In 1614, the German astronomer Simon Mayr published his claim about the discovery of Jupiter’s satellites. In his treatise Mundus Jovialis, Mayr made his assertion in a convoluted but unequivocal manner, earning resentment from Galileo Galilei, who published his harsh protest in 1623 in Il Saggiatore. Though Galileo’s objections were fallacious in some respects, and though numerous scholars took to the field to prove Mayr’s claim, none ever really succeeded, and the historical evidence remains to Mayr’s detriment. (...) On the basis of such historical evidence, including comparisons between Mundus Jovialis and Mayr’s earlier works, Mayr’s independent discovery of the satellites can be ruled out. Indeed, it is very likely that he never observed them before 30 December 1610, nearly a year after Galileo. The lack of a corpus of Mayr’s observations and the inaccuracy of his tables are also puzzling. (shrink)

The paper lists all the predictions and observations of eclipses of Jupiter's satellites 1668–1678 and compares them with modern computations of the these eclipses by J. H. Lieske. We discuss Roemer's method that led to his discovery of the retardment of light and finally we shall interpret Roemer's calculations.

For forty years, beginning with the publication of the first modern English translation of the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Stillman Drake was the most original and productive scholar of Galileo's scientific work of our age. During that time, he published sixteen books on Galileo, including translations of almost all the major writings, and Galileo at Work, the most comprehensive study of Galileo's life and works ever written. His collection Discoveries and Opinions on Galileohas remained in print since (...) its appearance in 1957 and has become the most widely read of all books on Galileo. In addition to his books, Drake published about 130 papers, of which nearly 100 are on Galileo and the rest on related aspects of the history and philosophy of science. This three-volume collection includes eighty of those papers. Drake's papers are an essential supplement to his translations and other books because it was in his papers that he wrote his most detailed technical studies of Galileo's scientific work. There is hardly a subject in Galileo's science that is not considered. Perhaps the most important is the series on mechanics and motion, in which Drake analysed Galileo's manuscript notes recording the experiments by which he discovered and confirmed the law of the acceleration of falling bodies. There are also papers on the notes in which Galileo recorded his discovery of Jupiter's satellites and on other aspects of Galileo's astronomy, including his defence of the Copernican theory. Other papers consider Galileo's life and scientific work in general, exploring what Drake calls the 'scientific personality' of Galileo along with his scientific method and philosophy of science. In addition to the papers on Galileo, there are a number of papers on medieval and early modern science, principally on mechanics, and on the philosophers A.B. Johnson and J.B. Stallo, both of whom influenced Drake's own philosophy of science. (shrink)

HISTORY HAS IT that the four bright satellites of Jupiter were discovered independently by Galileo and the German astronomer Simon Mayer in the early seventeenth century. These initial glimpses of what we now call the Galilean moons of Jupiter are among the first great revelations to have accrued from pointing the newly invented telescope toward the heavens. Yet, were these men the first to observe Jupiter’s satellites? There have been persistent reports, particularly in the nineteenth century, that (...) these moons can be seen with the naked eye. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to highlight an aspect of Elisabeth’s intellectual life that has received little scholarly attention so far, namely Elisabeth’s involvement with the sciences of her day. Firstly, this paper provides a survey of Elisabeth’s interest in and engagement with various scientific disciplines, such as mathematics, medicine, natural philosophy, and microscopy, drawing on her letter exchange with Descartes and several other intellectuals as well as additional documents, such as dedications of scientific works to Elisabeth. Secondly, this (...) paper investigates Elisabeth’s involvement with one particular scientific discipline, namely astronomy. Analyzing Elisabeth’s letter exchange with Andreas Colvius and Constantijn Huygens and additional letters and testimonies, I show that Elisabeth played an active part in at least three current debates in astronomy, namely concerning the discoveries of the satellites of Jupiter, the emerging maps of the moon, and the invention of the new telescopes. Based on the evidence provided in this paper, it is argued that Elisabeth’s intellectual biography should be broadened. It is not sufficient to perceive her only as a critic of Descartes’ philosophy, as this characterization does not accommodate her scientific commitments, but rather as a multitalented intellectual. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Inference That Makes Science. By ERNAN McMULLIN. The Aquinas Lecture, 1992. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1992. Pp. iv +112. In this ambitious lecture Father Ernan McMullin recapitulates and refines a thesis that has guided his thought for the past forty years. In essence the thesis is this: precisely how science is made has eluded the best minds for centuries, and only in the work of Charles (...) Sanders Peirce, suitably emended by McMullin, has the puzzle finally been solved. " Retroduction " is the inference that makes science. Once this is understood, errors on what constitutes scientific method-those of Aristotle, Aquinas, Galileo, Newton, Bacon, Hume, et al.-can be rectified and one can see science for what it truly is: a complex process of theory appraisal that yields, not definitive truth, but well-established results to which assent can be given with at best "practical certainty," whatever that might be (pp. 91-96). Why McMullin should have chosen such a theme for an Aquinas Lecture is a question that defies reasonable answer. Surely one does not have to he so negative about the thought of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Galileo to advance one's ideas about science in the present day. What McMullin could easily have done, and he hints at this in the last two paragraphs of his lecture (pp. 97-98), is show how retroduction is itself simply a relaxed version of the demonstrative regress, the method actually endorsed by Aristotle, Aquinas, and Galileo. Such a retroductive version, fair enough, yields knowledge of a probable cause, the type of knowledge most typical of modern science. McMullin did not have to embark on the dangerous course of trying to prove that proof and certainty are forever beyond the grasp of science, or that never in the history of science has anyone established a definitive truth. That, in effect, is what McMullin has tried to do, and in the attempt to make the point he fumbles at almost every juncture throughout a very long lecture. To set the record straight more than a review is being re--·quested; perhaps a book, and even that might not suffice for those whose minds are made up. To understand the import of the lecture one must appreciate that it is hut a brief episode in a debate over demonstration in science that has been going on since McMullin first came to the University of Notre Dame in 1954. I myself have published many hooks and articles that engage the very point of his lecture and provide the contra evidence to 131 132 BOOK REVIEWS show elements of continuity in scientific method from Aristotle to the present. My last two volumes, in press at the same time as McMullin's Aquinas Lecture, answer in detail the aporiai he there raises.1 I need 1 Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof. The Backgrnund, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 137. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, xxiii + 323 pp.; Galileo's Logical Treatises. A Translation, with Notes and Commentary, of His Appropriated Questions on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 138. DordrechtBoston -London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, xix + 239 pp. only refer the interested reader to them for an extended and documented reply to his arguments. Some idea of the flavor of our debate, however, can be gained from the following. To support his thesis, McMullin has to maintain that Aristotle's proof that the moon is a sphere (from its having phases) and that Galileo's proofs that there are mountains on the moon, that Jupiter has satellites, and that Venus circles the sun (all based on telescopic observations) are not strictly demonstrative, that is, they do not yield true and certain conclusions. He declines to answer a query I have often tendered whether he personally is certain on the basis of pre-spacecraft evidence that the moon is a sphere, that there are mountains on it, that Jupiter has satellites, and so on. Instead he offers the categorical response "that planetary science is not an apodictic science, indeed that no natural science is... (shrink)

In January 1729 a paper written by James Bradley was read at two meetings of the Royal Society. On a newly discovered motion of the fixed stars, later described as the theory of the aberration of light, it was to transform the science of astrometry. The paper appeared as a narrative of a programme of observation first begun at Kew and finalized at Wanstead, but it was, in reality, a careful reconstruction devised to enhance his reputation in response to a (...) recognition that the programme was initially conducted in terms that were inimical to what he conceived to be his interest. The planned attempt to repeat Robert Hooke's celebrated experiment by James Pound, Samuel Molyneux and George Graham was set up at Molyneux's residence in Kew with James Bradley replacing Pound after his untimely and sudden demise. The unexpected and counterintuitive behaviour of the object star γ Draconis and the eradication of any suspicion of instrumental or systemic error led to the abandonment of the attempt to measure annual parallax and the initiation of new conjectures. An annual nutation was proposed but after the observation of a control star, 35 Camelopardalis, this conjecture was abandoned. Unknown to Bradley and Graham a premature approach was made by Molyneux to Newton claiming that the ‘nutation’ negated the whole of Newton's system. In the abandonment of the nutation yet another conjecture opposed to Newtonian theory was proposed and abandoned. Bradley determined to use his own instrument designed on different principles by Graham to observe the phenomenon in Wanstead. At Wanstead Bradley observed many stars to determine the parameters of the phenomenon. With the law of the motion described, Bradley proposed a hypothesis to explain it. Drawn from his earlier work on the ephemerides of Jupiter's satellites his hypothesis of the ‘new-discovered motion’ was quickly presented to the Royal Society as Bradley was working on a later and more definitive version of his paper. It is this later, third, unpublished version that is commonly referred to throughout this essay. It issued a challenge to ‘anti-Copernicans’ to offer an explanation of the observed phenomenon in geostatic terms. One such astronomer, Eustachio Manfredi, had examined the phenomenon of ‘aberrations’ in detail, the term being his. It was Bradley who first applied the term to the ‘new-discovered motion’ and within a short time ‘aberration’ was being applied by astronomers in the reduction of their observations. Annual aberration was widely accepted as evidence of the motion of the Earth. The paper enhanced Bradley's reputation and projected him into the forefront of European astronomers. (shrink)

One of Ole Römer's most influential contributions to astronomy was the theory that light has a finite speed, which he calculated from inequalities in the motion of a satellite of Jupiter. The English astronomer John Flamsteed, first director of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, is credited with being an early and influential supporter of the theory. This article examines how he came to be so, taking issue with the claim that he was instantly converted to the idea by a personal (...) encounter with Römer. The publication of Flamsteed's Correspondence has made illuminating material newly accessible; through letters it is possible to track the gradual development of his thinking and how it related to his dealings with Römer and with Giovanni Domenico Cassini (director of the Paris Observatory). The resulting account offers new insights into their attempts to share information, in a situation where motives for collaborating were counterbalanced by a potential for rivalry and conflict, and into the interlinked roles played by written correspondence, personal meetings and empirical investigation in the spreading of new ideas. (shrink)

This book describes in detail the various theories on the shape of the Earth from classical antiquity to the present day and examines how measurements of its form and dimensions have evolved throughout this period. The origins of the notion of the sphericity of the Earth are explained, dating back to Eratosthenes and beyond, and detailed attention is paid to the struggle to establish key discoveries as part of the cultural heritage of humanity. In this context, the roles played by (...) the Catholic Church and the philosophers of the Middle Ages are scrutinized. Later contributions by such luminaries as Richer, Newton, Clairaut, Maupertuis, and Delambre are thoroughly reviewed, with exploration of the importance of mathematics in their geodetic enterprises. The culmination of progress in scientific research is the recognition that the reference figure is not a sphere but rather a geoid and that the earth’s shape is oblate. Today, satellite geodesy permits the solution of geodetic problems by means of precise measurements. Narrating this fascinating story from the very beginning not only casts light on our emerging understanding of the figure of the Earth but also offers profound insights into the broader evolution of human thought. (shrink)

Ibn al-Zarqālluh (al-Andalus, d. 1100) introduced a new inequality in the longitudinal motion of the Moon into Ptolemy’s lunar model with the amplitude of 24′, which periodically changes in terms of a sine function with the distance in longitude between the mean Moon and the solar apogee as the variable. It can be shown that the discovery had its roots in his examination of the discrepancies between the times of the lunar eclipses he obtained from the data of his (...) eclipse observations over a 37-year period in the latter part of the eleventh century and the predictions made on the basis of the lunar theories in the Mumta $$\textit{\d{h}}$$ an zīj (Baghdad, ca. 830) and al-Battānī’s zīj (Raqqa, d. 929), which were available to him at the time. What Ibn al-Zarqālluh found is, in fact, a special case of the annual equation of the Moon, which is applicable in the oppositions and, thus, in the lunar eclipses. The inequality was discovered independently by Tycho Brahe (d. 1601) and Johannes Kepler (d. 1630). As Ibn Yūnus (d. 1009) reports in his $$\textit{\d{H}}$$ ākimī zīj, Ibn al-Zarqālluh’s medieval Middle Eastern predecessors, the Persian astronomers Māhānī (d. ca. 880) and Nayrīzī (d. 922) as well as ‘Alī b. Amājūr (fl. ca. 920), were already acquainted with the problem of the eclipse timing errors, but it had remained unresolved until Ibn Yūnus provided a provisional, and incorrect, solution by reducing the size of the lunar epicycle. As we argue, the diverse ways to tackle the same problem stem from two different methodologies in astronomical reasoning in the traditions developed separately in the Eastern and Western regions of the medieval Islamic domain. (shrink)

Between ca. 400 and 50 BCE, Babylonian astronomers used mathematical methods for predicting ecliptical positions, times and other phenomena of the moon and the planets. Until recently these methods were thought to be of a purely arithmetic nature. A new interpretation of four Babylonian astronomical procedure texts with geometric computations has challenged this view. On these tablets, Jupiter’s total distance travelled along the ecliptic during a certain interval of time is computed from the area of a trapezoidal figure representing (...) the planet’s changing daily displacement along the ecliptic. Moreover, the time when Jupiter reaches half the total distance is computed by bisecting the trapezoid into two smaller ones of equal area. In the present paper these procedures are traced back to precursors from Old Babylonian mathematics. Some implications of the use of geometric methods by Babylonian astronomers are also explored. (shrink)

The discovery of Gramicidin S is considered to be the outcome of the intellectual transformation of Russian biologist G.F. Gause from simply a biologist to a researcher of antibiotics. Different historical conditions of this change as well as the development of experimental biology itself at this time are analysed in detail. The meaning of Gause's occupation of a new 'niche' in soviet science for the fate of Russian post-war genetics is defined as well.

Frank Mitjans is an architect who has worked in London since 1976. He was introduced to the significance of the figure of St. Thomas More by Andrés Vázquez de Prada, author of the biography, Sir Tomás Moro, Lord Canciller de Inglaterra. In 1977 Vázquez de Prada invited Mitjans to visit with him the Thomas More Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which stimulated his interest in representations of More, his family and his friends. Since August 2002 he has given many (...) presentations and talks on the topography of More’s London to groups of students and other interested people in Britain, Ireland, and Sweden. Frank Mitjans, architecte qui travaille à Londres depuis 1976, fut initié au personnage de Saint Thomas More par Andrés Vázquez de Prada, auteur de la biographie Sir Tomás Moro, Lord Canciller de Inglaterra. En 1977 Vázquez de Prada l’invita à l’accompagner dans sa visite de l’exposition Thomas More à la National Portrait Gallery, évènement qui aiguisa son intérêt pour les représentations de More, de sa famille et de ses amis. Depuis août 2002 il a régulièrement fait des présentations et des exposés à des groupes d’étudiants et d’autres en Grande-Bretagne, Irlande et Suède au sujet de la topographie du Londres de Thomas More. The recent exhibitions of the works of Holbein in London and Basel, and scholarly publications such as Holbein and England, have rekindled interest in the Portrait of Thomas More and his Family, and in the late sixteenth-century versions of Holbein’s presumed lost original. The present paper analyses the differences between the sixteenth-century versions and Holbein’s 1527 composition sketch, and concludes that the sketch is a more reliable witness to Holbein’s lost painting than the later versions, as well as the only authentic witness to More’s intentions; though anything we learn from the drawing must be checked against what we know from More’s letters and writings and other biographical data. From the later versions, however, and in particular from the references to Seneca on them, we can learn about those who commissioned them and England’s peculiar historical circumstances. (shrink)

Aristotle's Categories can easily seem to be a statement of a naïve, pre-philosophical ontology, centered around ordinary items. Wolfgang-Rainer Mann argues that the treatise, in fact, presents a revolutionary metaphysical picture, one Aristotle arrives at by (implicitly) criticizing Plato and Plato's strange counterparts, the "Late-Learners" of the Sophist. As Mann shows, the Categories reflects Aristotle's discovery that ordinary items are things (objects with properties). Put most starkly, Mann contends that there were no things before Aristotle. The author's argument consists (...) of two main elements. First, a careful investigation of Plato which aims to make sense of the odd-sounding suggestion that things do not show up as things in his ontology. Secondly, an exposition of the theoretical apparatus Aristotle introduces in the Categories--an exposition which shows how Plato's and the Late-Learners' metaphysical pictures cannot help but seem inadequate in light of that apparatus. In doing so, Mann reveals that Aristotle's conception of things--now so engrained in Western thought as to seem a natural expression of common sense--was really a hard-won philosophical achievement. Clear, subtle, and rigorously argued, The Discovery of Things will reshape our understanding of some of Aristotle's--and Plato's--most basic ideas. (shrink)

For decades now some Christian theologians, and some philosophers of religion, have labored at distinguishing Social Trinitarianism and non-Social Trinitarianism. Many have revised their models of the Trinity in light of counter-arguments or counter-evidence. For Christian theologians, or philosophers of religion, what counts as a good counter-argument or counter-evidence may (but need not) depend on respected theological authorities. Recently, some focus has been paid to what is called Conciliar Trinitarianism, which is the name for whatever is endorsed by, or rejected (...) by, the first seven ecumenical councils regarding the Trinity. For those who respect these ecumenical councils as authoritative (to some extent), it would be useful to get a clearer understanding of Conciliar Trinitarianism in order to assist in evaluating contemporary models of the Trinity. In what follows I argue that the Sixth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople III, in 680-681ce) made important contributions, and clarifications (for the contemporary reader), to Conciliar Trinitarianism. Surprisingly, there is no secondary literature regarding these contributions. So, the historical evidence given in this article is evidence that almost nobody has been aware of - apart from the editors of the critical edition of the Acts of Constantinople III. After having made the historical case, I discuss the implications of Constantinople III for (i) our understanding of the place of the Pseudo-Athanasian creed in Trinitarian speculation, (ii) standard narratives about the division between Greek and Latin Trinitarian theology, and (iii) contemporary models of the Trinity. (shrink)

Observational and experimental discoveries of new factual entities such as objects, systems, or processes, are major contributors to some advances in the life sciences. Yet, whereas discovery of theories was extensively deliberated by philosophers of science, very little philosophical attention was paid to the discovery of factual entities. This paper examines historical and philosophical aspects of the experimental discovery by Carl Woese of archaea, prokaryotes that comprise one of the three principal domains of the phylogenetic tree. Borrowing (...) Kuhn’s terminology, this discovery of a major biological entity was made during a ‘normal science’ project of building molecular taxonomy for prokaryotes. Unexpectedly, however, an observed anomaly instigated the discovery of archaea. Substantiation of the existence of the new archaeal entity and consequent reconstruction of the phylogenetic tree prompted replacement of a long-held model of a prokarya and eukarya bipartite tree of life by a new model of a tripartite tree comprising of bacteria, archaea, and eukarya. This paper explores the history and philosophical implications of the progression of Woese’s project from normal science to anomaly-instigated model-changing discovery. It is also shown that the consequential discoveries of RNA splicing and of ribozymes were similarly prompted by unexpected irregularities during normal science activities. It is thus submitted that some discoveries of factual biological entities are triggered by unforeseen observational or experimental anomalies. (shrink)

European thought begins with the Greeks. Scientific and philosophic thinking--the pursuit of truth and the grasping of unchanging principles of life--is a historical development, an achievement; and, as Bruno Snell writes in The Discovery of the Mind, nothing less than a revolution. The Greeks did not take mental resources already at their disposal and merely map out new subjects for discussion and investigation. In poetry, drama, and philosophy they in fact discovered the human mind. The stages in man's gradual (...) understanding of himself are revealed in the course of ancient literature from Homer to Virgil. A rational view of the nature of man slowly established itself in the creations of epic and lyric poetry, tragedy and literary criticism, pre-Socratic thought, and early Greek ethics all the way to the discovery of humanitas and the spiritual landscape of Virgil's Arcadia. The Discovery of the Mind is a landmark work in tracing this evolution of consciousness--one of the distinguishing characteristics of the history of man. (shrink)

Shortly after Kurt Gödel had announced an early version of the 1st incompleteness theorem, John von Neumann wrote a letter to inform him of a remarkable discovery, i.e. that the consistency of a formal system containing arithmetic is unprovable, now known as the 2nd incompleteness theorem. Although today von Neumann’s proof of the theorem is considered lost, recent literature has explored many of the issues surrounding his discovery. Yet, one question still awaits a satisfactory answer: how did von (...) Neumann achieve his result, knowing as little as he seemingly did about the 1st incompleteness theorem? In this article, I shall advance a conjectural argument to answer this question, after having rejected the argument widely shared in the literature and having analyzed the relevant documents surrounding his discovery. The argument I shall advance strictly links two of the three letters written by von Neumann to Gödel in the late 1930 and early 1931 (i.e. respectively that of November 20, 1930 and that of January 12, 1931) and finds the key for von Neumann’s discovery in his prompt understanding of the Gödel sentence A – as the documents refer to it – as expressing consistency for a formal system that contains arithmetic. (shrink)

While the study of Newton's religious views has been continuously expanding, it has not been brought to bear directly on Newton's career as an ‘experimental philosopher’. Historical perspectives on his optical experiments in particular affirm the historiographic separation between the religious and scientific aspects of his work. In this paper I examine the practical implication of Newton's theology of dominion on his early experiments on light and colours. While his predecessors had made experiments to collect evidence, I show that Newton (...) conceived experimental research as a discipline of the practical understanding of the structure of light and the origins of colours. His conception of experimental reasoning followed his practical reflections on human beings as agents who belonged to God's dominion and who were created to serve its divine ends. These reflections suggested, more specifically, that the aim of natural philosophy was the discovery of divine rules that instrumentally constrained and facilitated human conduct in general, and perceptual judgement in particular. I show, moreover, that Newton's endeavour to subordinate experiment to divine worship had been foreshadowed by Boyle's writing on the theory and practice of the experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Rodolfo Sacco developed the idea of “mute behaviours” during his studies on mute law. The notion of “mute behaviours” denotes an action that is able to mould a legal relationship without any use of language. Certainly, this concept may give rise to some doubts in relation to the attribution—to a behaviour qualified as mute—of the capability to affect dynamics involving a plurality of people. Aiming to clarify the idea of “mute behaviours” by this point of view, the authors analysed the (...) semiotic terminology used by Sacco himself to explain this notion and the issue of its silent nature. Therefore, the terms “signifying signs” and “symptoms”, deemed by Sacco—respectively—incompatible and compatible with the theory of mute behaviours were considered. The former term was traced back to the notion of conventional and arbitrary sign, the notion of the latter was reconstructed linking it to the concept of signs based on signification and suggesting a possible framework in view of the idea of “presentative meanings” developed by the philosopher Guido Morpurgo-Tagliabue. Clarified this dichotomy by a terminological analysis, the authors noticed—as affirmed by Rodolfo Sacco himself—the impossibility to ascribe the notion of gesture to the mute behaviour’s category, as some exegetes proposed. Consequently to this last remark, the authors tried to analyse the relationship between gestures and “mute behaviours”, identifying the category of “sema-pragmatic acts”, that includes gestures and may be seen as an intermediate phase between “mute behaviours” and legally relevant behaviours operated by speaking. (shrink)

The conflict between Jupiter and Juno in the Aeneid is commonly read as a battle between the forces of order and chaos . The present article argues that this schematization, though morally and aesthetically satisfying, fails to account for most of the data. Virgil's Jupiter is in fact concerned solely with power and adulation , despite persistent attempts by readers—and characters in the poem—to see him as benign. By systematically discussing every appearance of Jupiter in the poem, the article seeks (...) to correct the distorted or incomplete views of the god that arise from selective examination. The first section looks at Jupiter's own speeches to illustrate his motivations. The second section demonstrates how these motivations, though frequently misconstrued by the human characters, are confirmed by the glimpses of Jupiter focalized through the omniscient narrator. The third discusses the implications of this portrait of Jupiter for Virgil's vision of Rome and of human happiness. (shrink)

This exploration of Hegel's critique of the individualistic ethos of modernity and the genesis of his alternative vision traces the conceptual schemes Hegel experimented with to show how he settled on the concepts of 'ethical life' (Sittlichkeit) and Spirit as the means for overcoming subjectivity and domination.

The gravitational influence of Jupiter on Saturn produces, among other things, non-negligible changes in the eccentricity of Saturn that affect the magnitude of error of Ptolemaic astronomy. The value that Ptolemy obtained for the eccentricity of Saturn is a good approximation of the real eccentricity—including the perturbation of Jupiter—that Saturn had during the time of Ptolemy's planetary observations or a bit earlier. Therefore, it seems more probable that the observations used for obtaining the eccentricity of Saturn were done near Ptolemy’s (...) time, and rather unlikely earlier than the first century AD. Even if this is not quite a demonstration that Ptolemy used observations of his own, my argument increases its probability and practically discards the idea that Ptolemy borrowed values or observations from astronomers further back than the first century AD, such as Hipparchus or the Babylonians. (shrink)

Although the widespread use of the term “Big Data” is comparatively recent, it invokes a phenomenon in the developments of database technology with distinct historical contexts. The database engineer Jim Gray, known as “Mr. Database” in Silicon Valley before his disappearance at sea in 2007, was involved in many of the crucial developments since the 1970s that constitute the foundation of exceedingly large and distributed databases. Jim Gray was involved in the development of relational database systems based on the concepts (...) of Edgar F. Codd at IBM in the 1970s before he went on to develop principles of Transaction Processing that enable the parallel and highly distributed performance of databases today. He was also involved in creating forums for discourse between academia and industry, which influenced industry performance standards as well as database research agendas. As a co-founder of the San Francisco branch of Microsoft Research, Gray increasingly turned toward scientific applications of database technologies, e. g. leading the TerraServer project, an online database of satellite images. Inspired by Vannevar Bush’s idea of the memex, Gray laid out his vision of a Personal Memex as well as a World Memex, eventually postulating a new era of data-based scientific discovery termed “Fourth Paradigm Science”. This article gives an overview of Gray’s contributions to the development of database technology as well as his research agendas and shows that central notions of Big Data have been occupying database engineers for much longer than the actual term has been in use. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Discovery of God Generally speaking, this progress is made through some individual pioneer Of truth who gathers into himself the best in what previous generations have handed down to him, and goes on to richer understandings. These adventures occur all through the Bible's reflection Of the soul of man, and we shall pause at but a few of them. It shall be at such times as when to some sensitive spirit new qualities in God became evi (...) dent, as radium to Madame Curie, or to New ton the law Of gravitation. The experiences Of men like Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, St. Paul, are SO akin to discovery that there is no forcing Of language in the use Of the term. Developing their own insight into the Divine, they Opened up the way by which others could follow their example. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This article considers the implications for film analysis of the presence or absence of a manual crank. More specifically, it looks at the 16 mm Time and Motion Study Projector as used in behavioral research in the 1960s and 1970s. The controversial concept of ‘interactional synchrony’, or the dance-like coordination of people in conversation, emerged from the use of this hand-turned projector. William S. Condon developed the concept along with the technique of microanalysis. Starting with the projector manufactured by Bell (...) & Howell, he made numerous improvements to facilitate observation—‘sweeping’ over segments of very short duration to discover the rhythmic synchrony of all filmed participants. It led him to a theory of ‘process’ in communication, and in the reception of speech in particular. People always ‘danced’ to the tune of their own voice, and their listeners ‘danced’ to the tune of the speaker—at intervals of one-sixth or one-eighth of a second. This also led Condon to an epistemology of discovery derived partly from philosophy but mostly from his machinery. The universe, he said, is a ‘continuum of order’ whose structures are preserved through translations of order: of thought into speech, speech into vibrations, vibrations into neurons, and back into behavior. The only exceptions are people with disabilities, like the autistics Condon studied from the 1970s onward. But the very distinction of normal and pathological was epiphenomenal to his scanning technique; it was rooted in material and formal qualities of film and of the projector whose crank he turned often. (shrink)

The Īśvarapratyabhijñā treatise—an important philosophical text composed in Kashmir in the 10th century CE by the Śaiva nondualist Utpaladeva—remains partly unavailable to date: a crucial component of this work, namely the detailed commentary (Vivṛti or Ṭīkā) in which Utpaladeva explained his own verses, is considered as almost entirely lost, since only a small part of it has been preserved in a single, very incomplete manuscript remarkably edited and translated by Raffaele Torella. However, our knowledge of the Vivṛti is quickly expanding: (...) many additional fragments have recently come to light. The article gives an overview of these new findings while highlighting the most interesting of them, i.e. the discovery of the lengthiest Vivṛti fragment known to date in the margins of a manuscript containing Abhinavagupta’s Vivṛtivimarśinī. It also provides an edition and translation of the beginning of this fragment. (shrink)

People spontaneously discover new representations during problem solving. Discovery of a mathematical representation is of special interest, because it shows that the underlying structure of the problem has been extracted. In the current study, participants solved gear‐system problems as part of a game. Although none of the participants initially used a mathematical representation, many discovered a parity‐based, mathematical strategy during problem solving. Two accounts of the spontaneous discovery of mathematical strategies were tested. According to the automatic schema abstraction (...) hypothesis, experience with multiple, unique problem exemplars facilitates extraction of the parity relation. According to the comparison‐based abstraction hypothesis, explicitly comparing gear pathways that have different number, but the same parity, should result in extraction of parity. An event history analysis showed that accumulation of experiences with different‐number, same‐parity comparisons predicted discovery of parity; accumulation of unique exemplars did not. Results suggest that comparison‐based abstraction processes can lead to the discovery of a mathematical relation. (shrink)

When HMS Beagle made its first landfall in January 1832, the twenty-two-year-old Charles Darwin set about taking detailed notes on geology. He was soon planning a volume on the geological structure of the places visited, and letters to his sisters confirm that he identified himself as a ‘geologist’. For a young gentleman of his class and income, this was a remarkable thing to do. Darwin's conversion to evolution by selection has been examined so intensively that it is easy to forget (...) that the most extraordinary decision he ever made was to devote his life to the study of the natural world by becoming a geologist. It is only slightly less astonishing that he should have decided to align his work with Charles Lyell's controversial programme of geological reform, which had almost no followers in England. (shrink)