The last sunset on mainland Europe

This paper documents the places in mainland Europe at which the sun sets latest, by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), on any given day (distortion due to differences in local standard times is ignored). In contradiction to the na\"ive assumption that the sun always sets latest at the westernmost point, the point of last sunset changes cyclically over the course of a year due to the changing orientation of the axis of the Earth with respect to the sun. Specifically, between the winter and summer solstices the last sunset shifts successively from Cabo de Sao Vicente (Portugal) to Cabo da Roca (Portugal) to Cabo Tourinan (Spain) to a site near Aglapsvik (Norway) to a location in the Norwegian municipality of Masoy south of Havoysund; and it shifts back again between the summer and winter solstices. There are two days in the year (April 24th and August 18th) on which the last sunset of mainland Europe (shared in those days effectively by Cabo Tourinan and the Aglapsvik area) coincides with the last sunset of mainland Africa, at a site in Western Sahara near Cap Blanc. A similar analysis of the first Spanish sunrise shows that from April 22nd to August 20th it occurs on the Costa Brava at Cap de Creus (Catalonia), and the rest of the year at Punta de s'Espero (Balearic Islands), the easternmost point of Spain.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl

Modeling the life and death of competing languages from a physical and mathematical perspective

Recent contributions address the problem of language coexistence as that of two species competing to aggregate speakers, thus focusing on the dynamics of linguistic traits across populations. They draw inspiration from physics and biology and share some underlying ideas -- e. g. the search for minimal schemes to explain complex situations or the notion that languages are extant entities in a societal context and, accordingly, that objective, mathematical laws emerge driving the aforementioned dynamics. Different proposals pay attention to distinct aspects of such systems: Some of them emphasize the distribution of the population in geographical space, others research exhaustively the role of bilinguals in idealized situations (e. g. isolated populations), and yet others rely extremely on equations taken unchanged from physics or biology and whose parameters bear actual geometrical meaning. Despite the sources of these models -- so unrelated to linguistics -- sound results begin to surface that establish conditions and make testable predictions regarding language survival within populations of speakers, with a decisive role reserved to bilingualism. Here we review the most recent works and their interesting outcomes stressing their physical theoretical basis, and discuss the relevance and meaning of the abstract mathematical findings for real-life situations.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures. Fifth chapter of the book Bilingualism and Minority Languages in Europe: Current trends and developments by F. Lauchlan, M. C. Parafita Couto, ed

Importance of interlinguistic similarity and stable bilingualism when two languages compete

In order to analyze the dynamics of two languages in competition, one approach is to fit historical data on their numbers of speakers with a mathematical model in which the parameters are interpreted as the similarity between those languages and their relative status. Within this approach, we show here, on the basis of a detailed analysis and extensive calculations, the outcomes that can emerge for given values of these parameters. Contrary to previous results, it is possible that in the long term both languages coexist and survive. This happens only when there is a stable bilingual group, and this is possible only if the competing languages are sufficiently similar, in which case its occurrence is favoured by both similarity and status symmetry.Comment: to appear in New Journal of Physic

Principio de legalidad penal: estudio comparado entre la cultura legal continental y anglosajona

Esta presentación parte de un estudio comparado sobre el principio de legalidad penal. En concreto, se presentará una aproximación doctrinal y jurisprudencial a este principio desde las culturas legales continental y anglosajona, siguiendo asimismo la doctrina jurisprudencial del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos como punto de aproximación normativo entre ambas tradiciones jurídicas. Se pretende de este modo ofrecer una nueva perspectiva al estudio del principio de legalidad penal, partiendo de la confrontación ley formal vs. law in action, que se torna en complementariedad a partir de la refundamentación del principio de legalidad penal propuesta, destinada a potenciar la garantía democrática que representa partiendo de una serie de presupuestos metodológicos orientados por la función garantista del Derecho penal. Para ello, ha sido estudiado desde una perspectiva crítica teniendo en cuenta la necesaria adaptación a un contexto, el propio de la posmodernidad, donde el concepto de soberanía popular que orienta su significado se ha visto diluido por la hegemonía del pensamiento neoliberal en la Unión Europea y la progresiva desconstitucionalización del Estado social y democrático de derecho.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Visit heaven and hell ahead of schedule

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Aprendizaje a través de errores trascendentales

An error in an anecdotal calculation that uses physical concepts can be an interesting matter far physics students. It helps in motivation, to grasp some concepts, and creates good scientific altitudes. It is hoped that putting the physics into an unusual context can be both motivational and instructionalSe utiliza un error en un cálculo anecdótico como materia de interés para estudiantes de física. Ayuda en la motivación, a percibir ciertos conceptos, y crea buenas actitudes científicas. Se espera que, situar la física en un contexto inusual, pueda ser motivante e instructivoNO

Ideas for Improving Peer Review

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Fútbol: efecto del incremento de tamaño de las porterías en el número de goles

Here is an example of elastic collision to be presented in a contextual manner to a physics class. Namely, the effect of increasing goal mouth size on the number of goals scored in a football match is discussed, considering elastic collisions of the ball with the posts. The results are compared with data taken from rhe Spanish Professional League, that show a high number of shots-to-post. Surprisingly, there is a direct correlation of the increase in goal mouth area with the increase of goalsSe presenta un ejemplo de colisión elástica para ser mostrado de un modo informal en una clase de física. En particular se discute el efecto que tendría un incremento del tamaño de las porterías en el número de goles de los partidos de fútbol, tras considerar que las colisiones del balón con los postes son elásticas. Los resultados se comparan con datos obtenidos de la Liga de Fútbol Profesional de España, que muestran un número muy alto de balones al poste. Sorprendentemente, hay una correlación directa entre el incremento de área de la portería y el incremento de golesNO

Spanish university study ignores research

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Echegaray—Fiscal Scientist and More

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