John Gerald Taylor

Discusses the history and current state of scientific understanding of black holes, exploring what they are, how they are formed, potential uses, and what they tell us about the fate of the universe.

"There is a sense among scientists that the time is finally ripe for the problem of consciousness to be solved once and for all. The development of new experimental and theoretical tools for probing the brain has produced an atmosphere of unparalleled optimism that the job can now be done properly: The race for consciousness is on!"--BOOK JACKET. "In this book, John Taylor describes the complete scene of entries, riders, gamblers, and racecourses. He presents his own entry into the race, which he has been working on for the past twenty-five years - the relational theory of consciousness, according to which consciousness is created through the relations between brain states, especially those involving memories of personal experiences."--BOOK JACKET.

What is the promise of Neural Networks? Just this: they may provide better answers to many "real-world" questions. Problems in industry and business are all too frequently beyond the scope of our present generation of computers. They run into trouble if data is incomplete or contains errors, if a "best guess" is needed, or if it isn't clear how a problem should be tackled. Neural networks are already handling this kind of complex task in areas such as machine vision, time series analysis, robotics, control, cost analysis, and even share price and currency prediction. Neural Networks can learn if they are presented with a range of examples, deduce their own rules for solving problems, and produce valid answers from noisy data. Managers in industry and business, policy-makers, researchers - even undergraduates - will find this book an ideal introduction to Neural Networks. The contents are carefully balanced so as to be accessible to the non-technical reader, while providing detailed information for those with more academic requirements. The EC-funded DEANNA Project (Database for European Artificial Neural Network Activity) has constructed a database of current research, which can be used to judge the success of various applications, in order to assist technology transfer. The results of the DEANNA questionnaire are summarized here.

First published in Great Britain by Maurice Temple Smith Ltd 1980 Copyright © John Taylor 1980 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading Phototypesetting by Georgia Origination Set in English Times.

"If you're like most people, you probably believe that humans are the most intelligent animals on our planet. But there's another kind of entity that can be far smarter: groups of people. In this groundbreaking book, Thomas Malone, the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, shows how groups of people working together in superminds--like hierarchies, markets, democracies, and communities--have been responsible for almost all human achievements in business, government, science, and beyond. And these collectively intelligent human groups are about to get much smarter. Using dozens of striking examples and case studies, Malone shows how computers can help create more intelligent superminds simply by connecting humans to one another in a variety of rich, new ways. And although it will probably happen more gradually than many people expect, artificially intelligent computers will amplify the power of these superminds by doing increasingly complex kinds of thinking. Together, these changes will have far-reaching implications for everything from the way we buy groceries and plan business strategies to how we respond to climate change, and even for democracy itself. By understanding how these collectively intelligent groups work, we can learn how to harness their genius to achieve our human goals. "--Publisher's description.

On a nowhere asteroid on the far rim of the galaxy, two young alien girls-Rox and Zam-spend their days tearing apart and repairing clunkers in a spaceship junkyard. These aspiring gearheads yearn for the chance to test their skills on something besides rusted old rockets and broken-down planet-hoppers.