Tahun Baru dan Narasi Waktu

Cendekiawan terkemuka Timur Tengah Malik bin Nabi--seperti dikutip Quraish Shihab dalam Wawasan al-Quran--mengatakan, “Waktu adalah sungai yang mengalir ke seluruh penjuru sejak dahulu kala, melintasi pulau, desa dan kota membangkitkan semangat atau meninabobokan manusia. Ia diam seribu bahasa sampai-sampai manusia seringkali tidak menyadari kehadiran waktu dan melupakan nilainya walaupun segala sesuatu--selain Tuhan--tidak akan mampu melepaskan diri darinya.‘Di kalangan saintifis kita membaca polemik antara kelompok yang menyebut waktu sebagai yang absolut dan yang mengatakan waktu sebagai sesuatu yang relatif. Isaac Newton menganggap waktu (dan ruang) sebagai kuantitas independen yang ada dan mengalir terlepas dari materi atau pikiran. Menurut Newton, ruang dan waktu adalah obyektif. Menurut Einstein, ruang dan waktu bersifat relatif. Ruang tergantung pada sang pengamat. Ruang merupakan semacam pertalian antara benda-benda yang diukur dengan metode tertentu.

Isaac Newton and the Study of Chronology

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) devoted ample time to the study of ancient chronology, resulting in the posthumously published <i>The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended</i> (1728). Here, Newton attempted to show how the antiquity of Greece, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and other Mediterranean nations could be reinterpreted to fit the timespan allowed for by Scripture. Yet, as the hundreds of books from his library and the thousands of manuscript pages devoted to the topic show, the <i>Chronology</i> was long in the making. This volume provides the first full analysis of the genesis and evolution of Newton's studies of ancient history and demonstrates how these emerged from that other major project of his, the interpretation of the apocalyptic prophecies in Scripture. A careful study of Newton's reading, note-taking, writing, and ordering practices provides the key to unravelling and reconstructing the chronology of Newton's chronological studies, bringing to light writings hitherto hidden in the archives.

The Isaac Newton Telescope Monitoring Survey of Local Group Dwarf Galaxies. II. The Star-formation History of Andromeda I Derived from Long-period Variables

An optical monitoring survey in the nearby dwarf galaxies was carried out with the 2.5 m Isaac Newton Telescope. 55 dwarf galaxies and four isolated globular clusters in the Local Group were observed with the Wide Field Camera. The main aims of this survey are to identify the most evolved asymptotic giant branch stars and red supergiants at the endpoint of their evolution based on their pulsational instability, use their distribution over luminosity to reconstruct the star-formation history (SFH), quantify the dust production and mass loss from modeling the multiwavelength spectral energy distributions, and relate this to luminosity and radius variations. In this second of a series of papers, we present the methodology used to estimate SFH based on long-period variable (LPV) stars and then derive it for Andromeda I (And I) dwarf galaxy as an example of the survey. Using our identified 59 LPV candidates within two half-light radii of And I and Padova stellar evolution models, we estimated the SFH of this galaxy. A major epoch of star formation occurred in And I peaking around 6.6 Gyr ago, reaching 0.0035 ± 0.0016 M ⊙ yr−1 and only slowly declining until 1–2 Gyr ago. The presence of some dusty LPVs in this galaxy corresponds to a slight increase in recent star formation peaking around 800 Myr ago. We evaluate a quenching time around 4 Gyr ago (z < 0.5), which makes And I a late-quenching dSph. A total stellar mass (16 ± 7) × 106 M ⊙ is calculated within two half-light radii of And I for a constant metallicity Z = 0.0007.

Old Dogma, New Tricks

This chapter studies the relationship between traditional Christian beliefs and the structure of modern science. The significance of key doctrines—such as monotheism, creation, the fall, the atonement—to the scientific revolution is analyzed, with the perhaps surprising result being that Christianity provided fertile ground for what we would recognize as “modern” science to develop. The writings of Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, and more are considered through a theological lens and their religious beliefs are shown to be foundational for their scientific work. Several living scientists are also found making the same points, and it is concluded that much of what we now call the “scientific method” owes its underlying philosophy to the core beliefs of the medieval (and even early) Church.

VI encuentro nacional de semilleros de investigación en salud

El origen de la educación universitaria a partir de siete artes liberales reunidas en el Trívium (gramática, dialéctica y retórica) y el Quadrivium (aritmética, geometría, astronomía y música), marcan un cambio generacional irreversible en la edad media. El joven estudiante era formado en el uso del trívium como instrumento para el autoaprendizaje y posteriormente a través del quadrivium profundizaba en el conocimiento de las ciencias y las artes. Bajo este modelo se formaron científicos notables como Nicolás Copérnico, Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, Henri Poincare, Iván Pávlov e Iliá Méchnikov, entre muchos otros. Un elemento común en el proceso educativo de estos investigadores fue la formación y guía recibida en un momento determinante de sus vidas por su mentor; un profesional con experiencia y alta formación, pero ante todo un consejero, capaz de motivar y potenciar con disciplina y constancia las habilidades innatas del joven estudiante por el conocimiento, materializando así sus sueños en un proyecto de vida con vocación de servicio social.

El papel de las hipótesis en la filosofía natural de Isaac Newton

El campo interpretativo sobre la obra de Newton ha sido ampliamente discutido y, particularmente, el tema de las hipótesis no ha sido la excepción. El objetivo de este texto es mostrar que la filosofía natural de Newton pareciera, en principio, rechazar la hipótesis, pero en realidad no es opuesta a la formulación de estas, si diferenciamos a qué tipo de hipótesis se hace referencia. Así pues, se muestra, en primer lugar, cómo desarrolla Newton su filosofía natural, y cómo es contrapuesta a las hipótesis. Luego se muestra que bajo condiciones determinadas las hipótesis son aceptadas. Y, por consiguiente, se concluye que la filosofía de Newton no rechaza radicalmente las hipótesis, sino que, por el contrario, se puede valer de su formulación para el progreso de la investigación científica, dependiendo a qué tipo de hipótesis se haga referencia.

Charakter (Character)

The lexeme Charakter denotes the set of innate or acquired dispositions that make an individual or a nation distinctive, determine its behaviour, and give it psychological and moral strength. Charakter plays a central role in Goethe’s moral psychology and his ethical thought in general, as well as in his thinking on culture. His psychological and ethical thought is notoriously hard to classify or to align with the main traditions of European thought. His concern with Charakter could be said to belong to the broad classical tradition of virtue ethics, in the sense that Goethe placed moral character at the heart of ethics. However, in contrast to the classical tradition of virtue ethics, which holds that both the rational and the non-rational parts of humans contribute to a virtuous character, and that virtues can be conceptualized clearly, Goethe resists the claims of reason on our moral character. His early writings on culture and the drama Egmont have a Rousseauian flavour: Charakter represents a natural force that is endangered by civilization. After the French Revolution and in opposition to the emergence of liberalism, Goethe came to see Charakter as a political resource that was superior to political rationality. In his most sustained engagements with philosophical ethics—his essays on Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1805) and Isaac Newton (1810)—Goethe argues, in deliberate opposition to Kant, that natural Charakter has at least as much ethical force as reason and that naturalistic descriptions of human behaviour are at least as valid as moral ones. Moreover, Charakter has the advantage of leading us by a more direct and reliable route to morally good outcomes. In this sense, it can be said without risk of exaggeration that Charakter displaces rationality in Goethe’s ethical thought.

High-Q states in acoustic apple-shaped resonators

Apples play a significant role in our culture in various points of human history: starting from Adam and Eve, going on with Judgement of Paris, it also touches such great minds as Sir Isaac Newton and Alan Turing. Beyond that apples are still extremely relevant today due to Steve Jobs. In this work we study high quality (high-Q) resonant states of apple-shaped resonators. We have found that quasi bound states in continuum (quasi-BICs) are possible in the linear acoustic domain. We show that quasi-BICs are of Friedrich-Wintgen type, i.e. accompanied with avoided crossings while elongating or shrinking the apple-shaped resonator. Finally, we build a concise theory based on the group theory approach utilizing Wigner’s theorem. We illustrate that only the resonator symmetry plays major role, but not particular resonator’s shape.