4,388 research outputs found
Quaker responses to Darwin
[FIRST PARAGRAPH] In his seminal work Darwin and the General Reader (1958), Alvar Ellegird surveyed the British periodical press over the period 1859 to 1872 in order
to discover how Darwin's theory had been received in a hundred publications reflecting a wide range of social, religious, and political opinion. He paid attention
both to the amount of space devoted to Darwinian topics and also to each periodical's stance with respect to such issues as the theory of natural selection and the naturalistic account of the formation of humankind. In each case he summarized his findings using a numerical scale. Among the journals he examined were two Quaker periodicals- the Friend and the Friends' Quarterly Examiner-from which he concluded that Quakers paid little attention to Darwin's theory and that the few references that appeared were generally antagonistic to the new theory. The quotations Ellegird selected confirmed this judgment: for example, in characterizing the Friend as anti-Darwinian he cited an 1861 entry in which a reviewer regretted the large number of converts to Darwinism, exclaiming, "Alas, their name is legion." Despite the somewhat higher scores achieved by the Friends' Quarterly Examiner, Ellegird did not adequately distinguish between these two periodicals, which reflected significantly
different sections within the British Quaker community. Rather surprisingly, he also lumped Quakers with Congregationalists, Baptists, and certain other dissenting
groups that appear to have responded similarly to Darwin's theory but shared little of religious significance with Quakers. In contrast to these denominations, Unitarians
scored higher but Methodists were lower still on Elleglrd's scale
Creating the Royal Society's Sylvester Medal
Following the death of James Joseph Sylvester in 1897, contributions were collected in order to mark his life and work by a suitable memorial. This initiative resulted in the Sylvester Medal, which is awarded triennially by the Royal Society for the encouragement of research into pure mathematics. Ironically the main advocate for initiating this medal was not a fellow mathematician but the chemist and naturalist Raphael Meldola. Religion, not mathematics, provided the link between Meldola and Sylvester; they were among the very few
Jewish Fellows of the Royal Society. This paper focuses primarily on the politics of the Anglo-Jewish community and why it, together with a number of scientists and mathematicians,
supported Meldola in creating the Sylvester Medal
Charles Singer and the founding of the British Society for the History of Science
[FIRST PARAGRAPHS]
Presidential addresses offer an opportunity to reflect on the history of our subject and
where the history of science stands in our own day. Such reflections are particularly
appropriate with the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the British Society for the
History of Science (BSHS) which is marked in 1997. Some may consider that looking
back over our past is either an unacceptable luxury or an occasion for the kind of
celebration that can all too easily degenerate into hagiography and an excuse to rake over
the past in a thoroughly uncritical manner." This address - and I trust the events of 1997
- will try to avoid such excesses and instead contribute to the historiography of our
subject.
This paper contains an all-too-sketchy account of the role of the first president, Charles
Singer (1876±1960), in the founding of the BSHS. My main theme is Singer's commitment
to a form of internationalism that appeared so necessary and so appealing after Europe had
been shattered by Fascism and a devastating war. I shall be exploring the ways in which
his background and the political events of the 1930s and 1940s shaped his vision for the
history of science in the post-war era and especially his concern to found a specifically
British society that would, through encouraging study of the history of science, contribute
to international peace and stability. I should make clear at the outset that by focusing on
Singer I will doubtless undervalue the roles of the many other people who were active in
the early years of this Society. There are, without doubt, other contending narratives and
ones that I hope will soon be heard. I also approach this subject with some trepidation in the realization that some of my readers will have known Singer and may themselves have
been actors in the events I am discussing
Cyclic Universe and Infinite Past
We address two questions about the past for infinitely cyclic cosmology. The
first is whether it can contain an infinite length null geodesic into the past
in view of the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) "no-go" theorem, The second is
whether, given that a small fraction of spawned universes fail to cycle, there
is an adequate probability for a successful universe after an infinite time. We
give positive answers to both questions then show that in infinite cyclicity
the total number of universes has been infinite for an arbitrarily long time.Comment: 7 pages. Clarification in discussion of infinite pas
Measure Recognition Problem
This is an article in mathematics, specifically in set theory. On the example
of the Measure Recognition Problem (MRP) the article highlights the phenomenon
of the utility of a multidisciplinary mathematical approach to a single
mathematical problem, in particular the value of a set-theoretic analysis. MRP
asks if for a given Boolean algebra \algB and a property of measures
one can recognize by purely combinatorial means if \algB supports a strictly
positive measure with property . The most famous instance of this problem
is MRP(countable additivity), and in the first part of the article we survey
the known results on this and some other problems. We show how these results
naturally lead to asking about two other specific instances of the problem MRP,
namely MRP(nonatomic) and MRP(separable). Then we show how our recent work D\v
zamonja and Plebanek (2006) gives an easy solution to the former of these
problems, and gives some partial information about the latter. The long term
goal of this line of research is to obtain a structure theory of Boolean
algebras that support a finitely additive strictly positive measure, along the
lines of Maharam theorem which gives such a structure theorem for measure
algebras
Not a Big Stretch: Community College Humanities
Today’s community colleges provide low-cost access to degrees in the humanities and social sciences as well as in technical fields and the trades. The humanities are key to developing the soft skills that employers demand most, and therefore they fit the workforce-development mission of community colleges. Since many students can afford no college other than a community college, their educational and career options would be significantly reduced (with negative economic, institutional, and societal repercussions) if community colleges did not offer courses and programs in the humanities. The humanities enrich our world while inspiring insights that help us to achieve practical goals
A variational principle for stationary, axisymmetric solutions of Einstein's equations
Stationary, axisymmetric, vacuum, solutions of Einstein's equations are
obtained as critical points of the total mass among all axisymmetric and
symmetric initial data with fixed angular momentum. In this
variational principle the mass is written as a positive definite integral over
a spacelike hypersurface. It is also proved that if absolute minimum exists
then it is equal to the absolute minimum of the mass among all maximal,
axisymmetric, vacuum, initial data with fixed angular momentum. Arguments are
given to support the conjecture that this minimum exists and is the extreme
Kerr initial data.Comment: 21 page
Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase is found in prothymocytes
Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase is an enzyme which has the unique property of polymerizing polydeoxynucleotides onto a primer in the absence of a template (1,2). This enzyme is found both in the thymus and the bone marrow of birds, rodents, and humans (3-7). Whether the marrow cells that contain terminal transferase are related to thymocytes, or are on a separate pathway of differentiation, is not yet known (7,8). To determine the lineage of the murine bone marrow cells that have terminal transferase, we have investigated whether these cells have the antigen Thy-1 induced on the cells by treatment with thymopoietin (9). Thymopoietin is known to induce a set of characteristic T-cell markers including the Thy-1 alloantigen on the surface of a subpopulation of bone marrow cells committed to T-cell differentiation (prothymocytes) (10). Destruction of Thy- 1-positive cells after exposure to thymopoietin allows elimination of a substantial fraction of those bone marrow cells that can repopulate an irradiated thymus (11). We find that such an elimination after induction with the thymic polypeptide removes a substantial amount of terminal transferase from the bone marrow cell population, suggesting that at least one-half of the marrow cells bearing this enzyme are related to those found in the thymus
Anglo-Jewish periodicals of the 1840s: The Voice of Jacob and two Jewish Chronicles
The circumstances surrounding the founding of the Jewish Chronicle have
been ably discussed by David Cesarani in his The Jewish Chronicle and AngloJewry,
1841–1991 and by the author (probably Cecil Roth) of the Jewish
Chronicle’s centenary history.1 As far as possible I will avoid repeating these
accounts, which concentrated on the editors and proprietors. Instead,
my main purpose is to provide a history of the Anglo-Jewish periodical
press from a different perspective by placing three Jewish periodicals – the
Voice of Jacob and two Jewish Chronicles – firmly in the context of periodical
publishing in London in the 1840s
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