bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Conquest and Assimilation, 1757–1765
Authors: Bourke Richard
Published: May 2018

This chapter details events in Burke's life from 1757 to 1765, when he shifted his attention from literary pursuits to the demands of public business. In 1759, he accepted the patronage of William Gerard Hamilton and soon found his energies swamped by the demands of his employer. In the early 1760s, he visited Ireland on official business, and it was in this period that he began to compose his work on the Irish popery laws. By 1765, his writings were connected exclusively to parliamentary or party business. His great polemical works, which appeared later in his career, were all constructed as responses to immediate events. Consequently, they were not directly products of study and meditation. Nonetheless, his deepest concerns were related to the intellectual projects that he nurtured in the 1750s. These projects included his early historical writing.
Collision with the Colonies, 1765–1774
Authors: Bourke Richard
Published: May 2018

Burke's parliamentary career began with a major political crisis that would loom large in national debates for a further seventeen years. The rift with America represented the most dramatic controversy to emerge during the first half of the reign of George III. Colonial resistance mounted a challenge to the composite structure of the Empire and to the nature of metropolitan authority. This chapter charts Burke's response to the developing situation down to the eve of the outbreak of the war of independence. From the beginning he was wary about a contest over “rights,” pitting the claims of the colonists against the government. By December 1765, Burke had decided that the repeal of George Grenville's Stamp Act offered the only means of reconciling both sides.
A Revolution in Ideas
Authors: Bourke Richard
Published: May 2018

This chapter details Burke's political life from 1766 to 1773. Burke's response to developments in India between the start of the Chatham ministry and the early years of the North administration occurred against the backdrop of his engagement with domestic events in conjunction with the American crisis. In each case, his thinking was framed by the context of British constitutional concerns, above all his alarm about the decline of party and the rise of an imperious style in court and ministerial circles. India posed a particular threat in the context of these preoccupations: the access to patronage that the conquest of Bengal might deliver into the hands of the British crown filled Burke with dismay.
A Dreadful State of Things
Authors: Bourke Richard
Published: May 2018

This chapter details Burke's political life from 1777 to 1785. As Burke pondered the implications of a formal pact with the American colonies that might help bring to an end two years of angry warfare, the affairs of India were unexpectedly thrust onto the parliamentary agenda. It was in the aftermath of the violent deposition of Lord Pigot from his position as Governor of Madras in August 1776 that Burke's attention became focused on the transactions of the subcontinent. For two years from the spring of 1777 he concerned himself in particular with developments in the south. This culminated in the joint publication with William Burke of the Policy of Making Conquests for the Mahometans in the summer of 1779.
Revolutionary Crescendo
Authors: Bourke Richard
Published: May 2018

This chapter details events in Burke's life from 1793 to 1797. On 1 February 1793, France declared war on Britain. Nine days later, Pitt's government reciprocated with its own declaration of hostilities. Burke now regarded French territory as occupied by an austere republic that had substituted enthusiasm for the military virtues for a culture of sociability and politeness. Given the exigent circumstances afflicting the British Empire, Burke considered Fox's position as excessively indulgent towards France. For this reason, in his Observations on the Conduct of the Minority, composed between February and June 1793, he strove to detach Portland and his followers from the clutches of the Foxite Whigs.
Cosmic Archaeology
Authors: Chambers John , Mitton Jacqueline
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses the process of how the solar system had to take form from the near nothingness of interstellar space. Scientists pondering the history of the solar system are much like archaeologists sifting through the sands of Egypt. They bring different methods and tools to the job, but both strive to glean as much as possible from precious relics from the past, and combine this with information deduced from the current surroundings. Deciphering the history of the solar system is archaeology on a grand scale. For human society to arise, species needed to evolve from those that went before. Prior to this, life had to appear on a suitably habitable planet orbiting a long-lived star.
The Question of Timing
Authors: Chambers John , Mitton Jacqueline
Published: May 2018

This chapter demonstrates how American geochemist Clair C. Patterson found out about the Earth's true age. Announcing his discovery at a meeting of the Geological Society of America, Patterson told the gathered delegates that Earth is precisely 4.55 billion years old. The chapter states that although the Earth can be examined in much greater detail than any other body in the solar system, the key to calculating Earth's age lay in rocks from outer space. What Patterson actually did was measure the age of a meteorite. To work out when Earth formed, Patterson had to assume that Earth and the meteorite formed at about the same time.
Cosmic Chemistry
Authors: Chambers John , Mitton Jacqueline
Published: May 2018

This chapter analyzes how humans owe their existence to the rich variety of chemical elements that exist in the universe. The solar system contains hydrogen to power the Sun; iron and silicon to build rocky planets; and carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen to form the building blocks of life. Almost 100 elements occur naturally in the solar system in varying amounts. Some, like hydrogen, oxygen, and iron, are abundant everywhere. Others, like gold, silver, and uranium, are much less common. The mixture of elements has remained almost constant since the solar system formed, apart from changes deep in the Sun's interior. The chapter shows how the composition of the solar system was shaped by events elsewhere in the universe dating back to the Big Bang itself.
Nursery for Planets
Authors: Chambers John , Mitton Jacqueline
Published: May 2018

This chapter illustrates how the solar system has a decidedly two-dimensional aspect to it. The orbits of the eight major planets all lie in almost the same plane, deviating by no more than seven degrees. Bodies in the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt stray a little further afield, but these belts are arranged like flattened donuts, aligned with the same plane as the planets. Immanuel Kant and Pierre-Simon de Laplace noted the planar nature of the solar system and used this as the basis for their nebular theories in which the solar system grew out of a flattened disk of matter. Young stars like those in the constellation Orion are often surrounded by disk-shaped clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers quickly dubbed these “protoplanetary” disks, assuming that they will someday form planetary systems.
What Happened to the Asteroid Belt?
Authors: Chambers John , Mitton Jacqueline
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses the nature and composition of the asteroid belt. Although little is known about most of the individual members of the asteroid belt, astronomers have a good idea how much material there is altogether. There are good reasons to think that the asteroid belt was much more massive in the distant past. For a start, the section of the solar nebula between Mars and Jupiter probably contained several Earth masses of rocky material. Furthermore, scientists know from studying meteorites that the asteroids grew to their current size in only a few million years. This rapid growth would have been impossible unless a lot more solid material was packed into the asteroid belt than there is today.
Afterword to the 2017 edition
Authors: Chambers John , Mitton Jacqueline
Published: May 2018

Science is a voyage of discovery, a lasting quest to find the truth, with many twists and turns along the way. Planetary science—the study of how planetary systems form and evolve—is no exception. In fact, a great deal has happened in the few short years since we first wrote this book. Many new discoveries have been made by space missions, by astronomers using telescopes, and by researchers in laboratories using computers. These discoveries have naturally influenced the way we think about our solar system and how it formed. Some discoveries have confirmed previous predictions while others have forced researchers to modify their theories. Occasionally, a discovery has thrown open a new window, greatly increasing the range of possible scenarios. This afterword is a brief tour of some recent discoveries and what they might mean....
Historians and Philosophers
Authors: Ferrone Vincenzo
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the peculiarity of the Enlightenment as a category in the history of Western culture by highlighting the important differences and points of contact and reciprocal influences between the views of the Enlightenment held by philosophers and those held by historians. It considers efforts in the twentieth century to analyze the “Enlightenment question,” which proved pivotal in the study of the rise of modern European civilization. It also discusses the double nature of the eighteenth-century epistemological paradigm, caught between history and philosophy, as well as its unique historiographical character. Finally, it shows how, at the end of the eighteenth century, the Enlightenment opposed a brand new philosophy of history to a centuries-old theology of history.
Marx and Nietzsche
Authors: Ferrone Vincenzo
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines Karl Marx's claim that the Enlightenment was an ideology artfully created by the bourgeois class and Friedrich Nietzsche's argument that modernity obfuscated through reason and rationality the true face of human nature and its dominant instinct, the will to power. Marx based his analysis of the Enlightenment on the so-called materialist overthrow of Hegelian dialectical idealism, without abandoning the so-called paradigm of the Centaur. Within the framework of a new historical and dialectical materialism, the Enlightenment was examined from two dialectically linked perspectives: structural, analyzing the Enlightenment as a decisive generative moment of modern European society, and suprastructural, which insisted that it was the bourgeois society that produced the Enlightenment as an ideology.
Postmodern Anti-Enlightenment Positions
Authors: Ferrone Vincenzo
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the debate between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger over the question “What is man?”—and thus, indirectly, the authentic meaning of Immanuel Kant's philosophy—and relates it to Pope Benedict XVI's views on the complex relationship between Christianity and Enlightenment culture. What was at stake in the Cassirer–Heidegger debate was the very existence of the Enlightenment and the legitimacy of its epistemological foundation. Cassirer accepted the need to redefine the relationship between the a priori and experience, in view of an idealistic conception of Kantian transcendentalism that was both more complex and problematic. His position remained firmly within the universalistic tradition of Enlightenment humanism. Heidegger, on the other hand, saw the Enlightenment as the final phase of the vilified trajectory of Western metaphysics that had resulted in the enthronement of man. The chapter also considers the Catholic Church's anti-Enlightenment positions.
The Enlightenment–French Revolution Paradigm
Authors: Ferrone Vincenzo
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the Enlightenment–French Revolution paradigm in relation to questions relevant to the memory and national identity of republican France, the political myth of the demise of the Ancien Régime, or the political, social and ideological roots of nearly all the most important projects of emancipation produced by modern Europe as a republican and democratic entity. The Enlightenment–French Revolution paradigm rests on the connection between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, whereby the former is considered first and foremost as the origin and genesis of the latter. The chapter discusses the pros and cons of the Enlightenment–French Revolution paradigm as well as the various forms that the paradigm assumed over time, citing in particular the beginning of a parallel process of “nationalization” of the Enlightenment at the historiographical level. It also explores various criticisms against the Enlightenment–Revolution paradigm, including those by Michel Foucault.
The Twentieth Century and the Enlightenment as Historical Problem
Authors: Ferrone Vincenzo
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the historical problem of how to gain an understanding of the fundamental traits that were original to the Enlightenment. More specifically, it considers how the Enlightenment arose over the intellectual, political, and social life of eighteenth-century élites, so as to produce a cultural revolution that transformed European society. Franco Venturi interpreted the Enlightenment as the “history of a movement,” a movement of a political nature that was created by self-conscious intellectual minorities. The chapter considers Venturi's proposal to go back to a view of the Enlightenment as a movement and as a fundamental chapter in the new history of intellectuals. In particular, it discusses Venturi's project for a political history of the Enlightenment, his denunciation of scholars engaged in the social history of the Enlightenment, and the emergence of a new cultural history in the 1980s.
The Chronology and Geography of a Cultural Revolution
Authors: Ferrone Vincenzo
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the chronology and geography of the Enlightenment as a cultural revolution. Eighteenth-century European society underwent profound transformations that changed the course of Western history and further complicated the link between the crisis of the Ancien Régime and Enlightenment critique. In a span of only a hundred years, the European population ballooned by more than 60 percent, from 118 million to 193 million. It would perhaps be an exaggeration to speak of an agrarian revolution, but there was dramatic improvement in productivity and modern economic structures were gaining increasing importance. Other developments sparked by the cultural revolution were the explosion in the publishing industry's output of travel literature and books about the “other,” such as about all kinds of savages, barbarians, and non-European civilizations; globalization; and the growth of trade.
Politicization and Natura Naturans
Authors: Ferrone Vincenzo
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines two major phenomena that had a profound influence on the Late Enlightenment: the sudden and momentous politicization of the Republic of Letters, and the gradual move towards neonaturalism in all fields of knowledge. Over the course of more than a hundred years, the Enlightenment had evolved into a cultural revolution directed against the Ancien Régime, culminating in the significant transformation of Western identity. The crisis of the Ancien Régime arose in step with the Late Enlightenment, setting off a process of cultural hegemony that has rarely been witnessed in any other time or place. The chapter considers how the actual enthronement of man and all his faculties as preached by the Encyclopédie and by Enlightenment humanism went hand in hand with the emergence of the new paradigm of a natura naturans.
Afterword
Authors: Ferrone Vincenzo
Published: May 2018

This book has examined the philosophers' point of view about the Enlightenment, and more specifically the question Was ist Aufklärung? that had been posed by Immanuel Kant. It has also postulated a new history of the Enlightenment as an epochal rift and cultural revolution of the Ancien Régime, a cultural history that is ready to embrace a new, extraordinary and original form of humanism, a bold project for the emancipation of man by man, scientifically investigating himself. The book's argument challenges the work of Anglophone interpreters such as Jonathan Israel, who critiqued a kind of social and cultural history of the Enlightenment that has long since ceased to exist in the form in which he still appears to conceive of it, and claimed that Spinozistic secularization and philosophical materialism were the authentic source and original character of our modernity.
The Golden Ticket
Authors: Fortnow Lance
Published: May 2018

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the P versus NP problem. The P versus NP problem asks, among other things, whether one can quickly find the shortest route for a traveling salesman. P and NP are named after their technical definitions, but it is best not to think of them as mathematical objects but as concepts. “NP” is the collection of problems that have a solution that one wants to find. “P” consists of the problems to which one can find a solution quickly. “P = NP” means one can always quickly compute these solutions, like finding the shortest route for a traveling salesman. “P ≠ NP” means one cannot. Ultimately, the P versus NP problem has achieved the status of one of the great open problems in all of mathematics.
The Hardest Problems in NP
Authors: Fortnow Lance
Published: May 2018

This chapter looks at some of the hardest problems in NP. Most of the NP problems that people considered in the mid-1970s either turned out to be NP-complete or people found efficient algorithms putting them in P. However, some NP problems refused to be so nicely and quickly characterized. Some would be settled years later, and others are still not known. These NP problems include the graph isomorphism, one of the few problems whose difficulty seems somewhat harder than P but not as hard as NP-complete problems like Hamiltonian paths and max-cut. Other NP problems include prime numbers and factoring, and linear programming. The linear programming problem has good algorithms in theory and practice—they just happen to be two very different algorithms.
Secrets
Authors: Fortnow Lance
Published: May 2018

This chapter analyzes how, in 1976, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman suggested that one could use NP to hide one's own secrets. The field of cryptography, the study of secret messages, changed forever. Diffie and Hellman, building on earlier work of Roger Merkle, proposed a method to get around the problem of network security using what they called “public-key” cryptography. A computer would generate two keys, a public key and a private key. The computer would store the private key, never putting that key on the network. The public key would be sent over the network broadcast to everyone. Diffie and Hellman's idea was to develop a cryptosystem that used the public key for encrypting messages, turning the real message into a coded one. The public key would not be able to decrypt the message. Only the private key could decrypt the message.
Quantum
Authors: Fortnow Lance
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the power of quantum computing, as well as the related concepts of quantum cryptography and teleportation. In 1982, the Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman noticed there was no simple way of simulating quantum physical systems using digital computers. He turned this problem into an opportunity—perhaps a computational device based on quantum mechanics could solve problems more efficiently than more traditional computers. In the decades that followed, computer scientists and physicists, often working together, showed in theory that quantum computers can solve certain problems, such as factoring numbers, much faster. Whether one can actually build large or even medium-scale working quantum computers and determine exactly what these computers can or cannot do still remain significant challenges.
The Annotated Manuscript
Authors: Gutfreund Hanoch , Renn Jürgen
Published: May 2018

This section presents annotations of the manuscript of Albert Einstein's canonical 1916 paper on the general theory of relativity. It begins with a discussion of the foundation of the general theory of relativity, taking into account Einstein's fundamental considerations on the postulate of relativity, and more specifically why he went beyond the special theory of relativity. It then considers the spacetime continuum, explaining the role of coordinates in the new theory of gravitation. It also describes tensors of the second and higher ranks, multiplication of tensors, the equation of the geodetic line, the formation of tensors by differentiation, equations of motion of a material point in the gravitational field, the general form of the field equations of gravitation, and the laws of conservation in the general case. Finally, the behavior of rods and clocks in the static gravitational field is examined.
Atatürk
Authors: Hanioglu M. Sükrü , Hanioglu M. Sükrü
Published: May 2018

When Mustafa Kemal Atatürk became the first president of Turkey in 1923, he set about transforming his country into a secular republic where nationalism sanctified by science would reign supreme as the new religion. This book provides an in-depth look at the intellectual life of the Turkish Republic's founder. It frames him within the historical context of the turbulent age in which he lived, and explores the uneasy transition from the late Ottoman imperial order to the modern Turkish state through his life and ideas. The book takes readers from Atatürk's youth as a Muslim boy in the volatile ethnic cauldron of Macedonia, to his education in nonreligious and military schools, to his embrace of Turkish nationalism and the modernizing Young Turks movement. Who was this figure who sought glory as an ambitious young officer in World War I, defied the victorious Allies intent on partitioning the Turkish heartland, and defeated the last sultan? This book charts Atatürk's intellectual and ideological development at every stage of his life, demonstrating how he was profoundly influenced by the new ideas that were circulating in the sprawling Ottoman realm. It shows how Atatürk drew on a unique mix of scientism, materialism, social Darwinism, positivism, and other theories to fashion a grand utopian framework on which to build his new nation.
Das Volk in Waffen: The Formation of an Ottoman Officer
Authors: Hanioğlu M. Şükrü
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's military education. In January 1896, upon graduating from the military preparatory school in Salonica, Mustafa Kemal enrolled in the military high school in Monastir, then the capital of the Ottoman province of the same name. In 1899, at age eighteen, Mustafa Kemal graduated from this high school with flying colors. Mustafa Kemal then moved to Istanbul, where he enrolled in one of the most prestigious schools in the empire, the Royal Military Academy. Once there, he worked relentlessly to gain admission to the Staff Officer College—a highly competitive elite institution widely regarded as the pinnacle of military education in the empire. In 1902, he graduated from the academy and entered the college for two more years of special education. In 1905, he joined the army as a staff officer captain. Ultimately, Mustafa Kemal's studies at the Royal Military Academy exposed him to a radically new set of ideas.
An Automorphic Reading of Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day (Interrupted by Elliptical Reflections on Mason & Dixon)
Authors: Harris Michael
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day. The prominence of mathematics in this book is exceptional even for Pynchon. Two of the main characters are at least part-time mathematicians; Hilbert, Minkowski, and Gibbs make cameo appearances; and several chapters are set in the Göttingen mathematics department. Inger H. Dalsgaard suggested that “a novel like Against the Day may be read in non-linear fashion, in keeping with the operations of a time machine.” No critic, however—not even the “seventeen of the foremost heavyweights from over forty years of Pynchon criticism” who contributed to the Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon—seems to have taken seriously the possibility, which is explored in this chapter, that his narrative style might in fact be quadratic.
The Science of Tricks
Authors: Harris Michael
Published: May 2018

This chapter argues that there is no such thing as a trickster in mathematics. There are, however, plenty of mathematical tricks, enough to fill a “Tricks Wiki” or “repository for mathematical tricks and techniques.” But even the rare mathematicians skilled at inventing trick after trick are not known as “tricksters.” Instead, a trickster is a role, a persona, one of several, an attribute not of the author who invents or employs it but rather of the text in which this kind of argument or idea or style of thought appears.
No Apologies
Authors: Harris Michael
Published: May 2018

This chapter presents the author's reflections about G. H. Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology. Upon rereading Hardy's Apology to prepare for writing this chapter, he was appalled to see what a hearty dose of unapologetic elitism he had imbibed along with Hardy's mathematical idealism when he was fourteen years old. When it began to dawn on him that some of the assumptions he had been taking for granted deserved to be questioned, the reading was buried so deeply in his past that he could not trace these beliefs back to their source. But years later, upon returning to A Mathematician's Apology, there they were.
A Giant Historic Mistake?
Authors: Sandbu Martin
Published: May 2018

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the euro's birth and failure. The euro was supposed to strengthen the union between European nation states by allowing the poorer ‘peripheral’ countries to catch up with the richer core, increasing prosperity for all, as well as permanently channelling the growing strength of a reunified Germany into a common European destiny. Instead, the periphery found itself abandoned by financial markets and fell into an economic black hole. The call for more German money put Berlin firmly in the driver's seat of European policymaking. In the rest of Europe, voters, creditors and debtors alike felt angry and disempowered. Rather than being the crowning glory of Europe's successful reconciliation, the common currency came to look more like a millstone around the continent's neck.
Righting the Course: From Bail-Out to Bail-In
Authors: Sandbu Martin
Published: May 2018

This chapter details how the eurozone's leadership redeemed itself in 2012–13, though only very partially, by moving from an abhorrence of sovereign and bank debt restructuring to an embrace of both. As 2011 turned into 2012, economic reality increasingly intruded into eurozone policymakers' world view. As such, starting in the second half of 2011, Europe's policy errors were slowly, divisively, and incompletely righted. Within less than two years, the early taboo on debt write downs had given way to Europe's first sovereign restructuring in generations and to an agreement that failing banks should write down creditors' claims before receiving any government aid. On both the sovereign and banking sides, the eurozone was moving from bail-out to bail-in.
Great Britain or Little England?
Authors: Sandbu Martin
Published: May 2018

This chapter asks the taboo question: shouldn't the United Kingdom have been in the single currency from the start — and how is the course of Europe as a whole affected by its choices, first not to join the euro and now to leave the EU altogether? The United Kingdom was the only big economy in Europe to stay outside of the monetary union. In June 2016 Britons took the further step of choosing to leave the EU altogether. Britain will nonetheless continue to be strongly affected by the euro's failure or success, and by how the eurozone manages its economy. It is not widely appreciated how much political influence in Europe Britain abdicated by not joining the euro; in a sense, ‘Brexit’ (Britain's exit from the EU) is the logical completion of that abdication. Even less understood is how much difference the British choice to stay out made to how the euro has been run.
Bubbles, Crises, and Crashes in Emergent Markets
Authors: Sornette Didier
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines bubbles, crises, and crashes in emergent markets, including six Latin American stock market indices (Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and Chile) and six Asian stock market indices (Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Korea). It also considers the correlation between markets following major international events. After providing an overview of speculative bubbles in emerging markets, the chapter discusses the methodology of the study on the Latin American and Asian markets. It then describes the Russian stock market and concludes with an analysis of the implications of the experiences of emergent markets for mitigations of bubbles, crises, and crashes.
Prediction of Bubbles, Crashes, and Antibubbles
Authors: Sornette Didier
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines how to predict stock market crashes and other large market events as well as the limitations of forecasting, in particular in terms of the horizon of visibility and expected precision. Several case studies are presented in detail, with a careful count of successes and failures. After providing an overview of the nature of predictions, the chapter explains how to develop and interpret statistical tests of log-periodicity. It then considers the concept of an “antibubble,” using as an example the Japanese collapse from the beginning of 1990 to the present. It also describes the first guidelines for prediction, a hierarchy of prediction schemes that includes the simple power law, and the statistical significance of the forward predictions.
The Medieval Approach
Authors: Van Brummelen Glen
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses the medieval approach to trigonometry, beginning with Abū Mahmūd al-Khujandī's theorem and the theorems of Abū Nasr Mansūr ibn ʻAlī ibn ʻIrāq. It then considers the Rule of Four Quantities, the first example of the principle of locality, and its relation to the spherical Law of Sines. It also analyzes Abū 'l-Wafā's proof of the Law of Sines in his Almagest and how the law becomes the planar Law of Sines when reduced to the plane. Finally, it provides an overview of the Indian approach to spherical astronomy, including finding declinations of arcs of the ecliptic, and how to solve the qibla problem to determine the direction of Mecca.
The Modern Approach: Right-Angled Triangles
Authors: Van Brummelen Glen
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses the modern approach to solving right-angled triangles. After a brief background on John Napier's trigonometric work, in which he referred mostly to right-angled spherical triangles, the chapter describes the theorems for right triangles. It then considers an oblique triangle split into two right triangles and the ten fundamental identities of a right-angled spherical triangle, how the locality principle can be applied to derive the Pythagorean Theorem, and how to find a ship's direction of travel using the theorem. It also looks at Napier's work on logarithms which was devoted to trigonometry, along with Napier's Rules. The chapter concludes with an overview of “pentagramma mirificum,” a pentagram in spherical trigonometry that was discovered by Napier.
The Modern Approach: Oblique Triangles
Authors: Van Brummelen Glen
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses the modern approach to solving oblique triangles. Two important theorems about planar oblique triangles are the spherical and planar Law of Sines and the Law of Cosines, which is an extension of the Pythagorean Theorem applied to oblique triangles. Book I of Euclid's Elements deals primarily with the Pythagorean Theorem (Proposition 47) and its converse (Proposition 48), while Book II contains theorems that may be translated directly into various algebraic statements. The chapter considers two of the last three theorems of Book II: Proposition 12, which deals with obtuse-angled triangles, and Proposition 13, which is concerned with acute-angled triangles. It also extends the Law of Cosines to the sphere and uses it to solve astronomical and geographical problems, such as finding the distance from Vancouver to Edmonton. Finally, it describes Delambre's analogies and Napier's analogies.
Stereographic Projection
Authors: Van Brummelen Glen
Published: May 2018

This chapter deals with stereographic projection, which is superior to other projections of the sphere because of its angle-preserving and circle-preserving properties; the first property gave instrument makers a huge advantage and the second provides clear astronomical advantages. The earliest text on stereographic projection is Ptolemy's Planisphere, in which he explains how to use stereographic projection to solve problems involving rising times, suggesting that the astrolabe may have existed already. After providing an overview of the astrolabe, an instrument for solving astronomical problems, the chapter considers how stereographic projection is used in solving triangles. It then describes the Cesàro method, named after Giuseppe Cesàro, that uses stereographic projection to project an arbitrary triangle ABC onto a plane. It also examines B. M. Brown's complaint against Cesàro's approach to spherical trigonometry.
What You Need to Know to Read This Book
Authors: Nahin Paul J.
Published: May 2018

This chapter details the background knowledge needed to read this book. Specifically, it assumes some knowledge of mathematics and electrical physics and an appreciation for the value of analytical reasoning—but no more than a technically minded college-prep high school junior or senior would have. In particular, the math level is that of algebra, including knowing how matrices multiply. The electrical background is simple: knowing (1) that electricity comes in two polarities (positive and negative) and that electrical charges of like polarity repel and of opposite polarity attract; and (2) understanding Ohm's law for resistors (that the voltage drop across a resistor in volts is the current through the resistor in amperes times the resistance in ohms) and the circuit laws of Kirchhoff (that the sum of the voltage drops around any closed loop is zero, which is an expression of the conservation of energy; the sum of all the currents into any node is zero).
Boolean Algebra
Authors: Nahin Paul J.
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses how Boole cast logic into algebraic form. Boole was interested in symbolic analysis years before he wrote his Laws of Thought. In fact, others before him—in particular, the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716)—had pursued a similar goal of reducing logic to algebra, but it was Boole who finally succeeded. What Boole described in his books is not exactly what modern users call Boolean algebra, but nevertheless it is from Boole that the modern presentation springs. The chapter first describes the essence of what Boole did using the language of sets. It then discusses Boole's algebra of sets, examples of Boolean analysis, and visualizing Boolean functions.
Epilogue
Authors: Nahin Paul J.
Published: May 2018

This chapter present the author's vision of the sort of logical problem that may soon be one that even a quantum computer would find a struggle to deal with—the decipherment of entangled legalese, the sort of monstrous gobbledegook one finds, for example, in the increasingly convoluted IRS tax code. In the form of a short story, that vision is “The Language Clarifier,” which first appeared in the May 1979 issue of Omni Magazine. The original title was “The Anti-Amphibological Machine,” but Omni's fiction editor thought that a tad too mystifying for readers and “suggested” the change.
Conclusion
Authors: Mittleman Alan L.
Published: May 2018

This concluding chapter returns to the theme of the worth or dignity of human life. What are the implications, in the face of the contemporary challenges of biotechnology and scientistic materialism, of a Jewish understanding of human nature and human dignity for our common human future? It argues that the ambivalence of the Jewish tradition toward human nature is an attitude well worth cultivating. We are holy—and capable of unimaginable evil. Judaism reminds us of both. We have the creativity and freedom to remake the world, and now, increasingly, to remake ourselves. Our own survival might depend on cultivating anew a sense of limits. Limits there will always be, many imposed by human nature. Our dignity inheres in knowing when and how to master them, and when and how to accept them with respect.
Visioneering Technological Futures
Authors: McCray W. Patrick
Published: May 2018

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explores how and why a select group of scientists and engineers developed their broad and expansive visions of how the future could be made radically different through as-yet-undeveloped technologies. It looks at how their visions for these technological futures were promoted, embraced, and rejected. The book focuses on two particular visions of the future and the ensembles of technologies seen as critical to achieving them. One of these is Gerard O'Neill's ideas for settlements and factories in space, technologies he saw as an alternative to terrestrial limits, lifestyles, and manufacturing. The other is K. Eric Drexler's plans for lunar factories, solar sails, and methods to mine asteroids for mineral resources.
Utopia or Oblivion for Spaceship Earth?
Authors: McCray W. Patrick
Published: May 2018

This chapter details Americans' conversion from unabashed enthusiasm for technology to ambivalence and hostility in the 1960s. This change did not occur suddenly, nor can it be traced to a single cause. Some Americans, for example, were concerned about the mortal dangers of the escalating arms race, while others worried about the pollution of the country's skies and waterways or questioned societal values that prized conformity, consumerism, and planned obsolescence. For others, the “plastic fantastic” futures depicted in corporate advertising were not just banal and boring but appeared threatening. Whatever the direct cause, Americans' overall attitudes toward science and technology became more complex and questioning.
The Inspiration of Limits
Authors: McCray W. Patrick
Published: May 2018

This chapter details Gerard O'Neill's fascination with exploration. He maintained a lifelong enthusiasm for what were the cutting-edge technologies of his youth such as radio and airplanes. As an adult, he avidly read and watched science fiction in which space settlements were depicted in exciting yet believable terms. The real-life successes of the Apollo program nurtured his interest in space. This may have especially been the case when he first started thinking seriously about space settlements. He treated the entire topic as a rational and detailed engineering problem. But, once satisfied with the plausibility of his concepts, he did not simply toss his tablets of sums and sketches into a desk drawer and go back to the physics research that he had built his career on. Instead, he steadfastly improved his designs and, just as importantly, promoted his vision for the future to colleagues and members of the public.
Confirmation, Benediction, and Inquisition
Authors: McCray W. Patrick
Published: May 2018

In the late 1980s, at least two different nanotechnologies emerged and then matured, sometimes in tandem but often in opposition, through the Clinton era. One was based on Drexler's vision of biomolecular machines; the other was rooted much more in chemistry, physics, and materials. By 2003, these two nanotechnologies had diverged from each other in a messy divorce. This left Drexler a pariah among some mainstream researchers who found his popularizing suspect and his ideas questionable. This chapter explores the interdependent relationship between these two technologies, peeling away some of the camouflage that obscures connections, common ground, and conflicts. It starts by looking is at some of the principal accomplishments that mainstream researchers claimed for the field they increasingly came to call nanotechnology.
Visioneering’s Value
Authors: McCray W. Patrick
Published: May 2018

This chapter argues that regardless of the reasons that compelled them, people such as Drexler and O'Neill, by combining their broad views of the future with technical skills, experience, and research, took speculative ideas out of the hands of sci-fi writers and technological forecasters and put them on firmer ground. Although visioneers' ideas may sit outside the mainstream and require considerable work to establish their legitimacy, their work toward that end secures a beachhead where exploratory notions can exist while entrepreneurial scientists and engineers mobilize and push things one way or the other. By inspiring (or provoking) people, visioneering helps reveal the future as something other than some neutral space that people move into without friction. Instead, it is a terrain made rough by politics, ethics, and economics as well as people's hopes and anxieties.
Greek Enlightenment
Authors: Beckwith Christopher I.
Published: May 2018

The argument known in Antiquity as the Problem of the Criterion was introduced to Western thought by Pyrrho of Elis, who learned it in Central Asia and India from Early Buddhism. The problem revolutionized ancient European thought, such that from Pyrrho's time onward ancient Graeco-Roman philosophy was focused on the epistemological question, “Can we really know anything?” With the ascendancy of Christianity and its Aristotelian and Neoplatonic apologetics, the problem was sidelined and practically forgotten during the Middle Ages. When Pyrrhonism was reintroduced to Western Europe in the late Renaissance, the problem once again revolutionized Western thought and shifted the central focus of philosophy to epistemology. Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) is responsible for what may be called the problem's modern incarnation, known today as the “Problem of Induction.” This chapter analyzes the issues fundamental to understanding not only Hume but also Pyrrho, and in turn the Buddha.
Epidemics
Authors: Charbonneau Paul
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the complex nature of the epidemic spread of contagious diseases. It first describes the model of epidemic spread constructed by adding random walks on a lattice to the forest-fire model before discussing the implementation of the epidemic “algorithm” using a minimal Python code. It then considers a representative simulation showing a time series of the number of infected and healthy random walkers, along with the behavior of the epidemic spread model and the dynamic self-organization of epidemic surges around a marginal infection rate of exactly unity. It also explores the scale invariance of a small-world network connecting twelve nodes. The chapter includes exercises and further computational explorations, along with a suggested list of materials for further reading.
Pattern Formation
Authors: Charbonneau Paul
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the complex nature of pattern formation in excitable systems. Many physical, chemical, and biological systems are considered excitable, in which two “components” interact in such a way as to alter each other's state through (nonlinear) processes of inhibition or amplification. Starting from a homogeneous rest state, many systems of this type can spontaneously generate persistent spatiotemporal patterns when subjected to some perturbation. After providing an overview of excitable systems, the chapter discusses the hodgepodge machine and its numerical implementation in the Python code. It then describes four spatial patterns generated by the hodgepodge machine, namely: waves, spirals, spaghettis, and cells. It also explains the spontaneous formation of spatiotemporal patterns. The chapter includes exercises and further computational explorations, along with a suggested list of materials for further reading.
A Relational Approach
Authors: Wuthnow Robert
Published: May 2018

Respect and respectability are topics of continuing interest because privileges and resources flow so often to those deemed respectable, while disrespect goes hand in hand with disadvantage and discrimination. This chapter examines the relationality of respect and respectability at four levels that bring to focus distinct aspects of social life: practices, discourse, organizational arrangements, and machineries of enforcement. The boundary work involved in drawing distinctions between the “us” that manifests respectability in various ways and the “them” that perhaps even more clearly demonstrates what respectability is by its absence is best understood through the multiple lenses that these aspects of social life illuminate.
Chopin and the Gothic
Authors: Leikin Anatole
Published: May 2018

This chapter talks about how the Gothic angle has not been explored as one of Chopin's probable literary inspirations. The main reason for such an omission is that until the 1970s most critics and commentators considered Gothic literature a sideshow of Romanticism at best or an embarrassing and destructive cultural phenomenon at worst. When the Gothic was not vilified, it was either politely ignored or offhandedly dismissed as a poor relation to the Romantic movement. However, early Gothic writers in England eagerly absorbed and expanded the themes and the moods of their forerunners. English readers met new Gothic fiction with delight and a growing demand for more. After Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, the throng of authors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Gregory Lewis, and Charles Maturin, along with many others.
The Barcarolle and the Barcarolle: Topic and Genre in Chopin
Authors: Parakilas James
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses how the Barcarolle was one of Chopin's last compositions, and he did not turn to the genre or even the topic again. Later composers produced enormous numbers of piano barcarolles, and insofar as Chopin's music was among the influences on them, they imitated Chopin's treatment of the barcarolle topic more than his concept of the genre. A much closer approach to Chopin's attitude toward the barcarolle topic can be found in the 13 piano barcarolles of Gabriel Fauré. In his barcarolles, Fauré pursued what intrigued him about the barcarolle topic from one work to another over the course of his whole career, just the way Chopin pursued his interest in the nocturne or ballade or mazurka topic.
Dining Men: Posture, Leisure, and Privilege
Authors: Roller Matthew B.
Published: May 2018

This chapter analyzes the link between reclining dining and otium within three types of media: literary texts, funerary monuments, and wall paintings. These media are treated separately not only because they emerge from and address themselves to different social strata, but also because each medium has a distinctive place in the spaces and rhythms of everyday Roman life. Thus, to discuss representations of reclining dining in the different media is also to discuss different producers, consumers, settings, and meanings for these representations, even though the activity represented in each case is broadly the same. These representations do allow for synthesis and cross-illumination, but only after the fundamental differences are carefully accounted for.