Stephen Budiansky – författare

Kurt Gödels ofullständighetssats har gäckat matematiker, filosofer och datavetare i snart hundra år. Men till skillnad från vännen Albert Einstein har Gödels liv länge stått utanför blickfånget.

I berättelsen om den udda och plågade man som kallats den främste logikern sedan Aristoteles utgår den här biografin från Gödels omfattande brev och samlade skrifter, liksom en aldrig tidigare transkriberad stenografisk dagbok. Här utforskas Gödels intellektuella vänskaper, nära relationer och skoven av paranoia som till slut kom att ta hans liv – och låter anas de omvälvande följderna av Gödels upptäckter för matematiken, filosofin och bilden av människans plats i kosmos.

The exciting history of a small group of British and American scientists who, during World War II, developed the new field of operational research to turn back the tide of German submarines—revolutionizing the way wars are waged and won. In March 1941, after a year of unbroken and devastating U-boat onslaughts, the British War Cabinet decided to try a new strategy in the foundering naval campaign. To do so, they hired an intensely private, bohemian physicist who was also an ardent socialist. Patrick Blackett was a former navy officer and future winner of the Nobel Prize; he is little remembered today, but he and his fellow scientists did as much to win the war against Nazi Germany as almost anyone else. As director of the World War II antisubmarine effort, Blackett used little more than simple mathematics and probability theory—and a steadfast belief in the utility of science—to save the campaign against the U-boat. Employing these insights in unconventional ways, from the washing of mess hall dishes to the color of bomber wings, the Allies went on to win essential victories against Hitler’s Germany. Here is the story of these civilian intellectuals who helped to change the nature of twentieth-century warfare. Throughout, Stephen Budiansky describes how scientists became intimately involved with what had once been the distinct province of military commanders—convincing disbelieving military brass to trust the solutions suggested by their analysis. Budiansky shows that these men above all retained the belief that operational research, and a scientific mentality, could change the world. It’s a belief that has come to fruition with the spread of their tenets to the business and military worlds, and it started in the Battle of the Atlantic, in an attempt to outfight the Germans, but most of all to outwit them. 

On the web: http://www.budiansky.com/

What makes a winning racehorse? How intelligent are horses? What are horses trying to tell us when they stamp their hooves and snort? Do horses talk to each other?The horse, long a symbol of beauty and athletic prowess, has made and lost fortunes and transformed human history and culture, and yet has retained mysteries that baffle even those who work with them every day. There has recently been an explosion of scientific research on the horse. In this book Stephen Budiansky brings the insights of modern science to a wider audience of horse enthusiasts and animal-lovers.

Unlike every other domestic animal, the cat evolved as a solitary animal, not a group-dweller. A cat in a household is almost literally a fish out of water. That cats can nonetheless get along with people and (sometimes) other cats when forced to, is testimony to a remarkable adaptability. But it also makes for an extraordinary range of behaviours. Cats have for years been the subjects of intensive research in the fields of developmental psychology, learning, emotions, brain chemistry, and perception. THE CHARACTER OF CATS is the first popular book to bring this knowledge to bear on the behaviour and nature of cats. Budiansky enables us to see that many of the things that puzzle and at times baffle or even infuriate cat owners have a rational - though often very surprising - explanation in science.

Stephen Budiansky holds that virtually everything previously written about dogs is either wrong or misguided. Instead he maintains that to understand the true nature of dogs we need to stop interpreting their behaviour in the human terms of loyalty and betrayal. The truth is far more complex and surprising.The Dog Genome Project is currently laying the groundwork for identifying the genetic basis of why our dogs behave in the way they do. Other research investigates canine intelligence, and some remarkable experiments reveal what dogs can and cannot see. Budiansky brings together the disciplines of behavioural science, genetics, neuroscience and archaeology to show us how wrong we have been about man''s best friend.