Andrew Robinson

Desde los albores de la civilización, las medidas han definido la sociedad, el gobierno y el progreso. Delimitar tierras, sembrar cosechas, erigir palacios, comerciar, gravar con impuestos, establecer registros y celebrar festividades son actividades que exigian que la longitud, el area, el volumen, el angulo, el peso, el valor monetario, la lengua y el tiempo fuesen cuantificados y sistematizados. Nos guste o no, nuestras vidas estan reguladas en casi todos los aspectos por medio de examenes, tipos de interes, prescripciones de farmacos y encuestas de opinion. Metrum ofrece por primera vez una perspectiva de conjunto plenamente ilustrada sobre el tema. Este libro amplio y cada vez mas necesario explica las ideas que subyacen tras las unidades de medida y los instrumentos de medicion, y muestra como unas y otros se aplican tanto al universo fisico (los electrones, la Tierra, las estrellas...) como al cuerpo humano y la mente. En parte una historia fascinante y en parte ciencia de vanguardia, la presente obra explora todo lo mensurable, desde la temperatura, los terremotos y la radioactividad hasta la musica, la sangre y los comportamientos sociales, asi como los origenes del sistema metrico en la Revolucion Francesa. A traves de sus paginas el lector se vera transportado desde las imagenes de galaxias en el limite del universo conocido obtenidas con el telescopio espacial Hubble hasta las pruebas de inteligencia que nos aproximan a los espacios mas ocultos de la mente.

Una biografía autorizada, accesible e ilustrada de Albert Einstein, explicada a través de su brillante trabajo en el campo de la física. Presenta la hermosa simplicidad que se esconde en lo más profundo de los mayores descubrimientos de Einstein. Revela la vida llena de paradojas de Einstein a traves de ensayos, entre otros, de Stephen Hawking, Philip Anderson y Steven Weinberg. Una obra que tambien habla de su vida y su actividad fuera del ambito de la ciencia: sus encuentros con algunos personajes famosos de su tiempo como, por ejemplo, Chaplin, Roosevelt o Tagore; su amor por la musica, y su turbulenta vida familiar. Einstein expreso su extraordinaria originalidad de multiples maneras, desde sus campañas humanitarias y politicas contra las armas nucleares, el antisemitismo, el macartismo y las injusticias sociales hasta su peculiar aspecto fisico. La narracion esta acompañada de once ensayos escritos por cientificos y expertos, entre ellos tres premios Nobel. La voz del propio Einstein esta presente en el libro, ya que incluye extractos de sus escritos y sus discursos, incluida su propia version de su desarrollo intelectual.

La obra recorre los principales hitos, descubrimientos y protagonistas de las principales disciplinas científicas. Desde ámbitos tan diferentes como la astronomía o la psicología, podemos conocer en detalle las fascinantes vidas de los precursores (Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Pasteur, Marie Curie, Einstein oa Freud) asi como sus principales aportaciones todas ellas vistas a la luz de las pequeñas revoluciones que supusieron en el pasado.

No one has given the polymath Thomas Young (17731829) the all-round examination he so richly deservesuntil now. Celebrated biographer Andrew Robinson portrays a man who solved mystery after mystery in the face of ridicule and rejection, and never sought fame.As a physicist, Young challenged the theories of Isaac Newton and proved that light is a wave. As a physician, he showed how the eye focuses and proposed the three-colour theory of vision, only confirmed a century and a half later. As an Egyptologist, he made crucial contributions to deciphering the Rosetta Stone. It is hard to grasp how much Young knew.This biography is the fascinating story of a driven yet modest hero who cared less about what others thought of him than for the joys of an unbridled pursuit of knowledgewith a new foreword by Martin Rees and a new postscript discussing polymathy in the two centuries since the time of Young. It returns this neglected genius to his proper position in the pantheon of great scientific thinkers.

The essential argument of this new work by Andrew Robinson is that we live, move and have our being within a sea of signs, but that we are largely unaware of this for most of the time. When the structure of these signs is analysed it turns out to rest onthree recurring elemental grounds, which the author calls Quality, Otherness and Mediation. The kaleidoscopic, ramifying patterns of Quality, Otherness and Meditation which underpin representations and interpretations at every level and dimension of the processes of signification offer a model of the dynamic mutual indwelling of the Father, Son and Spirit within the eternal life of the Trinity. This semiotic model of the Trinity would be of rather limited interest in itself unless it can also illuminate other areas of Christian theology. Robinson suggests that the model leads to a helpful way of understanding how the entirely human person Jesus of Nazareth may be understood to have been the full and perfect embodiment (representation) of the quality of Gods being. This in turn helps us to understand how the processes of representation and interpretation enable us to be drawn into the very life of God. This has practical implications for the church and for the individual lives of Christian believers.It also offers, via a re-articulation of the neglected concept of vestiges of the Trinity in creation, a form of spirituality of the everyday.

The essential argument of this new work by Andrew Robinson is that we live, move and have our being within a sea of signs, but that we are largely unaware of this for most of the time. When the structure of these signs is analysed it turns out to rest onthree recurring elemental grounds, which the author calls Quality, Otherness and Mediation. The kaleidoscopic, ramifying patterns of Quality, Otherness and Meditation which underpin representations and interpretations at every level and dimension of the processes of signification offer a model of the dynamic mutual indwelling of the Father, Son and Spirit within the eternal life of the Trinity. This semiotic model of the Trinity would be of rather limited interest in itself unless it can also illuminate other areas of Christian theology. Robinson suggests that the model leads to a helpful way of understanding how the entirely human person Jesus of Nazareth may be understood to have been the full and perfect embodiment (representation) of the quality of Gods being. This in turn helps us to understand how the processes of representation and interpretation enable us to be drawn into the very life of God. This has practical implications for the church and for the individual lives of Christian believers.It also offers, via a re-articulation of the neglected concept of vestiges of the Trinity in creation, a form of spirituality of the everyday.