Subjects

The book tells the fascinating story of the great mathematical ideas, developed over the centuries, that form the foundation of modern artificial intelligence.

The author aims to answer a crucial question: how–and above all, why–does the heart of AI work? How do these powerful mathematical ideas interact with each other to give rise to machines capable of learning, predicting, and thinking?

Through a narrative that alternates between history and mathematics, Alessandrini reveals how great minds of the past, such as Cardano, Descartes, Newton, Bayes, Grassmann, and Levi-Civita, laid the theoretical foundations of modern AI.

The fundamental concepts of astrophysics are presented in a curious and captivating way, written in the intriguing style of a skilled science communicator.

It starts from the Big Bang, then moves on to the structure of matter, dark energy, spacetime, and complexity, finally arriving at future scenarios such as the possible Big Crunch or Big Rip, and the idea of a cyclic universe.

Each chapter is dedicated to one of the words at the heart of understanding stars and the cosmos, so that by the end, the reader will have the keys to the sky–at least in terms of knowledge.

A concise volume that explores the history of chemistry and particles (Li-Be-Re and Ge-Ni-Al-I, from the combination of the symbols of certain chemical elements) in an original way and addresses some of the most curious aspects of this discipline, from the discovery of matter starting with fire in prehistoric times up to the radioactivity of the last century.

The book, divided into ten sections presented in chronological order, guides readers through the discovery of chemical elements via some more or less well-known scientific personalities who, with tenacity and passion–and sometimes by chance–managed to make significant contributions not only to the history of chemistry but also to culture in general.

The result is a picture that highlights the importance of collective work, both among contemporary scientists and those who lived in very different eras, in a synergy capable of transcending space and time. In particular, the book brings to light several important female scientists whose fame remained for a long time overshadowed by that of their spouses.

Questions about the Earth and the sky, the stars and the Universe, seemingly trivial, but the answer is not at all.

We all had a head full of questions and curiosity as children. As we grow up, many are answered, but some are simply forgotten. For example, how many really know why the sky is blue during the day and black at night? Or why the Earth spins, or why it is colder in the mountains than by the sea?

Each question is a pretext to make us reflect on what we have always taken for granted but which is not, to look at everyday phenomena with a different, more attentive and aware eye. The answers are designed for an adult audience that has retained the curiosity of children and wants to satisfy it in a serious and mature way.

The book is structured in a series of self-contained chapters, progressively zooming out from the more human and terrestrial questions to the larger ones about the Universe and the highest systems of reality.

A scientific and ethical approach to the preservation of some completely virgin patches of nature, to safeguard the future of humankind.

The book addresses the problem of the extinction of wildlife and plants by proposing solutions to mitigate the collapse in Anthropocene. For example, a deal to ensure the natural processes that guarantee the survival of biodiversity on just a small fraction (10%) of our planet.

From Linnaeus to Alexander von Humboldt and Darwin, the history of nature and of evolution is described, also passing through the disappearance of species or the replacement of some species with others, in a constant adaptation process to keep life on Earth.

The author ranges from the geometry of soccer balls to the combinatorics of tournament calendars, going through the physics of goal shots, the mathematics of sports betting, and the theory of games in penalty kicks.

The book is structured along the lines of a soccer match, with a pre-match stage, a first half, half-time, a second half, extra time, penalty kicks and the after match. That’s not all, since a lot of mathematics is embedded in the game of soccer: numbers, statistics and technology are now rapidly acquiring an important role on the pitches, as evidenced by the increasing significance of systems such as VAR or match analysis.

Every chapter starts with a soccer anecdote, which paves the way to questions where mathematics plays the main role.

This is a guide to the exploration of the heavens and to the discoveries made thanks to powerful new telescopes, which have revealed a universe very different from the one we were used to.

For thousands of years, astronomy relied on the human eye to observe the sky. But the stars do not just emit visible light: they also produce and radiate other types of light, from radio waves to gamma rays.

Here, the author shows us a much more energetic, violent, variable and unpredictable cosmos, where neutron stars pack more mass than the Sun into a 10-km-radius sphere. He explains how infrared rays can be used to observe the birth of a star and the formation of a planet.

This is a book to learn more about waste, ultra-safe reactors and attempts at energy efficiency, up to the search for Helium-3 on the Moon.

After decades of testing, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was able to produce more energy than the amount used to trigger the reaction, giving concrete evidence of a breakthrough in energy production.

This book explains all the background to the discovery and its effects. Above all, it calls for transparency in the communication of a chequered news story. After showing how energy is produced by fusing deuterium and tritium nuclei, the author explains the myth of the Q-factor and presents the results of other ongoing experiments around the world.

These adventure-packed, stunning and sometimes even dramatic stories show us how astounding and underrated the abilities, intelligence and social skills of so many animals we share our earthly existence with are.

Paul the octopus predicted the outcome of football World Cup matches; Hachikō the dog was the symbol of loyalty to his master; Jumbo the elephant was the undisputed star of the Barnum Circus; Keiko the orca became an international celebrity after starring in the family film Free Willy.

These and many other stories in Lucifredi’s book remind us that animals have often been veritable stars in human history, society and entertainment, helping us to better understand them and boosting our respect for them.

This is the fascinating story of ten instruments that changed medicine and our lives forever.

How did Sherlock Holmes single out a doctor in the crowd? What links an eclectic French professor armed with a strange rifle without bullets, running horses and the measurement of blood pressure? What is the relationship between a Pink Floyd album and the development of the pulse oximeter, or between the Beatles and the invention of the CT scan? How do smart watches directly perform an electrocardiogram from the wearer’s wrist?

Page after page of historical anecdotes, scientific curiosities, outstanding discoveries and bizarre experiments, we discover the extraordinary journey behind every medical instrument. Art, science and culture merged in the lives of creative and tenacious women and men who revolutionised their ages and laid the foundations of modern medicine.