Eureka!: What Archimedes Really Meant and 80 Other Key Ideas Explained
Translating elusive concepts from philosophy, psychology, science, politics, history, and economics, the author of Brush Up Your Shakespeare! offers down-to-earth explanations for more accessible reading. National ad/promo.
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Have you ever felt the touch of Adam Smith's "invisible hand?" Do you know what a quantum is and where it leaps? Are you fuzzy on the notion of fuzzy logic?You'll cry "Eureka!" as you discover answers here to all of these mysteries and more, though you probably won't run through the streets naked the way Archimedes did. A fascinating tour of some of the most influential and most often cited great ideas, Eureka! is a clear, concise, and enjoyable guide for all of those who are uncertain about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle or have trouble telling Mendel's Laws from Newton's. From Plato's cave and original sin to virtual reality and semiotics, Eureka! examines thousands of years of great thoughts, extracting their essence without sacrificing their profundity. You'll meet great thinkers such as Pythagoras, Pascal, Pavlov, and Parkinson; ponder the origins and fate of the universe; and grasp why Freud and Marx are so important, even if they were ultimately wrong.From the sacred to the profane, the economic to the existential, chaos theory to the global village, Eureka! translates the most significant theories, laws, principles, and paradoxes into powerful, clear, and entertaining stories. Francis Bacon once said, "Knowledge itself is power," and Eureka! provides the power by making knowledge fun.
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