Science All books
James Lovelock
The Ages of Gaia A Biography of Our Living Earth
The fascinating, controversial and most-worshipped hypothesis of ecologists - that of considering the Earth as the biggest living organism, referred to as Gaïa. It is here discussed by its inventor in person, who shows us that if our planet hasn't always had the same face, it's because there have been several ages corresponding to the predominance of very different species. In three centuries, humanity has wrought more modifications to the face of Gaïa than natural evolution did in millions of years. Although he does not doubt that the Earth, today turned completely upside-down by industrial activities, will find a new equilibrium, he does suppose that it could at the price of the disappearance of man, whose reign represents only one of the ages of Gaïa. Born in 1919, James Lovelock is the author of The Gaïa Hypothesis, a book which shook up the scientific world in the beginning of the seventies and met with great public acclaim.
Ilya Prigogine
The End of Certainties (Coll. Opus)
As we come to the end of the century, the question of the future of science is often posed. I believe we are just at the beginning of a new endeavour. We are witnessing the development of a science which is no longer limited to simplified, idealised situations, but makes us face the complexity of the real world. This new science will allow human creativity to be experienced as the unique expression of a fundamental trait common to all aspects of nature. Ive tried to present this conceptual transformation, which implies the beginning of a new chapter in the fruitful relations between physics and mathematics, in a manner that will be comprehensible and accessible to all readers interested in the evolution of our ideas of nature. We are but at the threshold of a new chapter in the history of our dialogue with nature, writes Ilya Prigogine. Ilya Prigogine, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, teaches at the Free University of Brussels and at the University of Texas, in Austin.
Stanislas Dehaene
A Good Head for Maths
This book on experimental psychology is clear and rigorous, precise and alert - it is instructive and incites us to think...
David Elbaz
Another Way of Looking at the Universe The art of seeing the invisible
An overview of the major issues in astrophysics and cosmology. “Dark” matter and energy are undetectable: either they don’t in fact exist, or we don’t know how to see them... Above and beyond the astrophysical phenomena themselves, this book offers epistemological reflections that are only rarely addressed.
Jean Audouze, Jean-Claude Carrière, Michel Cassé
New Developments in the Invisible World
Jean Audouze is Director of Research Emeritus at CNRS (the National Centre for Scientific Research). Michel Cassé is an astrophysicist, Director of Research at the Atomic Energy Commission and Associate Research Scientist at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics. Screenwriter, playwright and writer Jean-Claude Carrière is the author of best-sellers.