Paul Needham – författare

The combination of the woodcut - a print method devised early in the fifteenth century - with Johannes Gutenberg's revolutionary invention of printing with moveable type resulted in a powerful explosion of information and ideas. For the first time, it was possible to use a mechanised system to print identical copies of books containing both text and images. Featured in A Heavenly Craft are the earliest surviving examples of these books from throughout Western Europe, all printed within the first century after Gutenberg's invention.The contributors bring these rare books to life, exploring the evolution of the technique, composition and colouration of the woodcut beginning with the earliest publications.Many of the woodcut designs grew out of the tradition of manuscript illumination, in which book illustrations were painstakingly executed by hand. The authors also present the distinguishing features of national style and taste, treating the reader to examples from Germany, Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands.In addition, A Heavenly Craft describes the provenance of these volumes, providing an account of how Lessing J. Rosenwald purchased them from the heir to the Lea and Perrins fortune and later donated them to the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.These early printed volumes are the predecessors of today's illustrated books. A Heavenly Craft celebrates these origins, making these early publications available to bibliophiles and print lovers.

One of the most basic problems in the philosophy of science involves determining the extent to which nature is governed by laws. This volume presents a wide-ranging overview of the contemporary debate and includes some of its foremost participants. It begins with an extensive introduction describing the historical, logical and philosophical background of the problems dealt with in the essays. Among the topics treated in the essays is the relationship between laws of nature and causal laws as well as the role of ceteris paribus clauses in scientific explanations. Traditionally, the problem of the unity of science was intimately connected to the problem of understanding the unity of nature. This fourth volume of Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science tackles these problems as part of our consideration of the most fundamental aspects of scientific understanding.

Couplings and Shaft Alignment provides positive practical guidance to engineers dealing with shaft couplings for the transmission of power, and concerned with the related problem of shaft alignment. First published in 1991, this useful text has been revised and reprinted in a more readable, updated format.COMPLETE CONTENTS: An approach to coupling selectionPreliminary choiceGear couplingsMultiple membrane couplingsContoured disc couplingsElastomeric element couplingsQuill shaft couplingsAlignmentEffect on machine train dynamicsHub mountingAccessoriesNomenclatureCoupling data sheetBibliographyThe book offers a systematic approach to the selection and specification of shaft couplings, and a rational approach to shaft alignment, which can assist in achieving the desired levels of reliability in process plant. It can be wholeheartedly recommended to all practising engineers involved in the design, specification, selection, operation, and maintenance of machine systems involving flexible shaft couplings.

This undergraduate textbook introduces some fundamental issues in philosophy of science for students of philosophy and science students.

This undergraduate textbook introduces some fundamental issues in philosophy of science for students of philosophy and science students.

This second edition of Macroscopic Metaphysics develops a theory of the modal features of quantities of matter based on their states and possible processes transforming these states and is extended to accommodate modalities introduced in an earlier chapter dealing with individuals. The theory of spatial regions is amplified with the introduction of notions of size and shape in terms of congruence relations based on greater than relations between regions and angles. A major theme of the first edition of the book was the primacy of processes and continuants with the latter divided into quantities of matter and individuals, and biological organisms were the prime exemplars of the latter. A recent challenge to this view posed by processual biology, which would reduce biological organisms to processes, is met by marshalling the underlying metaphysics of chemical processes developed in earlier chapters in an extended critique. The addition of the new material strengthens the original project of bringing together traditional metaphysical issues concerning the nature of matter and the philosophy of science, and chemistry in particular.

This book is about our ordinary concept of matter in the form of enduring continuants and the processes in which they are involved in the macroscopic realm. It emphasises what science rather than philosophical intuition tells us about the world, and chemistry rather than the physics that is more usually encountered in philosophical discussions. The central chapters dealing with the nature of matter pursue key steps in the historical development of scientific conceptions of chemical substance.Like many contemporary discussions of material objects, it relies heavily on mereology. The classical principles are applied to the mereological structure of regions of space, intervals of time, processes and quantities of matter. Quantities of matter, which don’t gain or lose parts over time, are distinguished from individuals, which are typically constituted of different quantities of matter at different times. The proper treatment of the temporal aspect of the features of material objects is a central issue in this book, which is addressed by investigating the conditions governing the application of predicates relating time and other entities. Of particular interest here are relations between quantities of matter and times expressing substance kind, phase and mixture. Modal aspects of these features are taken up in the final chapter.

This book is about our ordinary concept of matter in the form of enduring continuants and the processes in which they are involved in the macroscopic realm. Quantities of matter, which don’t gain or lose parts over time, are distinguished from individuals, which are typically constituted of different quantities of matter at different times.

One of the most basic problems in the philosophy of science involves determining the extent to which nature is governed by laws. This volume presents a wide-ranging overview of the contemporary debate and includes some of its foremost participants. It begins with an extensive introduction describing the historical, logical and philosophical background of the problems dealt with in the essays. Among the topics treated in the essays is the relationship between laws of nature and causal laws as well as the role of ceteris paribus clauses in scientific explanations. Traditionally, the problem of the unity of science was intimately connected to the problem of understanding the unity of nature. This fourth volume of Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science tackles these problems as part of our consideration of the most fundamental aspects of scientific understanding.

Pierre Duhem (1861–1916) held the chair of theoretical physics at Bordeaux from 1894 to his death. He established a reputation in both the history and philosophy of science as well as in science itself (physics and physical chemistry). Much of his work in the first two areas has been translated into English, but little of his technical scientific work. The present volume contains early work of Duhem’s illustrating his interest in the rigorous development of physical theory for which he is famous. It opens with what was the first critical discussion of Gibbs’ groundbreaking "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances" (1876-8), where Duhem addressed the problem that, as he put it, "Mathematicians regret that the principles of Thermodynamics should have been developed in general with so little precision that the same proposition can be regarded by some as a consequence, and by others as a negation, of these principles". The other papers, forming a three-part series, pursue this project of putting the foundations of thermodynamics on a clearer and more secure basis. This book will be of interest to scholars in history and philosophy of science, especially those interested in the development of physical chemistry and the work of Pierre Duhem.