Science at Collins

This Wednesday, April 1,  is the third Edible Books festival held at Collins Library! The annual Edible Books Festival pays homage to Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, nineteenth century author of The Phyisiology of Taste, and we invite you to participate, as a creator of an edible book, a viewer, or a tea-drinker.

It would be great to see the sciences represented there, both in edible book form or visitor form. I can promise at least one science-related tome… but the more the merrier!

Events will be held throughout the day:

Entry Drop-Off
Between 7:30 – 11 am
Show Hours
11 am – 4 pm
People’s Choice Voting
11 am – 12:40 pm
Awards Ceremony
12:45 pm (Tea & a specially prepared edible book will be served.)

You can  follow us on Twitter or keep on top of updates streamed to the library news page!

As an added incentive, Best Student Entry wins a $25 gift certificate to the UPS bookstore—all others can win the glory of being “Most Delicious,” “Most Creative,” or “Most Literary”!

For more information, contact:
Patt Leonard, Collins Library, (253) 879-2651.

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to draw attention to women in  technology. Bloggers take a pledge to highlight an influential woman in technology in order to inspire today’s women in technology, and so, today, I’d like to do that.

However, I don’t want to highlight just one woman—I’d like to highlight all of the women who served as human computers over the years.

Most of them labored quietly at math and computing, in fields ranging from astronomy to cryptography, at institutions from Harvard to the WPA, and few of them are identified as having made any individual breakthroughs or are widely remembered by the public. They were regarded as a respectable workers, though rarely as visionaries.

The image of this mass of women whose role in technology was quietly accepted makes me hope that soon we can reach a point where, in a more equal context and with more elbow room for their visions, it is again taken as simply natural for women to work in technology and computing. As someone who’s not planning on shaking any paradigms, but hopes to master the necessary technology to do her work well in an increasingly digital and coded world, I find these women inspiring examples to remember when the world of software and technology looks forbidding for whatever reason.

And since even those who do plan to shake up paradigms and start computing revolutions need to start out somewhere, I hope this image makes the entry a little more welcoming for them.

To learn more about human computers or women in computer science, try:

• Get to Collins Library resources and learn more about current women in science and women in computing.
• Check out Alan Grier’s When Computers Were Human (QA 303.2 .G75 2005 at Collins Library)
  • Since this is such an interdisciplinary topic, mining the bibliography will get you to more related sources faster than a search might.
• Try David Skinner, “The Age of Female Computers,” The New Atlantis, Number 12, Spring 2006, pp. 96-103.
• Or for a taste of period literature, scope out the 1944 “Careers for Girls” in the Mathematical Gazette.

 

Physics, an open-access publication recently debuted by the American Physical Society, aims to provide broadly readable highlights of recent research in the Physical Review journal series.

Three types of articles are published, including:

Viewpoints: Weekly essays of approximately 1000–1500 words that focus on a single Physical Review paper or PRL letter and put the work into broader context.

Trends: Monthly concise review articles (3000–4000 words in length) that survey a particular area and look for interesting developments in the field.

Synopses: (200 words) are staff-written distillations of interesting and important papers each week

What’s so important about this resource?

• It contextualizes recent research and explains its importance, making it easier for students to get into the physical literature.
• It makes it easy for researchers to learn about developments across fields and cross-pollinate ideas.

Click the titles of these new arrivals to be taken to the catalog record to find call numbers and availability.

• Anastopoulos, Charis. 2008. Particle or wave : The evolution of the concept of matter in modern physics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
• Delft, Dirk van. 2007. Freezing physics : Hieke kamerlingh onnes and the quest for cold. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen.
• Mahan, Gerald D. 2009. Quantum mechanics in a nutshell. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
• North, John. 2008. Cosmos : An illustrated history of astronomy and cosmology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Ohanian, Hans C. 2008. Einstein’s mistakes : The human failings of genius. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
• Ramakrishna, S. Anantha, Tomasz M. Grzegorczyk, and Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers, eds. 2009. Physics and applications of negative refractive index materials. Bellingham, Wash. Boca Raton: SPIE Press ; CRC Press.
• Uth, Robert, Phylis Geller, Stacy Keach, Elizabeth Noone, Margaret Tesla Cheney, New Voyage Communications, and PBS Home Video, eds. 2007. Tesla  : Master of lightning. Alexandria, Va.: PBS Home Video.

Click the titles of these new arrivals to be taken to the catalog record to find call numbers and availability.

Aronson, Jay D. 2007. Genetic witness : Science, law, and controversy in the making of DNA profiling. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

Bartel, Hans-Georg, and R. P. Huebener, eds. 2007. Walther nernst : Pioneer of physics and of chemistry. Singapore ; Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific.

Brock, William H. 2008. William crookes (1832-1919) and the commercialization of science. Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Brummelen, Glen Van. 2009. The mathematics of the heavens and the earth : The early history of trigonometry. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Cartwright, Nancy, Stephan Hartmann Dr, Carl Hoefer, and Luc Bovens, eds. 2008. Nancy cartwright’s philosophy of science. New York: Routledge.

Casey, Robert. 2008. The model T : A centennial history. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Clarke, George, and Janet Reno, eds. 2007. Justice and science : Trials and triumphs of DNA evidence. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Dary, David. 2008. Frontier medicine : From the atlantic to the pacific, 1492-1941. 1st ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Davidson, Jane P. 2008. A history of paleontology illustration. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Fyfe, Aileen, and Bernard V. Lightman, eds. 2007. Science in the marketplace : Nineteenth-century sites and experiences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gawande, Atul. 2002. Complications : A surgeon’s notes on an imperfect science. New York: Picador.

Harper, Kristine C. 2008. Weather by the numbers : The genesis of modern meteorology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Jackson, Noel. 2008. Science and sensation in romantic poetry. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Janiak, Andrew. 2008. Newton as philosopher. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Marsh, Margaret S., and Wanda Ronner, eds. 2008. The fertility doctor : John rock and the reproductive revolution. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.

McGarity, Thomas O., and Wendy Wagner, eds. 2008. Bending science : How special interests corrupt public health research. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Munson, Ronald. 2003. Outcome uncertain : Cases and contexts in bioethics. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.

Netter, prepared Frank H. 1959. The netter collection of medical illustrations. Teterboro, N.J.: Icon Learning Systems.

Nocks, Lisa. 2008. The robot : The life story of a technology. Johns Hopkins pbk. ed. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Richards, Robert J. 2008. The tragic sense of life : Ernst haeckel and the struggle over evolutionary thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Riper, A. Bowdoin Van. 2004. Rockets and missiles : The life story of a technology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Sarma, Sreeramula Rajeswara. 2008. The archaic and the exotic : Studies in the history of indian astronomical instruments. New Delhi: Manohar.

Schiffer, Michael Brian. 2008. Power struggles : Scientific authority and the creation of practical electricity before edison. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

Schwartz, James. 2008. In pursuit of the gene : From darwin to DNA. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Sedley, David. 2007. Creationism and its critics in antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Shorter, Edward, and David Healy MRC Psych, eds. 2007. Shock therapy : A history of electroconvulsive treatment in mental illness. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

Taub, Liba. 2008. Aetna and the moon: Explaining nature in ancient greece and rome. Corvallis, Or.: Oregon State University Press.

Click the titles of these new arrivals to be taken to the catalog record to find call numbers and availability.

• Bugg, DV. 2006. Electronics : Circuits, amplifiers and gates. 2nd ed. New York: Taylor & Francis.
•  Himma, Kenneth Einar, and Herman T. Tavani, eds. 2008. The handbook of information and computer ethics. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
• Nocks, Lisa. 2008. The robot : The life story of a technology. Johns Hopkins pbk. ed. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.   [Includes AI]

Click the titles of these new arrivals to be taken to the catalog record to find call numbers and availability.

• Beck, Matthias, and Sinai Robins, eds. 2007. Computing the continuous discretely : Integer-point enumeration in polyhedra. New York: Springer.
• Borwein, Jonathan M., and Adrian S. Lewis, eds. 2006. Convex analysis and nonlinear optimization : Theory and examples. 2nd ed. New York: Springer.
• Flajolet, Philippe, and Robert Sedgewick, eds. 2009. Analytic combinatorics. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Hardy, G. H. 1947, and Edward Maitland Wright, eds. 2008. An introduction to the theory of numbers. 6th ed. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
• Körner, TW. 2008. Naive decision making : Mathematics applied to the social worldCambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Koshy, Thomas. 2009. Catalan numbers with applications. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
• Stewart, Ian. 2006. How to cut a cake : And other mathematical conundrums. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Click the titles of these new arrivals to be taken to the catalog record to find call numbers and availability.

• Davidson, Jane P. 2008. A history of paleontology illustration. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Macdougall, Doug. 2008. Nature’s clocks : How scientists measure the age of almost everything. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Click the titles of these new arrivals to be taken to the catalog record to find call numbers and availability.

• Allen, Roy E. Editor, ed. 2008. Human ecology economics : A new framework for global sustainability. London ; New York: Routledge.
• Colby, Bonnie G., and Katharine L. Jacobs, eds. 2007. Arizona water policy : Management innovations in an urbanizing, arid region. 1st ed. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future.
• Kovel, Joel. 2007. The enemy of nature : The end of capitalism or the end of the world?. 2nd , updat and expand ed. London ; New York Halifax New York, NY: Zed Books ; Fernwood Pub. ; Distributed in the USA exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan.
• Rechtschaffen, Clifford, and Eileen P. Gauna, eds. 2002. Environmental justice : Law, policy, and regulation. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press.
• Traer, Robert. 2009. Doing environmental ethics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Click the titles of these new arrivals to be taken to the catalog record to find call numbers and availability.

• Chang, Hasok, and Catherine Jackson, eds. 2007. An element of controversy : The life of chlorine in science, medicine, technology and war. London: British Society for the History of Science.
• Hartmann, Jean-Michel, Christian Boulet, and Daniel Robert, eds. 2008. Collisional effects on molecular spectra : Laboratory experiments and models, consequences for applications. 1st ed. Amsterdam ; Boston: Elsevier Science.