Toy Theory
Download Toy Theory PDF/ePub or read online books in Mobi eBooks. Click Download or Read Online button to get Toy Theory book now. This website allows unlimited access to, at the time of writing, more than 1.5 million titles, including hundreds of thousands of titles in various foreign languages.
Toy Theory
A novel interpretation of the history and theory of technology from the perspective of toys, play, and play objects. Toy Theory addresses the relationships between toys and technology in two distinct but overlapping ways: first, as underexamined cultural artifacts and behaviors with significant technical attributes and, second, as playful and toylike dimensions of technology at large. Seth Giddings sets out a “toy theory” of technology that emphasizes the speculative, experimental, and noninstrumental in technological paradigms and argues that children’s playthings, rather than being the most ephemeral and inconsequential of technical devices, instead offer analytical and anthropological resources for understanding the materiality and imaginaries of technology over time. After defining toy theory in general and conceptual terms, Giddings examines different types of toys to explore shifting relationships between the microcosmic symbolic or mimetic content, material and technical constitution, and modes of play of toys and toy-related artifacts, on the one hand, and prevailing, macrocosmic, technological paradigms and imaginaries, on the other. Taking a broad historical and genealogical view, Giddings traces contemporary postdigital toy and play culture to precedents from the neolithic through to the Enlightenment to consumer culture from the early nineteenth century to the present day.
Mathematical Foundations of Information Flow
Author: Samson Abramsky
language: en
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Release Date: 2012
This volume is based on the 2008 Clifford Lectures on Information Flow in Physics, Geometry and Logic and Computation, held March 12-15, 2008, at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. The varying perspectives of the researchers are evident in the topics represented in the volume, including mathematics, computer science, quantum physics and classical and quantum information. A number of the articles address fundamental questions in quantum information and related topics in quantum physics, using abstract categorical and domain-theoretic models for quantum physics to reason about such systems and to model spacetime. Readers can expect to gain added insight into the notion of information flow and how it can be understood in many settings. They also can learn about new approaches to modeling quantum mechanics that provide simpler and more accessible explanations of quantum phenomena, which don't require the arcane aspects of Hilbert spaces and the cumbersome notation of bras and kets.
Scientific Realism and the Quantum
Author: Steven French
language: en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date: 2020-02-13
Quantum theory is widely regarded as one of the most successful theories in the history of science. It explains a hugely diverse array of phenomena and is a natural candidate for our best representation of the world at the level of 'fundamental' physics. But how can the world be the way quantum theory says it is? It is famously unclear what the world is like according to quantum physics, which presents a serious problem for the scientific realist who is committed to regarding our best theories as more or less true. The present volume canvasses a variety of responses to this problem, from restricting or revising realism in different ways to exploring entirely new directions in the lively debate surrounding realist interpretations of quantum physics. Some urge us to focus on new formulations of the theory itself, while others examine the status of scientific realism in the further context of quantum field theory. Each chapter is written by a renowned specialist in the field and is aimed at graduate students and researchers in both physics and the philosophy of science. Together they offer a range of illuminating new perspectives on this fundamental debate and exemplify the fruitful interaction between physics and philosophy.