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Famed in story as "the great leviathans," sperm whales are truly creatures of extremes. Giants among all whales, they also have the largest brains of any creature on Earth. Males can reach a length of sixty-two feet and can weigh upwards of fifty tons. With this book, Hal Whitehead gives us a clearer picture of the ecology and social life of sperm whales than we have ever had before. Based on almost two decades of field research, Whitehead describes their biology, behavior, and habitat; how they organize their societies; and how their complex lifestyles may have evolved in this unique environment. Among the many fascinating topics he explores is the crucial role that culture plays in the life of the sperm whale, and he traces the consequences of this argument for both evolution and conservation. Finally, drawing on these findings, Whitehead builds a general model of how the ocean environment influences social behavior and cultural evolution among mammals as well as other animals. The definitive portrait of a provocative creature, Sperm Whales will interest animal behaviorists, conservationists, ecologists, and evolutionary biologists as well as marine mammalogists.
The Mathematical Works of J. H. C. Whitehead, Volume 1: Differential Geometry contains all of Whitehead's published work on differential geometry, along with some papers on algebras. Most of these were written in the period 1929-1937, but a few later articles are included. The book begins with a list of Whitehead's works, in chronological order of writing as well as a biographical note by M. H. A. Newman and Barbara Whitehead, and a mathematical appreciation by John Milnor. This is followed by separate chapters on topics such as linear connections; a method of obtaining normal representations for a projective connection; representation of projective spaces; convex regions in the geometry of paths; locally homogeneous spaces in differential geometry; and the decomposition of an infinitesimal group. Also included are chapters on locally homogeneous spaces in differential geometry; Maurer's equations; linear associative algebras; an expression of Hopf's invariant as an integral; and normalizators of transformation groups.
From the PREFACE. Vicissitudes of fortune are as frequent in literature as in other departments of intellectual activity. The rank held by an author is constantly liable to change. Literary reputation is frequently a thing of chance, and is due almost as much to a favourable concatenation of circumstances as to intrinsic excellence. Perhaps it is an error to conclude that merit is the final test to which fame is brought, that the guerdon of praise is the ultimate and certain recompense of genius. We know that it has sometimes happened that men whose work has eventually proved to be good and even great, have been for years, perhaps for generations, unrecognized. The inference is a reasonable ...