Category: misc
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Franklin and Jefferson on science vs. public service
Quotes from Edmund S. Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (Yale Nota Bene) p. 25-26 “Obviously the man we want to know had something other than riches in mind when he retired from business. Given his interest in science – he was just beginning his electrical experiments – he could have devoted the rest of his life to…
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Mathematics as Escape
Quotes from Edward Dolnick, The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World, Chapter Twenty-One “Shuddering Before the Beautiful” ‘For the mathematically minded, the notion of glimpsing God’s plan has always exerted a hypnotic pull. The seduction is twofold. On the one hand, delving into the world’s mathematical secrets…
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Interesting Facts about Galileo
I listen to Galileo by John L. Heilbron. Some interesting facts from the book are below together with links that I have found in Internet. Galileo about Inferno Galileo has started his scientific career with a speech about how Inferno looks like where he has applied his mathematical genius to find out which theory was the…
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Gadget: Warum die Zukunft uns noch braucht
This is my writing for a German lesson. Die Zeitung Die Zeit ist zu meiner Hauptquelle von Informationen geworden. Ich höre im Zug die Artikel von der Audio-Zeit an, das ist einerseits bequem, anderseits interessant. Dieses mal war es genau so, in der Zeit gab es einen Artikel über das Buch Gadget: Warum die Zukunft…
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How to Kill a Laboratory Mouse Humanely
A quote from Karin Knorr Cetina, Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge p. 140. “The technical assistant (TA) … did not know how kill the animals properly – he put them to death by placing them in a -70 degree Celsius freezer. (Mice should be killed “humanely” by placing them on top of the…
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Who is Worse: Software Developers or Users?
My two messages to the discussion on the ICS-L list A simple problem with ‘<‘ in Matlab? ________________ I have browsed the current discussion and it was quite entertaining. It helped me to relax a bit after a long working day. The question that I am asking myself often recently, who is worse: software developers…
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A physicist and a theologian
My messages to the everything-list: http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/t/1dadda0d2b84f605 04.09.2011 20:32 A dialog from lectures of Prof Hoenen: http://podcasts.uni-freiburg.de/podcast_content?id_content=93 A physicist comes to a theologian: “You know, I have checked everything from an elementary particle to the Universe. God does not exist, as I have not found him.” A theologian: “You have done your job well. I would…
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Einfach leben und etwas schreiben
This is my writing for a German lesson. Ich war einmal auf der Reise. Auf dem Weg zum Hauptbahnhof nahm ich die S-Bahn. An einer Haltestelle stieg eine junge Dame ein und setzte sich mir gegenüber. Dann fing sie an auf dem Handy mit ihrer Mutter zu reden und ich hatte keine andere Wahl, als…