Issues

Volume 4, Issue 2

October 20, 2018

Critical Essays

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Past Masters of the Postmodern

Simon Blackburn

[short_description] There is a widespread sense, Simon Blackburn observes, that a number of philosophical theories have escaped the academic world, and, in the wild, are doing great harm. Chief among them: postmodernism.

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Physics

Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

Édouard Brézin

[short_description] Broken symmetries encompass a large number of different phenomena occurring at different scales. Édouard Brézin examines how symmetry has become central to understanding the organization of the universe.

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Economics

One Euro, One Europe

Gilles Dryancour

[short_description] Sixty-seven monetary unions were formed between 1918 and 2012. They all failed. Will the European monetary union meet a similar fate? Gilles Dryancour assesses the Euro’s prospects for survival.

Review Essays

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Physics

Quantum Leaps

Jeremy Bernstein

[short_description] There is, thoughtful students agree, no entirely satisfactory interpretation of quantum mechanics. Jeremy Bernstein examines John Bell’s discontent with the standard formulations of quantum mechanics.

Book Reviews

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Philosophy

Dialectics of Darkness

Egil Asprem

[short_description] On the persistence of magic in modernity: Egil Asprem reviews The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences by Jason Josephson-Storm.

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Physics

Not So Real

Sheldon Lee Glashow

[short_description] On the interpretation of quantum mechanics: Sheldon Lee Glashow reviews What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics by Adam Becker.

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Philosophy

Nature and the Babylonians

Daryn Lehoux

[short_description] How did the ancient Mesopotamians conceive of nature and science? Daryn Lehoux reviews a new account, Before Nature: Cuneiform Knowledge and the History of Science, by Francesca Rochberg.

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Linguistics

Fodor’s Legacy

David Lobina

[short_description] The publication of a new volume on the work of the philosopher and cognitive scientist Jerry Fodor is an opportunity to reflect on his enduring legacy. David Lobina assesses Fodor’s contributions and ideas.

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Computer Science

An Antique Land

Benjamin Thierry

[short_description] Benjamin Thierry reviews Minitel: Welcome to the Internet by Julien Mailland and Kevin Driscoll. The French Minitel project, according to the authors, was much, much more than simply a public works project gone awry.

Experiment Reviews

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Genetics

Genes within Genes

Tyler Hampton

[short_description] A new study, “Russian Doll Genes and Complex Chromosome Rearrangements in Oxytricha trifallax,” casts fresh light on gene nesting and mathematical patterns. Tyler Hampton examines the key findings.

Biographies

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Logic

Emil Post

Psychological Fidelity

Allyn Jackson

[short_description] Never a mathematical star during his lifetime, Emil Post created and pursued his research ideas largely on his own. Allyn Jackson describes Post’s tragic life and an array of remarkable contributions.

Letters to the Editors

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Lawrence Krauss

[short_description] Key physical and mathematical insights allowed physicists, over a period of twenty-five years, to produce what will be viewed as one of the greatest scientific revolutions of the twentieth century.

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Adrian Bejan

[short_description] Our nature is continuous and morphing, not infinitesimal, discrete, and still. With the law of evolution, physics accounts for form and the time direction in evolving macroscopic structures everywhere.

######### Card Letter *XXX* ######### On Autopoiesis

Adam Scarfe

[short_description] Autopoiesis points to the basic hows underlying the homeostatic far-from-equilibrium states internal to the physiological organism that allow it to persist as a whole in the face of entropy.

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John Brooke

[short_description] It has been suggested that the early plague, carried by the Early Bronze Age Yamnaya peoples (3300–2600 BCE) of the steppe, may have been the cause of population collapse in Neolithic Europe.

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Daniel Curtis & Joris Roosen

[short_description] As interdisciplinary research on the plague shows, the importance of history and historical data will only increase from its use in conjunction with new forms of scientific evidence and methods.

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Christof Paulus

[short_description] Aspects of the plague still have no reasonable explanations. Of particular concern are the current estimates for the amount of time required for the bacterium to spread over such great distances.

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George Saliba

[short_description] No one could have told the story of al-Bīrūnī’s engagement with Islamic science, or even the story of the development and tribulations of Islamic science itself, better than Julio Samsó.

ISSN #2576–4403