Issue 53

Pantaneto Introductory Physics SeriesThe first five titles in this series have just become available and can be ordered direct from the publishers here.

 

Mindboggling: Preliminaries to a science of the mind   by Roy Harris.  Do you have a mind?  Answers to this question have divided Western thinkers for centuries, and still do.  Mindboggling sets out to identify a nucleus of basic issues about the mind, and present the main arguments for and against in each case.  Targeted to a lay readership, each chapter discusses a different theory, myth or idea about the mind.  Anticipate wails from theorists whose theories have been given short shrift.  Mindboggling is available from Amazon (including Kindle), from Bookshops or direct from Publishers.

 

Science on Television by Bienvenido León.

The book is a clear and systematic guide to the narrative and rhetorical techniques used by science documentary filmmakers. The book is priced at £18.50, but for direct orders we are offering a 20% discount.  The book is also available on Amazon Kindle.

 

Motivating Science is a collection of articles from the first five years of The Pantaneto Forum.  We are offering a 20% discount for direct orders.  The book is also available on Amazon Kindle.

 

Editorial

 

Many people travel by air without too much thought about the danger of leg thrombosis. In “Risk and Responsibility at 30,000 feet,” Claire Haggett investigates the language used by airlines and other interest groups on this issue. She highlights the dominance in the communication process of apportioning blame between the airlines and passengers, because of the severe legal and financial consequences.

 

Cloud Computing is a metaphor for certain parts of the Internet, through which users try to reduce the costs of computation, storage and communication. Divya Bhatt’s article is a detailed guide to Cloud Computing and explains the various advantages, limitations and applications of the ‘Cloud’.

 

In “Knowledge production, interdisciplinarity, and structuralism,” Maria Tálamo approaches science, as it is practiced today, as knowledge production moving towards interdisciplinary structures. Her approach is historical and she describes in detail her integrating vision of science.

 

The proceedings of the Science Matters conference, which we reported in Issue 28, October 2007, have been published and are available from the publishers – World Scientific.

 

Nigel Sanitt Editor

ISSN 1741-1572

Contents

Articles

Risk and responsibility at 30,000 feet: who is to blame for ‘economy class syndrome’? Claire Haggett

 

A Revolution in Information Technology – Cloud Computing, Divya Bhatt

 

Knowledge production, interdisciplinarity, and structuralism, Maria de F. G. M. Tálamo

 

Conference Report

The fourth biennial Science Matters (SciMat) conference “Humanities as Science Matters: History, Philosophy and Arts” Porto, Portugal, October 15-17, 2013