Yes, the Universe Is on Our Side

Lonergan’s question is for all of us, including religious believers. The process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead renders the yes plausible, allowing us to understand the universe as more than dead matter and blind forces. There is no possibility of a final proof in answering Lonergan’s question, but there is knowledge. Kronman is not only the culmination of the no, he is the commencement of the yes. Accepting mortality engenders all human possibilities, including tenderness. The universe is emergent and creative. In its processes, the universe moves in the direction of life, complexity, intelligence, and morality. The stability and universality of the laws of nature support a friendly universe. The Earth maintains conditions for life. Quantum physics demonstrates our connection to matter. History is not circular but directional. Human life is purposeful. None of this is accidental.

The Role of Museums in a Digital World – Attracting Youth and Overcoming COVID19 Obstacles

In the world of digital technology, overwhelmed with information and content, digitalization is often perceived as a process of alienation. This article will challenge that perception and demonstrate that digital museums actually present a unique opportunity to develop interest in art and attracting people not only to art in general but to on-site cultural institutions as well. Digital museums can, among other roles, assume the role of interpreting cultural heritage, but are also the best way to attract a young au-dience to art. This article examines the opportunities provided by digital technology for museums in terms of communication and dissemination of knowledge. The particular emphasis will be on the use of digital collections as well as on connecting and interacting with the public, particularly with a young au-dience. If there was any doubt about the importance and influence of digital museums, the COVID-19 pandemic was a final proof that digital museums have a much greater value than is generally admitted, and that they have become an indispensable part of the overall museum experience in all museums that have been able to develop them as a part of overall museum strategy.

Rectangles in Lobachevskian Geometry Contradict Euclid's 4th Postulate

This article can be considered the final proof of Euclid’s 5th postulate. Nevertheless, its main purpose is to show that the difference between Lobachevskian and Euclidean geometry is much more significant than is commonly believed to date.

Second Sailing towards Immortality and God

This paper deals with the deuteros plous, literally ‘the second voyage’, proverbially ‘the next best way’, discussed in Plato’s Phaedo, the key passage being Phd. 99e4-100a3. I argue that (a) the ‘flight into the logoi’ can have two different interpretations, a standard one and a non-standard one. The issue is whether at 99e-100a Socrates means that both the student of erga and the student of logoi consider images (‘the standard interpretation’), or the student of logoi does not consider images (‘the non-standard interpretation’); (b) the non-standard one implies the problem of the hypothesis, a problem analogous to the problem of the elenchus; (c) there is a structural analogy between Descartes’ ontological argument for the existence of God in his 5th Meditation and the final proof for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo.

Experiencing the Church in the Book of Visions of the Shepherd of Hermas

This chapter uses the Shepherd of Hermas, an apocalyptic text written in the second century CE, to explore how and to what extent ancient Greek narrative is able to convey a special kind of human experience, the experience of the divine. After a brief theoretical introduction it argues first that the so-called Book of Visions, the first section of the Shepherd of Hermas, introduces two different kinds of Church, both the manifest and spiritual Churches, which are respectively characterized by sequential human time and divine timelessness. A narratological analysis of the same section of the text follows. It begins by arguing that the Book of Visions is a text that turns the depiction of the manifest Church into the narrative of Hermas’ lifelong conversion, and through its immersive quality readers are invited to experience the complex temporality of this Church. Then it shows that, within the same narrative, both the downplaying of temporal development and repetitions invite readers to experience the timelessness of the spiritual Church). Finally, it concludes that the downplaying of time and repetitions—both of which are called non-sequential devices—serve as the final proof of the ‘experiential vocation’ of ancient Greek narrative.

FISH INVASION BY OPISTHORCHID FLUKES IN THE WATERPOTS OF THE CITY OF NOVOSIBIRSK

The article presents data on the contamination of carp family fish with opisthorchid metacercariae and on the basis of this study, local foci of opisthorchidosis in reservoirs within the city of Novosibirsk were identified. Fishes for research were caught in the Nizhnyaya Yeltsovka and Inya rivers within the city of Novosibirsk. Fish studies were carried out by the compressor method. A total of 121 specimens of five species were investigated: ide, roach, dace, bream, verkhovka. Three types of opisthorchid metacercaria are found: Opisthorchis felineus, Metorchis bilis, and M. xanthosomus. The first two species have an epidemic significance, the latter – epizootic one. To assess the infection of fish, indicators of extensiveness and intensity of invasion, as well as an abundance index, were used.The results of studies showed that the level of infection of carp fish with larval forms of opisthorchids is 48.8% in total, while infection with metacercariae is: O. felineus 19.8%, M. bilis is 27.3% and M. hantomomus is 4.1%. In Lower Yeltsovka, the infection rate was 45.8%, in Ina – 55.3%. Earlier, our studies in the Lower Yeltsovka river detected mollusks-bitiniids, the first intermediate hosts of opisthorchids infected with their partins. Since the presence of the first and second intermediate, as well as definitive (human) hosts, is recorded at this point, the presence of a local focus in Lower Eletsovka can be considered indisputable. In Ina, the presence of a local focus is highly likely; for its final proof, it is necessary to detect opisthorchid-infected mollusks of this parthenites of Bithyniidae family.

PLEASURE AND THE DIVIDED SOUL IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC BOOK 9

In Book 9 of Plato's Republic we find three proofs for the claim that the just person is happier than the unjust person. Curiously, Socrates does not seem to consider these arguments to be coequal when he announces the third and final proof as ‘the greatest and most decisive of the overthrows’ (μέγιστόν τε καὶ κυριώτατον τῶν πτωμάτων) (583b7). This remark raises a couple of related questions for the interpreter. Whatever precise sense we give to μέγιστον and κυριώτατον in this passage, Socrates is clearly appealing to an argumentative standard of some kind, and claiming that his final argument alone meets (or comes closest to meeting) this standard. But what precise standard is Socrates invoking here? And given that the first two arguments of Book 9 fall short of this (as yet undetermined) standard, why does he not simply leap directly to the third, most decisive proof?

Electromagnetic physics vectorization in the GeantV transport framework

The development of the GeantV Electromagnetic (EM) physics package has evolved following two necessary paths towards code modernization. A first phase required the revision of the main electromagnetic physics models and their implementation. The main objectives were to improve their accuracy, extend them to the new high-energy frontier posed by the Future Circular Collider (FCC) programme and allow a better adaptation to a multi-particle flow. Most of the EM physics models in GeantV have been reviewed from theoretical perspective and rewritten with vector-friendly implementations, being now available in scalar mode in the alpha release. The second phase consists of a thorough investigation on the possibility to vectorise the most CPU-intensive physics code parts, such as final state sampling. We have shown the feasibility of implementing electromagnetic physics models that take advantage of SIMD/SIMT architectures, thus obtaining gains in performance. After this phase, the time has come for the GeantV project to take a step forward towards the final proof of concept. This takes shape through the testing of the full simulation chain (transport + physics + geometry) running in vectorized mode. In this paper we will present the first benchmark results obtained after vectorizing a full set of electromagnetic physics models.