Background
Krieger, Martin H. was born on March 10, 1944 in Brooklyn. Son of Louis and Shirley Krieger.
(Doing Mathematics discusses some ways mathematicians and ...)
Doing Mathematics discusses some ways mathematicians and mathematical physicists do their work and the subject matters they uncover and fashion. The conventions they adopt, the subject areas they delimit, what they can prove and calculate about the physical world, and the analogies they discover and employ, all depend on the mathematics — what will work out and what won't. The cases studied include the central limit theorem of statistics, the sound of the shape of a drum, the connections between algebra and topology, and the series of rigorous proofs of the stability of matter. The many and varied solutions to the two-dimensional Ising model of ferromagnetism make sense as a whole when they are seen in an analogy developed by Richard Dedekind in the 1880s to algebraicize Riemann's function theory; by Robert Langlands' program in number theory and representation theory; and, by the analogy between one-dimensional quantum mechanics and two-dimensional classical statistical mechanics. In effect, we begin to see "an identity in a manifold presentation of profiles," as the phenomenologists would say. This second edition deepens the particular examples; it describe the practical role of mathematical rigor; it suggests what might be a mathematician's philosophy of mathematics; and, it shows how an "ugly" first proof or derivation embodies essential features, only to be appreciated after many subsequent proofs. Natural scientists and mathematicians trade physical models and abstract objects, remaking them to suit their needs, discovering new roles for them as in the recent case of the Painleve transcendents, the Tracy-Widom distribution, and Toeplitz determinants. And mathematics has provided the models and analogies, the ordinary language, for describing the everyday world, the structure of cities, or God's infinitude. Readership: Mathematicians, physicists, philosophers and historians of science.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9814571849/?tag=2022091-20
( This book is a cultural phenomenology of doing physics....)
This book is a cultural phenomenology of doing physics. It describes the ways physicists actually do their work--their motives, and their ways of making sense of the world--so that outsiders can understand it. Martin H. Krieger explains that physicists employ a small number of everyday notions to get at the world experimentally and conceptually. Krieger's stories focus on five of these models: the division of labor among particles, fields, and spacetime in the ""factory"" of Nature; the analysis of the world as a clockworks of comparatively dumb parts whose composition is often surprisingly complex and rich; the play of freedom and necessity given by a set of kinship rules that govern the families of particles; the setting of a simple stage, a vacuum, on which something arises out of nothing; and a mode of grasping the world with the handles, probes, and tools that make up a physicist's tool kit. In each case, Krieger shows that the deepest principles of physics are embodied in the physicist's craft and conventions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0253331234/?tag=2022091-20
( In this insightful work, Martin H. Krieger shows what p...)
In this insightful work, Martin H. Krieger shows what physicists are really doing when they employ mathematical models as research tools. He argues that the technical details of these complex calculations serve not only as a means to an end, but also reveal key aspects of the physical properties they model. Krieger's lucid discussions will help readers to appreciate the larger physical issues behind the mathematical detail of modern physics and gain deeper insights into how theoretical physicists work. Constitutions of Matter is a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of modern physics. "Krieger provides students of physics and applied mathematics with a view of the physical forest behind the mathematical trees, historians and philosophers of science with insights into how theoretical physicists go about their work, and technically advanced general readers with a glimpse into the discipline."—Scitech Book News
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226453057/?tag=2022091-20
( Marginalism and Discontinuity is an account of the cult...)
Marginalism and Discontinuity is an account of the culture of models employed in the natural and social sciences, showing how such models are instruments for getting hold of the world, tools for the crafts of knowing and deciding. Like other tools, these models are interpretable cultural objects, objects that embody traditional themes of smoothness and discontinuity, exchange and incommensurability, parts and wholes. Martin Krieger interprets the calculus and neoclassical economics, for example, as tools for adding up a smoothed world, a world of marginal changes identified by those tools. In contrast, other models suggest that economies might be sticky and ratchety or perverted and fetishistic. There are as well models that posit discontinuity or discreteness. In every city, for example, some location has been marked as distinctive and optimal; around this created differentiation, a city center and a city periphery eventually develop. Sometimes more than one model is applicable—the possibility of doom may be seen both as the consequence of a series of mundane events and as a transcendent moment. We might model big decisions or entrepreneurial endeavors as sums of several marginal decisions, or as sudden, marked transitions, changes of state like freezing or religious conversion. Once we take models and theory as tools, we find that analogy is destiny. Our experiences make sense because of the analogies or tools used to interpret them, and our intellectual disciplines are justified and made meaningful through the employment of characteristic toolkits—a physicist's toolkit, for example, is equipped with a certain set of mathematical and rhetorical models. Marginalism and Discontinuity offers a provocative and wide-ranging consideration of the technologies by which we attempt to apprehend the world. It will appeal to social and natural scientists, mathematicians and philosophers, and thoughtful educators, policymakers, and planners.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871544881/?tag=2022091-20
( Doing Physics makes concepts of physics easier to grasp...)
Doing Physics makes concepts of physics easier to grasp by relating them to everyday knowledge. Addressing some of the models and metaphors that physicists use to explain the physical world, Martin H. Krieger describes the conceptual world of physics by means of analogies to economics, anthropology, theater, carpentry, mechanisms such as clockworks, and machine tool design. The interaction of elementary particles or chemical species, for example, can be related to the theory of kinship―who can marry whom is like what can interact with what. Likewise, the description of physical situations in terms of interdependent particles and fields is analogous to the design of a factory with its division of labor among specialists. For the new edition, Krieger has revised the text and added a chapter on the role of mathematics and formal models in physics. Doing Physics will be of special interest to economists, political theorists, anthropologists, and sociologists as well as philosophers of science.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0253006074/?tag=2022091-20
(A discussion of some ways of doing mathematical work and ...)
A discussion of some ways of doing mathematical work and the subject matter that is being worked upon and created. It argues that the conventions we adopt, the subject areas we delimit, what we can prove and calculate about the physical world, and the analogies that work for mathematicians - all depend on mathematics, what will work out and what won't. And the mathematics, as it is done, is shaped and supported, or not, by convention, subject matter, calculation, and analogy. The cases studied include the central limit theorem of statistics, the sound of the shape of a drum, the connection between algebra and topology, the stability of matter, the Ising model, and the Langlands Program in number theory and representation theory.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9812382062/?tag=2022091-20
Krieger, Martin H. was born on March 10, 1944 in Brooklyn. Son of Louis and Shirley Krieger.
Bachelor, Columbia University, 1964; Master of Arts, Columbia University, 1965; Doctor of Philosophy in Physics, Columbia University, 1969.
Lecturer, researcher, University of California, Berkeley, 1968-1973; assistant professor, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1974-1980; lecturer, researcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 1980-1984; associate professor planning, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1985-1992; professor planning, since 1992. Visiting professor entrepreneurship University of Michigan, 1990-1991.
( Marginalism and Discontinuity is an account of the cult...)
(Doing Mathematics discusses some ways mathematicians and ...)
( "This is a mind-altering book—it ought to carry some so...)
(A discussion of some ways of doing mathematical work and ...)
( Doing Physics makes concepts of physics easier to grasp...)
( This book is a cultural phenomenology of doing physics....)
( In this insightful work, Martin H. Krieger shows what p...)
(Will be shipped from US. Brand new copy.)
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
Fellow: American Council Learned Societies, Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, National Humanities Center. Member American Physical Society, History of Science Society, American Mathematics Society.