Cats Paws And Catapults Mechanical Worlds Of Nature And People

Author : Steven Vogel
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2000-01-17
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780393352955

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Cats' Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People by Steven Vogel Pdf

"Full of ideas and well-explained principles that will bring new understanding of everyday things to both scientists and non-scientists alike."—R. McNeill Alexander, Nature Nature and humans build their devices with the same earthly materials and use them in the same air and water, pulled by the same gravity. Why, then, do their designs diverge so sharply? Humans, for instance, love right angles, while nature's angles are rarely right and usually rounded. Our technology goes around on wheels—and on rotating pulleys, gears, shafts, and cams—yet in nature only the tiny propellers of bacteria spin as true wheels. Our hinges turn because hard parts slide around each other, whereas nature's hinges (a rabbit's ear, for example) more often swing by bending flexible materials. In this marvelously surprising, witty book, Steven Vogel compares these two mechanical worlds, introduces the reader to his field of biomechanics, and explains how the nexus of physical law, size, and convenience of construction determine the designs of both people and nature. "This elegant comparison of human and biological technology will forever change the way you look at each."—Michael LaBarbera, American Scientist

Author : Bayla Singer
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2003-05-08
Category : Transportation
ISBN : 1585442569

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Like Sex with Gods by Bayla Singer Pdf

"Human flight is not a simple matter of science and technology. It is a continuing epic of dreams and obsession, of yearning and striving to harness the intellect in the service of the emotions." In Like Sex with Gods: An Unorthodox History of Flight, Bayla Singer offers a unique approach to humanity's fascination with flying. Rather than merely tracing the factual prehistory of flight up to the success of the Wright Brothers, Bayla Singer considers the interaction and influence of our dreams, fantasies, culture, and technology on the age-old quest to fly. This enlightening study begins with the deities and other denizens of the heavens that humanity has created in its religion, literature, and art. At first a monopoly of the gods, flight came to interest humanity as a way to free itself from the physical and intellectual bonds of the earth. The myth of flight eventually gives way to the pursuit of actual flight. Singer shows in compelling detail the many flying machines that have been created, including balloons, gliders, and kites. The accomplishment of the Wright Brothers and our successful trips into space are merely stops on a continuing journey, as our ancient dream of flight continues to push us to new and loftier places. Filled with compelling stories and detailed illustrations, this book provides absorbing reading for aviation experts, those fascinated with the intimate relationship between technology and culture, and all of us who have even a passing interest in flying.

Author : Steven Vogel
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 640 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2013-06-17
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781400847822

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Comparative Biomechanics by Steven Vogel Pdf

The classic textbook on comparative biomechanics—revised and expanded Why do you switch from walking to running at a specific speed? Why do tall trees rarely blow over in high winds? And why does a spore ejected into air at seventy miles per hour travel only a fraction of an inch? Comparative Biomechanics is the first and only textbook that takes a comprehensive look at the mechanical aspects of life—covering animals and plants, structure and movement, and solids and fluids. An ideal entry point into the ways living creatures interact with their immediate physical world, this revised and updated edition examines how the forms and activities of animals and plants reflect the materials available to nature, considers rules for fluid flow and structural design, and explores how organisms contend with environmental forces. Drawing on physics and mechanical engineering, Steven Vogel looks at how animals swim and fly, modes of terrestrial locomotion, organism responses to winds and water currents, circulatory and suspension-feeding systems, and the relationship between size and mechanical design. He also investigates links between the properties of biological materials—such as spider silk, jellyfish jelly, and muscle—and their structural and functional roles. Early chapters and appendices introduce relevant physical variables for quantification, and problem sets are provided at the end of each chapter. Comparative Biomechanics is useful for physical scientists and engineers seeking a guide to state-of-the-art biomechanics. For a wider audience, the textbook establishes the basic biological context for applied areas—including ergonomics, orthopedics, mechanical prosthetics, kinesiology, sports medicine, and biomimetics—and provides materials for exhibit designers at science museums. Problem sets at the ends of chapters Appendices cover basic background information Updated and expanded documentation and materials Revised figures and text Increased coverage of friction, viscoelastic materials, surface tension, diverse modes of locomotion, and biomimetics

Author : Steven Vogel
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2012-10-17
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780226859392

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The Life of a Leaf by Steven Vogel Pdf

In its essence, science is a way of looking at and thinking about the world. In The Life of a Leaf, Steven Vogel illuminates this approach, using the humble leaf as a model. Whether plant or person, every organism must contend with its immediate physical environment, a world that both limits what organisms can do and offers innumerable opportunities for evolving fascinating ways of challenging those limits. Here, Vogel explains these interactions, examining through the example of the leaf the extraordinary designs that enable life to adapt to its physical world. In Vogel’s account, the leaf serves as a biological everyman, an ordinary and ubiquitous living thing that nonetheless speaks volumes about our environment as well as its own. Thus in exploring the leaf’s world, Vogel simultaneously explores our own. A companion website with demonstrations and teaching tools can be found here: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/sites/vogel/index.html

Author : Steven Vogel
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2020-03-31
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780691209494

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Life's Devices by Steven Vogel Pdf

This entertaining and informative book describes how living things bump up against non-biological reality. "My immodest aim," says the author, "is to change how you view your immediate surroundings." He asks us to wonder about the design of plants and animals around us: why a fish swims more rapidly than a duck can paddle, why healthy trees more commonly uproot than break, how a shark manages with such a flimsy skeleton, or how a mouse can easily survive a fall onto any surface from any height. The book will not only fascinate the general reader but will also serve as an introductory survey of biomechanics. On one hand, organisms cannot alter the earth's gravity, the properties of water, the compressibility of air, or the behavior of diffusing molecules. On the other, such physical factors form both constraints with which the evolutionary process must contend and opportunities upon which it might capitalize. Life's Devices includes examples from every major group of animals and plants, with references to recent work, with illustrative problems, and with suggestions of experiments that need only common household materials.

Author : Steven Vogel
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2003-08-17
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780393247312

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Prime Mover: A Natural History of Muscle by Steven Vogel Pdf

The story—and the science—of nature's greatest engine. Whether we blink an eye, lift a finger, throw a spear or a ball, walk, run, or merely breathe, we are using muscle. Although muscles differ little in appearance and performance across the animal kingdom, they accomplish tasks as diverse as making flies fly, rattlesnakes rattle, and squid shoot their tentacles. Our everyday activities turn on the performance of nature's main engine: we may breathe harder going uphill, but we put more strain on our muscles walking downhill. Those of us who are right-handed can tighten screws and jar lids more forcibly than we can loosen them. Here we're treated to the story of how form and performance make these things happen—how nature does her work. Steven Vogel is a leader in the great new field of bioengineering, which is rapidly explaining the beauty and efficiency of nature. His talents as both scientist and writer shine in this masterful narrative of biological ingenuity, as he relates the story—and science—of nature's greatest engine.

Author : Steven Vogel
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : Cardiovascular system
ISBN : 9780195082692

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Vital Circuits by Steven Vogel Pdf

Why does dust collect on the blades of a fan? Why should you wear support hose on a long airplane flight? Vogel ranges across physics, fluid mechanics, and chemistry to show how an enormous system of pumps and pipes works to keep the human body functioning. Anyone curious about the workings of the body will want to read this book. 64 line drawings.

Author : Philip Ball
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 468 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2021-09-14
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781400865338

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Made to Measure by Philip Ball Pdf

Made to Measure introduces a general audience to one of today's most exciting areas of scientific research: materials science. Philip Ball describes how scientists are currently inventing thousands of new materials, ranging from synthetic skin, blood, and bone to substances that repair themselves and adapt to their environment, that swell and flex like muscles, that repel any ink or paint, and that capture and store the energy of the Sun. He shows how all this is being accomplished precisely because, for the first time in history, materials are being "made to measure": designed for particular applications, rather than discovered in nature or by haphazard experimentation. Now scientists literally put new materials together on the drawing board in the same way that a blueprint is specified for a house or an electronic circuit. But the designers are working not with skylights and alcoves, not with transistors and capacitors, but with molecules and atoms. This book is written in the same engaging manner as Ball's popular book on chemistry, Designing the Molecular World, and it links insights from chemistry, biology, and physics with those from engineering as it outlines the various areas in which new materials will transform our lives in the twenty-first century. The chapters provide vignettes from a broad range of selected areas of materials science and can be read as separate essays. The subjects include photonic materials, materials for information storage, smart materials, biomaterials, biomedical materials, materials for clean energy, porous materials, diamond and hard materials, new polymers, and surfaces and interfaces.

Author : David E. Alexander
Publisher : Academic Press
Page : 202 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2017-08-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780128498972

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Nature's Machines by David E. Alexander Pdf

Nature’s Machines: An Introduction to Organismal Biomechanics presents the fundamental principles of biomechanics in a concise, accessible way while maintaining necessary rigor. It covers the central principles of whole-organism biomechanics as they apply across the animal and plant kingdoms, featuring brief, tightly-focused coverage that does for biologists what H. M. Frost’s 1967 Introduction to Biomechanics did for physicians. Frequently encountered, basic concepts such as stress and strain, Young’s modulus, force coefficients, viscosity, and Reynolds number are introduced in early chapters in a self-contained format, making them quickly available for learning and as a refresher. More sophisticated, integrative concepts such as viscoelasticity or properties of hydrostats are covered in the later chapters, where they draw on information from multiple earlier sections of the book. Animal and plant biomechanics is now a common research area widely acknowledged by organismal biologists to have broad relevance. Most of the day-to-day activities of an animal involve mechanical processes, and to the extent that organisms are shaped by adaptive evolution, many of those adaptations are constrained and channelized by mechanical properties. The similarity in body shape of a porpoise and a tuna is no coincidence. Many may feel that they have an intuitive understanding of many of the mechanical processes that affect animals and plants, but careful biomechanical analyses often yield counterintuitive results: soft, squishy kelp may be better at withstanding pounding waves during storms than hard-shelled mollusks; really small swimmers might benefit from being spherical rather than streamlined; our bones can operate without breaking for decades, whereas steel surgical implants exhibit fatigue failures in a few months if not fully supported by bone. Offers organismal biologists and biologists in other areas a background in biomechanics to better understand the research literature and to explore the possibility of using biomechanics approaches in their own work Provides an introductory presentation of the everyday mechanical challenges faced by animals and plants Functions as recommended or required reading for advanced undergraduate biology majors taking courses in biomechanics, supplemental reading in a general organismal biology course, or background reading for a biomechanics seminar course

Author : Henry Petroski
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2011-10-10
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9781139505307

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An Engineer's Alphabet by Henry Petroski Pdf

Written by America's most famous engineering storyteller and educator, this abecedarium is one engineer's selection of thoughts, quotations, anecdotes, facts, trivia and arcana relating to the practice, history, culture and traditions of his profession. The entries reflect decades of reading, writing, talking and thinking about engineers and engineering, and range from brief essays to lists of great engineering achievements. This work is organized alphabetically and more like a dictionary than an encyclopedia. It is not intended to be read from first page to last, but rather to be dipped into, here and there, as the mood strikes the reader. In time, it is hoped, this book should become the source to which readers go first when they encounter a vague or obscure reference to the softer side of engineering.

Author : Frank J. Swetz,T. I. Kao
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 109 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 1977
Category : Geometry
ISBN : 9780271044910

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Was Pythagoras Chinese? by Frank J. Swetz,T. I. Kao Pdf

Author : Gabor L. Hornyak,John J. Moore,H.F. Tibbals,Joydeep Dutta
Publisher : CRC Press
Page : 786 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2018-12-14
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9781420048049

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Fundamentals of Nanotechnology by Gabor L. Hornyak,John J. Moore,H.F. Tibbals,Joydeep Dutta Pdf

WINNER 2009 CHOICE AWARD OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE! Nanotechnology is no longer a subdiscipline of chemistry, engineering, or any other field. It represents the convergence of many fields, and therefore demands a new paradigm for teaching. This textbook is for the next generation of nanotechnologists. It surveys the field’s broad landscape, exploring the physical basics such as nanorheology, nanofluidics, and nanomechanics as well as industrial concerns such as manufacturing, reliability, and safety. The authors then explore the vast range of nanomaterials and systematically outline devices and applications in various industrial sectors. This color text is an ideal companion to Introduction to Nanoscience by the same group of esteemed authors. Both titles are also available as the single volume Introduction to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Qualifying instructors who purchase either of these volumes (or the combined set) are given online access to a wealth of instructional materials. These include detailed lecture notes, review summaries, slides, exercises, and more. The authors provide enough material for both one- and two-semester courses.

Author : Gabor L. Hornyak,H.F. Tibbals,Joydeep Dutta,John J. Moore
Publisher : CRC Press
Page : 1635 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2008-12-22
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781420047806

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Introduction to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology by Gabor L. Hornyak,H.F. Tibbals,Joydeep Dutta,John J. Moore Pdf

The maturation of nanotechnology has revealed it to be a unique and distinct discipline rather than a specialization within a larger field. Its textbook cannot afford to be a chemistry, physics, or engineering text focused on nano. It must be an integrated, multidisciplinary, and specifically nano textbook. The archetype of the modern nano textbook

Author : James Barilla
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 187 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2021-03-14
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9781000362350

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Naturebot by James Barilla Pdf

Naturebot: Unconventional Visions of Nature presents a humanities-oriented addition to the literature on biomimetics and bioinspiration, an interdisciplinary field which investigates what it means to mimic nature with technology. This technology mirrors the biodiversity of nature and it is precisely this creation of technological metaphors for the intricate workings of the natural world that is the real subject of Naturebot. Over the course of the book, Barilla applies the narrative conventions of the nature writing genre to this unconventional vision of nature, contrasting the traditional tropes and questions of natural history with an expanding menagerie of creatures that defy conventional categories of natural and artificial. In keeping with its nature writing approach, the book takes us to where we can encounter these creatures, examining the technological models and the biotic specimens that inspired them. In doing so, it contemplates the future of the human relationship to the environment, and the future of nature writing in the 21st century. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of biomimetics, environmental literary studies/ecocriticism, and the environmental humanities.

Author : C. A. Brebbia
Publisher : WIT Press
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Design
ISBN : 9781845641207

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Design & Nature IV by C. A. Brebbia Pdf

Design in engineering and science has often been inspired by nature. This has been more evident in recent years, after a period during which our civilization thought in terms of taming rather than working in harmony with nature. The consequences of that approach are still with us and have resulted in a world increasingly homogenized, lacking in biodiversity and with increased pollution. Mankind has been slow to learn and even slower to apply the lessons that nature offers, in spite of the urgency of our predicament. This book contains papers presented at the fourth International Conference on Comparing Design in Nature with Science and Engineering . The emphasis of this Volume is on engineering and architectural applications and on biomimetics, reflecting in some measure current interest in finding environmentally friendly solutions which also optimize the use of natural resources. The contributions have been arranged into the following topics: Biomimetics; Shape and Form in Engineering Nature; Nature and Architectural Design; Natural Materials and Surfaces; Complexity; and Education.