Boeken in diamond open access bij Radboud university Press
Onlangs verschenen bij Radboud University Press twee boeken. Nu te bestellen en gratis te downloaden.
Foundations of General Relativity: From Einstein to Black Holes - Klaas Landsman
This book, dedicated to Roger Penrose, is a second, mathematically oriented course in general relativity. It contains extensive references and occasional excursions in the history and philosophy of gravity, including a relatively lengthy historical introduction. The book is intended for all students of general relativity of any age and orientation who have a background including at least first courses in special and general relativity, differential geometry, and topology. The material is developed in such a way that through the last two chapters the reader may acquire a taste of the modern mathematical study of black holes initiated by Penrose, Hawking, and others, as further influenced by the initial-value or PDE approach to general relativity. Successful readers might be able to begin reading research papers on black holes, especially in mathematical physics and in the philosophy of physics. The chapters are: Historical introduction, General differential geometry, Metric differential geometry, Curvature, Geodesics and causal structure, The singularity theorems of Hawking and Penrose, The Einstein equations, The 3+1 split of space-time, Black holes I: Exact solutions, and Black holes II: General theory. These are followed by two appendices containing background on Lie groups, Lie algebras, & constant curvature, and on Formal PDE theory.
Homo Educandus: Why Our School System is Broken and What We Can Do About It. - Jan Bransen
Linnaeus, the Swedish taxonomist, was wrong when he named our species Homo sapiens, i.e. wise man. We are not. We do too many senseless, destructive and irresponsible things to deserve that label. Actually, we need to be educated. Fortunately, we can be educated. We can transform ourselves. We are Homo educandus. Sadly, our current school system is broken. In fact, it does not support education. It deforms. This is what Jan Bransen claims in this book. He convincingly argues that our current school system is based on incoherent ideas, among which the notions that people need to study for years on end before they are ready to take part in our society, or that students learn because teachers teach. We can do better than that. In the second part of the book, Bransen points out that we have reasons to be confident and enthusiastic. We can improve our education system. Applying a dramaturgical analysis of human action, Bransen explains what socialization should look like in primary education, how our personal development can be supported in secondary education and how qualification can be organized in dual tracks in higher education, integrating learning, working and living over our course of life.