Consider a Spherical Cow, Second Edition - John Harte

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Résumé :
This textbook teaches how to make--and derive useful insight from--relatively simple models of many seemingly complex environmental problems facing our world today.
This new edition of Consider a Spherical Cow teaches basic mathematical modeling skills that are widely applicable to a huge range of environmental problems facing the world today. Organized both by modeling tools and environmental topics, this innovative book includes 56 posed problems and worked-out solutions. Readers will find introductions to topics, extensive pedagogic material explaining how to use the relevant modeling tools, and opportunities to think more deeply about or confirm steps in the provided solutions. This new edition includes 101 new quantitative homework exercises, an appendix compendium of updated environmental data, a glossary, and a bibliography, plus entirely new sections on probability, toxics, radiation and radioactivity, and epidemics.With wide topical coverage, Harte teaches the math step by step in the context of actual posed environmental problems, emphasizes limitations and strengths of models, and describes practical applications to real problems and situations. Along with the many worked-out problems, discussion questions and quantitative problems are provided as exercises for the reader. The book emphasizes creative applications of math to environmental science, not plug-in problems....

Biographie:
John Harte is a Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley. He did his undergraduate studies at Harvard and his PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Wisconsin. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pew Scholars award, the Leo Szilard prize from the American Physical Society, and a George Polk award in investigative journalism. He is an elected Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, the American Physical Society, the Ecological society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has also served on six National Academy of Sciences Committees and has authored over 250 scientific journal publications and eight books. John's research focuses on ecology, climate, complexity science, and environmental policy....

Sommaire:
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter I. Warm-Up Exercises
Chapter II. Learning the Tools of the Trade
Probability
Steady State Box Models and Residence Times
Thermodynmics and Energy Transfer
Chemical Reactions and Equilibria
Non-Steady State Box Models
Chapter III. Applying Basic Tools to Complex Problems
Biogeochemistry
ClimateSurvival of Populations
Toxic Substances
Radiation and Radioactivity
101 Homework Exercises
Appendix: Useful Numbers
Glossary
Bibliography
Index...