GEORGE BOOLE—GRANDFATHER OF OUR INFORMATION AGE PART 1
COMPUTERS DO NOTHING MORE than count on two fingers very quickly: Computer logic assigns 1 or 0 respectively to truth or falsity in the on/off presence of an electrical current. … Continue reading
FOILING THE MOB—JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID’S LAVOISIER PORTRAIT PART 2
WHEN WE LEFT Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier in Part 1, they were pursuing joint research in the new chemistry. Alas, the French Revolution was coming. A Couple’s Portrait. In 1788, … Continue reading
FOILING THE MOB—JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID’S LAVOISIER PORTRAIT PART 1
PITY THE LAVOISIERS, Antoine-Laurent and his wife Marie-Anne Paulze. This French scientific partnership was instrumental in the transition from qualitative chemistry and biology to quantitative endeavors. Pity Jacques-Louis David, French … Continue reading
LITHUANIA RULES—YET AGAIN
“AR GALITE MANE IŠGIRSTI DABAR?” This Lithuanian query of “Can you hear me now?” is most appropriate in response to news reported by the Voice of America, October 1, 2021: … Continue reading
ALGORITHMS REDUX PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE STARTED gleaning tidbits from BBC World Service’s “The Forum” and its September 16, 2021, presentation of “Algorithms: From the Ancients to the Internet.” For this forum, the BBC’s … Continue reading
ALGORITHMS REDUX PART 1
BRIDGET KENDALL RECENTY observed on the BBC World Service that algorithms are “so fundamental to the way we live our lives today that one commentator has even gone as far … Continue reading
ANNOUNCED: THE 2021 IG NOBELS
THE SCIENCE HUMOR magazine Annals of Improbable Research satirizes serious research, but also suggests that oddities of research often possess scientific significance. This year’s Ig Nobels display this, though still … Continue reading
HEY, FELLA, WANNA SCORE A HOT FOSSIL?
SMUGGLING OLD BONES seems like a strange con. But fossils have value, and everyone from quarry workers to paleontologists have been malefactors. Countering them have been the F.B.I. and similar … Continue reading
BABBLING BABY BATS
WHAT WITH COVID and all, bats have had particularly bad press of late. However, science comes to a rehabilitation of their reputation: It turns out the greater sac-winged bat, Saccopteryx … Continue reading
GEORGE BOOLE—GRANDFATHER OF OUR INFORMATION AGE PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE SAW Englishman George Boole progress gradually from a “petty shopkeeper’s son” to an aspiring mathematician. His The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, 1847, become a core of pure mathematics, … Continue reading →