12,220 research outputs found
Philosophy of Science and Democracy. Some reflections on Philipp Frank"s "Relativity – a richer truth".
Philipp Frank"s book Relativity – a richer truth1 shows something we do not find very often after World War 2: a philosopher of science acting as a public intellectual. Taking part in the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, Philipp Frank intervened in the public debate about the causes of Nazism and how to defend democracy and liberalism against totalitarian ideas and politics. Could philosophy of science contribute to such a struggle? Philipp Frank thought it could, he even thought that Philosophy of Science should play a crucial role in it. It"s obvious that this position should be of some interest for philosophers in Austria and Europe today.
Of course, any serious analysis of Frank"s position would have to take the whole historical constellation into account. Between the beginning of the conference in 1940 and the publication of the book in 1951 the historical situation had dramatically changed. And therefore one has to distinguish several political dimensions in Frank"s arguments. Let me just make a short remark on the plurality of political perspectives Frank"s discourse opened up. Philipp Frank defined the role science should play in democracy not only in contrast to the role of science as it was conceived by totalitarian governments. Of course he criticised the Nazis" and Soviets" �philosophies of science� several times (see for instance p. 73, 98, 103p.). But he also made very clear that in the 40ies and 50ies not even the majority of scholars and university teachers in the US supported the specific view of science which Frank thought was so important to the advancement of democracy (for instance 59pp.). His rather critical comments on the teaching of science in the post war / cold war period show what he thought the really important political impact of science was. As far as I can see, these comments did not loose their significance
Astroserver - Research Services in the Stellar Webshop
A quick look at research and development in astronomy shows that we live in
exciting times. Exoplanetary systems, supernovae, and merging binary black
holes were far out of reach for observers two decades ago and now such
phenomena are recorded routinely. This quick development would not have been
possible without the ability for researchers to be connected, to think globally
and to be mobile. Classical short-term positions are not always suitable to
support these conditions and freelancing may be a viable alternative. We
introduce the Astroserver framework, which is a new freelancing platform for
scientists, and demonstrate through examples how it contributed to some recent
projects related to hot subdwarf stars and binaries. These contributions, which
included spectroscopic data mining, computing services and observing services,
as well as artwork, allowed a deeper look into the investigated systems. The
work on composite spectra binaries provided new details for the hypervelocity
wide subdwarf binary PB 3877 and found diverse and rare systems with sub-giant
companions in high-resolution spectroscopic surveys. The models for the
peculiar abundance pattern of the evolved compact star LP 40-365 showed it to
be a bound hypervelocity remnant of a supernova Iax event. Some of these works
also included data visualizations to help presenting the new results. Such
services may be of interest for many researchers.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Open Astronomy as
part of the conference proceedings for the Eighth Meeting on Hot Subdwarf
Stars and Related Objects (sdOB8, Krakow
Atomic diffusion in the atmosphere of Feige 86
We have revisited the ultraviolet and optical spectra of the blue horizontal
branch star Feige 86. The new analysis finds the star cooler and more compact
than previously determined. The IUE spectrum of Feige 86 holds numerous
unidentified spectral lines of heavy metals, indicating efficient atomic
diffusion in the atmosphere. Because diffusion plays a key role in the
atmospheres of hot subdwarfs as well, it is indispensable to a better
understanding of subdwarf pulsations and evolution. Feige 86 looks like an
ideal target to confront diffusion theory with observations and test
spectroscopic techniques. Therefore, to advance our general understanding of
diffusion in stellar atmospheres we urge for new ultraviolet spectroscopy of
Feige 86 at the highest possible resolution with HST/STIS.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Open Astronomy as
part of the conference proceedings for the Eighth Meeting on Hot Subdwarf
Stars and Related Objects (sdOB8, Krakow
Interaction between lava lakes and pyroclastic sequences in phreatomagmatic volcanoes: Haláp and Badacsony, Western Hungary.
No abstract availabl
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