This book belongs on the shelves of mathematicians, math students, and math educators, and in the hands of anyone interested in traditional societies or how people think.

This scholarly work describes the anthropology of mathematical ideas in traditional societies and shows how the same ideas might be expressed by standard mathematical expressions.

Examples include traditional calendars, fortune-telling devices, systems of family and societal relationships, stick-charts used as navigation maps by Polynesian cultures, and more.

In Jacquard's Web, James Essinger tells the story of some of the most brilliant inventors the world has ever known, in this fascinating account of how a hand-loom invented in Napoleonic France led to the development of the modern information age.

"We are addicted to explanation, constantly asking and answering 'why' questions."

Thucydides' classic work on the history of the Peloponnesian War is the root of Western conceptions of history -- including the idea that Western history is the foundation of everyone else's.

Here, Marshall Sahlins takes on Thucydides and the conceptions of history he wrought with a groundbreaking new book.

In this most convincing presentation yet of his influential theory of culture, Sahlins experiments with techniques for mixing rich narrative with cultural explication in the hope of doing justice at once to the actions of persons and the customs of people.

Neural network research builds on the fiction that neurons are simple linear threshold units, completely neglecting the highly dynamic and complex nature of synapses, dendrites and voltage-dependent ionic currents.

Why, as we grow older, does time seem to condense, speed up and elude us, while in old age, significant events from our distant past can seem as vivid and real as what happened yesterday?

Applying a unique blend of scholarship, poetic sensibility, and keen observation, internationally acclaimed author Douwe Draaisma tackles such extraordinary phenomena as deja-vu, near-death experiences, the memory feats of idiot savants, and the effects of extreme trauma on memory recall.

A captivating excursion through the mathematical approaches to the notions of infinity and the implications of that mathematics for the vexing questions on the mind, existence, and consciousness.

The sources of moral behavior can be traced scientifically to humanity's evolutionary origins.

Human morality evolved as first an individual and then a species-wide mechanism for survival. As society evolved, humans needed rules governing behavior -- e.g., altruism, sympathy, reciprocity and community concern -- in order to ensure survival.

For much of the twentieth century scientists sought to explain objects and processes by reducing them to their component parts.

Over the past forty years, there has been a marked turn toward explaining phenomena by building them up rather than breaking them down.

This is the first book of its kind in many years, and describes the state of the art of PET and SPECT. The book covers every major facet of PET and SPECT technology, including its historical origins in early nuclear science, an introduction to its clinical applications, and in-depth coverage of the hardware components, imaging systems, physics, mathematics, and advanced image processing involved in PET and SPECT imaging.