So-called antimatter in the form of elementary particles such as positive electrons (antielectrons alias positrons) and negative protons (antiprotons) has for long been investigated by physicists. However, atoms or molecules of this exotic kind are conspicuously absent from nature. Since antimatter is believed to be symmetric with ordinary matter, the flagrant asymmetry constitutes a problem that still worries physicists and cosmologists. As first suggested by Paul Dirac in 1933, in distant parts of the universe there might be entire stars and (...) galaxies made of antiparticles alone. Why not? This paper examines how the concepts of antiparticles and antimatter slowly migrated from particle physics to astronomy and cosmology. At around 1970 a few physicists speculated about an anti-universe separate from ours while others looked for the charge asymmetry in quantum processes in the early big-bang explosion of the universe. Others again proposed a ‘plasma cosmology’ that kept our world and the hypothetical world of antimatter apart. Soviet physicists and astronomers were no less interested in the problem than their colleagues in the West. The paper details the development up to the late 1970s, paying attention not only to mainstream scientific works but also to more speculative ideas, some of them very speculative. By that time the antimatter mystery remained mysterious – which is still the situation. (shrink)

Despite the rapid strides made in observational and theoretical astronomy, particularly in our century, there are two fundamental questions respecting the universe that defy solution. One pertains to the age of the universe, that is, did the universe have a beginning and therefore have a finite time-scale or has the universe existed without beginning. The other question deals with the dimensions of the universe, that is, is the universe infinite or not. For the time being no satisfactory proof or (...) disproof has been offered either on purely logical grounds or through empirical evidence revealing whether the universe is boundless and eternal or not. It is for this reason that cosmologists must resort to a variety of unverifiable philosophic postulates in the hope of constructing a cosmological model that correlates the known laws of the physical world with the observed facts of nature and simultaneously presents a consistent picture of the universe as it changes in time. (shrink)

New Cosmic Horizons was written by a project manager, originally trained as a physicist, who worked in the European space world and in business for about twenty‐five years and then returned to academia to complete his Ph.D. It is a well‐written, comprehensive compilation of major scientific results in space astronomy obtained during the latter half of the twentieth century. As the book jacket explains, “it explores the triumphs of space experiments and spacecraft designs and the amazing astronomical results that (...) they have produced.” It is particularly useful because it does not just concentrate on American contributions in this area, as important as they have been, but tries to redress the transatlantic balance by including scientific work in the Soviet Union and Europe, notably the European Space Agency. The blurb claims that David Leverington relates the changes in space astronomy programs in these various countries to their “changing political imperatives.” This is done very sketchily, however, and merely by way of a backdrop to his main objective.Practicing astronomers, be they amateur or professional, and historians of science who could use a survey of the major milestones in space astronomy will find this a useful guide. It is seriously marred as a reference work, however, by the total absence of any reference to primary or secondary material in the text. There is a bibliography of what Leverington calls “general sources used in the preparation of this book” , which includes standard histories of space and of space science. None of these books, nor any scientific papers, are cited in the body of the argument. Everything that is said, or claimed, has to be taken on the authority of the author, an extraordinary approach that can only undermine and discredit what was otherwise a laudable objective. (shrink)

Extensive scientific, philosophical and artistic activities were carried out in the Islamic World’s various science and civilization centers during the early Middle Ages. In these centers, noteworthy works of mathematics, astronomy, geography, medicine, pharmacology, optics, botany, chemistry and other fields of science, which would later determine improvement paths for these fields, were created. Abu al-Izz Ismail ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari (12th-13th centuries), was a magnificent Muslim scientist known for his work named The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Kitab (...) fi ma‘rifati’l-hiyal al-handasiyya) and he was born in geography where many scientists were trained. He contributed to the development of science and civilization, the joint legacy of humanity and demonstrated his true capability and success in the field of ilm al-hiyal (the scientific field which addresses the information and practices regarding mechanical technology and engineering in Islamic science history). From this perspective, it is evident that al-Jazari had a wide field of interest, made his mark in the age he lived in with his brave and innovative ideas, and was a wise engineer. al-Jazari’s detailed descriptions and explanations of water clocks, oil lamp clocks and water pumping machines, as well as their construction, were astounding. In addition, al-Jazari’s studies on metal casting techniques, cone valves, wheel balance and the real-world use of aspiration tubes are important in contemporary engineering studies. When all these are considered, it becomes clear that his designation as the “Leonardo da Vinci of the Islamic World” is not a coincidence. Many studies on al-Jazari’s scientific legacy have been conducted in various parts of the world. There are various manuscripts of his aforementioned book. Based on these manuscripts, the work has been -fully or partially- translated into many languages, including Turkish. The German and English translations served as a basis for studies on al-Jazari in other languages. In recent years, studies conducted on al-Jazari in Türkiye (books, articles, domestic and international symposiums, congresses etc.) have demonstrated his brilliance and competence as a scientist. Furthermore, studies on al-Jazari are still ongoing in Türkiye. As for Russia, the scientific legacy of the scientists raised in the Islamic World such as Avicenna, al-Farabi, Abu Bakr al-Razi, Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, al-Battani, al-Kashi, Abd al-Rahman al-Khazini, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was researched within the scope of a special plan and program. Depending on the relevant studies, al-Jazari and his work drew attention as well. A small portion of the aforementioned Russian studies is known in Türkiye. It is safe to assume that al-Jazari studies in Russia are virtually unknown in Türkiye. The present study primarily aims to contribute to the literature on the scientific legacy of al-Jazari, a Middle Age Islamic scientist best known for his famous work in the mechanical field. More specifically, the present study aims to: 1) to identify the studies on al-Jazari in Russia, and in the former USSR countries, where academic studies are still in Russian after the Soviet Union period, to create a chronological biography and to set forth their compilation; in other words, to create a bibliography which includes Russian studies on al-Jazari; 2) to provide information on the structure and content of the studies in question, to detect the methodological issues encountered in these works, and make solution recommendations to solve these issues; 3) to contribute to continuing and future studies in Türkiye on al-Jazari in terms of source and material index. In conclusion, it should be stated that comparative reading was conducted centered on The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Kitab fi ma‘rifati’l-hiyal al-handasiyya). It should also be noted that Russian popular internet publications (which are not based on academic research and are created/reproduced for commercial and personal purposes) were excluded from the assessment. (shrink)

This article analyses the rhetorical legitimation strategy of post-Soviet Uzbekistan under Islam Karimov as an authoritarian state. I show that the most important mode of legitimation in this case is neither the consequentialist appeal to stability, order or welfare, nor a direct appeal to guardianship, i.e., special knowledge. Rather, Karimov and his court intellectuals seek to advance a conception of 'ideology' as the comprehensive pre-political consensus of the political community. Their concept of 'ideology' is used to advance a political (...) logic whereby the nature of the political community, the purpose of the state, the unifying political telos and the present regime are fused into a single entity. This ontological fusion is presented as a hegemonic reality and occurs at the pre-political level, resulting in the vanishingly small space left over for politics that characterizes authoritarian systems. I then suggest that such analysis of the hegemonic strategy of authoritarian regimes, and above all the teleological conception of politics it advances, is a superior approach to authoritarian legitimation than the search for explicit 'consequentualist' versus 'principled' arguments. (shrink)

Cover -- Watching the red dawn -- Contents -- List of figures -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: the red Atlantic -- 1. Constructivism in the USA: machine art and architecture at The Little Review exhibitions -- 2. The mass and the machine: The New Playwrights Theatre and American radical Constructivism -- 3. Kino in America: Soviet montage and the American cinematic avant-garde -- 4. Camera eyes: the worker photography movement and the New Vision in America -- Epilogue: red train journeys (...) -- Bibliography -- Index. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze the beginnings and growth of civil movements in the Baltic republics in years 1985-1991, which led to their state independence. Proces of liberation of Baltic societies will be analyzed according to the following criteria: size and range of the civil movement and forms of its institutionalization (i), political concession made by republican authorities (ii) and level of control over the republican structure of power exercised by the civil movements (iii). Finally, I will (...) try to consider why evolution of the Baltic societies resulted in building of the stable democracies, whereas these same efforts are still unsuccesful in Belarus and were unsuccesful in Ukraine. This analysis will not be a chronicle's presentation of events from current history of the Baltic states but will be based on a coherent theoretical framework achieved by employing models and conceptual apparatus of non-Marxian historical materialism. (shrink)

The train has stopped in the night. It is the end of winter, 1920; it is very cold, about 25 degress below zero, some hundred kilometers west of Irkutsk. Along the train soldiers mount guard; ahead, a party of the detachment is clearing the track. Many of the soldiers have makeshift bandages around their wrists and feet: the Siberian frost has taken its toll. There is no question, however, of withdrawing the guard or stopping the work. This train is the (...) most precious treasure of the Soviet. Republic, transporting the greater part of the State gold reserves: 355 m. tons. Previously housed in the vaults of the Kazan Bank in Tartary by the Tsarist government, it was removed in 1918 by admiral Kolchak; the greatest coup in history! Not that it brought the admiral any good luck: in Siberia, at the height of the civil war, the richest man in the world was only able to get a few shipments of gold through to Vladivostok, to pay his debts to the Americans and buy arms from them. And then Kolchak died: he was shot on February 7th, the gold now returning to Kazan. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to highlight an aspect of Elisabeth’s intellectual life that has received little scholarly attention so far, namely Elisabeth’s involvement with the sciences of her day. Firstly, this paper provides a survey of Elisabeth’s interest in and engagement with various scientific disciplines, such as mathematics, medicine, natural philosophy, and microscopy, drawing on her letter exchange with Descartes and several other intellectuals as well as additional documents, such as dedications of scientific works to Elisabeth. Secondly, this (...) paper investigates Elisabeth’s involvement with one particular scientific discipline, namely astronomy. Analyzing Elisabeth’s letter exchange with Andreas Colvius and Constantijn Huygens and additional letters and testimonies, I show that Elisabeth played an active part in at least three current debates in astronomy, namely concerning the discoveries of the satellites of Jupiter, the emerging maps of the moon, and the invention of the new telescopes. Based on the evidence provided in this paper, it is argued that Elisabeth’s intellectual biography should be broadened. It is not sufficient to perceive her only as a critic of Descartes’ philosophy, as this characterization does not accommodate her scientific commitments, but rather as a multitalented intellectual. (shrink)

Levi ben Gerson (1288–1344) was a medieval astronomer who responded in an unusual way to the Ptolemaic tradition. He significantly modified Ptolemy’s lunar and planetary theories, in part by appealing to physical reasoning. Moreover, he depended on his own observations, with instruments he invented, rather than on observations he found in literary sources. As a result of his close attention to the variation in apparent planetary sizes, a subject entirely absent from the Almagest, he discovered a new phenomenon of Mars (...) and noticed a serious flaw in Ptolemy’s treatment of the Moon. (shrink)

Many mid-nineteenth-century American astronomers who added little or nothing to the advancement of knowledge nevertheless merit attention for their efforts to advance science in a developing nation. They wrote needed textbooks, developed scientific exchanges, and attempted, not always with lasting success, to establish scientific institutions. O. M. Mitchel's trials with the Cincinnati Observatory and his journal The Sidereal Messenger are more sympathetically understood in the context of science in a developing nation than as scientific research. The theme of science in (...) a developing nation leads to a Whiggish approach to nineteenth-century American science, an approach in this particular case warranted by historical evidence. (shrink)

According to selective, retentive, scientific realism, past empirical success may be explained only by the parts of past theories that are responsible of their successful predictions being approximately true, and thus theoretically retained, or approximated, by the parts of posterior theories responsible of the same successful predictions. In this article, we present as case study the transit from Ptolemy’s to Kepler’s astronomy, and their successful predictions for Mars’ orbit. We present an account of Ptolemy’s successful prediction of Mars’ orbit (...) from Kepler’s perspective, and scrutinize whether the theoretical elements responsible for Ptolemy’s empirical success are approximately retained in Kepler. In order to give to the realist the best chances, we try different strategies. We conclude that all fail and thereby this case constitutes a prima facie strong anomaly for selective retentive realism. Structural realists may call preservation of structure to the rescue, but the existing notions of structure do not work. In absence of a new notion that works, the burden of the proof lies on the realist side. (shrink)

The concept of "non-antagonistic contradiction" (NAC) was developed in the early 1930s in the Soviet Union to describe the social contradictions of Soviet society. This concept was employed to claim that Soviet social contradictions could be resolved without becoming intense or leading to social upheavals. The numerous attempts by Soviet philosophers to explain the NAC concept resulted in theories that are subject to decisive objections. In particular, the contradictions among the working class, the peasantry, and the (...) intelligentsia of the USSR did not prove to be non-antagonistic according to any of the theories designed to support that characterization. The reasons for the failure of the NAC concept are not confined to the Soviet context, and suggest that the NAC concept represents an important error in dialectical theory. (shrink)

This article surveys measurements of celestial (chiefly solar) altitudes documented from twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin Europe. It consists of four main parts providing (i) an overview of the instruments available for altitude measurements and described in contemporary sources, viz. astrolabes, quadrants, shadow sticks, and the torquetum; (ii) a survey of the role played by altitude measurements in the determination of geographic latitude, which takes into account more than 70 preserved estimates; (iii) case studies of four sets of measured solar altitudes (...) in twelfth-century Latin sources; (iv) an in-depth discussion of the evidence relating to altitude measurements performed in Paris in the period 1281–1290. The findings from the last part indicate that by the end of the thirteenth century Parisian astronomer had developed rigorous standards of observational practice in which altitudes were typically measured to a precision of minutes of arc and with a level of accuracy higher than ± 0;5°, and sometimes exceeding ± 0;1°. (shrink)

Although the Russian Academy has not been operating long enough to permit a categorical statement that it will act exactly as the Soviet Academy did, there is now enough information to justify stating that in its structure and stated functions it differs in no significant way from the Soviet Academy which it replaced. While it might well have been weakened, through a decline in its own prestige and through the weakening of the government under which it operates, it (...) is unlikely to be so weakened that it will allow either the democrats and rank-and-file research workers on the one hand, or the new bureaucratic arrangements on the other to get the better of it. While the desperate budgetary situation will almost certainly force the Russian Academy into considerable retrenchment in its research activities, it will continue to be a body of bureaucratically organised and experienced managers of science and will conduct itself accordingly. Those who believe that a high level of participation by the rank-and-file of the staff is essential in the management of science, will see that as a catastrophe for Russian science. Those who believe that particularly in times of stress, bureaucratic skill and experience are of great importance will see it as providing some hope of salvation. (shrink)