Cultural Memory and Survival: The Russian Renaissance of Classical Antiquity in the Twentieth Century

In this first publication of the UCL SSEES Inaugural Lecture Series, Pamela Davidson dedicates her professorial lecture to the memory of two "outstanding Russian scholars and remarkable individuals, whose contribution to our understanding of classical antiquity and Russian literature has been immense: Sergei Averintsev (1937-2004) and Mikhail Gasparov (1935-2005)." Professor Davidson's survey falls into three parts. She looks back and examines what classical antiquity meant for Russians in the period leading up to the revolution know as the Silver Age; in the second part, she considers what happened to the legacy of this interest in Soviet times; and finally, she comments on the present situation. In doing so, Professor Davidson hopes to demonstrate that the reception of classical antiquity has been marked by, and is even the source of some surprising continuities. Pamela Davidson is Professor of Russian Literature at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies

Freely-Decaying, Homogeneous Turbulence Generated by Multi-scale Grids

We investigate wind tunnel turbulence generated by both conventional and multi-scale grids. Measurements were made in a tunnel which has a large test-section, so that possible side wall effects are very small and the length assures that the turbulence has time to settle down to a homogeneous shear-free state. The conventional and multi-scale grids were all designed to produce turbulence with the same integral scale, so that a direct comparison could be made between the different flows. Our primary finding is that the behavior of the turbulence behind our multi-scale grids is virtually identical to that behind the equivalent conventional grid. In particular, all flows exhibit a power-law decay of energy, $u^2 \sim t^{-n}$, where $n$ is very close to the classical Saffman exponent of $n = 6/5$. Moreover, all spectra exhibit classical Kolmogorov scaling, with the spectra collapsing on the integral scales at small $k$, and on the Kolmogorov micro-scales at large $k$. Our results are at odds with some other experiments performed on similar multi-scale grids, where significantly higher energy decay exponents and turbulence levels have been reported.Comment: 19 pages, 18 figure

Can technology help solve the Arab-Israeli conflict in Palestine?

This repository item contains a single issue of Which Way?, a series of occasional papers published by The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University. Which Way? pamphlets highlight emerging controversies at the crossroads where decisions must be made about choices that will affect the future of humankind through the twenty-first century and into the next. They are intended to illuminate, inform, arouse interest, and inspire debate among opinion-molders, decisionmakers, and an informed and thoughtful public.This paper looks at the lack of land in Palestine as one part of the problem that might have a low technology solution if the right pressures were applied. If the Gaza settlements were extended and Israel itself was built out into the eastern Mediterranean, then if a time came when peace was in reach, the struggle for land might not remain quite so desperate an issue. This is modeled after the “Dutch Solution,” in the hopes that their success could likewise be achieved using this obvious yet overlooked idea. Dr. Davidson encourages more practical collaboration between the academic sphere and those in positions to make change. Calling it “the quite unnecessary human tragedy in the Middle East,” he focuses on instances of past cooperation and exchange between the cultures of East and West. The paper also notes how, with technological vision, Death Valley was transformed into one of the most agriculturally productive regions in the United States. Dr. Davidson calls for greater real international support, pointing out the high tariffs of the U.S. and France on exports from North Africa which discourage economic expansion

Stochastic quantization of the linearized gravitational field

Stochastic field equations for linearized gravity are presented. The theory is compared with the usual quantum field theory and questions of Lorentz covariance are discussed. The classical radiation approximation is also presented.Comment: 14 page