once again. They'll need every resource, every ally who might answer the call.It might not be enough.The Divide SeriesThe Last WatchThe Exiled FleetThe Relentless Legion Read more

A unified introduction to information theory for scientistsApplications of information theory span a broad range of disciplines today. This book presents a unified treatment of the subject for students and practitioners in the sciences. It teaches the tools universally used by physicists working on quantum computers and black holes, engineers designing self-driving cars, traders perfecting market strategies, chemists playing with molecules, biologists studying cells and living beings, linguists analyzing languages, and neuroscientists figuring out how the brain works. No matter what area of science you specialize in, The Physical Nature of Information unlocks the power of information theory to test the limits imposed by uncertainty.Provides a panoramic approach to information theoryDraws on examples from physics, engineering, biology, economics, and linguisticsApplications range from thermodynamics and statistical mechanics to dynamical chaos, information and communication theories, and quantum informationIncludes materials for lectures and tutorials along with exercises with detailed solutionsCan be used to design a one-semester introductory courseIdeal for self-study by graduate students and advanced undergraduatesInvaluable for scholars seeking new research opportunities Read more

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Linear Circuit Transfer Functions: An introduction to Fast Analytical Techniques teaches readers how to determine transfer functions of linear passive and active circuits by applying Fast Analytical Circuits Techniques. Building on their existing knowledge of classical loop/nodal analysis, the book improves and expands their skills to unveil transfer functions in a swift and efficient manner.Starting with simple examples, the author explains step-by-step how expressing circuits time constants in different configurations leads to writing transfer functions in a compact and insightful way. By learning how to organize numerators and denominators in the fastest possible way, readers will speed-up analysis and predict the frequency response of simple to complex circuits. In some cases, they will be able to derive the final expression by inspection, without writing a line of algebra.Key features:Emphasizes analysis through employing time constant-based methods discussed in other text books but not widely used or explained.Develops current techniques on transfer functions, to fast analytical techniques leading to low-entropy transfer functions immediately exploitable for analysis purposes.Covers calculation techniques pertinent to different fields, electrical, electronics, signal processing etc.Describes how a technique is applied and demonstrates this through real design examples.All Mathcad® files used in examples and problems are freely available for download.An ideal reference for electronics or electrical engineering professionals as well as BSEE and MSEE students, this book will help teach them how to: become skilled in the art of determining transfer function by using less algebra and obtaining results in a more effectual way; gain insight into a circuit’s operation by understanding how time constants rule dynamic responses; apply Fast Analytical Techniques to simple and complicated circuits, passive or active and be more efficient at solving problems. Read more

The study of thermodynamics is especially timely today, as its concepts are being applied to problems in biology, biochemistry, electrochemistry, and engineering. This book treats irreversible processes and phenomena — non-equilibrium thermodynamics.S. R. de Groot and P. Mazur, Professors of Theoretical Physics, present a comprehensive and insightful survey of the foundations of the field, providing the only complete discussion of the fluctuating linear theory of irreversible thermodynamics. The application covers a wide range of topics: the theory of diffusion and heat conduction, fluid dynamics, relaxation phenomena, acoustical relaxation, and the behavior of systems in an electromagnetic field.The statistical foundations of non-equilibrium thermodynamics are treated in detail, and there are special sections on fluctuation theory, the theory of stochastic processes, the kinetic theory of gases, and the derivation of the Onsager reciprocal relations. The implications of causality conditions and of dispersion relations are analyzed in depth.Advanced students will find a great number of challenging problems, with hints for their solutions. Chemists will be especially interested in the applications to electrochemistry and the theory of chemical reactions. Physicists, teachers, scholars, biologists, and anyone interested in the principle and modern applications of non-equilibrium thermodynamics will find this classic monograph an invaluable reference. Read more

In diesem Buch wird ausgehend vom Shannonschen Entropiebegriff ein objektiver, dynamischer und physikalisch begründeter Informationsbegriff erarbeitet und auf die Informationstechnik und Thermodynamik angewandt. Die Begründung eines Informationserhaltungssatzes wird praktische Bedeutung in der Informationstechnik erhalten, insbesondere wenn sie in den Bereich der Quanten (Photonik/ Quantencomputing) arbeitet. Die unbedingte Dynamik von Information und die Objektivität der Information wird ebenfalls vertieft und behandelt. Read more

J. S. Dewes continues her fast paced, science fiction action adventure series, the Divide, with The Exiled Fleet, where The Expanse meets The Black Company―the survivors of The Last Watch refuse to die.The Sentinels narrowly escaped the collapsing edge of the Divide.They have mustered a few other surviving Sentinels, but with no engines they have no way to leave the edge of the universe before they starve.Adequin Rake has gathered a team to find the materials they'll need to get everyone out.To do that they're going to need new allies and evade a ruthless enemy. Some of them will not survive.The Divide seriesThe Last WatchThe Exiled Fleet Read more

Explores how the Universe, our planet, ourselves, and everything in existence has inherent meaning and evolutionary purpose• 2023 Nautilus Gold Award• Examines our emergence as self-aware members of a Universe that is itself a unified and innately sentient entity that exists TO evolve• Shares leading-edge scientific breakthroughs and shows how they support traditional visions of Earth as a living being--Gaia• Rewrites evolution as not driven by random occurrences and mutations but by intelligently informed and meaningful information flows and processesExploring our emergence as self-aware members of a planetary home and entire Universe that is a unified and innately sentient entity, Jude Currivan, Ph.D., shows that mind and consciousness are not what we possess but what we and the whole world fundamentally are. She reveals our Universe as “a great thought of cosmic mind,” manifesting as a cosmic hologram of meaningful in-formation that, vitally, exists to evolve. Sharing scientific breakthroughs, the author details the 13.8 billion-year story of our Universe and Gaia, where everything in existence has inherent meaning and evolutionary purpose. Showing how the Universe was born, not in an implicitly chaotic big bang, but as the first moment of a fine-tuned and ongoing “big breath,” she shares the latest evidence for the innate sentience that has guided our universal journey from simplicity to ever-greater complexity, diversity, and self-awareness--from protons to planets, plants, and people. She explains how evolution is not driven by random occurrences and mutations but by profoundly resonant and harmonic interplays of forces and influences, each intelligently informed and guided.In Gaia, the Universe’s evolutionary impulse is embodied in collaborative relationships and dynamic co-evolutionary partnerships on a planetary scale and as a wholistic gaiasphere. She reveals how the conscious evolution of humanity is an integral part of Gaia’s own evolutionary progress and purpose. By perceiving and experiencing our planet as a sentient being and ourselves as Gaians, we open ourselves to a deeply ecological, evolutionary, and, above all, hopeful worldview. Read more

The objective of this monograph is to present some methodological foundations of theoretical mechanics that are recommendable to graduate students prior to, or jointly with, the study of more advanced topics such as statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, and elementary particle physics. A program of this nature is inevitably centered on the methodological foundations for Newtonian systems, with particular reference to the central equations of our theories, that is, Lagrange's and Hamilton's equations. This program, realized through a study of the analytic representations in terms of Lagrange's and Hamilton's equations of generally nonconservative Newtonian systems (namely, systems with Newtonian forces not necessarily derivable from a potential function), falls within the context of the so-called Inverse Problem, and consists of three major aspects: l. The study of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a Lagrangian or Hamiltonian representation of given equations of motion with arbitrary forces; 2. The identification of the methods for the construction of a Lagrangian or Hamiltonian from given equations of motion verifying conditions 1; and 3 The analysis of the significance of the underlying methodology for other aspects of Newtonian Mechanics, e. g. , transformation theory, symmetries, and first integrals for nonconservative Newtonian systems. This first volume is devoted to the foundations of the Inverse Problem, with particular reference to aspects I and 2. Read more

The Silent Song of the Cosmos“There is geometry in the humming of the strings; there is music in the spacing of the spheres.”— PythagorasClose your eyes. Listen. Beneath the rustle of leaves, the crash of waves, and the hum of city life, there is a deeper rhythm—a silent, universal song. It pulses in the orbits of planets, the spin of electrons, and the beat of your heart. This song is resonance, the invisible force that weaves order into chaos, harmony into noise, and meaning into the cosmos. From the vibrations of subatomic particles to the gravitational waltz of galaxies, resonance is the thread stitching reality into a coherent tapestry.Imagine a child on a swing, soaring higher with each perfectly timed push. This simple joy is resonance in action—a system amplifying energy when nudged at its natural frequency. Now zoom out: Jupiter’s moons Io, Europa, and Ganymede dance in a gravitational waltz, their orbits locked in a 4:2:1 rhythm. Europa’s icy crust cracks under the strain, spewing plumes of water into space—a hidden ocean, kept liquid by resonant friction.Zoom in further: Inside every atom, electrons exist not as particles but as standing waves, vibrating at precise frequencies. Erwin Schrödinger’s equations revealed this quantum ballet, where resonance dictates why matter doesn’t collapse into chaos. Even DNA, life’s blueprint, hums at terahertz frequencies, guiding how genes fold and heal.Resonance is everywhere. It’s the reason bridges sway in windstorms, wineglasses shatter at high notes, and your Wi-Fi connects seamlessly. It’s the universe’s way of saying, “Listen closely. There’s music here.” Long before microscopes or telescopes, humanity sensed this harmony. Pythagoras heard it in the clang of hammers and pluck of lyre strings, envisioning celestial bodies moving to a “music of the spheres.” Johannes Kepler, centuries later, proved him half-right—planets do orbit in harmonic ratios, their elliptical paths obeying geometric laws.Today, we’ve traded lyres for lasers. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captures newborn planets locked in resonant chains, while quantum computers like IBM’s Osprey manipulate qubits vibrating at microwave frequencies. In 2023, scientists at MIT used resonance to repair DNA with terahertz lasers, and the LIGO observatory detected spacetime’s “ringing” from colliding black holes—a gravitational symphony 1.3 billion years in the making.Yet mysteries linger. Why do galaxies cluster in resonant webs? Could spacetime itself vibrate at the tiniest scales? And what if consciousness—the flicker of thought—arises from neural rhythms we’ve yet to decode?Resonance is more than physics—it’s a lens, a language, a call to wonder. It asks us to see the universe not as a collection of isolated phenomena but as a grand, interconnected symphony. A symphony where black holes crash in silent crescendos, DNA hums healing tones, and the human mind, in moments of clarity, harmonizes with the cosmos.This book is an invitation—to step beyond the seen and tune into the universe’s whispers. To wander Māori forests where sacred flutes mimic bird calls to heal ecosystems, and step into labs where AI composes music from quantum noise. To meet pioneers like Marie Curie, who urged us to “fear nothing but standing still,” and Indigenous elders who’ve long known that land and spirit vibrate as one.“The universe is not a collection of objects, but a communion of subjects, resonating in a dance of mutual becoming.”— Thomas BerryThe cosmos is singing. Will you listen?The dance begins now. Read more

This book is about the definition of the Shannon measure of Information, and some derived quantities such as conditional information and mutual information. Unlike many books, which refer to the Shannon's Measure of information (SMI) as "Entropy," this book makes a clear distinction between the SMI and Entropy. In the last chapter, Entropy is derived as a special case of SMI. Ample examples are provided which help the reader in understanding the different concepts discussed in this book. As with previous books by the author, this book aims at a clear and mystery-free presentation of the central concept in Information theory - the Shannon's Measure of Information. This book presents the fundamental concepts of Information theory in a friendly-simple language and is devoid of all kinds of fancy and pompous statements made by authors of popular science books who write on this subject. It is unique in its presentation of Shannon's measure of information, and the clear distinction between this concept and the thermodynamic entropy. Although some mathematical knowledge is required by the reader, the emphasis is on the concepts and their meaning rather on the mathematical details of the theory. Read more

Designed for both undergraduate and graduate students, this authoritative milestone in the foundational development of thermodynamics provides a unique reference for all physicists and engineers. Basic concepts and applications are discussed in complete detail with attention to generality and logical consistency, removing ambiguities and limitations of traditional presentations. Worked-out examples and end-of-chapter problems illustrate the use of energy and entropy balances as powerful analytical keystones in physics and engineering.The text provides material for undergraduate and graduate courses. At the introductory level, it covers heat engines, stable-equilibrium-state models for ideal-gas, incompressible-fluid and solid behaviors, heat, work and bulk-flow interactions, thermodynamic efficiency, energy conversion systems, energy, and availability/ At the intermediate level, it covers ideal and nonideal mixtures, chemical reactions, chemical equilibrium, and combustion.At the advanced level, the unique non-traditional order of exposition of the basic concepts and principles (system, property, state, process, first law, energy, equilibrium, stable equilibrium, second law, entropy) allows rigorous general definitions of energy and entropy valid for all systems (large and small, few- and many- particles) and all states (stable and non-stable equilibrium, as well as non-equilibrium). In particular, entropy is defined before and independently of the definitions of temperature and heat, and of the simple-system model for many-particle systems. Read more

Amazon #1 Best Seller"It's very useful to have a unified overview of what we know, collected and recounted in one place. The Cosmic Machine​ will introduce you to the basic principles by which today's physicists organize the world." -Sean Carroll, author of The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself "A superb resource for science fans or those struggling to understand the subject; an impressive fit in an age of Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson web videos." -Kirkus Reviews​ "The Cosmic Machine​ succeeds on all accounts." -Midwest Book ReviewEnergy, Entropy, Atoms, and Quantum Mechanics form the very foundation of our universe. But how do they govern the world we live in? What was the difficult path to their discovery? Who were the key players that struggled to shape our current understanding?The Cosmic Machine​ takes you from the earliest scientific inquiries in human history on an exciting journey in search of the answers to these questions. In telling this fascinating story of science, the reader is masterfully guided through the wonderment of how scientific discoveries (and the key players of those discoveries) shaped the world as we know it today. With its unique blend of science, history, and biographies, The Cosmic Machine​ provides an easily accessible account without sacrificing the actual science itself. Not only will this book engage, enlighten, and entertain you, it will inspire your passion and curiosity for the world around us. Read more

The Euclidean approach to Quantum Gravity was initiated almost 15 years ago in an attempt to understand the difficulties raised by the spacetime singularities of classical general relativity which arise in the gravitational collapse of stars to form black holes and the entire universe in the Big Bang. An important motivation was to develop an approach capable of dealing with the nonlinear, non-perturbative aspects of quantum gravity due to topologically non-trivial spacetimes. There are important links with a Riemannian geometry. Since its inception the theory has been applied to a number of important physical problems including the thermodynamic properties of black holes, quantum cosmology and the problem of the cosmological constant. It is currently at the centre of a great deal of interest.This is a collection of survey lectures and reprints of some important lectures on the Euclidean approach to quantum gravity in which one expresses the Feynman path integral as a sum over Riemannian metrics. As well as papers on the basic formalism there are sections on Black Holes, Quantum Cosmology, Wormholes and Gravitational Instantons. Read more

Entropy is a concept which appears in several fields and it is in the center of interest both in mathematical and physical subjects, sometimes even at other places, for example in communication engineering. The birthplace of quantum entropy was in quantum statistical mechanics. Quantum entropy is not a single concept but rather a family of notions which started with the von Neumann entropy of a density matrix and has developed in a number of directions. The heritage of quantum entropies from quantum mechanics is their strong relation to Hilbert space. This book begins with the entropy of a state and through the entropy of coarse graining it proceeds to the quantum dynamical entropy. A bunch of topics shows the direct physical relevance of the entropy methods. The math­ ematical formalism is based on operator theory and mostly the language of operator algebras is used. The use of the concepts and methods of functional analysis not only makes the theory of quantum entropy more uniform and lu­ cid, but it essentially simplifies and extends it. A comprehensive presentation without these elements would not be possible. Read more