Скачать книгу - Barely Behaving

Discover the weird science behind the ickiest, wackiest, most unusual things ever to exist! Would you like to make your own slime, discover how lava lamps work, or learn how materials decompose? Have you ever heard about ball lightning or the Aurora Borealis on the news and wondered what the reporter was talking about? Are you looking for great ideas for your next science fair project? If you answered «yes» to any of these questions, then Weird Science is for you! From banana slugs and dry ice to optical illusions and time travel, you'll investigate some of the most bizarre scientific oddities on Earth. Dozens of fun-packed activities help you see for yourself how quicksand really works, why our feet sometimes get smelly, how worm holes and black holes are formed, why insects can walk on water, and much more. You'll even see how you can turn these amazing activities into science projects! Each experiment is safe and easy to do, and all you need is everyday stuff from around the house. So get ready to take a strange, creepy, and sometimes even gross journey through Weird Science!

Emanuel Derman was a quantitative analyst (Quant) at Goldman Sachs, one of the financial engineers whose mathematical models became crucial for Wall Street. The reliance investors put on such quantitative analysis was catastrophic for the economy, setting off the ongoing string of financial crises that began with the mortgage market in 2007 and continues through today. Here Derman looks at why people – bankers in particular – still put so much faith in these models, and why it's a terrible mistake to do so. Though financial models imitate the style of physics and employ the language of mathematics, ultimately they deal with human beings. There is a fundamental difference between the aims and potential achievements of physics and those of finance. In physics, theories aim for a description of reality; in finance, at best, models can shoot only for a simplistic and very limited approximation to it. When we make a model involving human beings, we are trying to force the ugly stepsister's foot into Cinderella's pretty glass slipper. It doesn't fit without cutting off some of the essential parts. Physicists and economists have been too enthusiastic to acknowledge the limits of their equations in the sphere of human behavior–which of course is what economics is all about. Models.Behaving.Badly includes a personal account of Derman's childhood encounters with failed models–the oppressions of apartheid and the utopia of the kibbutz. He describes his experience as a physicist on Wall Street, the models quants generated, the benefits they brought and the problems, practical and ethical, they caused. Derman takes a close look at what a model is, and then highlights the differences between the successes of modeling in physics and its failures in economics. Describing the collapse of the subprime mortgage CDO market in 2007, Derman urges us to stop the naive reliance on these models, and offers suggestions for mending them. This is a fascinating, lyrical, and very human look behind the curtain at the intersection between mathematics and human nature.

The fifth novel from the hugely entertaining writer of RESCUING ROSE. Stylishly written, sophisticated but warmhearted and accessible, this is Isabel Wolff at her inimitable best.All men are beasts……or so Miranda Sweet believes. As an animal behaviourist, she can get inside the heads of deluded Dalmatians and introverted iguanas, but she can’t work out why the men in her life behave so badly. Animals are braver kinder and a lot more reliable. So Miranda’s given up on love to open her own clinic and work her magic on neurotic pets and their grateful owners.But can she keep the whole male species at bay for ever? Her best friend, Daisy, an incurably romantic wedding-planner, doesn’t think so. When a delicious photographer comes into her life, even Miranda starts to wonder if she’s been a bit hasty. But, just when she’s letting her guard down, her past starts to catch up with her. Now, she has to face up to her own behaviour, which hasn’t always been as sweet as she’d like to pretend…

Exquisite Indian short storiesLukose is ready to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and enter the priesthood; Anna’s parents are drowned as they make their way to a wedding by boat and she must now go and live with her uncle and his Italian wife in Rome; Chako, a doctor, meets a sad little girl whose mother has run away, and then, many years later, he encounters the mother at a party but cannot bear to share with her his knowledge of her daughter.These fifteen stories give us sharp, acute fragments of Indian lives, all linked by family or friendship, or just sheer coincidence, and give us a poignant reminder of how even the smallest event can cause the greatest effect. Beautifully crafted, written with great feeling, this story collection marks the debut of a new and original voice.

This is the first in a series of 4 books that will tell the true and hilarious stories of animals that love hijinks. In this book you'll meet 3 naughty animals, including Fu Manchu, the orangutan escape artist.Fu Manchu lived at the Omaha Zoo and would routinely break out of his habitat to explore the zoo on a nice day. Zookeepers were baffled as to how the ape was escaping, until one day they caught him in the act. Fu Manchu knew how to pick locks. Not only that, he had created his own tool that he used to pick the locks with, which he would store in his mouth so as not to be found out. This and two other charming stories will engage readers and leave them wondering if humans are really the smartest animals.