In discussing fundamentals of general-relativistic irreversible continuum thermodynamics, this theory is shown to be characterized by the feature that no thermodynamical degrees of freedom are ascribed to gravitation. However, accepting that black hole thermodynamics seems to oppose this harmlessness of gravitation one is called on to consider other approaches. Therefore, in brief some gravitational and thermodynamical alternatives are reviewed.

The views of the Enlightenment in European countries are in general well known, while the attempts to introduce the Enlightenment to countries in the periphery of Europe, like Greece, are not known in the same degree. How did the scientific revolution migrate to the Greek‐speaking regions occupied by the Ottoman Empire? How did the Greeks accept the truly revolutionary ideas of the French Revolution and liberalism? What were the reactions of the conservative Greek Orthodox Church and who sacrificed their lives (...) in the cause of their ideas? Theophilos Kairis (1784–1853), a scholar, philosopher, and priest, was the tragic victim of clerical bigotry. The creator of Theosebism in Greece, Kairis suffered the tragic end reserved by fate for those who, being pioneers, tried to introduce to Greece the liberal ideas of Western Europe and the Enlightenment. (shrink)