In Search Of The Time And Space Machine

An eleven-year-old, bored with her life, imagines a more exciting one as a secret agent, but when she spends the summer on her aunt's farm, her stories become reality as she stumbles onto a real spy ring.

Every age has characteristic inventions that change the world. In the 19th century it was the steam engine and the train. For the 20th, electric and gasoline power, aircraft, nuclear weapons, even ventures into space. Today, the planet is awash with electronic business, chatter and virtual-reality entertainment so brilliant that the division between real and simulated is hard to discern. But one new idea from the 19th century has failed, so far, to enter reality—time travel, using machines to turn the time dimension into a two-way highway. Will it come true, as foreseen in science fiction? Might we expect visits to and from the future, sooner than from space? That is the Time Machine Hypothesis, examined here by futurist Damien Broderick, an award-winning writer and theorist of the genre of the future. Broderick homes in on the topic through the lens of science as well as fiction, exploring some fifty different time-travel scenarios and conundrums found in the science fiction literature and film.

Machine Learning

String algorithms are a traditional area of study in computer science. In recent years their importance has grown dramatically with the huge increase of electronically stored text and of molecular sequence data (DNA or protein sequences) produced by various genome projects. This 1997 book is a general text on computer algorithms for string processing. In addition to pure computer science, the book contains extensive discussions on biological problems that are cast as string problems, and on methods developed to solve them. It emphasises the fundamental ideas and techniques central to today's applications. New approaches to this complex material simplify methods that up to now have been for the specialist alone. With over 400 exercises to reinforce the material and develop additional topics, the book is suitable as a text for graduate or advanced undergraduate students in computer science, computational biology, or bio-informatics. Its discussion of current algorithms and techniques also makes it a reference for professionals.

The search for life is one of the most active fields in space science and involves a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including planetary science, astronomy and astrophysics, chemistry, biology, chemistry, and geoscience. In December 2016, the Space Studies Board hosted a workshop to explore the possibility of habitable environments in the solar system and in exoplanets, techniques for detecting life, and the instrumentation used. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

When a young Victorian couple inadvertently tamper with Sir William Reynolds's latest invention, a time-space machine, they find themselves flung not only into the future but also across the void of space. Now, trapped on an alien world with a landscape of weird vegetation and overseen by giant, long-legged machines operated by gruesome octopus-like creatures, they must find a way to survive. And when they learn that the monsters are plotting an invasion of Earth, can they find a way to return home and save the planet? Written as a tribute to H.G. Wells and drawing on elements of his celebrated novels The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, Christopher Priest's The Space Machine (1976) is a thrilling adventure that ranks among his most enjoyable works. "This is an astonishing change of pace for Mr. Priest, and one which extends his powers in ways which reveal him as one of the best and most persuasive young British writers." - The Times (London) "First rate ... science fiction at its best!" - Los Angeles Herald-Examiner "A novel that is unusual for its kind, a science fiction story with recognizable characters and a sense of style, atmosphere and humour. Imaginative and full of amusing curiosities." - Sunday Express