PURE KNOWLEDGE
Pure Knowledge is an independent educational site: It started out as live 1-on-1 discussions on the Internet of diverse subjects from poetry to physics, which are still offered, but can be easily viewed as a reader's memoir as well.
New: I am going to start a list of recordings that I recommend. Most are of works by Mozart, and most of these are complete recordings of specific types of his compositions, as I have been driven nuts trying to remember whether or not I own, say, a specific Piano Trio when I run across it in a store or a web site. This list will follow the names of book stores, below.
There has been another change, as well. Instead of writing out information about each book, from now on I am just going to list the books that could be discussed. These will be put in the what was the 'Preview of Coming Attractions' section but will now have the simple name of 'Other Books We Could Discuss'. I shall possibly add a line or two about a book when it is entered, but most will not have this. If you have any questions about an entry, please email me and I shall let you know what the work is about. Web sites that you might find interesting will still be listed, but I have not run across too many of these lately, with one exception: www.americawantssarah.ning.com. If you log on, go to my page (Dick Lanham), click on Photos and then click on a few that might intrigue you. I shall have comments about each, and most are written and published, but am not quite done yet. Let me know what you think.
Finally: My curriculum vitae (resume) can be found at www.aboutus.pure-knowledge.net.
Are you interested in knowing things for the sheer pleasure of knowing and have no one to learn with?
If so, this website may be for you.
Let me tell you a little story as to why I say this and how this website came to be.
When I was in college I took many fascinating courses. (Some that were not so fascinating, too.) The fascinating ones often had a similar characteristic. Just as I got deep into a portion of the subject, whiz bang,the professor went off into other areas. Gradually, I learned to save up these interesting portions to go into later, after graduation, when I had more time.
However, after I graduated I entered medical school. One would think that as a physician I had even less time to pursue topics of undergraduate courses than before. But following the law that the more you have to do the more you can do, as a doctor I did manage to find time to investigate what I had missed before and then other topics that presented themselves along the way.
Often these subjects had little if anything to do with medicine--logic, literature, poetry, the history of and philosophy of mathematics and of physics (especially quantum theory). But sometimes they bore some relationship to what I was doing as a doctor; e.g., statistics. As an oncologist (cancer doctor) much of my work involved participating in studies of which drugs or combinations of drugs were best for any particular neoplasm.These treatments must be statistically evaluated so that an intelligent creation or reading of the literature necessitated at least a modicum of understanding of this branch of mathematics.
Other more tangential subjects that I became interested in were the genetic, social, and psychological differences between men and women.
One problem I ran into was finding people with whom to discuss these extra-medical interests. Experts in the field often were unavailable. My colleagues frequently were not interested in the subjects or knew little about them.
We have formed this website for those in a similar situation, people interested in fields outside of their own but with few people to share in their interest. The basic idea of the site is that, within areas where we have knowledge, those who would like to read what we have read and discuss the books and the topics they deal with can do so with us over the Internet. Also, other books can be suggested that we do not list here that we may be able to discuss.
We are unlike any other educational website that we know of. We are amateurs, by which I mean that we think knowing is too important to be left in the hands of professional teachers.
We at PURE KNOWLEDGE think of you as fellow amateurs. Or, to be a little pretentious, Fellow Amateurs. Find out more about AMATEURS.
Anyone may participate no matter what level of formal education he or she has achieved. And there are no trappings of the formal educational system that we have all gone through to one extent or another, often, as in my case, a system that got in the way of knowing. In this site there are no entrance examinations, no tests, no papers to write, no grades to be given, no college credit to be earned; and we have no political or social agendas to promulgate. All views on any subject from Fellow Amateurs who consult us are welcome, whether we personally agree with them or not. (Who knows, you might convert us.)
Nor shall we set end points that you must achieve in your quest of knowledge. You may want to know a little or a lot; that is up to you.
We shall have no minimum speed of learning. If it takes you a month to learn a little of a subject or a day to learn the same amount, we do not care: the point is to learn. We are not conducting intellectual foot races. Even the brightest of people have areas of difficulty in learning. For example, there are plenty of mathematicians who do not understand the mathematics of their colleagues in adjoining offices. The same goes for physicists and biologists. So even if a person understands some of a subject but not other parts that is par for the course in the stratosphere of the brainy so why should we ordinary folk be any different?
And often people have to go over and over something as it remains disgustingly elusive: I can never remember what bemuse means.
Even though there are no entrance requirements, tests, papers, final examinations, minimum speed of learning, required number of elements to be mastered, when you are done learning all you wish of a subject, we proudly issue you a Certificate of Achievement.
The only thing to be gained is knowledge for its own sake--and that Certificate of Achievement when you have finished. (After all, you have to have something tangible to testify to your efforts.)
Some of the topics may seem formidable and you may think they are not for you. About these we advise: Please put down the remote. Please do not switch channels. Kindly give us a chance to explain.
The subject may be easier than you think. For example, almost no one would have difficulty understanding that 2 + 2 = 4. But when he or she sees a + b = c, often a lot of blanching ensues. If they had been taught or remember that letters at the beginning of the alphabet (for example, here a, b, c,) in mathematics stand for anything in the world, then they might relax a little. For example, suppose we allow the first two little letters to stand for the following: a to be 2 and b to be 2, so therefore c will be 4. In other words 2 + 2 = 4. [If a can be anything as can b then there is no reason in the world why a and b cannot stand for the same thing, in this case 2.]
So we ask that you not have a panic attack too quickly at some of the topics listed below until we have a chance to go into them a little. We shall make them as clear as possible, and it will not cost you a lot to see if we have succeeded: As I go into it a more detail in a section below, How We Work, the set-up of these topics is free. (By set-up I mean your selecting a topic to study and our arranging how and at what times and days we are to communicate.) See how Pure Knowledge works. The first lesson is free. You probably could borrow the (first) book of a topic from the library. All this so you can try out our service to see if it is clear and interesting to you. If it is not for you, the only thing you have lost is a little time. If it is for you, our costs are reasonable. Take a peek at the cost of PURE KNOWLEDGE.
But even then, you may still come out ahead; for if you do not continue, perhaps you will have picked up a nugget about the field that isuseful.
These little nuggets can be interesting. For example, in college I took the required calculus course, learning that at its heart, calculus is a way to relate one thing to another. One of the ways it does this is by utilizing something called a differential equation. For example, a differential equation might show the speed of a car at any one instant of time. With the wave of a wand that figure can be converted into how fast the car is accelerating at any time.
After I graduated I came across the term partial differential equation. I had no idea of what that meant. When I looked it up I found the following: A.) Partial differential equations compare at least 3 things with each other, not 2 as in a straight forward differential equation. B.) Partial differential equations are the kind of equations most often used in physics and in science in general. C.) Mastery of them is difficult.
Well, I did not care how difficult the mastery was since I had no intension in achieving competence. All I wanted to know was the definition of the term, which I learned--and as a bonus I also found that it was at the heart of most hard science.
Those snippets of information took about 10 minutes to acquire.
Not too bad, what?
Here is the list of available topics that we offer for discussion at this time in PURE KNOWLEDGE
(Please note that all of the summaries of these topics immediately follow this list and after the summaries are other features of the site: Previews of Coming Attractions and Worthwhile Books that are not yet included in our plans.)
21.) THE GREAT DEPRESSION summary
22.) SULLA, The Last Republican [of ancient Rome] summary
23.) CICERO summary
24.) POMPEY summary
By now, all but the simplest statistics is done using a computer program. There are several on the market that are excellent. Such programs will include tutorials as to which statistical tests to use for what kind of statistical problems. Nevertheless, a familiarity with some of the basic tests will speed things along when beginning to use the software and will enable readers of statistical results to have some idea of how the information was obtained. This course will provide an introduction to the most-used statistical maneuvers to enable users and readers to fulfill these tasks.
The text is Elementary Statistics* [See footnote at the end of this section], latest edition, by Robert Johnson. (In times past, I began writing an elementary text myself, but when I discovered how good Johnson's was, I abandoned my quest.)
The units of statistics to be covered will include: Basic definitions. Graphs. Descriptive statistics. Handling bivariate data (1 variable in terms of a 2nd.) Probability. And inferential statistics, including nonparametric statistics (which does not assume too much of how the data are distributed; in other words, that they do not form, say, a bell-shaped curve).Return to the list.
*For determining the latest edition, current cost, availability, and ordering of books mentioned in this site, please see the list of bookstores following 23.) Open option, below.
2.) Beginning logic
The 3 texts of this course are 1.) The Philosophy of Logics, by Susan Haack# [See footnote at the end of this section]. [Logics is not a misprint.] 2.) Deviant Logic [,] Fuzzy Logic, also by Susan Haack. And 3.) Methods of Logic, 4th edition, by W. V. Quine. I may use some material from William Kneale and Martha Kneale, The Development of Logic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), but the student need not own this.
Like most kids, when I was a child and came across something I did not know I tried to find out. My first sources were parents and other relatives.
When authority could not help me, I attempted to create 'reasons' on my own. I made these as consistent and complete as I knew how; nevertheless, probably frequently ended up with nonsense.
The 2 unknowns that I could not get authoritative answers to or make up 'explanations' of by myself were: How do people think? And what are the rules for home decoration?
When I entered college, the first semester a philosophy course was mandatory. And the first element of the course was a study of Aristotle's syllogisms. (Basically a syllogism goes something like this: If there are a boy and a girl in a room, then you can say that there is a boy in the room. If I have an apple and an orange in a bag of groceries, I can say that I have an apple in the bag. In other words, from a collection, you can correctly and truthfully infer an element of that collection.)
I shall never forget the joy when I learned a little of syllogistic thought. So this is how people think. Wow.
The study of how to think so as to discover truth (i.e., how to infer a statement from other statements) 'officially' begins with Aristotle, but ancient Greeks before him were already working on the problem. When that work began is not known, but it was always considered a part of philosophy.
Along with Aristotle another school (the Stoics) developed their own logical system. Much of that has been lost and the remaining ideas are dealt with in later periods of time (for example, in the 20thCentury), so will be skipped; although, it must be said, the modernity of this Stoical thought is breathtaking.
There then was a long period of unimportant developments of logic, during the Roman and Medieval periods, which also will be skipped.
Significant development awaited the work of Gotlob Frege (late 19th Century), who wanted to make mathematics a portion of logic. (He was one of the first of his contemporaries who used symbols rather than words; although, to be fair, Aristotle himself had used symbols when he felt like it.)
Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead (early 20thCentury) showed that Frege had made a lethal error in his system and then Kurt Goedel (in the 1930s) proved that arithmetic could not be a part of logic, since some statements of arithmetic could not be proved, and all logical inferences, to be logical inferences, had to be provable. If arithmetic could not be a part of logic, then the whole of mathematics could not be either.Thereafter logic moved back into its own as a part of philosophy and began to be called Symbolic Logic.
(But methods of proof similar to those of logic are integral to mathematics. The methods there are just not called logic.)
We shall spend some time in reading about symbolic logic and other types of logic beyond this. These further types attempt to derive valid inferences (true statements from other statements) that the usual type of rules of Aristotelian and symbolic logic cannot achieve.
(I never did find an acceptable set of rules for home decoration and thus have lived with the ones I eventually made up: You can use anything and any materials, expensive or off the street, to decorate where you live as long as what is created is functional and beautiful, the latter attribute you hope would be true for others whose opinion you cherish besides for yourself.) Return to List
#For more information about authors, editors, and other important people in purple mentioned in the site, please see the list of references at the very end of the site: click on More About PURE KNOWLEDGE at the end of this page and go to the bottom of the following page.
3.) Introduction to Augustan verse. Selected Epistles and Odes of Horace and selected poems of Catullus, in translation.
Augustus was the first emperor of
Along with the much he did for Rome (e.g., pacification and building), he set the conditions for a flowering of prose and poetry that has never gone out of style or of print and is still avidly read today. The span of this literature is great. We shall neglect the prose and limit ourselves to the poetry. But even here, to study all of the verse would be beyond the compass of this endeavor. So we shall further limit ourselves to 2 poets, but these show the extreme differences of Augustan verse. The first of these is Horace, who reminds me of a benign uncle, giving sage advice as to how to live one's life.The other is Catullus, who is like a wayward cousin, carousing and chasing women. (Of course, I never did those things. Sure. Of course. Would not have thought of it.)
The texts of the course are 1.) The Odes of Horace, translated by David Ferry. 2.) Some of The Epistles of Horace, also translated by David Ferry. 3.) The Poems of Catullus, translated by Guy Lee. (The student might like to consult J Boardman, J Griffin, and O Murray (eds), The Oxford History of the Roman World [Oxford: Oxford University Press], a good overview of the time, which is readily available in the library.For almost all else having to do with the ancient world, the student can consult S Hornblower and A Spawforth (eds), The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). This, too, should be readily available in the library. Return to list
4.) Introduction to the verse of the Earlier 17thCentury in
When I entered college I was asked what my major was going to be. I had not the vaguest notion. I was there to get an education but was not sure what that was. My family lived in a poor section of
I had some experience of doctors as I was frequently hospitalized for chronic ear infections and was often in emergency rooms to have bones set that were broken in sports. So I put down pre-med for my expected major, not having much of an idea of what that meant or of what doctors actually did besides casting broken limbs and operating on ears.
My first experience of science was an awful course in chemistry. I hated it. But my first experience of poetry was of the moderns (TS Eliot especially) in a beginning literature course, which I loved. Next I became entranced with the Romantics (especially William Wordsworth's long nature poem, The Prelude since I adored hiking in the wilderness). Lastly, in a fit of serial polygamy, I came across the Metaphysical poets and have remained true to them ever since.
I have selected verse from Donne, Herbert, and Marvel, but would be glad to add more from them and more poets than they if you wished.
Donne wrote secular and religious verse. His sonnets are among the greatest in English. Herbert only wrote religious verse. His prosody is considered the best of any poet before or since. (Prosody [irrespective of how it sounds] has to do with the meter of poetry.) Marvel is an up and down writer. Great when at his best. Lousy at his worst--I shall not subject you to any of the latter.
So, with this love affair with poetry, my intention of becoming a physician went out the window. (Except that before I graduated I changed my mind again and decided to go into medicine after all, for valid reasons this time, and took all of the premedical courses I needed. Unlike my early experience with that awful general chemistry course, I adored these courses and everything about medical school; e.g., when I studied organic chemistry in college, I thought I had died and gone to heaven, I found it so beautiful. But that is another story.) Return to the list
5.) Two major novelists of the 19th Century in
In my opinion, Jane Austen is the greatest novelist who ever lived. But the 19th Century in
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was one of the few classical writers in history who appealed to the average person on the street as well as to litteratures. This was partly due to his talent and partly to the spread of literacy in
The awaiting on the docks of
His characters in the major novels have passed into the canon of usage in English. We shall read (his favorite) David Copperfield about the Micawbers, Uriah Heep, Little Em'ly, and others. And Great Expectations, partly about the best known jilted woman in history, Miss Havisham.
As is well known, he was a decrier of the social inequalities in the
Dickens's relations to Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) are, as you might expect, 'complicated', and will not concern us, interesting as they are. But both mirrored important aspects of 19th Century English culture. While Dickens largely concentrated on social issues as they affected economics, Trollope wrote of the clergy, of politicians, and of women.
The woman who affected him most was his mother, Frances Trollope, who wrote more than 40 novels, arising at about 5:00 in the morning to write until she had to take care of her lawyer husband (not a success by any stretch of the imagination) and the children.
Anthony followed suit by writing from about
We shall read 3 of his novels, those I liked the best: The Small House at Allington, Can You Forgive Her, and
Each novel is available from Penguin Classics. A few will be picked at random.
7.) Introduction to the philosophy of science
The Logic of Scientific Discovery, by Karl Popper. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd edition, enlarged, byThomas S. Kuhn. Defending Science Within Reason, by Susan Haack. Science Observed, by Jeremy Bernstein. (The last book is not strictly speaking a philosophy of science, but a series of articles and essays about science written by a theoretical particle physicist for the laity.)
The first thing to say about science is that it is not technology.
Science is concerned in 2 ways with the physical world: The first concern has to do with what the physical world looks like. The second is predictive of how that world will act. A physicist may work alone with a pencil and paper or chalk and a blackboard. Or he might work with hundreds of others utilizing so called atom smashers costing billions of dollars to create. A biologist might spend 10 of years in a rain forest, studying the habits of a particular animal. An archeologist tries to form a picture of ancient civilizations. Chemistry has to do with atoms and molecules and the materials they form. The variety of scientists is large, but always has to do with that which materially is. He or she forms ideas of this materiality and then tests the conclusions with experiment to verify or refute the ideas. Without experiment, there is no science. This seems simple enough, but physics has for a long time concerned itself with something called String Theory. By the nature of this beast, experimentation is not possible, at least not until now and may never be; although some string theorists believe that the Large Hadron Collider may provide some experimental verification; I wonder if they will be right. The reason for thinking that the LHC might provide experimental evidence, at least indirectly, is because the mathematics of string theory and nuclear physics is quite similar. This similarity is explained in The Black Hole War, by Leonard Susskind, an exciting book. However, this absence of experimental verification, direct or indirect at least until now, has led to at least 2 well-reasoned books trying to rescue physics from this veering off into what one could say is a combination of metaphysics and classical economics--lots of mathematics about an ideal rather than reality. If you wish we can read 1 of these books, as well as the more standard fare of the books I have listed above.
(By the way, Technology has to do with the uses scientific knowledge can be put to. Engineers and physicians, for example, are technologists. Karl Popper, Thomas S Kuhn, Susan Haack, and Jeremy Bernstein are not.) Return to the list
8.) Some differences between men and women.
This course is a seminar in understanding some of the differences between men and women.
The text books will be Men and Marriage, by George Gilder and The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine.
Gilder looks at men and their relationships to women from psychological, sociological, and economic standpoints. Brizendine views women and their relationships to men (and to themselves) as determined by their evolving physical states throughout life.
Students will be encouraged to discuss other material that has to do with these topics, if they wish, especially if such material will buttress the student's viewpoints.Return to the list
9.) Introduction to bioethics: The Karen Ann Quinlan and Terri Schiavo Cases.
At age 21, Karen Ann Quinlan (03.29.54 -- 06.11.85) collapsed and stopped breathing after drinking alcohol and taking drugs at a party.(Exactly how many minutes she stopped is hard to determine). She was resuscitated by paramedics but had been anoxic (without oxygen) long enough that she suffered irreversible brain damage. She thus entered a persistent vegetative state, in which consciousness was apparently completely absent and would not be recovered. She was hospitalized, put on a ventilator (which breathed for her) and was given artificial hydration and nourishment. After a few months, believing that she would never regain consciousness, her parents asked that the ventilator be removed. The hospital refused. The parents then sued for the right to remove it, and eventually the New Jersey Supreme Court granted this. Amazingly, after the ventilator was removed, Karen Ann lived on for 9 years by means of the artificial hydration and nourishment, breathing on her own. Her case sparked a nation-wide bioethical debate on the right to die, which has persisted to this day.
The case of Terri Schiavo (12.03.63--03.31.05) is similar. On 02.25.90, Terri collapsed at home of unknown causes. Her heart and breathing stopped for a number of minutes so that when she was resuscitated, she, too, had suffered irreversible brain damage and entered a persistent vegetative state (although not requiring a ventilator). She was maintained by means of artificial hydration and nourishment for more than 8 years. At that time her husband and guardian, Michael, requested this support be discontinued and that she be allowed to die. Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, vigorously opposed this. The case was litigated and appealed many times and discussed nation-wide, up to the level of President Bush, but eventually, the original opinion of the Pinellas County (FL) Court, that Michael's wishes be carried out, was upheld, her feeding tube was removed, stopping water and food, on 03.26.05. She died on 03.31.05. Like that of Karen Ann Quinlan, the wide debate on the treatment of Terri Schiavo continues.
There are excellent summaries of both cases on the Internet's free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, which has attached to the summaries good reading-lists on the ethical, moral, legal, and medical issues of these tragedies. In addition, the relevant portions of the following books have pertinent details: Robert M. Veatch, Death,Dying, and the Biological Revolution (rev.) (New Haven and London: The Yale University Press, 1989). Death and Dying, Opposing Viewpoints (
In the course we cover many of the basic topics in the history of mathematics. It will begin with an interpretation of just what mathematics is in the first place, which teachers in high school and college (and even graduate school) never seem to explain.
We shall use portions of The Nature and Power of Mathematics, by Donald M Davis.
In my opinion, these poor teaching methods lead to the following reasons as to why people often have trouble with mathematics.
Although mathematics prides itself on its exquisite precision there are ambiguities in the 2 basic terms of the field--mathematics and number.
There are 2 branches of mathematics--pure and applied.
Pure mathematicians have been known to claim that there is no relation between what they do and what an applied mathematician does.
Pure mathematics has to do with pattern. In some parts of pure mathematics numbers do not play any role at all.
Applied mathematics is a language that, within reason, describes and predicts the physical world better than would a language with words.
There is a similar split in the definitions of number--finite and infinite, the latter often called transfinite.
A finite number is a far different thing than an infinite number.
A finite number could be described something like this: Let us imagine that in a school, room # 1 has 1 student in it. Room # 2 has 2 students in it.Room # 3 has 3 students in it. The number of students per room is definite.
An infinite number could be described something like this: In the auditorium of the school, there is a rally for next week-end's football game. The auditorium has a bunch of kids in it.
If you put an additional student each in rooms # 1, 2, and 3 the number of students in these is now 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Definitely.
If you put an additional student into the auditorium you still have a bunch of kids in it.
If you put another student into it you still have a bunch of kids in it. And so on.
Also the arithmetic of finite numbers is different from the arithmetic of infinite numbers. We get into this in the course.
Instructors of mathematics sometimes do not tell you why you are studying. I had a technician in my office once who was going to college at night. He was taking a course in matrix algebra, which I shall explain in a minute. It was not clear to him how to do a certain procedure.When I showed him he asked "What was matrix algebra all about, anyway"? The teacher had never explained the function of matrices, only how to manipulate them. This would be akin to memorizing the declension of Sanskrit nouns without knowing the meaning of the nouns.
(Matrices have to do with comparing many aspects of various things; e.g., to arrive at which of 2 basketball players was
superior, the first 6'5" tall, scored on average 14 points per game, and was 23 years old; the second 6'1" tall, scored on
average 18 points per game, and was 30 years old. Matrix algebra allows you to make this comparison.
(Besides number and mathematics in mathematics other terms in science are ambiguous as well; e.g. paradigm shift, eipgenetic, complexity, race, tipping point, stem cell, significant, consciousness, science [itself], technology, and innovation. Two articles address these ambiguities in Nature, October 23, 2008.)
Some of the particular topics of mathematics covered in the course will be:
>A little of the mathematics discovered by the ancient Greeks: п (pi), irrational numbers, and repeating decimals.
>An introduction to 3 of the Greek mathematicians: Pythagoras, Euclid, and Archimedes.
>Use of Greek geometry in the early descriptions of the universe at the beginning of the modern age.
>Geometry that is later than and different from
>Some of the work of famous mathematicians after the Greek era; e.g., Hilbert, Gauss, and Poincare.
>Einstein's theory of the shape of the universe.
>Axiom systems.
>Set theory.
>Number theory.
>Cryptography.
>Fractals. Return to the list
11.) Some relations between genes and environment
The primary lesson here is that genes are not the little dictators of behavior that some think, but can be altered by behavior, in some cases.
The course will use Nature v Nurture, by Matt Ridley.
"[This] is the author's message of the book. Genes themselves are implacable little determinists, churning out utterly predictable messages. But because of [how they switch] on and off [that is, how they are active and churn out or inactive and do not churn out] in response to external instruction, genes are very far from being fixed in their actions. Instead, they are devices for extracting information from the environment. Every minute, every second, the pattern of genes being expressed in your brain changes, often in direct or indirect response to events outside the body. Genes are the mechanisms of experience. [page 248.] Return to the list
The text for this discussion will be The Canadians, by Andrew H. Malcolm.
In some respects, from an American standpoint, this can be explained by the facts that much of
So are the Canadians correct that we know little about them? (I will not comment on whether or not they know more about us than about themselves. I would not touch that topic with a 10 foot pole.) Here is a way of finding out, by learning how one intelligent observer has experienced them (by being born a Canadian) and experienced us (by working here for years and becoming naturalized). He then went back to canvass his native land, by talking to a plethora of Canadians, from billionaire Torontonians to people living in tents in Manitoba with a net worth of about $0.25 (Canadian). The text is the result of this canvass. He ends his narrative with a final, beautiful memoir of his childhood and of his Canadian relatives in the plains in which he was born and bred. Return to list
Or Why We Do Not Speak Farsi Today.
The texts to be used are: Herodotus: The Histories and TheGreco-Persian Wars, by Peter Green.
The Histories is the first work of history published in the west and along with Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War is one of the most famous Greek histories to survive. (Penguin Classics)
The Greco-Persian Wars, by Peter Green is a modern version of the story , a story still being told as the motion picture "300" illustrates, 300themovie.info. (The movie is a portrayal of the battle between a Spartan contingent and an overwhelming Persian enemy force at
Greco-Persian Wars were 2 of the most amazing, one-sided, important conflicts in the history of Western Culture. The Greeks won them both. Had they not, we might indeed be speaking Farsi, the principal language of
In 490 and 480 BC2 so-called 'Kings of Kings', named Darius and his son Xerxes, separately went to war with a bunch of farmers (the Greeks), much of whose prior military experience had to do with fighting neighboring communities over the (often) useless borderland between them.
Darius had conquered and ruled an empire that stretched from the western shore of what is now Turkey to the Hindu Kush (the mountains between today's Pakistan and Afghanistan), including in this empire are the modern nations and areas of Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Arabia, down to the Persian Gulf. When Darius died he passed the empire on to Xerxes.
It should have been a slam dunk for Darius or Xerxes to overcome the army they fought against. The Persians had hundreds of thousands of troops, the Greeks many fewer. But winning was not easy at all. The defending army was made up of Hellenes (as they called themselves), in large part Athenians. The Hellenes were free men. They owned their farms.They had reasons to defend their families and land. They were the first middle class.They were the first us.
The armies of Darius and Xerxes had, as a second line of offense, men with whips who lashed the first line of offense into battle. The Greeks did not need whips on their backs to fight. The invaders, although far out numbering the Greeks, lost dismally--both times. The first war ended at a place called
Much of the Greek tongue became Latin, and much of Latin became English. And that is why we do not speak Farsi today, the principal language of
As I said above, the first description of the Greco-Persian Wars is the subject of the first history written in and about the West, by a Greek whose name is Herodotus (accent on the initial o). His book is still in print, still being read, and is one of the texts of this course along with The Greco-Persian Wars, by Peter Green. It is one of the most exciting stories ever told. I hope you will join me in hearing about it. Return to the list
14.) Quantum Theory (QT)
You have never heard anything like QT in your life. Or, to quote the first sentence in the Forward of one of the texts (The Ghost in the Atom), "Niels Bohr [the giant of QT] once remarked that anybody who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it." The quantum world is one that even the most talented of science fiction writers would have difficulty creating. If you can be comfortable with the notion that what you are about to study is nuts, then QT will be more easily "understood."
Here are examples of traditional ideas of QT. Information can be transmitted instantaneously billions of miles in QT, but in the classical world information has to be propagated from place to place at no velocity faster than the speed of light--at best. (The "classical world" is shorthand for the physics of things larger than atoms and for the equations of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell, which describe them.)
In QT a person cannot simultaneously tell with precision where an electron is and how fast it is moving. In a classical world one knows exactly where his car is in the city and its speed.
In QT a particle could exist and not exist at the same time. In the classical realm either it is or it is not. (In QT you can tell whether the particle is or is not by looking at it or where it should be, but that takes away its "quantum nature".)
In QT one of the fundamental elements of nature is a wave (if you are looking at it with a device that detects waves) or it is a particle (if you are looking at it with a device that detects particles). In the classical world a tsunami could never be mistaken for a mountain.
When particles behave as a wave you can approximate their position by multiplying the height of the wave by itself. In a classical situation you only need a tape measure.
An electron can only be in certain positions in an atom relative to the nucleus. No Mr.-in-Between.
When a particle is shoved in a certain direction, it will move in that direction, but only probably.
Elementary elements are particles or waves (as I said) in conjunction with other particles or waves that are in conjunction with other particles and waves.... Thus the universe is one big entity that cannot be looked at properly as consisting of discrete, smaller things.
Particles or waves can be created out of nothing and then destroyed back into nothing.
QT is exciting, non-intuitive (to say the least), has no ready explanation in terms we all are familiar with, and traditionally was (and probably still is) not totally accepted by everyone, including Einstein before he died.
Yet the predictive value of its equations is overwhelmingly accurate and is used all of the time in science and technology.
To understand QT one has first of all to have some idea of what is moving in the atomic and subatomic world; i.e., to be a little familiar with the structures of the entities of this strange world.
The discussion will be split into 3 parts, none of which require much if any mathematics.
The first has to do with the basics of the theory in all of its weirdness. This is covered in:
Quantum Theory. A Graphic Guide to Science's Most Puzzling Discovery, by JP McEvoy & Oscar Zarate. Totem Books, which can be contacted through an English site, amazonus@bookdepository.co.uk. [The way I wrote this is correct.] This little book is full of funny drawings of the physicists who discovered Quantum Theory along with some photographs of them and diagrams illustrating their discoveries. It is an amazingly clear introduction to the history and principal ideas of the field.
The second part has to do with explanations of how the weirdness can be thought of in terms of the composition and behavior of every day reality as we perceive it with our senses. This is covered in The Ghost in the Atom, edited by PCW Davies and JR Brown, Cambridge University Press. The Forward and in Parts 2 through 9 scientists comment on quantum physics and its "meaning", if, of course, it has a meaning that can be understood in terms they and ordinary people are used to in thinking about the physical world.
The third part has to do with comparing aspects of QT to phenomena of the everyday world that we are familiar with. This is covered in Chapter 8 of Quantum Theory, by David Bohm, Dover, 1989. (If possible, borrow this book for most of it consists of partial differential and wave equations--long stories; another time.) The chapter is entitled "An Attempt to Build a Physical Pictures of the Quantum Nature of Matter." (You might like to take a look at the short Chapter 7, which summarizes the first 6 chapters of the book and thus gives some verbal descriptions of Quantum Physics.)
Another book the amateur might like to consult has many real world present and future applications of Quantum Theory is Quantum Physics, by Alastair IM Rae, Oneworld publications. Professor Rae discusses: power from the quantum and chemical, and nuclear fuels, and green power; metals and insulators; semiconductors and computer chips; superconductivity; quantum cryptography; and quantum computers.
(QT was originally thought to be restricted to the world of atoms and things smaller. It was held that the slightest experience of this world shows that it and the world of larger things are far apart. This traditional view is what we shall be studying. The field has broadened a good deal, however, the restriction of QT to the atomic and subatomic realms no longer holds. After a grounding in the traditional ideas that we go into here, if the reader wants to go forward, he or she can find some of the newer ideas discussed in the issue of the journal Nature of June 19, 2008.
(And, I must say, that for all of the weirdness of Quantum Theory, none of it is much stranger to me than what Albert Michelson found in 1881, that the speed of light is constant. Shine a flashlight in your hand held out of a window of a parked car and you will find that that velocity of the light is the same as it is when you hold the flashlight in the same position as the car starts to speed up. Turn the flashlight around and shine it backwards as the car is still accelerating and the speed of the light is still the same. Wow. That is breath-taking.) Return to the list
15.) Caesar's 2 books in translation.
Julius Caesar was a genius thrice over. He was a brilliant military strategist and tactician. He also was an excellent administrator of
Caesar wrote copiously. Much of his writings have disappeared.Two books have made it through history. His prose reminds me of Hemingway's in its simplicity. The military still studies his maneuvers and writers his spare sentences. His Latin is easy to read for those with a little knowledge of the language. And the translations used in this discussion carry over the spirit of his prose well into English.
And lastly it should be said, he adopted a distant nephew who became the First Emperor, Augustus, on Caesar's death. Augustus is arguably the best emperor of all.
It is interesting that the
The 2 extant books of Caesar's are:
The Conquest of
16.) Complexity theory and artificial life
Artificial Life, by Steven Levy
It was published some years ago and the ideas in it, revolutionary to me at the time, have become commonplace by now. Nevertheless, these are still bewitching.
The first idea has to do with 'complexity'. And the first thing to say about complexity is that it is completely different from complication.
A child's shoe laces might be hopelessly in knots. But given enough time one can unravel the mess and find the original length and appearance of the laces. The knots are examples of complication: you can predict what the laces will look like if you just spend enough time in freeing them.
Complex systems are different. One cannot predict what will happen when the system 'runs'. One just has to allow the system to 'declare itself' as to what it is all about. Human behavior is a complex system.Biological systems are probably the most complex of all.
It can be said about complex systems that they take seemingly random 'elements' and construct them into coherent and orderly behavior.
The way this occurs was originally by setting up 'artificial living' systems on a computer, perturbing them, sometimes randomly, and then studying what the result will be.
Artificial life is not artificial intelligence. An example (the classic one) of artificial intelligence is a computer programmed to play chess. This is called programming from the top down. We tell the computer program what to do. Artificial life is programming from the bottom up. The pattern of the interacting elements tell us what happened. In the first place what the computer will do, play chess very well, is known. In the second instance, the experimenter has no idea of what, if anything, will occur. In the field that is called emergence.
Why call the programs artificial life? Because the elements of the construct have many of the aspects of life: They are 'born', 'die', 'propagate', 'get sick', sometimes 'get well', and need 'nourishment'. How the researchers do this on their computers is clearly explained in the book.
Levy has gone on to write other splendid popular accounts of science and technology. Most of them I have read. But none of them led me to explore as much of the basic literature about a field as this first one of his did. I hope you will agree.Return to the list
17.) Philosophy of mathematics
When my dad was 13 years old, his dad died. The family was poor so that my father had to drop out of the 6th grade to go to work to support his mother and sisters.
He never returned to school but read widely in politics, ending up a socialist (not an uncommon position for a poor person, then or now). He also taught himself mathematics through calculus.
The 'I am interested in mathematics gene' that he possessed passed on to me but did not manifest itself until I became an oncologist (cancer doctor) and had to work with statistics. I did study the mathematics that one needs to get through high school and college, but remember nothing about it except that lots of smart people thought that mathematics was the ultimate description of physical reality.
I thought at first that by this was meant that mathematics was exactly describing physical reality When I was working with statistics I realized that 1.) mathematics often was inexact in that description (especially so in statistics), rendering only an approximate answer to a question (for example, what is the likelihood of a woman acquiring breast cancer if her mother and sister were so afflicted: Pretty high, but not assured--thank God. I realize this is a simple if not simplistic example, but in much more complicated applied mathematics, the answer is also imprecise.When you get to the mathematics associated with quantum theory, the answers are all inexact.) And 2.) sometimes mathematics gives no description at all of reality (for example, there is no mathematics that describes turbulence, to the best of my knowledge).
When I learned that even the terms 'mathematics' and 'number' were not used with exactitude by mathematicians, things really got interesting. (See my rant in The Sweep of Mathematics elsewhere in this description of the discussions offered in Pure Knowledge for these latter 2 inexactitudes).
What was this business of mathematics all about anyway, I asked myself?
Clearly some of difficulties of mathematics to me had to do with 'problems' in the system itself (for example, what is the last term of the series 1, 2, 3, and so forth? Answer, of course, there is none).
And of 'imperfections' in the system (for example, why is it that the hypotenuse of a right triangle is incommensurable with the sides of it. Incommensurable means the hypotenuse cannot be measured with the same units the sides are measured with. A realization that drove the ancient Greeks mad.)
For those whose high school math has grown a little hazy, let me explain.
The hypotenuse [C in the diagram below this paragraph] connects the 2 sides of a 'right triangle' [A and B in the diagram], so-called as the sides meet each other at a right angle [90 degrees].
Here is imperfection. Pythagoras, the ancient Greek mathematician, found that the square of the hypotenuse (C) is equal to the sum of the squares of sides (A and B): C2 = A2 + B2. (When a number is 'squared' it is multiplied by itself.)
But look at what happens when each side of an abstract right triangle is, say, 1 foot. According to the formula of Pythagoras, side 1 squared is 1 times 1, which is 1. Side 2 squared is 1 times 1, which is 1, too. So 1 plus 1 equals 2 for the hypotenuse. But, remember, the 2 is a square, something times itself.
What is that something times itself of the hypotenuse in units like the sides have--simple, uncomplicated numbers? There is no such thing. The square root of 2 (that which is multiplied by itself to get the 2) is not exact like 1: it is 1.41422135, going on forever.
(When the Greeks were driven to distraction by this finding, they said nuts to this and largely stopped studying mathematics.
(Of course, if you construct a real right triangle on the ground with sticks you would find that, indeed, the hypotenuse is measurable in numbers like those of the sides.)
To get back after this long deviation, with these notions of 'problems' and 'imperfections' in mathematics in mind, to better understand what was going on, I began reading what mathematicians said about what they were doing--and what philosophers said about what the mathematicians were doing. The philosophers were much more thorough in providing answers.
The trouble is that there are not an awful lot of philosophers providing answers. And when they did, their answers were not always so lucidly expressed such that often their explanations are not explanations at all but merely puzzles difficult of solution.
Exceptions to expository muddiness are the writings of Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) and of Alfred Jules Ayer (1910-89).
Another exception is the author of the text for this course, James Robert Brown.
He is a professor at the
But he has gone further and introduced the 'permissibility' of using pictures as parts of proofs of certain mathematical concepts.
Now to the average mathematician, this is heresy. Pictures have no place in proving mathematical concepts, even in geometry--believe it or not--this average practitioner says, as he perhaps carefully hides the 'sketches' he has made for himself to 'visualize' how a proof could be constructed, when a colleague comes through the door of his office.*
Professor Brown brings the idea of the pictures into daylight and acceptability, along with a clear introduction to what else the mathematicians are doing when they practice their craft.
His prose is speckled with English-like humor (or humour); perhaps this is really Canadian, not English, wit, I am not sure.
It was lots of fun for me; although, you might think a book on the philosophy of mathematics would be anything but. I certainly did. How wrong I was.
*This is not a made up story by me. The brilliant mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) "...used a picture of imaginary numbers as a mathematica tool in his proof, but kept it hidden for many years, fearing he would be laughed at by a mathematical establishment still wedded to the language of equations and formulae". Marcus du Sautoy, Symmetry. A journey into the patterns of nature, p. 153.New York: HarperPerennial, 2008, soon to be noticed at this site.
18.) The Peloponnesian War. Thucydides. Donald Kagan.
19.) The Trojan War
In a beautiful book, The Trojan War, Barry Strauss, attempts to rectify Homer's 'brevity'. Strauss is a professor of history and classics at Cornell with a vast knowledge of Homer, many fragments of Greek poetry that deal with the rest of the war, and much of the extant history of other Bronze Age cultures and their military theory and practice. From this 'library' he constructs a plausible account of the war in prose that reads like a well-wrought novel.
After finishing Strauss, the reader might be interested in going onto Homer and reading with me The Iliad and even the Odyssey. There are many fine modern translations of both.
In addition, the best known traditional translation of the former is by Alexander Pope, done in the early 1700's. It still is in print and for not much money.
When I was at City College as an English major I was first interested in the Modern poets (in the 20th Century; e.g., TS Eliot), then in the Romantics (in the 19th Century; e.g., Wordsworth), finally settling in the 17thCentury (and, as it were, remaining there in my heart ever since).What happened to the 18th Century? I did not like anything about it.However, Strauss used Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad almost exclusively. When I saw this and read his snippets I said to myself, Hm. Strauss is a pretty smart guy. Maybe he knows something I do not about the 18th Century. So I got Pope's translation from the library, liked it a lot, and so bought a copy and am finishing reading it now. The translation is beautiful. And the Introduction gives an excellent analysis of Homer as a poet. Wow. Was I wrong as an undergraduate. So, as an extra special bonus, we could read Pope's translation together, if you wish, and kill 2 birds with 1 stone. It is a thought. Return to the list
20.) Modern Times, revised edition. By Paul Johnson, Perennial Classics.
The Modern Times of this book is the span from the 1920's to the 1990's.
Paul Johnson is one of the most talented popular historians alive, a historian seemingly of everything; e.g., Judaism, Christianity,
The 70 years or so that he discusses here is the arras of much of how the world played out in the early and middle parts of the 20th Century. To understand why we are as we are in the 21st Century, one needs to understand these 70 years.
Without indulging in reductionism, Johnson finds, as one of the reasons why the world 'behaved' as it did for much of this period, that there was a general acceptance in the 1920's of the relativism of morals and ethics as opposed to a more widespread belief in the absolutism of these in earlier eras. Partly this change of belief was due to the influence of Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, the horror of WWI--and a misreading of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, demonstrated at about that time to be predictive of the universe better than
There are expected findings in Johnson's account; e.g., Churchill as brilliant politician and unfortunate Cassandra. But unexpected ones, too; e.g., Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) is seen as a political dilettante with poor judgment at times. (For example, he thought Stalin a good person whom he [FDR] could manipulate at will.) Strangest of all is
The Forgotten Man, By Amity Shlaes, HarperCollins.
When I was growing up the received wisdom about the Great Depression and the late 1920's and 1930's went something like this: President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933; served 1923-1929) was a clown. President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964; served 1929-1933) caused the Great Depression and then disappeared into the woodwork. And President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) (1882-1945; served 1933-1945) got us out of the Great Depression (with a little help from World War II).
Over the years, there have been some changes in these opinions. Paul Johnson, in Modern Times, (featured elsewhere in PURE KNOWLEDGE) presents a revised and a much more benign opinion of Coolidge. Now Shlaes has similarly changed the debate on
The main import of Shlaes's work has to do with the helpfulness or unhelpfulness of FDR's Presidency in dealing with the Depression.
There have been slivers of suggestions through the years that perhaps FDR's plans were not so benign after all in ridding the country of the scourge. Now Shlaes presents this discussion in some detail. Shlaes shows that FDR was influenced directly or indirectly by the effects of the Russian Revolution. His ideas were often contradictory, experimental, and poorly thought out. At times, the clear consequences of these notions were not anticipated. When I finished the book my thoughts about him and his policies were that he often seemed to be playing with the powers of government (my word, not Shlaes's).
The political and economic situations of
The book used is: Sulla, 2nd edition, by Arthur Keaveney, New York, Routledge, 2005.
When I was growing up I heard a lot of dark sayings about Sulla (Or to give him his full name Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix [138-78 BC]). According to these intimations he was a satanically cruel man from whom the Jacobins of the French Revolutions could have taken lessons. This was true but there was another lighter side of him, too, not unexpectedly. This dichotomy was expressed well in his self-written epitaph to the effect that "he had not been outdone by any of his friends in doing good turns, nor by any of his foes in doing bad." *
To place Sulla in context requires a brief history of the Rome into which he was born. Originally it was a kingdom (long before his time). The Kings were overthrown in favor of a Republic, which consisted of two Consuls elected for a year at a time who were the Chief Executive Officers, a Senate formed of upper class men, and assemblies of those of the lower classes. On paper the assemblies had a lot of power; e.g., they alone could pass laws that were 'suggested' by the Senate. However, the Consuls and Senate arranged things such that they were where the true power lay. In times of great danger to Rome its constitution had a proviso that a Dictator could be appointed for 6 months, but his powers were not unrestricted.
Over the years, the Republic as formed above was 'attacked' on two fronts. Those 'lower classes' agitated for a bigger piece of the power pie. And other parts of Italy clamored to become Roman citizens.
These 'attacks' were partly successful by the time Sulla came on the scene.
Sulla had 2 main missions in life. Personally, to raise his
status and fortune in
To come right down to it, Sulla really did not want to preserve the Republic as he found it, but roll it back so that the principle wielders of power were once again the Consuls and Senate. His mission was really that of a reactionary. Or, if you will, as a political ‘revanchist’. (A revanchist wants to recover territory lost in a past war.)
On his way he made enemies, important ones. For good reason.
First of all, to quell a major disturbance excited by other enemies, he led his army into the City of Rome, never before done, and always a taboo. That was a scandal on the order of establishing a rummage sale in a cathedral. It was the first shot of the Civil Wars that eventually led to the destruction of the Republic and institution of the Empire. (More about this in other books on Cicero, Pompey, Caesar, and Augustus discussed elsewhere in Pure Knowledge.) Next, he instituted proscriptions, a hideous practice of killing rich people to confiscate their property. Both were practiced in the future by others as steps on the descent of the Republic towards ruination. Politicians in ancient Rome did not just destroy reputations, as do some of ours today; they literally physically destroyed their enemies, at times, wholesale. (Once Sulla began killing some of his enemy captives one by one, but got tired or bored with this slow practice and herded 12,000 into an arena and had them killed wholesale by his soldiers.) These certainly describe his satanic side.
On the benign side he was intensely religious. (The reader should not assume a similarity with, say, Christian or Jewish practice. For example, Roman religion, a State Religion, was intensely polytheistic.) And he could be forgiving of his enemies and helpful to the poor and straitened.
As to his personal life, he married 5 times. The names of his wives were: Llia, Aelia, Cloelia, Caecilia, and Valeria. (Due to their similarity I wonder if ever he called Llia Aelia? Or Aelia Cloelia? I hope not for his sake.)
Towards the end of his life he contracted an illness that made him itch, so badly he needed help from his aides. Keaveney thinks this was due to scabies , a condition due to a mite burrowing into the skin. I am not a dermatologist (skin doctor) but have seen a few cases of scabies and they have been nothing like this, but I shall leave the decision to the dermatological experts as to the validity of Keaveney’s speculation. At any event the condition was maddening.
He died from a massive upper gastrointestinal bleed, which could have been formed by a ruptured esophageal varix. € The bleeding came on shortly after watching the punishment by strangulation of an official who had withheld money owed to the Roman treasury.
*The quote is from Plutarch's Lives, translated by Dryden, [with Sulla rendered as Sylla.] (Plutarch, Greek, 45 to c.120 AD; John Dryden, English poet, 1631 to 1700, who translated Plutarch from1683 to 86; his translation was revised in the 19th Century by Arthur Hugh Clough, English poet, 1819 to 1861. [It is hard to find a translation of Plutarch that is not Dryden's].)
€ The esophagus leads from the mouth to the stomach. An esophageal varix is a distended vein usually due to back up of blood from massive liver disease. As Sulla was a heavy drinker of alcohol all of his life, he may well have developed cirrhosis of the liver, a pathology whereby the liver is damaged by the alcohol and in regeneration grows back in a distorted fashion, which prohibits normal blood flow through it. Return to List
(Marcus Tullius Cicero*)
The book used is
Roughly, the political history of ancient
As they go along, more of each period is known than of the previous one, in modern times. There is a lot of mythology mixed in with the history.
The Republic was a strange creature, complicated, and impossible to outline in this brief discussion; I shall give you some highlights of principal officials and their main functions in hopes that will convey a bit of the idea of the Republic's composition. Instead of kings it was governed by 2 Consuls, whose tenure was 1 year, a Senate, of varying numbers, and an Assembly of the people that had the final say on all legislation, following a Greek model. There were Questors, to receive taxes and payments. Aediles, responsible at their own expense, for the upkeep of temples, buildings, markets, and public games. (To the people, the last was most important.) Praetors, who could exercise temporary royal power. In case of an emergency, a Dictator could be appointed by the Consuls for 6 months to handle the emergency. Censors were overseers of the Senate and could remove unworthy members. Tribunes were ombudsmen to protect the rights of the people. And many of these held the power of vetoing--seemingly anything, at any time, of anybody; e.g., one Consul could veto the proposals of the other.
The latter Republic and early Empire served as a model for much of the American system of government. Thus, to understand that government (to the extent that it can be understood) a good place to begin is with these periods of
I begin with him, who is slightly out of chronological order with some of the others, because, much of what we know about this period is due to him and thus will give an overview of it. Others, to follow in better order, are Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, and Augustus, which will appear in PURE KNOWLEDGE in the months to come.
* Roman names are as follows: first name (praenomen), equivalent to our given name; second name (nomen or gentilicium), equivalent to our last or family name; and others afterward (cognomen[a]), honorifics and or nick names, the latter sometimes based on a physical characteristic. Return to list
(Pompeius
Magnus Gnaeus 106 – 48 BC)*
The
materials for this topic are:
Pompey in Plutarch's Lives.
Robin
Seager, Pompey The Great, 2nd edition, Blackwell Publishing, 2002,
Malden, MA.
I
have spent a lot of my life in consciously not knowing things. For example,
ever since boyhood when I came across a word that I did not recognize my
inclination was not to look it up, in favor of relishing the sound of it. After
all, its general meaning was usually clear. (For what it is worth: The most beautiful phrase in the
world to me is celestial mechanics.)
Similarly, when from an early age while listening to the Metropolitan Opera
Saturday broadcasts, lying on the sofa in the living room of our 3 room flat
in St. Louis, I did not want to know the words of an aria or even the story of
the opera. The pattern of the music was what thrilled me and all I was interested in. Even when I grew up I
stiffly resisted seeing an operatic production because, again, I only wanted to
listen to the music. This willful ignorance was found in other areas of
knowledge. For example, as was mentioned in the article on Sulla on this site,
growing up, I "knew" he was a bad guy and was satisfied with this "knowledge" for too long.
With Pompey, my lack of information was similar. All my life he has been like a
ghost, a being empty of life, in my mind. I knew he was important in ancient
Rome. It was only when I wanted to better understand that period of history I
realized I had to read about him. But he did not fit the usual pattern of resolution of my ignorance. Eventually I
learned the definitions of the words, the lyrics of the arias, what the operas looked
like, that Sulla had 2 sides to his personality, good and bad; but even after
going through several sources, Pompey is still 'lifeless'. That says nothing
about Pompey, admittedly, only about me. But, anyway, if you detect fewer than
3 dimensions in this account, it is my fault, not Pompey's, and I do apologize.
We
begin our discussion of this important Roman with a paradox. Pompey was the son
of a generally hated but successful father, yet Pompey himself though loved
widely was in the end a failure.
Father
and son shared a character flaw that led to these contradictory results—it was
covetousness. Cornelius Pompeius Strabo, the father and a general in the army,
coveted comparatively small things (like money) and made enemies in the
process. Pompey on the other hand made friends so as to attain a larger prize
(the Roman Empire) but did not succeed.
Pompey
became, so it is said, the most beloved of Romans due to his military prowess,
eloquence, integrity, affability, the giving of favors freely and the receiving
of them with grace, physical good looks, a character of manliness and 'kingliness', and temperance and plainness in eating and drinking. He was
compared to Alexander the Great.
There
were wrinkles in his life, but these usually got easily straightened out.
Charged with stealing from his father's estate when he died. At his trial,
Pompey’s defense was that Cornelius Cinna's guards broke into Strabo's house
and made off with the goods. (Cinna was a politician of uncertain character who
was Consul twice during his lifetime.)Pompey got off, and the judge, one
Antistus, liked him so much he gave his daughter, Antistra to Pompey in
marriage.
Later
Pompey went to visit Cinna, in an attempt to repair differences between them,
which is an example of his getting along with others, or trying to at least.
During the visit, Pompey disappeared. People thought Cinna had murdered him and
promptly slayed Cinna, which is an instance of how much people treasured
Pompey.
Pompey
knew how to ingratiate himself with the rich and famous as well as with the Plebs.
For example, as Sulla was wending his way to the Dictatorship, Pompey provided
troops for Sullas's army and defeated 2 powerful Romans who were against
Sulla's aims. (More on Sulla can be found elsewhere on this site.) For his
trouble Sulla hailed him as an Imperator. (Imperator was an especially revered commander of the army, like a 5 star general
would be in America.)
Naturally,
Pompley's talents got him rewards: During aiding of Sulla he became a governor
of Picentees (a city in Picenum, located east of the Apennines about ½ way down
the Italian peninsula). This early administrative position was followed by many
more in the future.
Sulla
then sent Pompey on military expeditions to Sicily and Africa. Both were
successful.
Thereafter,
things did not go smoothly with the two men. Sulla wanted Pompey to disband his
troops. Pompey refused. The refusal led Sulla to think him in rebellion. That
got straightened out with Sulla then labeling Pompey as 'The Great', an honor
he has carried to date. Pompey wanted a Triumph (a grand military parade in
Rome) for his trouble. At first Sulla refused, but then caved in on this as
well. (But the Triumph was not a total success: Pompey wished to use elephants,
but they would not fit through the gates to Rome. He had to be content with an
elephantless Triumph.)
Pompey,
to himself, possibly made too much of these victories, for he went against
Sulla's wishes as to who should be appointed a Consul. Pompey, again, got his
wishes in this; but Sulla prophesized that Pompey's candidate (one Lepidus)
would turn on Pompey some day (which he did). Sulla's feelings about Pompey over this were rancorous
and remained so until his death, getting retaliation from the grave by leaving
Pompey nothing in his will.
After
Sulla's death Lepidus tried to replace him and set out to destroy all of
Sulla's comrades, including Pompey. Pompey, however, destroyed Lepidus's
troops.
Pompey
furthered his military victories by capturing Spain, after which he went on to
aid in the putting down revolts of slaves in Italy. Eventually he became Consul and
restored the tribuneships that Sulla had eliminated. But all did not go
smoothly and he retired to private life. (Tribunes were like ombudsmen for the
Plebs.)
Then
came the great break of his life.
Pirates
in the Mediterranean became an increasing problem for Rome. They also occupied
some costal cities. Pompey was chosen to eradicate them and was given
plenipotentiary powers to do so. (Plenipotentiary powers are akin to those
accorded a Dictator.) He was successful in capturing them, but was lenient in
his treatment of the captives, settling some in cities, allowing them to lead
noncriminal lives. To reward him, Rome made him a virtual tyrant over its
provinces.
Pompey
was then sent to Africa to fight (and defeat) a longtime enemy of Rome,
Mithradates. [See explanation of the name at the end of the paragraph.]In
pursuing Mithradates, Pompey captured many tribes and areas, including Syria and
Judea, making them into Roman provinces. And in pursuit, Mithradates committed
suicide. He was replaced by his son, Pharnaces, a friend of Rome. (Mithradates is the name of 6 Persian
kings. The one Pompey defeated was Mithradates VI Eupator Dionysus, the last of
the line.)
For
all of this, when Pompey returned to Rome he was given his third Triumph.
Afterward
he engaged in questionable political and social activities, but had the good
fortune to help Caesar to prominence. Pompey was rewarded by a marriage to
Caesar's daughter, Julia. He also was asked by Caesar to enforce laws that he
had enacted as Consul. Pompey did so with his troops.
Again
there is a period of political downs and ups. In one of the latter ups, Pompey
was given dictatorial powers, one of which was used to recall Cicero who had
been banned from Rome at an earlier time. Pompey also went into the world to
collect grain for Rome, having it shipped in perilous weather.
Caesar,
in the meantime, invaded and captured Gaul. He sent many spoils back to Rome.
On his return he was lauded—naturally. He entered into a political agreement
with Pompey and Crassus that made them Consuls the next year by having the
Caesarian troops vote for them. (This alliance of the 3 is called the First Triumvirate and is an important
step on the way to the overthrow of the Republic and establishment of the
Empire. All of this can be found in my entry about Caesar, soon to be found on
this site.)
When
Pompey's Consulship ended he remained in Rome, doing a lot of public relations
by putting on many entertainments for the populace. He extended this public
relations blitz by taking his wife on tours. Of many Italian areas. His obvious
devotion and fidelity to her was well thought of by ordinary people.
Unfortunately
for all concerned, Pompey's wife died in childbirth and Crassus died as
well. As to Crassus's death, this
removed a political buffer between Pompey and Caesar, in the opinion of Romans.
Pompey
wanted to become Dictator again. The Romans, fearing this, 'compromised' by
making him a sole Consul. He was given command of the Roman Legions in Italy.
He took them to Macedonia to mobilize. Caesar’s forces tried to blockade him
there, but were unsuccessful. Nevertheless, Caesar's and Pompey's armies went
to war elsewhere in an effort to rule Rome.
In
48 BC,Caesar defeated Pompey at Pharsalus, a city in Thessaly, a region in
Northern Greece. Pompey tried to escape to Egypt, but was stabbed to death off
of Egypt's shore before he could disembark. Upon Pompey's death, Cicero, always
a friend, said, "I knew him to be a man of good character, clean life, and
serious principle." (The quote is from the article written by Guy Edward
Farquhar Chilver and Robin J. Seager, p 1216 of The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition, Oxford
University Press: Oxford, 1996.)
With Pompey out of the way, Caesar
assumed sole rule; his eventual successor, Augustus, became the first Emperor.
And the history of the world was changed forever.
(A
Pure Knowledge entry for Caesar will be posted as soon as I can and an entry
for Augustus will follow.)
*It is not clear to me why the final ius in Pompeius’s name becomes a y in the English translation No reason was found in a computer search. But this is not a unique practice. For example, Claudius Ptolemaeus, the famous Egyptian cosmologist (who wrote between 146-c 170 AD and whose ideas, in retrospect, are so odd as to be silly)'s name is rendered in English as Ptolemy. Here the ae, in Latin—but not in Greek—is a diphthong pronounced as i.So there is a connection, I suppose. I cannot find why the spellings are given as they are in English; however, when I can, I shall tell you about them. This process can work backwards, too; e.g., Copernicus's last name in his native Polish is spelled Koppernigk—for whatever these comments are worth.Return to list
25.) Open option:
'Other Books We Could Discuss'
Goldstein, Rebecca. Incompleteness. The Proof and Pardox of Kurt Goedel. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2005.
Hofstadter, Richard. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. New York: Vintage Books, 1963.
*Everitt, Anthony. Augustus.(City, publisher, and date to follow when I can find where I mislaid the book)
*Goldsworthy, Adrian. Caesar. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. (Filled with facts, interpretations, definitions, and explanations; like Lindberg's The Beginnings of Western Science; vide infra.)
du Sauton, Marcus. Symmetry. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008.
Hardy, GH. A Mathematician's Apology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Fleisch, Daniel. A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Ramo, Joshua Cooper. The Age of the Unthinkable. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009.
Ohanian, Hans C. Einstein's Mistakes. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2008.
Horace. Odes and Epodes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Horace. Satires, Epistles, Ars Poetica. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.
**Koestler, Arthur. The Sleep Walkers. London: Penguin Group, 1989.
Pestritto, Ronald J and Atto, William J (eds). American Progressivism, A Reader. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008. (Lanham refers to a city in Maryland that, my father told me, was named after ancestors who were the first Lanhams in the New World, having landed in Maryland in 1758. I do not have the vaguest notion whether this is correct or not. But you do not argue with your father.)
**Butterfield, Herbert. The Origins of Modern Science (revised edition). New York: The Free Press, 1965.
Napolitano, Andrew P. Dred Scott's Revenge. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009.
Beck, Glenn. Glenn Beck's Common Sense. New York: Mercury Radio Arts, 2009.
Butterfield, Herbert. The Whig Interpretationn of History. New York: WW Norton & Company, 1965.
**Lindberg, David C. The Beginnings of Western Science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992. (Filled with facts and explanations; like Goldsworthy's Caesar; vide supra. I am re-reading this valuable book, filled with history, historiography, and how to think about the past. Lindberg is Whig.)
de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (in 2 volumes). New York: Vintage Books, 1945 (or any more recent volume. The one I cite is the Henry Reeve text, with revisions editing by Francis Bowen and Phillips Bradley, but any good edition will do).
Plutarch. Marius. (A name that keeps cropping up in reading ancient Roman history.)
Farmelo, Graham. The Strangest Man. [Biography of physicist Paul Dirac. A sad book; Dirac died.] New York: Basic Books, 2009.
Donne, John. Devotions. Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Paperbacks, The University of Michigan Press, 1952. (Includes The Life of Dr. John Donne, Taken from the life by Izaak Walton. The Devotions are mostly prose poems written during the illness of Donne that resulted in his death.)
Einstein, Albert. A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion. The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein. Edited, with commentary, by Stephen Hawking. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2007. (I skipped the hard parts.)
Einstein has always been difficult for me to read. The articles in this valuable book are no exception. In the past, I have been curious as to why. Some reasons are obvious: I am not facile in dealing with all of his mathematics. But when I thought of my difficulty this explanation did not seem sufficient. I finally figured out is the what is missing: Up until I read what Einstein actually said, rather than interpretations and explanations of what he said, I thought that the worst writer by any major scientist was Darwin. When I read what Einstein actually said, I ranked him worse than Darwin. Now I read Einstein in translation. I studied a lot of German in high school and college and remember too little to read him in the original. But to assume the translations mirror pretty exactly the original is not a long stretch. So, besides my lack of facility with some of the mathematics, another major hindrance is his language. Why was he so poor. Well, partly, no doubt, it was because he just was not very good with words. That may be, but a better explanation is to understand how he thought, and that was in pictures. When he tried to explain the pictures he had to use words. To get from a picture to words describing a picture, now that is a stretch. Thinking about all this is fun. Before I got to this point, long ago I tried to reverse engineer how he thought. Of course, I did not kid myself that I was really going to accomplish this. But I just wanted to see if I could come up with an explanation of his thinking that made sense. What I came up with was that his most important facility in looking at the world was to know that some objective truths are only true under certain conditions, that they are in effect assumptions not facts. Before Einstein, I should have said that this damned keyboard on which I keep making mistakes would have the same dimensions no matter under what conditions I was using it. Einstein showed that its horizontal length would shorten and its mass (therefore its weight) would increase as moving it approached the speed of light. I then realized that all of this was similar to Boyle's law for a gas, that pressure, temperature, and volume are all related such that to change one of these changes the other two as well. In other words what Einstein demonstrated was that whatever the objective facts of the dimensions of the keyboard seemed to be, they really are not true under all conditions. To think so is an unwarranted assumption.(There are other interesting aspects of Einstein's thinking. One of which is his arrogance. But that is a discussion for another time, and were I an Einstein, I might be a little more arrogant than I am right now, if such a thing were possible.)
Thorne, Kip S. Black Holes & Time Warps. Einstein's outrageous legacy. New York: WW Norton & Company, 1994.
Every time I begin a new book I read it in 2 simultaneous ways. With my left eye and right brain I am after the facts or reasoning or the sea of pleasure of the grace of the writing. With my right eye and left brain I ask the question, 'Is this The Book of the Day'? Let me explain. First left eyes connect to the right side of brains and vice versa. Second by 'The Book of the Day' I mean a work that is overwhelmingly to my liking, breath-taking, not to be put down, read with glee and re-read with more glee, thought about, cited, recommended, learned from, having a serious and interesting subject,presented by an exposition that is simple, clear, concise, and beautiful. Or the prose is so gorgeous I do not care about the content. (Only rarely does this happen, but it does occur.) The person on the right of the picture, Kip S Thorne, has written The Book of Today. It is 'Black Holes & Time Warps, Einstein's Outrageous Legacy'. New York: WW Norton,, 1994. Thorne is Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology, about as far up the academic ladder of theoretical physics as you can get. (Feynman is Richard Feynman, one of the most gifted and popular physicists of the 20th Century--I hope to write more about him somewhere else on my page.) Thorne's book has a Foreword by Stephen Hawking, the Survivor in these photos. (Comment on its way.) 'Black Holes & Time Warps' is about an interesting subject, perfectly organized, and exquisitely written. And Thorne's personality is one I identify with: He abhors open competition and loves to work alone, in fact cannot do otherwise very well. (When I was young I crossed swords with everyone, in lots of fields. No more. I am tired of contention.) The man on the left is Vladimir Braginsky, a brilliant Russian theorist, a long time acquaintance, friend, colleague, and collaborator of Thorne's, just one of the many of the best of 20th and 21st physicists with whom Thorne has studied, worked and written articles and books, and whose ideas and contributions he understands and can explain to a T. Thorne is a loner, like me. And a relief. I read physics to better understand the universe. I attend to physicists because they are honest about their foibles and shortcomings, which makes me feel a little better about all of mine.
Mill, John Stuart and Killick, Alfred Henry. The Student's Handbook, Synoptical and Explanatory, of Mr. JS Mill's System of Logic. ?London: Longmans, Green, and co. (sic), 1909 [Scanned and published by General Books 2010]
There is an interesting 'Nature Insight' on Exotic Matter, Supersolidity, Superconductivity, and Non-Abelian States of Matter, in 'Nature', Vol 464, Issue no 7286, March 11, 2010, p 175 ff.\ that you might be interested in.
Nahin, Paul J. An Imaginary Tale: The Story of the Square Root of 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Nahin is an engineer not a mathematician. He has never met an equation he does not like; hence, is book is full of them, many unnecessary. Nevertheless, An Imaginary Tale is fun. By the way the words I used in the title above, the Square Root of 1, are not a real part of the title. He uses the mathematical sign, but the words are substituted as I cannot reproduce the sign with this word processor.
Hawking, Stephen W. Thorne, Kip S., Novikov, Igor, et al. The Future of Spacetime. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2002.
Stephen Hawking is one of the most accomplished physicists alive. Actually, he is one of the most accomplished physicists who ever lived. He almost did not make it. As he was about to start his PhD program at Cambridge University and get married he came down with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease). There was a question as to whether he should even begin work on the PhD as ALS is rapidly fatal. Basically the disease destroys nerves that lead to muscles. Those nerves 'nourish' the muscles so that when the nerves die so do the muscles. Fortunately (if such a word can be used in this horrible context) there is a slow form of ALS. This is what Hawking has. He went on to complete his PhD, get married, have children, and is now the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a chair previously occupied by Isaac Newton. As I mentioned about the time the Roman poet Horace was writing during the 100 or so years before the Birth of Christ--that it was a seculum mirabile (a marvelous century) of verse (see the comment labeled 'Grateful' in My Photos)--the last 100 or so years of the 20th and 21st Centuries in physics could be designated the same. This period started with Einstein's Theories of Relativity, included the beginnings of Quantum Mechanics, complexity theory, spent a long time in String Theory, which gave sustenance to many researchers, but which turned out--so far, at least--to be little more than mathematical metaphysics. During this period, Hawking is one of the most important workers. (Nowadays, but not with Newton, physicists are divided into theorists and experimentalists. The theorists work with pencil and paper or, at most, a black board or chalk board or white board or whatever you call it, and a few other colleagues, usually teachers or students. Experimentalists, however, work with equipment that can cost billions of dollars and include hundreds of co-workers.) His theoretical work involves 'singularities' (just what they sound like, events that are unique [like the Big Bang] or otherwise violate the usual laws of physics) and Black Holes. In time past physicists used to be involved rather publicly with science fiction (it is said that it gave them ideas of where to aim their research). Now not so much, at least not so publicly. But some of Hawking's research could easily be seen as science fiction. For example, he theorizes that events can happen outside of spacetime, and he backs this assertion with mathematics, only about 2% do I understand. (I do pretty well in recognizing the equals sign, =.) After I read this, I thought about it while driving around. It occurred to me this could be a definition of heaven; although, of course, Hawking does not go that far in his speculation. I then thought that, assuming it was heaven, would that logically entail the existence of God? In other words, had Hawking accidentaly stumbled on a proof the quest of which has occupied philosophers and theologians since the beginning of time. Alas, I failed to discover the entailment. [And I made another stupid mistake I put it in the paragraph below.] Anyway, this was hardly Hawking's aim, as I said. (If you want to experience the mathematics of all of this, go to Chapter 1, 'Classical Theory', in Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. (Listed below; a difficult book for me to read.) For a better description of ALS as it concerns Hawking, please see above, Kip S Thorne, Black Holes & Time Warps. New York: WW Norton & Company, 1994, pp 419-422. But for goodness sake do not just read these few pages of Thorne's masterpiece. Read the whole thing.
Here is the other stupid mistake I made. I assumed that what we call 'heaven', that which is beyond spacetime, is one 'thing'. That was as silly as thinking that a means of transportation that is not a Honda has to be a Schwinn. Of course it might be a bicycle, but it could be a Toyota, a motorcycle, a skateboard, or a rick-shaw. Just so,there might be many 'non spacetime structures', heaven being only one of them.
Another comment. I have just 'finished reading' The Nature of Space and Time, which is a dialogue between Hawking and Roger Penrose, a brilliant English mathematician and physicist. I put finished reading in quotes as I understood the quote I am about to give you and 'a', 'an', 'the' '=', but little else in the book. (A work definitely not recommended for non-specialists.) However, there was the quote that goes to the heart of a continuing interest of mine, understanding how others think. Physicists love to discuss how they think so are grist for my mill. Here is an example of 2 opposed ways of such thought: [This is Hawking speaking:] These lectures have shown the difference between Roger and me He's a Platonist [physics-speak meaning that things exist--like the number 2--irrespective of whether they are 'discovered' by man or not] and I'm a positivist [philosophy-speak meaning that the only reality is that which can be demonstrated by experiment to be true]. He's worried that Schrodinger's cat is in a quantum state, where it is half alive and half dead [referring to a classic metaphor of quantum mechanics]. He feels that can't correspond to reality. But that does not bother me. I don't demand that a theory correspond to reality because I don't know what it is. Reality is not a quality you can test with litmus paper. All I'm concerned with is that the theory should predict the results of measurements. Quantum theory does this very successfully. It predicts that the result of an observation is either that the cat is alive or that it is dead. It is like you can't be slightly pregnant: you either are or you aren't.
A few more comments about Stephen Hawking:
1.) He has a marvelous sense of humor. One of the opening sentences in an essay is: "The first description of time was given by Sir Isaac Newton. Newton held the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge [University] that I now occupy (though it wasn't electrically operated in his time)." The quote is from 'Chronology Protection: Making the World Safe for Historians' in The Future of Spacetime.New York: WW Norton & Company, 2002. [Please note that the use of the 'Chair' here is English university-speak for 'position' or 'professorship'. Hawking is punning on the fact that his wheelchair is electrically driven due to his Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
2.) In the same article he quotes mathematics by a reputable physicist (Richard Feynman) that the speed of light CAN BE exceeded and that, on a sufficiently small scale, TIME TRAVEL IS POSSIBLE; i.e., a particle can return to a previous condition in time past. Not yet possible for people to do this. ?Never possible for them to.
But even if they could they could not alter the past. Whee. Glad to
hear that. Would not want an enemy wiping out my grandfather before my dad had been conceived.
3.) Unfortunately, Hawking has a failing of the man whose work is the basis of his own, Einstein, in that both write poorly for poor humans such as I. (There is a saying in medicine that if you cannot express your ideas in a single--accessible--page you do not understand them. Two of the masters of modern physics are quoted as saying something similar: "Niels Bohr insisted that physics, no matter how fancy, must ultimately be explained in ordinary language. Ernest Rutherford used to say that unless you can explain your theory to a barmaid, your theory is probably no good." Hawking does not follow these prescriptions, but his theories are nevertheless excellent. If you want clear writing about physics, read Kip S. Thorne (who has an essay in the book cited above ). However for writing by a physicist of stunning clarity and so beautiful it makes me weep with envy read the essay by Alan Lightman also in the above cited work and in which can be found the quotes given above of Bohr and Rutherford.
The Works of Archimedes, Edited by TL Heath. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc, 2002.
Archimedes (?287-212 BC), whose works I am reading, is considered by many the greatest mathematician in history. Once, at the shore in Sicily where he lived, he stopped to work out a problem in the sand. A Roman soldier did not like this and told him to 'Move on, Buster'. Archimedes did not 'move on' as fast as the soldier wanted so he slew him. Lots of tragedies in history. This is one of the worst.
Hume, David. The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, in 6 volumes. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, ?publication date.
David Hume (1711-1776) is usually thought of as a philosopher; however, he was also a historian. His principal work in this genre was his History of England in 6 volumes; the last edition of which was published in 1778. Interestingly, about 75 years after this publication, Thomas Babington Macaulay published a similar work in 1848. His is an example of the Whig interpretation of history, which is that mankind is always getting better; although, there are 'relapses'; e.g., the Dark ages; a viewpoint I find strange. Both histories end at the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the beginning of the modern political movements in English speaking countries. Historians write beautifully, especially the older ones, which is the reason I like both of these men--and others: I read AJP Taylor's the Origins of The Second World War 6 times, but could not today tell you one origin,because I was reading primarily for the charm of the prose. Historians are not the only strange ones.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington. The History of England from the Accession of James II, in 5 volumes. McLean: IndyPublish.com, ?publication date. (Please see Hume, Above.)
FROM NOW ON I SHALL ONLY LIST THE AUTHOR(S) AND TITLES. THAT WILL ENABLE YOUR BOOKSELLER TO FIND THE WORK.
Baer, Robert. The Devil We Know. Dealing with the new Iranian Superpower.
Hackworth, David H. Steel My Soldier's Hearts.
Mason, Robert. Chickenhawk.
Herring, George C. America's Longest War. (4th ed)
Lewis, Bernard. From Babel to Dragomans.
Lewis, Bernard. The Middle East.
Rumi, Barks, Coleman (trans). The Essential Rumi.
Philpott, Glory Denied.
Hafiz, Ladinsky, Daniel (trans). The Gift. Poems by Hafiz the great Sufi master.
Marvin, Daniel. Expendable Elite.
Peters, Ralph. Wars of Blood and Faith.
Dunbar, William, Conlee, John (ed). The Complete Works.
Feynman, Richard P and Hibbs, Albert R, emended by Styer, Daniel F. Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals.
Tarski, Alfred. Undecidable Theories.
Dirac, Paul A M. Lectures on Quantum Mechanics.
Folsom, Jr, Burton. New Deal or Raw Deal?
Mill, John Stuart. The Student's Handbook, Synoptical and Explanatory, of Mr J S Mill's System of Logic.
Faught, C. Brad. The Oxford Movement.
Pseudo-Dionysius. The Complete Works.
St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. Flame of Love.
St. John of the Cross. The Collected Works.
St. Teresa of Avila. The Collected Works. (3 volumes)
John Keble. National Apostasy.
William Johnston. Mystical Theology.
Pine, Red (trans.) The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain.
Amy Chou. The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. The best book I have read in the past 10 years.
Amy Chou. Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall.
J. Paul Getty Museum Los Angeles series: Gospel Figures in Art, Icons and Saints, The History of the Church in Art, Saints in Art.
Dover religious series: 120 Great Paintings from Medieval Illuminated Books, 120 Italian Renaissance Paintings, Treasury of Bible Illustrations, Great Scenes From the Bible, The Art of Illumination, 120 Great Paintings of the Life of Jesus, Leonardo da Vinci Treasury, Dore's Life of Jesus, 120 Visions of Heaven and Hell.
Dragons and Wizards, Dover.
Patrick Hart (ed), A Monastic Vision forthe 21st Century.
Henri J M Nouwen, The Genesee Diary.
André Louf, The Cistercian way.
The Rule of St Benedict in English.
Gelsey Kirkland and Greg Lawrence, Dancing On My Grave & The Shape of Love (Two of the 3 best books I have read in the last 10 years).
Elizabeth Wilson, Jacqueline du Pre, Her Life, Her Music, Her Legend.
Carol Easton, Jacqueline du Pré.
David Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics.
Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man, The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom.
Daniel Ladinsky (trans.), The Gift, Poems by Hafiz, the Great Sufi Maste.
Red Pine (trans.), The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain.
Philip Secor, The Sermons of Richard Hooker.
Max Brockman (ed.), Future Science, Essays from the Cutting Edge.
Thomas Dubay, The Evidential Power of Beauty, Science and Theology Meet. (Not particularly recommended to anyone who knows basic science, aesthetics, and theology.)
John Slater, Surpassing Pleasure. (Poems)
Stephen Dunn, Different Hours. (Poems)
L A E Horsfield & H Riley, This Our Sacrifice. (How to say an Anglican Mass)
Philip B Secor, Richard Hooker and the Via Media.
Hilary du Pré and Piers du Pré Hilary and Jackie.
Billy Collins, horoscopes for the dead. (Poems)
Kieran Kavanaugh and Otiolio Rodriguez (trans.) The Collected Works of St Teresa of Avila (4 volumes)
Nancy Wilson Ross, Buddhism, A Way of Life and Thought.
Thomas Cleary (trans), The Essential Tao.
Elizabeth Wilson, Rostropovich.
Elizabeth Wilson, Shostakovich.
THE FOLLOWING, MARKED WITH *, HAVE TO BE READ LINE BY LINE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE TRANSLATION OF WORDS NO LONGER IN USE IN ENGLISH. BUT THE EFFORT IS WELL WORTH IT. THE EXPLANATORY INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES ARE ALSO HELPFUL.
*Stanbury, Sarah (ed). Pearl.
*Osberg, Richard H. The Poems of Laurence Minot 1333-1352.
*Laskaya, Anne and Salisbury, Eve (eds). The Middle English Breton Lays.
*William Dunbar [1460? -- 1520?]. The Complete Works. Ed. John Conlee.
To go the page that contains a CURRICULUM VITAE and LINKS to some of those people mentioned above, please go to www.aboutus.pure-knowledge.net. Thank you.