Frank Moss – författare

If you''ve ever read a book on an e-reader, unleashed your inner rock star playing Guitar Hero, built a robot with LEGO Mindstorms, or ridden in a vehicle with child-safe air bags, then you''ve experienced first hand just a few of the astounding innovations that have come out of the Media Lab over the past 25 years. But that’s old hat for today’s researchers, who are creating technologies that will have a much deeper impact on the quality of people’s lives over the next quarter century.   In this exhilarating tour of the Media Lab''s inner sanctums, we''ll meet the professors and their students - the Sorcerers and their Apprentices - and witness first hand the creative magic behind inventions such as:  * Nexi, a mobile humanoid robot with such sophisticated social skills she can serve as a helpful and understanding companion for the sick and elderly. * CityCar, a foldable, stackable, electric vehicle of the future that will redefine personal transportation in cities and revolutionize urban life. * Sixth Sense, a compact wearable device that transforms any surface – wall, tabletop or even your hand - into a touch screen computer.* PowerFoot, a lifelike robotic prosthesis that enables amputees to walk as naturally as if it were a real biological limb.  Through inspiring stories of people who are using Media Lab innovations to confront personal challenges - like a man with cerebral palsy who is unable to hum a tune or pick up an instrument yet is using an ingenious music composition system to unleash his “inner Mozart”, and a woman with a rare life-threatening condition who co-invented a revolutionary web service that enables patients to participate in the search for their own cures - we’ll see how the Media Lab is empowering us all with the tools to take control of our health, wealth, and happiness.   Along the way, Moss reveals the highly unorthodox approach to creativity and invention that makes all this possible, explaining how the Media Lab cultivates an open and boundary-less environment where researchers from a broad array of disciplines – from musicians to neuroscientists to visual artists to computer engineers - have the freedom to follow their passions and take bold risks unthinkable elsewhere.  The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices can serve as a blueprint for how to fix our broken innovation ecosystem and bring about the kind of radical change required to meet the challenges of the 21st century.  It is a must-read for anyone striving to be more innovative as an individual, as a businessperson, or as a member of society. Also includes 16 pages of color photos highlighting some of the lab''s most visually stunning inventions - and the people who make them possible.  From the Hardcover edition.

Nature is inherently noisy and nonlinear. It is noisy in the sense that all macroscopic systems are subject to the fluctuations of their environments and also to internal fluctuations. It is nonlinear in the sense that the restoring force on a system displaced from equilibrium does not usually vary linearly with the size of the displacement. To calculate the properties of stochastic (noisy) nonlinear systems is in general extremely difficult, although considerable progress has been made in the past. The three volumes that make up Noise in Nonlinear Dynamical Systems comprise a collection of specially written authoritative reviews on all aspects of the subject, representative of all the major practitioners in the field. The first volume deals with the basic theory of stochastic nonlinear systems. It includes an historical overview of the origins of the field, chapters covering some developed theoretical techniques for the study of coloured noise, and the first English-language translation of the landmark 1933 paper by Pontriagin, Andronov and Vitt.

Nature is inherently noisy and nonlinear. It is noisy in the sense that all macroscopic systems are subject to the fluctuations of their environments and also to internal fluctuations. It is nonlinear in the sense that the restoring force on a system displaced from equilibrium does not usually vary linearly with the size of the displacement. To calculate the properties of stochastic (noisy) nonlinear systems is in general extremely difficult, although considerable progress has been made in the past. The three volumes that make up Noise in Nonlinear Dynamical Systems comprise a collection of specially written authoritative reviews on all aspects of the subject, representative of all the major practitioners in the field. The second volume applies the theory of Volume 1 to the calculation of the influence of noise in a variety of contexts. These include quantum mechanics, condensed matter, noise induced transitions, escape processes and transition probabilities, systems with periodic potentials, discrete nonlinear systems, symmetry-breaking transition, and optics.

Nature is inherently noisy and nonlinear. It is noisy in the sense that all macroscopic systems are subject to the fluctuations of their environments and also to internal fluctuations. It is nonlinear in the sense that the restoring force on a system displaced from equilibrium does not usually vary linearly with the size of the displacement. To calculate the properties of stochastic (noisy) nonlinear systems is in general extremely difficult, although considerable progress has been made in the past. The three volumes that make up Noise in Nonlinear Dynamical Systems comprise a collection of specially written authoritative reviews on all aspects of the subject, representative of all the major practitioners in the field. The third volume deals with experimental aspects of the study of noise in nonlinear dynamical systems. It covers noise-driven phenomena in superfluid helium, liquid crystals, lasers and optical bistability as well as the solution of stochastic equations by digital simulation and analogue experiment.

The author aptly characterizes this work as a "series of itineraries" by which the reader is made familiar with much of the history of Manhattan Island by being led to the very spots associated with important historical events. But this book is much more. It is surprising and refreshing to read a defense of the Five Points from the pen of so intelligent a witness. We who are deeply interested in New York history thank the author for the facts which he has collected. There is a unique arrangement of the interesting, instructive, and inspiring matter which makes it a literary work of a high order. And: the book has a distinct purpose - the interesting of the people in the history and historic localities of the city and the awakening in them of civic pride and affection.