Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World’s Oldest Symbolsby Genevieve von PetzingerAtria Books, 200 pp., US$27.00.all about symbols. While we are unusual in many physical respects, largely due to our bipedal way of getting about, our most remarkable and consequential peculiarity is the manner in which we process information. Uniquely, it seems, we deconstruct our exterior and interior worlds into a vocabulary of mental symbols. When combined and recombined according to quite specific rules, these allow us to make...…Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World’s Oldest Symbolsby Genevieve von PetzingerAtria Books, 200 pp., US$27.00.all about symbols. While we are unusual in many physical respects, largely due to our bipedal way of getting about, our most remarkable and consequential peculiarity is the manner in which we process information. Uniquely, it seems, we deconstruct our exterior and interior worlds into a vocabulary of mental symbols. When combined and recombined according to quite specific rules, these allow us to make...WW…

Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”In the first book I set forth the entire distribution of the spheres together with the motions which I attribute to the earth, so that this book contains, as it were, the general structure of the universe.—Nicolaus Copernicus, Preface to Pope Paul III, On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres, 1543.wrote De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) over the course of many years, but the book was published following his death. With this book, historians believe, one sees the origin of a...…Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”In the first book I set forth the entire distribution of the spheres together with the motions which I attribute to the earth, so that this book contains, as it were, the general structure of the universe.—Nicolaus Copernicus, Preface to Pope Paul III, On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres, 1543.wrote De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) over the course of many years, but the book was published following his death. With this book, historians believe, one sees the origin of a...WW…

Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”25, 2021, an Ariane 5 rocket launched from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana at precisely 7:20 a.m. The payload was the largest and most advanced orbiting optical observatory ever developed: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Twenty-seven minutes and seven seconds after launch, the telescope separated from the second stage of the launcher. A jubilant Jean-Luc Voyer, director of operations for the launch, announced the separation, adding “Go Webb!” After a two-month journey, Webb arrived at its final destination 1.5 million...…Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”25, 2021, an Ariane 5 rocket launched from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana at precisely 7:20 a.m. The payload was the largest and most advanced orbiting optical observatory ever developed: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Twenty-seven minutes and seven seconds after launch, the telescope separated from the second stage of the launcher. A jubilant Jean-Luc Voyer, director of operations for the launch, announced the separation, adding “Go Webb!” After a two-month journey, Webb arrived at its final destination 1.5 million...WW…

Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”-1980s, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, delivered a talk at my campus. After his presentation, Roddenberry fielded questions from the audience. One of the students asked him about the future of manned space travel. Roddenberry replied that the idea just did not make sense to him. Space exploration, he explained, is a job for machines, not humans. You could have heard the boos from the sold-out auditorium on Ceti Alpha V. Coming from the creator of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Lieutenant Uhura, and Mr. Sulu, this response...…Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”-1980s, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, delivered a talk at my campus. After his presentation, Roddenberry fielded questions from the audience. One of the students asked him about the future of manned space travel. Roddenberry replied that the idea just did not make sense to him. Space exploration, he explained, is a job for machines, not humans. You could have heard the boos from the sold-out auditorium on Ceti Alpha V. Coming from the creator of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Lieutenant Uhura, and Mr. Sulu, this response...WW…

Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”Digging Up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomonby Eric ClinePrinceton University Press, 424 pp., $35.00., the term Armageddon has come to be associated with cataclysmic, world-ending events, such as an asteroid strike or nuclear war. Less widely known is the origin of the name, or its single mention in the New Testament in a section of Revelation describing the great battle at the end of days. Armageddon, the Hill of Megiddo, is where the battle will take place.The ancient city of Megiddo was located in the...…Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”Digging Up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomonby Eric ClinePrinceton University Press, 424 pp., $35.00., the term Armageddon has come to be associated with cataclysmic, world-ending events, such as an asteroid strike or nuclear war. Less widely known is the origin of the name, or its single mention in the New Testament in a section of Revelation describing the great battle at the end of days. Armageddon, the Hill of Megiddo, is where the battle will take place.The ancient city of Megiddo was located in the...WW…

Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”, a steady flow of press releases from nuclear fusion research projects has hailed breakthrough advances and new record yields. Despite the relentlessly optimistic tone of these announcements and the repeated claims that the prospects for commercialization have never looked brighter, the stark reality is that practical fusion-based electric power remains a distant prospect. It is likely unachievable anytime in the next half a century.Even then, it may still remain beyond our grasp.The most readily accessible nuclear fusion...…Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”, a steady flow of press releases from nuclear fusion research projects has hailed breakthrough advances and new record yields. Despite the relentlessly optimistic tone of these announcements and the repeated claims that the prospects for commercialization have never looked brighter, the stark reality is that practical fusion-based electric power remains a distant prospect. It is likely unachievable anytime in the next half a century.Even then, it may still remain beyond our grasp.The most readily accessible nuclear fusion...WW…

Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”cultivated in Al-Andalus, the part of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule, during the early ninth century. This was mainly due to the fact that astronomy was necessary for the practice of astrology. The Muslim rulers relied on the predictive powers of a team of astrologers to provide them with useful information for decision-making. A group of poet-astrologers who served the courts of the emirs al-akam I (r. 796–822) and his son ʽAbd al-Ramān II (r. 822–852) are well attested in historical sources. The historian Ibn ayyān...…Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”cultivated in Al-Andalus, the part of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule, during the early ninth century. This was mainly due to the fact that astronomy was necessary for the practice of astrology. The Muslim rulers relied on the predictive powers of a team of astrologers to provide them with useful information for decision-making. A group of poet-astrologers who served the courts of the emirs al-akam I (r. 796–822) and his son ʽAbd al-Ramān II (r. 822–852) are well attested in historical sources. The historian Ibn ayyān...WW…

Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”Hugo Reyes-Centeno, Katerina Harvati, et Gerhard Jäger, “,” Nature Scientific Reports 6, no. 36,645 (2016), doi:10.1038/srep36645., Hugo Reyes-Centeno, Katerina Harvati, and Gerhard Jäger ask whether anatomy, linguistics, and geography tell the same story about the shape of the human skull. They studied two hundred and sixty-five skulls from eleven populations in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. By establishing reference points on the outer surface of the skulls, they were able to characterize their morphology in quantitative terms....…Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”Hugo Reyes-Centeno, Katerina Harvati, et Gerhard Jäger, “,” Nature Scientific Reports 6, no. 36,645 (2016), doi:10.1038/srep36645., Hugo Reyes-Centeno, Katerina Harvati, and Gerhard Jäger ask whether anatomy, linguistics, and geography tell the same story about the shape of the human skull. They studied two hundred and sixty-five skulls from eleven populations in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. By establishing reference points on the outer surface of the skulls, they were able to characterize their morphology in quantitative terms....WW…

Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”of the sixteenth century encountered two competing systems of mathematical astronomy. On the one hand, in the ancient system of Ptolemy, the earth was the immobile center of the universe. Constrained by Aristotelian physical principles to move in uniform circular motion, the moon, sun, and seven known planets orbited the earth. “Absolutely all phenomena, are in contradiction,” Ptolemy writes, “to any of the alternate notions that have been propounded.” On the other hand, the new theory of Nicolaus Copernicus which, while still...…Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”of the sixteenth century encountered two competing systems of mathematical astronomy. On the one hand, in the ancient system of Ptolemy, the earth was the immobile center of the universe. Constrained by Aristotelian physical principles to move in uniform circular motion, the moon, sun, and seven known planets orbited the earth. “Absolutely all phenomena, are in contradiction,” Ptolemy writes, “to any of the alternate notions that have been propounded.” On the other hand, the new theory of Nicolaus Copernicus which, while still...WW…

Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”stops toward the southern end of the route des vins d’Alsace is the picturesque town of Rouffach, located roughly halfway between Colmar and Mulhouse. The vineyards where the grand cru Vorbourg is produced lie to the east of Rouffach amid the rolling foothills of the Vosges mountains. To the east is the Rhine plain and, on a clear day, visible in the distance beyond, the Schwarzwald.A former convent, L’église des Récollets dédiés à sainte Catherine d’Alexandrie, can be found near the ramparts at the southern end of Rouffach’s...…Popular topicsLatest ContributorsLatest IssuesIn response to “”stops toward the southern end of the route des vins d’Alsace is the picturesque town of Rouffach, located roughly halfway between Colmar and Mulhouse. The vineyards where the grand cru Vorbourg is produced lie to the east of Rouffach amid the rolling foothills of the Vosges mountains. To the east is the Rhine plain and, on a clear day, visible in the distance beyond, the Schwarzwald.A former convent, L’église des Récollets dédiés à sainte Catherine d’Alexandrie, can be found near the ramparts at the southern end of Rouffach’s...WW…