Cosa hanno in comune i circuiti elettrici, il sistema ferroviario, gli antichi labirinti e Internet? Come si può calcolare il percorso più breve tra due città? È possibile colorare una cartina geografica usando solo quattro colori? Viviamo in un mondo interconnesso e questo libro ci spiega perché. La teoria dei grafi fornisce soluzioni a numerosi problemi pratici e teorici. Partendo da alcuni rompicapi matematici, Higgins ci aiuta a esplorare le strutture nascoste che sono alla base di alcuni tra i fenomeni più complessi del mondo attuale. Si passerà dal Sudoku circolare al classico problema del postino cinese, dall'organizzazione della sorveglianza di una galleria d'arte al trasporto di mogli e mariti gelosi, per arrivare ai social network.

Il presente volume raccoglie molti degli scritti di Dick Higgins dedicati al concetto di Intermedia o ad esso correlati. Testimoniano di una produzione teorica che impegnò l'autore dalla metà degli anni sessanta al 1998, anno della sua morte. Pubblicati in riviste e libri, sovente editi dall'autore stesso, sono qui presentati per la prima volta, salvo rare eccezioni, in una antologia monografica in traduzione italiana. La forza del concetto introdotto da Dick Higgins risiede nell'assoluta elasticità, capace non solo di permettere un approccio alle opere degli anni sessanta, ma utile anche per descrivere molte delle produzioni posteriori. Caratteristica che diventa evidente nelle sue presentazioni grafiche, riprodotte in questo volume. Dick Higgins è una delle personalità più influenti per lo sviluppo delle nuove forme d'arte d'avanguardia della seconda metà del XX secolo: con Allan Kaprow, Al Hansen, Claes Oldenburg e altri ha inventato gli happening; con George Maciunas, George Brecht, Alison Knowles e Nam June Paik è stato tra i primi promotori di Fluxus; come compositore, artista e teorico ha influenzato profondamente lo sviluppo dell'arte d'avanguardia, grazie anche alla sua attività di editore sviluppata con la fondazione della Something Else Press e la straordinaria serie dei Great Bear Pamphlets.

RADIANT STATE - PETER HIGGINS - Orion

Take a crime-filled tour of Manhattan with this collection of all-new mystery stories compiled and edited by Mary Higgins Clark—with contributions by Lee Child, Jeffrey Deaver, Ben H. Winters, and others.

From the streets of Harlem to the winding paths of Central Park to the high-rise towers of Wall Street, Manhattan is brimming with motivation, opportunity, means…and unsolved mysteries. In this new collection of stories, brought together by Mystery Writers of America and edited by bestselling suspense author Mary Higgins Clark, neighborhoods in the borough come to life—or death—with their own cases to be cracked. From the Flatiron District (Lee Child) to Greenwich Village (Jeffrey Deaver), from Times Square (Brendan DuBois) to the NY Public Library (Susan Isaacs), this collection of fifteen original short stories will lead listeners all over the Big Apple.

TRUTH AND FEAR - HIGGINS PETER - Orion

Investigator Lom returns to Mirgorod and finds the city in the throes of a crisis. The war against the Archipelago is not going well. Enemy divisions are massing outside the city, air raids are a daily occurrence and the citizens are being conscripted into the desperate defense of the city.

L'aspetto ricreativo e divertente della matematica, che si manifesta sotto forma di un indovinello, un trucco o un paradosso, è molto caro ai matematici, e oggi se ne riconosce l'indiscusso valore pedagogico. Non si dimentichi che la topologia ha avuto origine dall'analisi del cosiddetto problema dei ponti di Königsberg (è possibile attraversare 7 ponti una e una sola volta?), e che la sequenza di mosse che permette di risolvere il gioco della Torre di Hanoi è ben nota a chiunque lavori con i calcolatori binari. Il matematico americano Martin Gardner diceva che "la matematica, dopo tutto, non è altro che la soluzione di un indovinello", e Peter Higgins sembra aver fatto sua questa lezione. L'aritmetica, l'algebra e la geometria elementari vengono affrontate, capite e veicolate attraverso semplici problemi e quesiti che costituiscono l'ossatura del libro: per esempio, in quale momento della giornata le due lancette di un orologio coincidono, qual è la probabilità che due studenti di una stessa classe festeggino il compleanno nello stesso giorno, come possiamo calcolare il volume di un krapfen? Un itinerario divertente e affascinante, accompagnato da rigorose (ma comprensibili) dimostrazioni, con interessanti incursioni nel pensiero matematico moderno. Con le sue spiegazioni chiare e illuminanti, l'autore dimostra che la matematica può essere divertente, godibile e piena di sorprese.

Women and Comedy: History, Theory, Practice brings together leading researchers from Canada, the United States, and Europe in an interdisciplinary collection of essays to chart the future of critical inquiry in gender and comedy studies. Bridging research, performance, and reception, and making bold connections across genres, periods, and fields, the volume is especially attuned to the practice of teaching the history and theory of women’s humor in the university classroom.

Sent to the capital, Mirgorod, to capture a terrorist, Inspector Vissarion Lom finds the city a corrupt world of secret police, revolutionaries, cabarets and lost artists and slowly comes to the realization of exactly why he was chosen for this job. 30,000 first printing.

In March 1918 the Germans launched a series of massive assaults in a bid to break the deadlock on the Western Front and win the war. By this time the British armoured forces had seen extensive combat. The Germans, though, lagged behind in developing armoured fighting vehicles; the March offensive saw the first deployment of the Germans' own design, the A7V. Seeking to capture the important road hub of Amiens, on 24 April the Germans overran Villers-Bretonneux, but were soon halted by Allied ground forces. As three British Mark IV tanks moved up to support a counterattack to regain the town, three German A7Vs arrived on the scene, triggering history's first tank-versus-tank battle.

With two of the British Mark IVs being machine-gun-armed 'females', both were outgunned, and withdrew after the lead A7V, No. 561 'Nixe', damaged them. The remaining 'male' Mark IV, 'A1', equipped with two 6pdr cannons, succeeded in disabling 'Nixe', and the remaining pair of German tanks withdrew. As the only operational tank now on the battlefield, the Mark IV 'male' attracted German artillery fire; as it withdrew, seven British Whippet light tanks engaged the German infantry, only to be attacked themselves by A7V No. 525 'Siegfried' and German artillery.

The German A7V and the British Mark IV were similar in weight, size, and speed, but differed significantly in armour, armament and manoeuvrability. The A7V had thicker armour, and had nearly double the horsepower per ton, but its engines were prone to overheating. The Mark IV's pair of side-mounted 6pdr cannons forced the vehicle to present its side arc to an enemy in order to fire one of its main guns; even so, it had difficulty penetrating the A7V's armour. Possessing twice as many machine guns as the Mark IV, the A7V had a frontally mounted 57mm gun that proved capable of defeating the Mark IV's armour, but the German tank's shape made for a number of blind spots, while the limited traverse of its weapons prompted A7V crews to manoeuvre in a zigzag motion. The Mark IV's rhomboid design proved superior in crossing trenches, climbing obstacles and moving over rough terrain.

As the first tank-versus-tank engagement in history, the fighting around Villers-Bretonneux showcased not only the British Mark IV and German A7V designs, but also the late-war, all-arms environment in which each operated. Although not purpose-built to combat enemy armour, both vehicles proved the viability of such operations, which during the postwar period led to key advances in suspension, armour, gunsights, ammunition, and command and control. While the British continued to develop their armoured forces, German armour development never materialized, and only in the postwar period did they address the issue.

For most of the modern world, ancient Nubia seems an unknown and enigmatic land. Only a handful of archaeologists have studied its history or unearthed the Nubian cities, temples, and cemeteries that once dotted the landscape of southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Nubia's remote setting in the midst of an inhospitable desert, with access by river blocked by impassable rapids, has lent it not only an air of mystery, but also isolated it from exploration. Over the past century, particularly during this last generation, scholars have begun to focus more attention on the fascinating cultures of ancient Nubia, ironically prompted by the construction of large dams that have flooded vast tracts of the ancient land.

This book attempts to document some of what has recently been discovered about ancient Nubia, with its remarkable history, architecture, and culture, and thereby to give us a picture of this rich, but unfamiliar, African legacy.

Come si può calcolare il percorso più breve tra due città? È possibile colorare una cartina geografica usando solo quattro colori? Con due gruppi, uno di n ragazzi e l'altro di m ragazze, e una relazione di "attrazione" tra i gruppi di sesso opposto, qual è la maniera più efficiente per formare delle coppie? La disciplina matematica che studia questo tipo di strutture si chiama teoria dei grafi e fornisce soluzioni a numerosi problemi pratici e teorici. Partendo da alcuni rompicapi matematici, Peter Higgins ci aiuta a esplorare le strutture nascoste che sono alla base di alcuni tra i fenomeni più complessi del mondo attuale. Si passerà dal Sudoku circolare al classico problema del postino cinese (che ha eluso tanti matematici), dall'organizzazione della sorveglianza di una galleria d'arte al trasporto di mogli e mariti gelosi, per arrivare ai social network e infine alla struttura e ai meccanismi alla base della vita.

As a prelude to the post-war concept of a single "main battle tank" design, vehicles during World War II tended to be categorized as light, medium, and heavy, depending on their use. In this last category, tanks had grown in size, weight, and firepower to counter ever-improving anti-tank weapon systems. This resulted in changes in tactics and doctrine to better integrate heavy armor into a combined arms system. This was especially true on the Eastern Front, where the open terrain promoted armor action and a rapid cycle of improvements. The Soviets were quick to develop vehicles that were able to fight the Tiger I on an equal footing by late 1943, such as the up-gunned T-34/85 and the self-propelled ISU-152s. Because the American T-26/M-26 Pershing arrived late in the war, and the British Centurion not at all, only the Soviet IS-2 serves as an example of a heavy design that was fielded in large battlefield numbers. The Soviet drive to cut off enemy forces in East Prussia during Operation Solstice (February 1945) is a prime example of this conflict. The Germans, had limited resources, and were strategically on the defensive, but enjoyed ever-shorter logistic distances as they retreated, and fought in an environment and terrain that played to the strengths of the technically-superior King Tiger. The IS-2 was lighter, more maneuverable, and far more numerous, and used these assets to its advantage. This battle, fought in the closing months of the war, depicts the classic late-war contrast between the military doctrines of Germany and the Soviet Union.

"The first curricular-focused outdoor learning textbook for prospective and practising K-12 teachers, this book provides both academic justification and practical support for educators working in a wide variety of environments and with diverse populations of students to incorporate more meaningful outdoor learning opportunities into their daily teaching activities. Learning Outside the Classroom is not a set of prescriptive activities that can be read and used uncritically. The idea of adaptation for personal relevance is central. All teachers are capable of enhancing their students' learning experiences by systematically and progressively incorporating ventures outside the classroom into their lessons. The principles and examples presented in this book are intended to be adapted by teachers to suit the needs of their students in ways that draw upon content offered by the local landscape and its natural and built heritage. Nor is this book just about outdoor learning; it's about good teaching -- whereverit takes place. It is about helping teachers devise and use the tools with which they can address the largely uncontested assumption that legitimate learning only occurs within four walls. Learning outside the classroom affords teachers the privilege of helping and the joy of observing students in a process of intellectual, emotional, and social growth that can last a lifetime"-- Provided by publisher.

Numbers are integral to our everyday lives and factor into almost everything we do. In this Very Short Introduction, Peter M. Higgins, a renowned popular-science writer, unravels the world of numbers, demonstrating its richness and providing an overview of all the number types that feature in modern science and mathematics. Indeed, Higgins paints a crystal-clear picture of the number world, showing how the modern number system matured over many centuries, and introducing key concepts such as integers, fractions, real and imaginary numbers, and complex numbers. Higgins sheds light on such fascinating topics as the series of primes, describing how primes are now used to encrypt confidential data on the internet. He also explores the infinite nature of number collections and explains how the so-called real numbers knit together to form the continuum of the number line. Written in the fashion of Higgins' highly popular science paperbacks, Numbers accurately explains the nature of numbers and how so-called complex numbers and number systems are used in calculations that arise in real problems.