Geometries Of Nature Living Systems And Human Cognition

Intended to provide a study of some mathematical and physical subjects which are at the core of developments in the natural and living sciences. This book aims to show that an accomplished movement of geometrisation has enabled the discovery of a varietyof structures and behaviors in physical reality and in living matter.

This volume focuses on the interactions between mathematics, physics, biology and neuroscience by exploring new geometrical and topological modelling in these fields. Among the highlights are the central roles played by multilevel and scale-change approaches in these disciplines. The integration of mathematics with physics, as well as molecular and cell biology and the neurosciences, will constitute the new frontier of 21st century science, where breakthroughs are more likely to span across traditional disciplines. Contents:Geometry, Theoretical Physics and Cosmology:The Emergence of Algebraic Geometry in Contemporary Physics (Claudio Bartocci & Ugo Bruzzo)Quantum Gravity and Quantum Geometry (Mauro Carfora)The de Sitter and Anti-de Sitter Universes (Ugo Moschella)Geometry and Topology in Relativistic Cosmology (Jean-Pierre Luminet)The Problem of Space in Neurosciences:Space Coding in the Cerebral Cortex (Leonardo Fogassi)Action and Space Representation (Anna Berti & Alessia Folegatti)The Space Representations in the Brain (Claudio Brozzoli & Alessandro Farnè)The Enactive Constitution of Space (Carrado Sinigaglia & Chiara Brozzo)Geometrical Methods in the Biological Sciences:Causes and Symmetries in Natural Sciences: The Continuum and the Discrete in Mathematical Modelling (Francis Bailly & Giuseppe Longo)Topological Invariants of Geometrical Surfaces and the Protein Folding Problem (Riccardo Broglia)The Geometry of Dense Packing and Biological Structures (Jean-François Sadoc)When Topology and Biology Meet ‘For Life’: The Interactions Between Topological Forms and Biological Functions (Luciano Boi) Readership: Students and researchers in mathematical sciences at graduate level. Keywords:Geometrical Models;Spatial Perception;Mirror Neurons;Quantum Field Theory;String TheoryKey Features:Multidisciplinary approachDistinguished contributors working in different research areasNovel perspectives on the interactions between mathematics and biology

This book includes contributions about mathematics, physics, philosophy of science, economics and finance and resulted from the Summer School “Complexity and Emergence: Ideas, Methods, with a Special Attention to Economics and Finance” held in Lake Como School of Advanced Studies, on 22–27 July 2018. The aim of the book is to provide useful instruments from the theory of complex systems, both on the theoretical level and the methodological ones, profiting from knowledge and insights from leading experts of different communities. It moves from the volume editors' conviction that to achieve progress in understanding socio-economical as well as ecological problems of our complex word such preparation is needed, together with a critical reconsideration of our basic scientific and economical approach. The potential readers are primarily master and doctorate students of mathematics, information sciences, theoretical physics and economics, as well as research workers in those areas, who want to enlarge their spectrum of knowledge towards the area of complexity and emergence. Since ideas and methods of the theory of complex systems also apply to other areas (from engineering and architecture to biology and medicine, e.g.), students and research workers from those areas will also profit from this book.

Downward causation plays a fundamental role in many theories of metaphysics and philosophy of mind. It is strictly connected with many topics in philosophy, including but not limited to: emergence, mental causation, the nature of causation, the nature of causal powers and dispositions, laws of nature, and the possibility of ontological and epistemic reductions. Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation brings together experts from different fields—including William Bechtel, Stewart Clark and Tom Lancaster, Carl Gillett, John Heil, Robin F. Hendry, Max Kistler, Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum —who delve into classic and unexplored lines of philosophical inquiry related to downward causation. It critically assesses the possibility of downward causation given different ontological assumptions and explores the connection between downward causation and the metaphysics of causation and dispositions. Finally, it presents different cases of downward causation in empirical fields such as physics, chemistry, biology and the neurosciences. This volume is both a useful introduction and a collection of original contributions on this fascinating and hotly debated philosophical topic.

Number theory, spectral geometry, and fractal geometry are interlinked in this study of the vibrations of fractal strings, that is, one-dimensional drums with fractal boundary. The Riemann hypothesis is given a natural geometric reformulation in context of vibrating fractal strings, and the book offers explicit formulas extended to apply to the geometric, spectral and dynamic zeta functions associated with a fractal.

Number theory, spectral geometry, and fractal geometry are interlinked in this in-depth study of the vibrations of fractal strings, that is, one-dimensional drums with fractal boundary. Throughout Geometry, Complex Dimensions and Zeta Functions, Second Edition, new results are examined and a new definition of fractality as the presence of nonreal complex dimensions with positive real parts is presented. The new final chapter discusses several new topics and results obtained since the publication of the first edition.