I have to admit that it took some time until I understood the idea of the "Philosophia Naturalis Blog Carnival", even more so as the actual blog just contains links to posts at different other blogs. This idea of these "philosophia naturalis" contributions, hosted by a different blog every month, is to publish a collection of interesting posts on topics in the physical sciences that have appeared over the last month. Thus, they provide a selection of noteworthy reading out there, and help to give you an overview over interesting blogs dealing with physics and related topics.This month's Philosophia Naturalis #11 is hosted by geologist Chris Rowan at Highly Allochthonous, and I am very proud to see this blog represented by both its contributors - with Bee on Kaluza-Klein, and myself about the Bouncing Neutrons!
If you have time to waste over the weekend, there may be worse possibilities to do so than reading some of the posts presented by Chris so cogently according to the 50 orders of magnitude of characteristic length scales they cover. I've enjoyed especially the writings from astronomy and the earth sciences. Indeed, if you are a wannabe amateur geologist like me, you will probably like Chris' blog anyway, and wonder why you have not chosen a subject where you can make cool field trips to Namibia...
Have a nice weekend!
Ah, funny, I submitted your bouncing neutrons but not my KK post :-) I find the carnival really useful to see what's going on elsewhere. Most often I admittedly don't have the time to check all the science blogs on my watchlist, so it's nice to have a monthly summary.
ReplyDeleteAhem,
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that I didn't submit either one... Sorry, it seems that I'm not the brilliant PR guy ;-)
Irrelevant question - isn't Newton's work more often referred to as the Principia than as "Philosophia Naturalis"? As in S. Chandrashekar's "Newton's Principia for the common reader"?
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, this is one of the books on my perpetual in-the-future plan to read. Why read it - to better appreciate the genius. I'm thinking that I must cut down on the internet to ever get any of my plans done.
Do either of you also have any of these always-in-the-future-indefinite plans? :)
Dear Arun:
ReplyDeleteDo either of you also have any of these always-in-the-future-indefinite plans? :)
Definitely... My plans range from realistic over fantastic to impossible. Who would I be(e) without my dreams?
My currently most realistic always-in-the-future plan is a vacation...
Stefan's always-in-the-future plans include among other things writing the second part to The Omega Minus gets a Spin Part 1 and filing in the income tax return ;-)
Best,
B.
Hi Arun,
ReplyDeleteyes, it is "Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica", and Principia is used for short because "Philosophia Naturalis" is the very general topic... I just wanted to add some figure to the post, and of course, the Principia come to mind if you deal with "Philosophia Naturalis".
I hope you will find some time to read through the Chandrasekhar exposition. It's probalby really worth the effort. I skimmed through it once, and was amazed how much stuff is dealed with in the Principia - I mean, not just the three axioms of motion and the law of gravity.
Books I want to read... hmm... since I've become an occasional blogger, the pile of unread books is growing even faster, because I often have the feeling I should be better informed about the things I'd like to write about ;-)
And, yes - that Omega-Minus post ;-)... I will see...
Best, stefan
Arun said:
ReplyDelete"Incidentally, this is one of the books on my perpetual in-the-future plan to read. Why read it - to better appreciate the genius."
hmm, everyone knows the "Principia" is the intentionally most unreadable treatise in the history of physics
Incidentally, I sincerely believe Newton instituted the tradition that to be taken seriously as a physicist one has to be utterly and completely weird. Unfortunately, the fact that no exception to this rule has yet been found does not constitute a sufficient proof :-)
hmm, everyone knows the "Principia" is the intentionally most unreadable treatise in the history of physics
ReplyDeleteTrue, but we have S. Chandrashekar as the modern guide through that treatise.
well, I didn't read it, but speaking of unreadable treatises I find 'The Large Scale Structure of Space Time' by Hawking + Ellis unreadable enough.
ReplyDelete... my Google search just showed up the Wiki-Entry on the book which indeed says:
Hawking co-wrote the book while a professor at Oxford university. In his 1993 book A Brief History of Time, he derides The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime as "highly technical and quite unreadable," and advises readers to not seek it out.
:-)