LATGALIAN VOCABULARY AND IDIOMS RELATED TO SPINNING

Via Latgalica ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Sandra Ūdre
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Physical Phenomenon ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Spiral Vortex ◽  
The World ◽  
Physical Phenomena

<em>Spinning (rotation) as a physical phenomenon is an interesting thing. Many archaic notions remain in the language of the dominating perceptions of physical phenomena. Specific studies associated with the Latgalian language have determined that the use of various Latgalian lexemes in contemporary texts creates problems with archaic semantics. These are practical questions for users of Latgalian (primarily writers): which synonym is more appropriate – „doncuot” or „dzyguot” (both meaning ‘to dance’)? Are these terms equivalent? Does the word „maule” (meaning ‘wheel hub’) have only one meaning, even when used in the interjection „ot, maule!”? Why, in Latgalian, does snow spin („snīgs grīž”), but in standard Latvian different words and a different sentence structure must be used for the same expression? This study not only answers these particular questions of lexeme semantics in use, but will also use the linguoculturological approach to discuss the following thematic arcs in Latgalian phraseology and lexicon: 1) signs of natural processes and tools; 2) characteristics of the weather; 3) signs of the process of dancing; 4) lexemes representing the semantics of chaos. An archaic understanding of spinning in language is associated with the concept of the mystic triangle (underworld, world and heaven) model of the world, in which one of the ways to tear down the boundaries between the worlds is to spin in an uncontrollably fast spiral vortex. This notion is reminiscent of Stephen Hawking’s theory of singularity in black holes.</em>

Imaginings

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Kelly James Clark
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
First Order ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Empirically Supported ◽  
Group Violence ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe

In Branden Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican’s challenging and provocative essay, we hear a considerably longer, more scholarly and less melodic rendition of John Lennon’s catchy tune—without religion, or at least without first-order supernaturalisms (the kinds of religion we find in the world), there’d be significantly less intra-group violence. First-order supernaturalist beliefs, as defined by Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican (hereafter M&M), are “beliefs that claim unique authority for some particular religious tradition in preference to all others” (3). According to M&M, first-order supernaturalist beliefs are exclusivist, dogmatic, empirically unsupported, and irrational. Moreover, again according to M&M, we have perfectly natural explanations of the causes that underlie such beliefs (they seem to conceive of such natural explanations as debunking explanations). They then make a case for second-order supernaturalism, “which maintains that the universe in general, and the religious sensitivities of humanity in particular, have been formed by supernatural powers working through natural processes” (3). Second-order supernaturalism is a kind of theism, more closely akin to deism than, say, Christianity or Buddhism. It is, as such, universal (according to contemporary psychology of religion), empirically supported (according to philosophy in the form of the Fine-Tuning Argument), and beneficial (and so justified pragmatically). With respect to its pragmatic value, second-order supernaturalism, according to M&M, gets the good(s) of religion (cooperation, trust, etc) without its bad(s) (conflict and violence). Second-order supernaturalism is thus rational (and possibly true) and inconducive to violence. In this paper, I will examine just one small but important part of M&M’s argument: the claim that (first-order) religion is a primary motivator of violence and that its elimination would eliminate or curtail a great deal of violence in the world. Imagine, they say, no religion, too.Janusz Salamon offers a friendly extension or clarification of M&M’s second-order theism, one that I think, with emendations, has promise. He argues that the core of first-order religions, the belief that Ultimate Reality is the Ultimate Good (agatheism), is rational (agreeing that their particular claims are not) and, if widely conceded and endorsed by adherents of first-order religions, would reduce conflict in the world.While I favor the virtue of intellectual humility endorsed in both papers, I will argue contra M&M that (a) belief in first-order religion is not a primary motivator of conflict and violence (and so eliminating first-order religion won’t reduce violence). Second, partly contra Salamon, who I think is half right (but not half wrong), I will argue that (b) the religious resources for compassion can and should come from within both the particular (often exclusivist) and the universal (agatheistic) aspects of religious beliefs. Finally, I will argue that (c) both are guilty, as I am, of the philosopher’s obsession with belief. 

scholarly journals IV. On some applications of dynamical principles to physical phenomena

1885 ◽  
Vol 176 ◽  
pp. 307-342 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Physical Phenomenon ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Rigid Bodies ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Material System ◽  
Electric Currents ◽  
Conservation Of Energy ◽  
Lagrange’S Equations ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
Lagrange's Equations

1. The tendency to apply dynamical principles and methods to explain physical phenomena has steadily increased ever since the discovery of the principle of the Conservation of Energy. This discovery called attention to the ready conversion of the energy of visible motion into such apparently dissimilar things as heat and electric currents, and led almost irresistibly to the conclusion that these too are forms of kinetic energy, though the moving bodies must be infinitesimally small in comparison with the bodies which form the moving pieces of any of the structures or machines with which we are acquainted. As soon as this conception of heat and electricity was reached mathematicians began to apply to them the dynamical method of the Con­servation of Energy, and many physical phenomena were shown to be related to each other, and others predicted by the use of this principle; thus, to take an example, the induction of electric currents by a moving magnet was shown by von Helmholtz to be a necessary consequence of the fact that an electric current produces a magnetic field. Of late years things have been carried still further; thus Sir William Thomson in many of his later papers, and especially in his address to the British Association at Montreal on “Steps towards a Kinetic Theory of Matter,” has devoted a good deal of attention to the description of machines capable of producing effects analogous to some physical phenomenon, such, for example, as the rotation of the plane of polarisation of light by quartz and other crystals. For these reasons the view (which we owe to the principle of the Conservation of Energy) that every physical phenomenon admits of a dynamical explanation is one that will hardly be questioned at the present time. We may look on the matter (including, if necessary, the ether) which plays a part in any physical phenomenon as forming a material system and study the dynamics of this system by means of any of the methods which we apply to the ordinary systems in the Dynamics of Rigid Bodies. As we do not know much about the structure of the systems we can only hope to obtain useful results by using methods which do not require an exact knowledge of the mechanism of the system. The method of the Conservation of Energy is such a method, but there are others which hardly require a greater knowledge of the structure of the system and yet are capable of giving us more definite information than that principle when used in the ordinary way. Lagrange's equations and Hamilton's method of Varying Action are methods of this kind, and it is the object of this paper to apply these methods to study the transformations of some of the forms of energy, and to show how useful they are for coordinating results of very different kinds as well as for suggesting new phenomena. A good many of the results which we shall get have been or can be got by the use of the ordinary principle of Thermodynamics, and it is obvious that this principle must have close relations with any method based on considerations about energy. Lagrange’s equations were used with great success by Maxwell in his ‘Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism,’ vol. ii., chaps. 6, 7, 8, to find the equations of the electromagnetic field.

The governance of black holes of the world economy

2013 ◽  
pp. 186-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronen Palan ◽  
Anastasia Nesvetailova
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
World Economy ◽  
The World

Why Buy That Theory?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roald Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Community ◽  
Physical Phenomenon ◽  
Platonic Solid ◽  
Orbital Symmetry ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Simple Theories ◽  
Sigmatropic Shift ◽  
The World ◽  
One Step ◽  
Synthetic Chemist

The theory of theories goes like this: A theory will be accepted by a scientific community if it explains better (or more of) what is known, fits at its fringes with what is known in other parts of our universe, and makes verifiable, preferably risky, predictions. Sometimes it does go like that. So the theory that made my name (and added to the already recognized greatness of the man with whom I collaborated, the synthetic chemist of the 20th century, R. B. Woodward) did make sense of many disparate and puzzling observations in organic chemistry. And “orbital symmetry control,” as our complex of ideas came to be called, made some risky predictions. I remember well the day that Jerry Berson sent us his remarkable experimental results on the stereochemistry of the so- called 1,3-sigmatropic shift . It should proceed in a certain way, he reasoned from our theory—a non-intuitive way. And it did. But much that goes into the acceptance of theories has little to do with rationalization and prediction. Instead, I will claim, what matters is a heady mix of factors in which psychological attitudes figure prominently. A simple equation describing a physical phenomenon (better still, many), the molecule shaped like a Platonic solid with regular geometry, the simple mechanism (A→B, in one step)—these have tremendous aesthetic appeal, a direct beeline into our soul. They are beautifully simple, and simply beautiful. Theories of this type are awesome in the original sense of the word—who would deny this of the theory of evolution, the Dirac equation or general relativity? A little caution might be suggested from pondering the fact that political ads patently cater to our psychobiological predilection for simplicity. Is the world simple? Or do we just want it to be such? In the dreams of some, the beauty and simplicity of equations becomes a criterion for their truth. Simple theories seem to validate that idol of science, Ockham’s Razor. In preaching the poetic conciseness and generality of orbital explanations, I have succumbed to this, too.

Natural Liabilities

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Collier
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Power Stations ◽  
The World ◽  
Staple Foods ◽  
Intense Heat ◽  
Growing Population

Factories produce the goods that we want. They also spew out smoke. The smoky factory is, in fact, the classic image used by economists to illustrate the idea of an externality. The factory sells the goods but does not have to pay for the smoke. We now know that smoke is more damaging than previously appreciated. There is nothing more natural than carbon dioxide; it is one of the basic ingredients of life. Yet carbon has become a natural liability. It accumulates up in the atmosphere, trapping in heat. Of course carbon only becomes a problem when it passes the threshold at which it is excessive. We have passed that threshold. As the extra carbon traps in heat, the world heats up, and as it heats up the climate becomes more volatile. The consequences are wide-ranging, but Africa will be the region most severely affected. Africa is huge and climate change will not affect it uniformly, but it seems likely that the drier parts will become drier still, making staple foods unviable. Increased climate variation, which means droughts, floods, and bouts of intense heat, can wreak havoc with traditional cultivation. Agriculture, which is currently Africa’s main economic activity, will become less productive. A rapidly growing population will be scratching a living from a progressively less amenable natural environment. Carbon brings together the key themes of this book. Although it is natural, extra carbon is now a liability; there is nothing intrinsically benign about nature. It is emitted not just by industry but by a number of natural processes. For example, probably the most natural of all human economic activities is rearing cattle. Pastoralists have been ranging the wilderness for millennia. Unfortunately, in terms of global warming, they are more of a menace than nuclear power stations, which produce energy without emitting carbon. That is because cows fart. Being renewable, carbon shares much of the economics of fish and trees, except that instead of being a renewable natural asset it is a renewable natural liability. The damage it does depends not upon how much is emitted today, but on how much has been emitted cumulatively over recent decades.

The Non-identical World

2020 ◽  
pp. 139-162
Author(s):  
Sean Cubitt
Keyword(s):  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Central Character ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Downtown Area ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Critical Process ◽  
Brain In A Vat

There exists a powerful fantasy that the world is not only describable in numbers but is composed of code, in which case the world-as-code can be rewritten. This theme has already emerged in the analyses of Oblivion and Déjà Vu, and is shared by a group of what are here named as ‘irreality’ films made during the global financial crisis. Source Code (Duncan Jones, 2011) dwells on the fate of a protagonist who is the archetypal brain in a vat, another posthumous central character. The analysis draws out the historical formation of subjectivity and the history of the instincts that tie human personality to natural processes, discusses the utopian potential of the performative principles of software, reveals how, in a critical process shot, this utopianism is directed simultaneously towards the construction of community and of the romantic couple, and how these relate to the invisibility, in the repeated shots of the Chicago skyline, of the futures market housed in its downtown area.

VII.—Note on Mr. I. C. Russell's Paper on the Jordan-Arabah and the Dead Sea

1888 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 502-504
Author(s):  
Edward Hull
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Rock Salt ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Salt Rock ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
Geological Magazine

I Have been very much interested in reading Mr. Russell's two communications published in the Geological Magazine for August and September last. The analogy which he draws between the history of the Dead Sea valley and that of some of the lake valleys in the western part of North America is instructive as showing how similar physical features can be accounted for on similar principles of interpretation over all parts of the world. Mr. Eussell very properly draws attention to the paper by his colleague Mr. G. K. Gilbert on “The Topographical Features of Lake Shores,” in which principles of interpretation of physical phenomena are laid down applicable to lakes both of America and the Jordan-Arabah valley. With some of Mr. Russell's inferences regarding special epochs in the history of this valley I am very much disposed to agree; more particularly in reference to the mode of formation of the Salt Mountain, Jebel Usdum; or rather, of the salt-rock which forms the lower part of its mass. If this interpretation be correct, it removes the difficulty of understanding why the rock-salt is confined to one small corner of the lake, which, at the time the salt was in course of formation, was vastly more extensive than at present.

scholarly journals Sustainable Development, Education for Sustainable Development and Philippine Community

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Jim F. Raborar
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World

Abstract Development is an innate manifestation on earth. It is not even surprising that the world has developed tremendously over the past decade considering the development in the previous decades. That is, development precipitates development. Therefore, even though everybody can see what risks it brings to the earth, we cannot simply restrain it. Of course, we cannot restrain it. The bottomline is that we have no choice but to be part of the development and be one of those who assist in the ever spontaneous development by trying to minimize its unwanted effects to the planet and its inhabitantants, the humans. Even looking at the ‘development’ from one’s own microcosm, we can perceive that as we go through life and gain some of what this world can offer, we produce tons and tons of wastes. These wastes, which are naturally not part of the earth, pollute and disrupt the natural processes of the planet. It is also simple to notice that the fundamental cause of the depletion of the earth’s natural resources was definitely proportional to the increase in population and to the development itself. Here lies one of the underlying global problems at hand aside from poverty, hunger, low access to education, and other socio-anthropological issues we have, this is the issue on natural resources depletion. Even to worldleaders from well-developed countries can recognize that they will also be the ones at the receiving end of this problem. It is basic that living organisms rely on their environment or the abiotic factors, to live sustainably. Considering these problems, the United Nations, with the worldleaders as its composition, has come up with strategies that advocate development while keeping the earth’s natural resources from depletion or the earth’s natural processes from disruption. This advocacy is called Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development is the development that meets the need of the present generation without compromising the ability of the next generation to meet their own needs. It is, at its core, an advocacy for futurism and the next generation. Sustainable Development is primarily anchored with the case of the “carrying capacity” of the planet Earth. It was already implied by several natural scientists as well as social scientists that indeed the Planet Earth increasingly finds it hard to sustain the needs of the human races because of overpopulation. These things result to poverty and hunger around the world. On the otherhand, it is increasing implied that most of the Natural Resources of the planet goes to the well-developed countries, leaving the developing and underdeveloped countries with meager resources. This further increases cases of hunger and poverty. Although it is deceptive that the call for a sustainable development should take its toll on the countries with bigger economy since they consume the most and pollute the most, it is very definite that there should be a much more intensive application in developing countries since we are just about to experience what the rest of the developed countries have already experienced. More importantly, developing countries should advocate Sustainable Development since it is a common knowledge that even if they contribute least to the causes of natural resource depletion and disruption of natural processes, they are the ones who suffer most from the devastating effects of unsustainable development. As citizens of the Republic of the Philippines, we are one of those who suffer most.

scholarly journals Living Structure Down to Earth and Up to Heaven: Christopher Alexander

Urban Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Physical Phenomenon ◽  
Scaling Law ◽  
Mathematical Concept ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Jane Jacobs ◽  
Christopher Alexander ◽  
The World ◽  
Structural Nature ◽  
Small Things

Discovered by Christopher Alexander, living structure is a physical phenomenon, through which the quality of the built environment or artifacts can be judged objectively. It has two distinguishing properties just like a tree: “Far more small things than large ones” across all scales from the smallest to the largest, and “more or less similar things” on each scale. As a physical phenomenon, and mathematical concept, living structure is essentially empirical, discovered and developed from miniscule observation in nature- and human-made things, and it affects our daily lives in some practical ways, such as where to put a table or a flower vase in a room, helping us to make beautiful things and environments. Living structure is not only empirical, but also philosophical and visionary, enabling us to see the world and space in more meaningful ways. This paper is intended to defend living structure as a physical phenomenon, and a mathematical concept, clarifying some common questions and misgivings surrounding Alexander’s design thoughts, such as the objective or structural nature of beauty, building styles advocated by Alexander, and mysterious nature of his concepts. For this purpose, we first illustrate living structure—essentially organized complexity, as advocated by the late Jane Jacobs (1916–2006)—that is governed by two fundamental laws (scaling law and Tobler’s law), and generated in some step by step fashion by two design principles (differentiation and adaptation) through the 15 structural properties. We then verify why living structure is primarily empirical, drawing evidence from Alexander’s own work, as well as our case studies applied to the Earth’s surface including cities, streets, and buildings, and two logos. Before reaching conclusions, we concentrate on the most mysterious part of Alexander’s work—the luminous ground or the hypothesized “I”—as a substance that pervasively exists everywhere, in space and matter including our bodies, in order to make better sense of living structure in our minds.

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