In his bestselling The Moral Animal, Robert Wright applied the principles of evolutionary biology to the study of the human mind. Now Wright attempts something even more ambitious: explaining the direction of evolution and human history–and discerning where history will lead us next. In Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Wright asserts that, ever since the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern. Organisms and human societies alike have grown more complex by mastering the challenges of internal cooperation. Wright's narrative ranges from fossilized bacteria to vampire bats, from stone-age villages to the World Trade Organization, uncovering such surprises as the benefits of barbarian hordes and the useful stability of feudalism. Here is history endowed with moral significance–a way of looking at our biological and cultural evolution that suggests, refreshingly, that human morality has improved over time, and that our instinct to discover meaning may itself serve a higher purpose. Insightful, witty, profound, Nonzero offers breathtaking implications for what we believe and how we adapt to technology's ongoing transformation of the world.

Learn about the driving forces of your destiny. As human beings, we constantly question the concept of fate. Does it exist? Is it intentional? Is it responsible for the directions of our lives? Fortunately for us, acclaimed scholar and thinker Robert Wright has pondered these same questions and embarked on an ambitious quest to answer life’s seemingly unanswerable questions. Nonzero (2001) is the fruit of his labor. Positing that human morality has evolved for the better and that we have learned to shape our own destinies, Nonzero is a holistic look back through history. Do you want more free book summaries like this? Download our app for free at https://www.QuickRead.com/App and get access to hundreds of free book and audiobook summaries. DISCLAIMER: This book summary is meant as a preview and not a replacement for the original work. If you like this summary please consider purchasing the original book to get the full experience as the original author intended it to be. If you are the original author of any book on QuickRead and want us to remove it, please contact us at [email protected].

One of the most provocative science books ever published—"a feast of great thinking and writing about the most profound issues there are" (The New York Times Book Review). "Fiercely intelligent, beautifully written and engrossingly original." —The New York Times Book Review Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animaled one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics—as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies. Illustrations.

studio bau:ton, the practice founded by Swiss architect Peter Grüneisen, designs buildings rooted in the sphere of imagination and creativity. The practice’s main clients are in the music and film production industry in Los Angeles, for whom it designs private houses and work spaces. The focus is on the combination of high-tech entertainment design with glamorous, exclusive architecture. On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the Los Angeles-based architectural practice nonzero\architecture is publishing the second monograph. The book includes conversations with well known clients including Hans Zimmer, David Lynch, Bruce Botnik, and Paul Lieberstein. The completed projects include residences, mixed residential/work spaces, through to recording studios and public buildings.

This book gives an overview of research on graphs associated with commutative rings. The study of the connections between algebraic structures and certain graphs, especially finite groups and their Cayley graphs, is a classical subject which has attracted a lot of interest. More recently, attention has focused on graphs constructed from commutative rings, a field of study which has generated an extensive amount of research over the last three decades. The aim of this text is to consolidate this large body of work into a single volume, with the intention of encouraging interdisciplinary research between algebraists and graph theorists, using the tools of one subject to solve the problems of the other. The topics covered include the graphical and topological properties of zero-divisor graphs, total graphs and their transformations, and other graphs associated with rings. The book will be of interest to researchers in commutative algebra and graph theory and anyone interested in learning about the connections between these two subjects.

This is the first monograph devoted to clean ring and matrix theory. It aims to study a theory of expressing an element in a ring as the sum of some special ones, such as idempotents, units, nilpotents, tripotents, involutions, etc. A matrix over such rings is thereby expressed as the sum of some special matrices. Also another topics on the behaviors of topological properties and *-properties of such rings are investigated.The book is based on the results of various published papers, particularly, by the authors'. It is accessible for students familiar with general abstract algebra, while the topics are interesting for researchers in the field of ring, matrix and operator theory.

A collection of essays by fifteen philosophers presenting a thoughtful, introductory guide to choosing a philosophy for living an examined and meaningful life. Socrates famously said "the unexamined life is not worth living," but what does it mean to truly live philosophically? This thought-provoking, wide-ranging collection brings together essays by fifteen leading philosophers reflecting on what it means to live according to a philosophy of life. From Eastern philosophies (Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism) and classical Western philosophies (such as Aristotelianism and Stoicism), to the four major religions, as well as contemporary philosophies (such as existentialism and effective altruism), each contributor offers a lively, personal account of how they find meaning in the practice of their chosen philosophical tradition. Together, the pieces in How to Live a Good Life provide not only a beginner's guide to choosing a life philosophy but also a timely portrait of what it means to live an examined life in the twenty-first century. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

Helping current and future system designers take a more productive approach in the field, Communication System Security shows how to apply security principles to state-of-the-art communication systems. The authors use previous design failures and security flaws to explain common pitfalls in security design.Divided into four parts, the book begins w

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 2nd International Castle Meeting, ISMCTA 2008, Castillo de la Mota, Medina del Campo, Spain, September 2008. The 14 full papers and 5 invited papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 34 submissions for inclusion in the book. The papers cover network coding, quantum codes, group codes, codes and combinatorial structures, agebraic-geometry codes, as well as codes and applications.

Did you know that any straight-line drawing on paper can be folded so that the complete drawing can be cut out with one straight scissors cut? That there is a planar linkage that can trace out any algebraic curve, or even 'sign your name'? Or that a 'Latin cross' unfolding of a cube can be refolded to 23 different convex polyhedra? Over the past decade, there has been a surge of interest in such problems, with applications ranging from robotics to protein folding. With an emphasis on algorithmic or computational aspects, this treatment gives hundreds of results and over 60 unsolved 'open problems' to inspire further research. The authors cover one-dimensional (1D) objects (linkages), 2D objects (paper), and 3D objects (polyhedra). Aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics or computer science, this lavishly illustrated book will fascinate a broad audience, from school students to researchers.