ABSTRACT During a visit to Europe in the autumn of 1882, Henry Augustus Rowland, Professor of Physics at Johns Hopkins University, displayed diffraction gratings produced on a ruling engine he had designed and built, which were bigger and much higher quality than any previously made. Some were of a novel type, ruled on concave surfaces, which he used in a simple but equally novel spectroscope that he had devised, to reveal spectral lines in great detail, and by means of photography (...) to record spectral data much more rapidly than previously possible. Over about twenty years Rowland built three ruling engines, published photographic maps of the solar spectrum, compiled a catalogue of the wavelengths of lines in the solar spectrum correlated with laboratory-produced spectra of almost all the chemical elements, and produced and sold the diffraction gratings used by spectroscopists everywhere. For decades after his death Rowland’s ruling engines remained practically the only source of good-quality diffraction gratings. This paper describes and analyses this work of Rowland and of the other men, Theodore Schneider, John Brashear, and Lewis Jewell, who played major roles in it. (shrink)

In “Two Concepts of Liberty” Berlin notes the protean nature of the word “freedom” and then systematically proceeds to narrow its range of meanings. In the process, Berlin eliminates much of what most people, in everyday communication, regard as freedom, believing that this is in the best interest of intellectual clarity. As he puts it: [N]othing is gained by a confusion of terms. To avoid glaring inequality or widespread misery I am ready to sacrifice some, or all, of my freedom: (...) I may do so willingly and freely: but it is freedom that I am giving up for the sake of justice or equality or the love of my fellow men. I should be guilt‐stricken, and rightly so, if I were not, in some circumstances, ready to make this sacrifice. But a sacrifice is not an increase in what is being sacrificed, namely freedom, however great the moral need or the compensation for it. Everything is what it is: liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or culture, or human happiness or a quiet conscience. (Emphasis added). Berlin's other, perhaps overarching, aim is to show how inattention to the specificity of the meanings of concepts might have potentially dangerous political repercussions. He implicitly argues that the intellectuals who promoted the idea of positive freedom as opposed to that of negative freedom contributed to the emergence of totalitarianism and fascism in Europe. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction The Mother of All Cells Embryonic Stem (ES) Cells Specialized Stem Cells Therapeutic Implications of Stem Cell Biology Cellular Philosophy and the Mind Problem The New Alchemists Stem Cell Biology: God in a Test Tube?

This paper uses the term “ surveillance ” in its widest sense to include data sharing and the revealing of identity information in the absence of consent of the individual concerned. It argues that the current debate about the nature of a “ surveillance society” needs a new structural framework that allows the benefits of surveillance and the risks to individual privacy to be properly balanced. To this end, the first part of this article sets out the reasons why reliance (...) on the current framework of data protection or human rights legislation, or on the current regulatory regime does not necessarily protect privacy. The second part sets out nine principles that can be used to assess whether individual privacy is comprehensively considered when surveillance policy is developed. These principles are applied to surveillance in the UK to identify the structural improvements that could create an effective balance. These principles are not legislative proposals but provide a means of exploring possible deficiencies in information law governance and, in particular, Parliament’s role in scrutinising the executive and the powers needed by a regulator when engaging with the Parliamentary process. As most European countries adopt a democratic, human rights framework, it is suggested that these principles are not limited in an application in the UK environment. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own. (shrink)

We consider Berezin's algebraic considerations regarding the quantization of phase space polynomials. After making a connection with Prugovečki's stochastic quantization approach, we give a particular construction of Berezin's L-Kernel in terms of Prugovečki's ξ-functions.

ABSTRACTDiffraction gratings are famously associated with Henry Rowland of Johns Hopkins University but there were precursors. Although gratings were first made and used in Europe, reliable machines for ruling gratings were developed in the USA, and two men, Lewis Rutherfurd and William Rogers, tackled the problem before Rowland. Rutherfurd, a wealthy independent astronomer, designed and built the first screw-operated engine for ruling diffraction gratings, the fore-runner of almost all subsequent ruling engines. With it he and his assistant D. C. Chapman (...) ruled many gratings which he generously distributed to practising scientists, thereby materially advancing the science of spectroscopy. Rogers was a Harvard astronomer who developed an interest in the ruling of fine lines on glass that led him to construct a ruling engine with which he investigated the causes of the errors in the rulings he had examined. He continued to seek improvements with a second engine designed for ruling diffraction gratings. He ceased developing this engine when Rowland’s excellent gratings began to be available, concentrating instead on related problems to which he could apply the knowledge and skills he had gained, but his investigations assisted Rowland and other later ruling engine builders. This paper brings together what is known about the ruling engines of Rutherfurd and Rogers, their development, the gratings they produced, their quality and the work that was done with them, and assesses and compares their achievements and the impacts of the work of these two men. (shrink)

SummaryDiffraction gratings have contributed enormously to modern science. Although some historians have written about them, there is much more to be brought to light. This paper discusses their development and use in the period up to about 1880 before Rowland began to produce them. Rittenhouse described the action of a diffraction grating in 1786, but no explanation was possible until the wave theory of light was developed. Fraunhofer discovered the dark lines in the solar spectrum in 1814, and then investigated (...) diffraction, producing the first ruled gratings, making detailed measurements and calculating the wavelengths of prominent spectral lines. After Bunsen and Kirchhoff showed the association between spectral lines and chemical elements there was an upsurge of interest in measuring wavelengths. The gratings used in this work almost all came from one source, a relatively unknown instrument maker called Nobert, who made them by an extremely laborious process using a machine he had built himself. The most significant wavelength measurements were made by Ångström, but Mascart, Van der Willigen, Stefan, Ditscheiner and Cornu also did important work. Nobert gratings were investigated by Quincke, copied photographically by Rayleigh, and were known and discussed in the USA. Nobert's work helped to advance spectroscopy much more than has been acknowledged. (shrink)

A major problem in developing an effective gene therapy for the nervous system lies in understanding the principles that maintain or turn off the expression of genes following their transfer into the CNS.

Harris traces Gentile's philosophy of "actual idealism" from its roots in Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and the Italian idealist Bertrando Spaventa to its outworking in Italian fascism. Gentile's theory of the individual and the state is presented by an extensive analysis of his educational theory and his attempts to implement it in fascist Italy. Gentile's thought is weighed, as it deserves to be, for its philosophic merit. An extensive bibliography is included. This is a fine study of Gentile's thought, carefully and (...) sympathetically presented and judiciously criticized.--R. C. N. (shrink)

That mankind's evolution is through genetics and cultural acquisition together, but not through either alone, is the thesis of these interesting Silliman lectures. Dobzhansky examines evolutionary theories from Darwinism to Social Darwinism to show the extent to which genetic inheritance requires certain environmental conditions, and vice versa, for mankind to evolve as it has. He also traces the origin of culture relative to man's genetic make-up, and considers the future impact of civilization, e.g., population expansion, the control of disease instead (...) of the genetic death of those susceptible, etc. The book is well documented and offers an excellent assessment of scientific findings; on the philosophic side, Dobzhansky approves as "a ray of hope," though "patently undemonstrable by scientifically established facts," Teilhard de Chardin's thesis that evolution is going toward "a harmonized collectivity of consciousnesses, equivalent to a kind of superconsciousness."--R. C. N. (shrink)

A readable and popular history of the Middle Ages from a Protestant perspective, approached primarily through studies of key personal figures. Although the history is detailed, the philosophical comments are not subtle; e.g., that Anselm's ontological argument "is obviously defective, for a definition of terms need not be a statement of fact".--R. C. N.

In this Festschrift some of Paul Weiss's friends, colleagues, and students have produced a splendid collection of original philosophical essays. Contributions by Charles Hendel, Charles Hartshorne, Robert Brumbaugh, Nathan Rotenstreich, A. Boyce Gibson, John Wild, and fourteen others are included. Outstanding are Father Johann's introduction of a contemporary view of experience into Neo-Thomism, William Earle's phenomenological analysis of love, and Father Clarke's discussion of causality. While the doctrines urged are not uniform, the standard of excellence is. I. C. Lieb, whose (...) editorial skill is evident throughout, has produced a distinguished volume which honors Paul Weiss by its contribution to contemporary philosophical inquiry. --R. C. N. (shrink)

A biography made up chiefly of excerpts from correspondence of Paul E. More, literary critic, editor of The Nation and teacher of classical and early Christian philosophy at Princeton. The central theme is More's religious development from Calvinism through humanism to a final great sympathy with Anglicanism.--R. C. N.

A history of scepticism in religion as it has developed since the sixteenth century, treating specifically the anticlerical scepticism of Voltaire and the Philosophes, the background for this in the earlier celebrations of the advance of science and knowledge of non-European cultures, and the historicism and scientific relativism of the nineteenth century. The discussion is brought up to the present with the thesis that contemporary intellectuals are just as sceptical as their predecessors, but lack their positive faith in science and (...) progress. Unfortunately, Baumer neglects the story of religion's attempt to counter scepticism; his restrictive concept of religion also leads to a neglect of the "religious" character of scepticism.--R. C. N. (shrink)

With vast erudition, especially in German and French scholarship of the last century, Cassirer applies his theory of symbolic forms to problems of methodology in "culture-philosophy," including the interpretation of "things" versus "expression," the difference between "nature-concepts" and "culture-concepts," and the various meanings of "form" and "causality." Concluding with a chapter on the "Tragedy of Culture," he maintains that the dialectical tension between completed form and free expression can never be overcome, but that culture's vitality rests in the continual coping (...) with that tension.--R. C. N. (shrink)

A well-documented defense of the thesis that St. Augustine held the city of man, especially Rome, to contain many relative goods, however evil it was from the absolute standpoint of goodness consisting in the worship of the true God. O'Meara discusses in some detail many contemporary critics, e.g., Ernest Barker, who oppose this interpretation, and argues on the basis of historical circumstance and Augustine's own declarations in works other than the City of God.--R. C. N.