Introduction N from Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations an Introduction to Big History
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Origins: V 11 November 2015 Page 1 Table of Contents
Origins: V 11 November 2015 Page 1 Table of Contents Just Published: From Big Bang to Galactic Discovering Big History: Civilizations .............................................................................. 19 An Unorthodox Journey Robert H. Moore New and Returning IBHA Members ...................................... 20 PMR Communications .......... 3 Anthropocene Conference ....................................................... 21 Big History and the Stovepipe Call for Papers for the 2016 IBHA Conference Implosion at the University of Amsterdam ......................................... 22 Ken Baskin ......... 10 Mogli e Buoi ............................................................................... 28 New Coursera Big History Board Nominations ................................................................. 31 Course Available ................................................... 16 Post-Conference Tour .............................................................. 32 Origins Editor: Lowell Gustafson, Villanova University, Pennsylvania (USA) Origins. ISSN 2377-7729 Thank you for your Associate Cynthia Brown, Dominican University of California (USA) membership in Editor: Esther Quaedackers, University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) Please submit articles and other material to Origins, Editor, [email protected] the IBHA. Your Assistant membership dues Editor: Mojgan Behmand, Dominican University of California, San Rafael (USA) The views and opinions expressed in Origins are not necessarily those of the IBHA Board. all go towards the -
WALTER ALVAREZ Es Profesor De Geología En La
SELLO CRITICA COLECCIÓN FORMATO 15,5x23 TD SERVICIO Director: «Un relato maravilloso de la Gran Historia de la mano del geólogo que CORRECCIÓN: PRIMERAS JOSÉ MANUEL SÁNCHEZ RON demostró que los dinosaurios se extinguieron por el impacto de un asteroide. 29/3 ARNAU Últimos títulos publicados: DISEÑO Alvarez lo explica con precisión y gran encanto, recordando lo absurdamente El VIAJE MÁS REALIZACIÓN Carl Sagan improbable que es el papel que desempeñamos en esta historia colosal.» El mundo y sus demonios —DAVID CHRISTIAN, fundador de la Gran Historia EDICIÓN La ciencia como una luz en la oscuridad y autor de Mapas del tiempo: introducción a la Gran Historia. Rita Levi-Montalcini CORRECCIÓN: SEGUNDAS El viaje más improbable es una aventura apasionante para entender el origen del El as en la manga IMPROBABLE 7/4 Arnau DISEÑO Los dones reservados a la vejez universo y la vida desde el prisma de la Gran Historia, disciplina que concilia dis- WALTER ALVAREZ es profesor de Geología en la tintas ramas académicas para construir un retrato desde todas las perspectivas de Universidad de California, en Berkeley, y uno de REALIZACIÓN Ian Stewart un período histórico. Walter Alvarez, quien junto a su padre, Luis Alvarez, consi- Las matemáticas del cosmos los fundadores de la International Big History guió hallar en 1980 las primeras evidencias geológicas del impacto del meteorito Association. En 2002 fue galardonado con la CARACTERÍSTICAS Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza que causó la extinción de más del 50% de la vida animal sobre la Tierra (entre ellos, El VIAJE MÁS IMPROBABLE Medalla Penrose, el premio más distinguido en IMPRESIÓN CMYK Genes, pueblos y lenguas los dinosaurios), combina sus vastos conocimientos con Física y Arqueología para Geología. -
Board Meeting Minutes 3
IBHA Board of Directors Meeting Wednesday, August 6, 2014 Edgehill Mansion Garden Room Agenda 8:30 – 10:30 am 1. Opening the Meeting, Introduction of - Welcome to - New Board Members (Fred Spier, Chair) 2. Approval of 2012 Board Meeting Minutes 3. Presidential Remarks (David Christian) 4. Further Board Changes 5. Election of Officers 11:00 am – 12:30 pm 6. President’s Report (David Christian) 7. Publications Committee Report (Cynthia Brown, Esther Quaedackers) 8. Treasurer’s Report (Craig Benjamin) 9. Secretary’s Report (Lowell Gustafson) 1 – 3 pm 10. Advisory Council Report (Pamela Benjamin) 11. International Coordinator’s Report (Barry Rodrigue) 12. Archive IBHA papers (Barry Rodrigue) 13. Board Communication (Forum) 3:30 – 5 pm 14. Location for 2016 and perhaps 2018 IBHA Conferences (Esther Quaedackers). 15 Policies 16. New Business 17. Recognition and thanks. 18. Adjournment of Meeting Attending: Milly Alvarez, Walter Alvarez, Mojgan Behmand, Craig Benjamin, Pamela Benjamin, Cynthia Brown, David Christian, Lowell Gustafson, Jonathan Markley, Esther Quaedackers, Barry Rodrigue, Fred Spier, Joseph Voros, Sun Yue Absent (notified in advance), Andrey Korotayev 1. Fred Spier opened the meeting at 8:30 a.m. He welcomed the four new board members who will each be serving a three year term: Mojgan Behmand, Esther Quaedackers, Joseph Voros, and Sun Yue. Jonathan Markley was elected by acclamation to fill the seat that was open due to the resignation of Walter Alvarez. 2. Craig Benjamin moved and Esther Quadackers seconded a motion that the 2012 minutes be adopted as a true and accurate record of the 2012 board meeting. The motion was approved unanimously. -
The History of Cartography, Volume 3
THE HISTORY OF CARTOGRAPHY VOLUME THREE Volume Three Editorial Advisors Denis E. Cosgrove Richard Helgerson Catherine Delano-Smith Christian Jacob Felipe Fernández-Armesto Richard L. Kagan Paula Findlen Martin Kemp Patrick Gautier Dalché Chandra Mukerji Anthony Grafton Günter Schilder Stephen Greenblatt Sarah Tyacke Glyndwr Williams The History of Cartography J. B. Harley and David Woodward, Founding Editors 1 Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean 2.1 Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies 2.2 Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies 2.3 Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies 3 Cartography in the European Renaissance 4 Cartography in the European Enlightenment 5 Cartography in the Nineteenth Century 6 Cartography in the Twentieth Century THE HISTORY OF CARTOGRAPHY VOLUME THREE Cartography in the European Renaissance PART 1 Edited by DAVID WOODWARD THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS • CHICAGO & LONDON David Woodward was the Arthur H. Robinson Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2007 by the University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2007 Printed in the United States of America 1615141312111009080712345 Set ISBN-10: 0-226-90732-5 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-90732-1 (cloth) Part 1 ISBN-10: 0-226-90733-3 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-90733-8 (cloth) Part 2 ISBN-10: 0-226-90734-1 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-90734-5 (cloth) Editorial work on The History of Cartography is supported in part by grants from the Division of Preservation and Access of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Geography and Regional Science Program and Science and Society Program of the National Science Foundation, independent federal agencies. -
Fifi'; 11( from the Editor
S P R I N G 1 9 9 4 ammo CAN HE TRADITI OF HONESTY * SURVIVE DAY'S WORLD? fifi'; 11( From The Editor Rhode S (ISSN 40891-6446) is (From left) published tour times a year in spring, summer, Executive fall and winter by Rhodes College, 2000 N. Editor Helen Norman, Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112-1690. It is pub- Contributing lished as a service to all alumni, students, par- Editor Susan ents, faculty, staff and friends of the college. McLain Sullivan, Art Spring 1994 —Volume 1, Number I. Second Director Trey class postage paid at Memphis, Tennessee and Clark '89, additional mailing offices. and Editor Martha Hunter EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Helen Watkins Norman Shepard '66. EDITOR: Martha Hunter Shepard '66 Welcome to Rhodes, the magazine created especially for and about Rhodes Art Director: Trey Clark '89 alumni, parents, friends, faculty, staff and students. CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Susan McLain Like the Rhodes Today, which it replaces, the magazine will continue to keep Sullivan you informed about what's happening day to day on campus and in the lives of POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: our alumni. But it will also offer you the chance to sample a broader mix of Rhodes, 2000 North Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112-1690. Rhodes-related articles and in greater depth than possible in the former publica- tion. The aim is for Rhodes to be more visually appealing as well, with an up-to- CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Please mail the complet- ed form below and label from this issue of Rhodes date design (for which we thank Memphis designer Eddie Tucker) and an ample to: Alumni Office, Rhodes College, 2000 North serving of color photography. -
Aspects of Spatially Homogeneous and Isotropic Cosmology
Faculty of Technology and Science Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering Mikael Isaksson Aspects of Spatially Homogeneous and Isotropic Cosmology Degree Project of 15 credit points Physics Program Date/Term: 02-04-11 Supervisor: Prof. Claes Uggla Examiner: Prof. Jürgen Fuchs Karlstads universitet 651 88 Karlstad Tfn 054-700 10 00 Fax 054-700 14 60 [email protected] www.kau.se Abstract In this thesis, after a general introduction, we first review some differential geom- etry to provide the mathematical background needed to derive the key equations in cosmology. Then we consider the Robertson-Walker geometry and its relation- ship to cosmography, i.e., how one makes measurements in cosmology. We finally connect the Robertson-Walker geometry to Einstein's field equation to obtain so- called cosmological Friedmann-Lema^ıtre models. These models are subsequently studied by means of potential diagrams. 1 CONTENTS CONTENTS Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Differential geometry prerequisites 8 3 Cosmography 13 3.1 Robertson-Walker geometry . 13 3.2 Concepts and measurements in cosmography . 18 4 Friedmann-Lema^ıtre dynamics 30 5 Bibliography 42 2 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Introduction Cosmology comes from the Greek word kosmos, `universe' and logia, `study', and is the study of the large-scale structure, origin, and evolution of the universe, that is, of the universe taken as a whole [1]. Even though the word cosmology is relatively recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff's Cosmologia Generalis), the study of the universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, eso- tericism, and religion. Cosmologies in their earliest form were concerned with, what is now known as celestial mechanics (the study of the heavens). -
European Medieval and Renaissance Cosmography: a Story of Multiple Voices
Asian Review of World Histories 4:1 (January 2016), 35-81 © 2016 The Asian Association of World Historians doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12773/arwh.2016.4.1.035 European Medieval and Renaissance Cosmography: A Story of Multiple Voices Angelo CATTANEO New University of Lisbon Lisbon, Portugal [email protected] Abstract The objective of this essay is to propose a cultural history of cosmography and cartography from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. It focuses on some of the processes that characterized these fields of knowledge, using mainly western European sources. First, it elucidates the meaning that the term cosmography held during the period under consideration, and the sci- entific status that this composite field of knowledge enjoyed, pointing to the main processes that structured cosmography between the thirteenth centu- ry and the sixteenth century. I then move on to expound the circulation of cosmographic knowledge among Portugal, Venice and Lisbon in the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries. This analysis will show how cartography and cosmography were produced at the interface of articulated commercial, dip- lomatic and scholarly networks; finally, the last part of the essay focuses on the specific and quite distinctive use of cosmography in fifteenth-century European culture: the representation of “geo-political” projects on the world through the reformulation of the very concepts of sea and maritime net- works. This last topic will be developed through the study of Fra Mauro’s mid-fifteenth-century visionary project about changing the world connectiv- ity through the linking of several maritime and fluvial networks in the Indi- an Ocean, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean Sea basin, involving the cir- cumnavigation of Africa. -
Negotiating Uncertainty: Asteroids, Risk and the Media Felicity Mellor
Accepted pre-publication version Published at: Public Understanding of Science 19(1): (2010) 16-33. Negotiating Uncertainty: Asteroids, Risk and the Media Felicity Mellor ABSTRACT Natural scientists often appear in the news media as key actors in the management of risk. This paper examines the way in which a small group of astronomers and planetary scientists have constructed asteroids as risky objects and have attempted to control the media representation of the issue. It shows how scientists negotiate the uncertainties inherent in claims about distant objects and future events by drawing on quantitative risk assessments even when these are inapplicable or misleading. Although the asteroid scientists worry that media coverage undermines their authority, journalists typically accept the scientists’ framing of the issue. The asteroid impact threat reveals the implicit assumptions which can shape natural scientists’ public discourse and the tensions which arise when scientists’ quantitative uncertainty claims are re-presented in the news media. Keywords: asteroids, impact threat, astronomy, risk, uncertainty, science journalism, media, science news Introduction Over the past two decades, British newspapers have periodically announced the end of the world. Playful headlines such as “The End is Nigh” and “Armageddon Outta Here!” are followed a few days later by reports that there’s no danger after all: “PHEW. The end of the world has been cancelled” (Britten, 1998; Wickham, 2002; Evening Standard , 1998). These stories, and others like them appearing in news media around the world, deal with the possibility that an asteroid or comet may one day collide with the Earth causing global destruction. The threat posed by near-Earth objects (NEOs) has been actively promoted by a group of astronomers and planetary scientists since the late 1980s. -
Cynthia Brown – ORIAS Summer Institute 2013 1
Cynthia Brown – ORIAS Summer Institute 2013 1 “A Big History Perspective” Cynthia Brown, Professor Emerita, History Department, Dominican University of California summarized by Stephen Pitcher Asked what “Big History” meant to them, participants responded that it meant “How the world began,” or “macro-history.” For Brown, it is history on the biggest possible scale— an evidence-based, scientific origin story, going from the Big Bang to the present. Professor Brown said that four big things had occurred in the Big History field in the last five years. The first involved the participation in 2010 of geologist Walter Alvarez, who thought the approximately forty people then teaching “something like Big History” weren’t incorporating enough geology, and invited six Big Historians, Brown among them, to his geological institute in Italy, where he took them to places where the K-T boundary, the iridium layer, could be seen. A lot of geology was learned and, partially as a consequence, the International Big History Association (IBHA) was founded. (The initials could not be used in the url as they had already been spoken for by the International Buckskin Horse Association. You can find the website at http://ibhanet.org/) A second development in the field arose from Dominican University’s dissatisfaction with its First Year Experience program. Such programs are taught by many colleges in many ways—emphasizing skills, great books, etc.—and are crucial to enrollment retention. Dominica n, in its reworking of that program, decided to require Big History, and to follow up with a second-semester course involving a specific discipline viewed through a Big History lens. -
Professor Preston Cloud
Professor Preston Cloud (1912-Jl990) (Preston Cloud, a great name in Earth Science is no more, His was a versatile mind which probed into many aspects of Earth history. We pro duce below a short life history of the famous professor written specially for the Journal by Somadev Bhattacharji, Professor of Geology, New York State University, Brooklyn, New York.-Ed. With the death of Professor Preston Cloud, Emeritus Professor of Geology at the Department of Geological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara~ the Earth Sciences have lost one of their most eminent spokesman. Professor Cloud was born in eastern Massachusetts in 1912. He started his undergraduate study of geology in a one-professor department at George Washing ton University at Washington, D.C. while holding a tenuous job in the Smith sonian Institution's Natural History Museum during the great depression yea'rs in the U.S.A. This early experience influenced his later career in geology. He graduated from George Washington University in 1938, and continued on to receive his Ph.D. from Yale University at New Haven, Connecticut in 1940. After a long association with the U.S. Geological Survey as a geologist and paleonto logist, he retired in 1979. He also taught at the Missouri School of Mines~ Harvard University, The University of Minnesota, and the University of California at both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. In the last years of his active retired life, Santa Barbara was his base, but he travelled widely to see · real geology' and lectured and inspired many, beside being busy writing. -
Venetian Cartography and the Globes of the Tommaso Rangone Monument in San Giuliano, Venice
Stephen F. Austin State University SFA ScholarWorks Faculty Publications School of Art Spring 3-2016 Venetian Cartography and the Globes of the Tommaso Rangone Monument in San Giuliano, Venice Jill E. Carrington School of Art, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/art Part of the Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture Commons Tell us how this article helped you. Repository Citation Carrington, Jill E., "Venetian Cartography and the Globes of the Tommaso Rangone Monument in San Giuliano, Venice" (2016). Faculty Publications. 3. https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/art/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Art at SFA ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of SFA ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Venetian Cartography and the Globes of the Tommaso Rangone Monument in S. Giuliano, Venice* Jill Carrington Highly specific stone reliefs of a terrestrial and a celestial globe flank the bronze statue of physician and university professor Tommaso Rangone (1493-1577) in his funerary monument on the façade of S. Giuliano in Venice (1554-1557; installed c. 1558) (Fig. 1).1 The present essay is the first to examine the strikingly specific imagery of these globes; it compares them to actual maps and globes, argues that the features of the globes were inspired by contemporary world maps likely owned by Rangone himself, relates the globes to the emergence of globe pairs at the time and situates them within the thriving production of maps, atlases, and treatises in mid-sixteenth century Venice and in the very neighborhood where these cartographic works were produced and sold. -
Energy Rate Density As a Complexity Metric and Evolutionary Driver
Energy Rate Density as a Complexity Metric and Evolutionary Driver E. J. CHAISSON Wright Center and Physics Department, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts and Harvard College Observatory, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Received March 8, 2010; revised April 1, 2010; accepted April 5, 2010 The proposition that complexity generally increases with evolution seems indisputable. Both developmental and generational changes often display a rise in the number and diversity of properties describing a wide spectrum of ordered systems, whether physical, biological, or cultural. This article explores a quantitative metric that can help to explain the emergence and evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, and life throughout the history of the Universe. Energy rate density is a single, measurable, and unambiguous quantity uniformly characterizing Nature’s many varied complex systems, potentially dictating their natural selection on vast spatial and temporal scales. Ó 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 16: 27–40, 2011 Key Words: energy; complexity; evolution; thermodynamics; universe 1. PRE` CIS OF COSMIC EVOLUTION philosopher Heraclitus, who arguably made the best ob- or nearly three decades, I have endeavored to servation ever while noting that ‘‘everything flows and F strengthen our modern understanding of the scientific nothing stays.’’ This remarkably simple idea is now essen- interdiscipline of cosmic evolution. This is an inclu- tially confirmed by modern scientific reasoning and much sive worldview that chronicles the origin and evolution of supporting data. As recently summarized [1, 2], I have galaxies, stars, planets, and life, especially as pertains to sought to undergird this broad, integrated subject with humanity on Earth and our place in the Universe.