Here is a thoroughly researched and provocative study of the two most influential figures in Western history.The book begins with a comprehensive biographical investigation of the early lives of the M
This is the first critical anthology of writings about memory in Renaissance England. Drawing together excerpts from more than seventy writers, poets, physicians, philosophers and preachers, and with over twenty illustrations, the anthology offers the reader a guided exploration of the arts of memory. The introduction outlines the context for the tradition of the memory arts from classical times to the Renaissance and is followed by extracts from writers on the art of memory in general, then by thematically arranged sections on rhetoric and poetry, education and science, history and philosophy, religion, and literature, featuring texts from canonical, non-canonical and little-known sources. Each excerpt is supported with notes about the author and about the text's relationship to the memory arts, and includes suggestions for further reading. The book will appeal to students of the memory arts, Renaissance literature, the history of ideas, book history and art history.
Presents a realistic, workable plan for defusing a potentially lethal threat from a rogue asteroid or comet. The explosion of a large meteor over Chelyabinsk, Siberia, in February 2013 is just the lat
With the onset of a knowledge economy, modern nations are hard at work using ever more sophisticated information systems to power a "technology revolution" that is transforming our lives. This book is
Mathematical modelling of physical and chemical systems is used extensively throughout science, engineering, and applied mathematics. To use mathematical models, one needs solutions to the model equations; this generally requires numerical methods. This book presents numerical methods and associated computer code in Matlab for the solution of a spectrum of models expressed as partial differential equations (PDEs). The authors focus on the method of lines (MOL), a well-established procedure for all major classes of PDEs, where the boundary value partial derivatives are approximated algebraically by finite differences. This reduces the PDEs to ordinary differential equations (ODEs) and makes the computer code easy to understand, implement, and modify. Also, the ODEs (via MOL) can be combined with any other ODEs that are part of the model (so that MOL naturally accommodates ODE/PDE models). This book uniquely includes a detailed line-by-line discussion of computer code related to the ass
In this vividly written biography, William E. Wallace offers a new view of the artist. Not only a supremely gifted sculptor, painter, architect and poet, Michelangelo was also an aristocrat who firmly believed in the ancient, noble origins of his family. The belief in his patrician status fueled his lifelong ambition to improve his family's financial situation and to raise the social standing of artists. Michelangelo's ambitions are evident in his writing, dress and comportment, as well as in his ability to befriend, influence and occasionally say 'no' to popes, kings and princes. Written from the words of Michelangelo and his contemporaries, this biography not only tells his own stories, but also brings to life the culture and society of Renaissance Florence and Rome. Not since Irving Stone's novel The Agony and the Ecstasy has there been such a compelling and human portrayal of this remarkable yet credible human individual.
