The project goal is to build a web-based collaborative system and digital library for the history of five contemporary technical fields. To that end, we are adapting and integrating the ArsDigita Collaborative System (specifically, its cousin openACS), and the Perseus digital library system. We gratefully acknowledge ArsDigita and Perseus, as well as the larger open source community, for making their software available to projects like ours.
Support of science and technology is a major component of the Foundation's program. Fellowships, direct support of research in selected fields, and work in the history of science and technology are basic parts of this program.
Since the earliest times, humans could view stars at night whenever it happened not to be cloudy. As in prehistoric times, there was barely no light polution in most regions of Earth, our ancestors could view stars of very faint light, and thus some of those objects we now summarize as Deep Sky Objects. This way, some of these objects are known as long as anything is known.
Hindu cosmological time cycles, as well as common units of measuring time and angles, are generated from the concept that the Sun has three distinct mean motions which work together like the hour, minute and second hands of a clock. The exact sidereal solar year of 365.2563795 mean solar days, constant of precession of 50".4 and week of precessional years of 180,000 sidereal solar years used in the construction of the cycles may be inferred from their infrastructure. With the astronomical quantities known, the kaliyuga epoch of February 18, 3102 B.C. of the Julian calendar establishes the summer solstice as the initial tropical point of the cycles, 147108 B.C. as the beginning of the current week of precessional years and closely approximates the fixed initial point of the sidereal sphere given in the SuryaSiddhanta commentary.
Prehistoric astronomical activity is represented by a Stonehengelike megalithic circle and "Observatory" at Rujm-el-Hiri, near Yonathan in the Golan, the Westernmost sector of the historical Bashan plateau [1] dating from the IIIrd Millenium BC. Star worship is mentioned in the Old Testament [2] as beeing common among the Canaanites*, but the Bashan inhabitants who built that Golan megalithic circle antedate the Canaanites. Very little is known about them and the presumably religous role of their edifice. To the IIIth Century BC Israelitis, they appeared as the work of giants (Refa'im, also Anakim, Emim, Zuzim), and this is probably the source of the legends about races of giants that had lived in Eretz-Israel prior to the Israelite conquest - including the characterization "a remnant of the giants" for Og, King of Bashan, in Deuteronomy and Joshua [3]. Indeed, the Rujm-el-Hiri circle is just one among many megalithic remains in the Bashan, probably at the origin in Greece and England (the "Giant's Dance" = Stonehenge).
Euclid (Alexandria) In his Optica he noted that light travels in straight lines and described the law of reflection. He believed that vision involves rays going from the eyes to the object seen and he studied the relationship between the apparent sizes of objects and the angles that they subtend at the eye
Welcome to the Electronic Grosseteste, a web-site dedicated to providing electronic access to the Latin works of Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1170-1253). Materials relating to Grosseteste's life, and the thirteenth century may also be found here. The first phase of this project has recently received funding from the British Academy Users are welcome to make copies of public domain texts, but there are copyright notices concerning specific texts and images . This site went will continue to expand over the next two years. All comments are welcome, especially those that will enhance its usefulness
"Kant...accepted the notion of things-in-themselves existing independently of any knowledge.... As his starting point [he took it] that any specific knowledge we claim to have of such and such an external object is obtained through our senses, [and] hence is at best only indirect and questionable.... What we know directly and with certainty is therefore only the set of our ideas. [For example,] the very notion of causality [is] an a priori mode of human understanding," in other words, an idea (d'Espagnat 1995:5-7).
"Faith and Reason" is an hour-length documentary about the interaction between science and religion, both historically and today. Through interviews with leading scientists and theologians, the program explores the history of the relationship between these two fields, and reveals that, contrary to widespread popular opinion, for most of history science and religion have been deeply entwined. Moreover, the program looks at a growing movment of scientists and theologians around the world today who believe that faith and reason can support one another. Here we consider issues in evolutionary biology, cosmology, genetics, and technology.
