The life of Gotthold Ferdinand Eisenstein

Gotthold Ferdinand Eisenstein (1823-1852) was one of the brilliant mathematicians of the nineteenth century. The main goal of this article is to give a translation – from German into English – of a Curriculum Vita that he wrote at age twenty, as part of his application for the Examination of General Maturity for University Entrance (Abitur). This has often been referred to as his autobiography. Some additional biographical information is also given, with the aim of providing some further insights into his life and character in general

The Discovery of Neutrino Masses

The recent observation of neutrino oscillations with atmospheric and solar neutrinos, implying that neutrinos are not massless, is a discovery of paramount importance for particle physics and particle astrophysics. This invited lecture discusses - hopefully in a way understandable also for the non-expert - the physics background and the results mainly from the two most relevant experiments, Super-Kamiokande and SNO. It also addresses the implications for possible neutrino mass spectra. We restrict the discussion to three neutrino flavours (nu_e, nu_mu, nu_tau), not mentioning a possible sterile neutrino.Comment: Contribution to CF 200

Of layers and lawyers

How can the law be characterized in a theory of collective intentionality that treats collective intentionality as essentially layered and tries to understand these layers in terms of the structure and the format of the representations involved? And can such a theory of collective intentionality open up new perspectives on the law and shed new light on traditional questions of legal philosophy? As a philosopher of collective intentionality who is new to legal philosophy, I want to begin exploring these questions in this paper. I will try to characterize the law in terms of the layered account of collective intentionality that I have introduced in some earlier writings (Schmitz 2013; 2018). In the light of this account I will then discuss a traditional question in the philosophy of law: the relation between law and morality. I begin by giving a brief sketch of the layered account in the next section. Collective intentionality should be understood in terms of experiencing and representing others as co-subjects, rather than as objects, of intentional states and acts on different layers or levels. I distinguish the nonconceptual layer of the joint sensory-motor-emotional intentionality of joint attention and joint bodily action, the conceptual level of shared we-mode beliefs, intentions, obligations, values, and so on, and the institutional level characterized through role differentiation, positions taken in role-mode, e.g. as a judge or attorney, and writing and other forms of documentation. In the third section I introduce a set of parameters for representations such as their degree of richness, of context-dependence, of density and differentiation of representational role and of durability and stability, which can be used to more precisely distinguish different layers. I also put forward the hypothesis that these properties are connected and tend to cluster, and that higher levels can only function and determine conditions of satisfaction against lower level ones. In the fourth and final section I critically discuss the sharp positivistic separation of morality and the law according to which whether something is a law is completely independent of its moral merits. I argue that this only seems plausible if we take an observational stance towards the law, but not towards morality. When we treat them the same way, it rather appears that the moral attitudes of the co-subjects of a society will determine whether and to what extent they will accept its legal order. I conclude by proposing to think of the law as being itself an institutionalized form of morality

Force, content and logic

The Frege point to the effect that e.g. the clauses of conditionals are not asserted and therefore cannot be assertions is often taken to establish a dichotomy between the content of a speech act, which is propositional and belongs to logic and semantics, and its force, which belongs to pragmatics. Recently this dichotomy has been questioned by philosophers such as Peter Hanks and Francois Recanati, who propose act-theoretic accounts of propositions, argue that we can’t account for propositional unity independently of the forceful acts of speakers, and respond to the Frege point by appealing to a notion of force cancellation. I argue that the notion of force cancellation is faced with a dilemma and offer an alternative response to the Frege point, which extends the act-theoretic account to logical acts such as conditionalizing or disjoining. Such higher-level acts allow us to present forceful acts while suspending commitment to them. In connecting them, a subject rather commits to an affirmation function of such acts. In contrast, the Frege point confuses a lack of commitment to what is put forward with a lack of commitment or force in what is put forward

Aspects of Planetary Wave Transports in the Middle Atmosphere

The heat and momentum flux due to standing planetary waves in the stratosphere were calculated on the basis of satellite data. The convergence of these fluxes was investigated and shows an apparent heating and acceleration of the mean zonal state. The Eliassen-Palm flux divergence calculation shows that the mean zonal state is effectively decelerated. Furthermore, the interaction between ultra long waves and k = 4 - 15 in the troposphere was investigated for a winter period and is discussed in connection with the geopotential wave one amplitude, which increases before a stratospheric warming event occurs

Complexity Hierarchies Beyond Elementary

We introduce a hierarchy of fast-growing complexity classes and show its suitability for completeness statements of many non elementary problems. This hierarchy allows the classification of many decision problems with a non-elementary complexity, which occur naturally in logic, combinatorics, formal languages, verification, etc., with complexities ranging from simple towers of exponentials to Ackermannian and beyond.Comment: Version 3 is the published version in TOCT 8(1:3), 2016. I will keep updating the catalogue of problems from Section 6 in future revision

The Complexities of the Interface between Agricultural Policy and Trade

Tariff and non-tariff barriers are widespread as applied to agricultural trade. The theory of gains from trade considers the impacts of free trade relative to no trade and to non-tariff barriers, while the theory of agricultural policy generally places little weight on the international trading sector. However, it is necessary to combine agricultural policy with the international trading sector so that agricultural policy instruments such as price supports are considered together with barriers to trade such as tariffs. This is possible within the context of welfare economics when considering the costs and benefits of alternative agricultural and trade policies.agricultural policy, biofuels, export taxes, gains from trade, tariffs, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy, Production Economics,