13 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Weakness of the Library of Alexandria
Both the work of research and the work of dissemination went on under serious handicaps. One of these was the great social gap that {152}separated the philosopher, who was a gentleman, from the trader and the artisan. There were glass workers and metal workers in abundance in those days, but they were not in mental contact with the thinkers. The glass worker was making the most beautifully coloured beads and phials and so forth, but he never made a Florentine flask or a lens. Clear glass does...The library's knowledge did not benefit the average worker. It's discoveries were purely academic, reserved for the aristocracy.
13 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Glory of the Library of Alexandria
Alexander had already devoted considerable sums to finance the enquiries of Aristotle, but Ptolemy I was the first person to make a permanent endowment of science. He set up a foundation in Alexandria which was formerly dedicated to the Muses, the Museum {151}of Alexandria. For two or three generations the scientific work done at Alexandria was extraordinarily good. Euclid, Eratosthenes who measured the size of the earth and came within fifty miles of its true diameter, Apollonius who wrote o...The star scientists and inventions that came out of it's first century.
17 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Science Threatened Monarchical Power
Following the death of Christ and the preaching by his disciples, the promised prospect of salvation for all believers raised the Christian priest¬ hood to unprecedentedly powerful popularity. The combined religious and martial emperorship found its authoritarianly formulated credo (meaning "I believe") threatened by the B.C. Greek scientists' ever-unorthodox thinking and discovering. "Science," as Sir James Jeans said two millennia later, "is the earnest attempt to set in order the facts of...Thus emperors sought to destroy learning and evidence-based reasoning.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Our Radio Broadcasts into Space are a Monologue
Some individuals find the absence of a dialogue distressing – as if meaningful
dialogues were commonplace on this planet. Philip Morrison, of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, has pointed out that such cultural monologues are
entirely common in the history of mankind; that, for example, the entire cultural
patrimony of classical Greece, which has influenced our civilization in a profound
way, has traveled in only one direction in time. We have not sent our wisdom to
the Greeks. The...Folksonomies: culture communication
Folksonomies: culture communication
Distressing some that it is not a dialogue, but the wisdom of the ancient Greeks is a monologue as well.