Try another Search Engine

I notice that I am not the only one with complaints about blogger. I can now only use it for short notes of no interest to anyone but myself. However, my website http://coonalkadam06.googlepages.com/ has got a fair amount of attention. See

http://www.altavista.com/web/results?q=mind+body+problem+electrophysiology

Now try another search engine!

Yahoo! I made it to the Search Listing

In the last month I published two postings at other blogs on SEARCH ENGINES. They are

1. Fropper ezBlog
   
   
   


2. Live Spaces

Just as I finished, the statistics counter at one of these blogs informed me that my name was listed by search engines. The output of Search Engine Watch, provided by EchoEcho.com, is shown above.

The home page of my website http://coonalkadam06.googlepages.com/ contains a link to a funny write-up I once posted mentioning my former classmate Mark whose surname is rather difficult to remember. As it happens, Mark's search listing is somewhat larger than mine.

http://www.bing.com/search?q=mark+jayaprasanna&form=SPACE&mkt=en-in

More on the History of Mathematics

This is a sequel to my previous posting "Islamic Mathematics." As the article was written in google docs but the "post to blog" button did not work, I have to publish it as a document and link it to this blog.Click here

Darwin Day

The issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN India January 2008, Volume 4 Number 1 is a special issue devoted to

The evolution of evolution

The url of the periodical is http://www.sciam.co.in/

Some interesting matter from this is reproduced below:

INTRODUCTION

Darwin's Living Legacy

by Gary Stix

When 26-year old Charles Darwin sailed to Galapagos in 1835 onboard Beagle, he misclassified as grosbeaks some of the birds in his collection which are now known as Darwin's finches. After his return to England, ornithologist and artist John Gould recognised them as different species of finches.

--- Evolution before and after Darwin ---

• 10- 546 BC.: Greek philosopher Anaximander suggests that all life-forms evolved from fish in the sea and went through a process of modification once they were established on land.
• 1735: Carl Linnaeus publishes the first volume of Systema Naturae, which laid the foundations for taxonomy. Later he suggested that plants descend from a common ancestor.
• 1809: Darwin is born in Shrewsbury, England, into the comfort of a wealthy family.
• 1830: Charles Lyell publishes Principles of Geology, a formative influence on Darwin's thinking about the gradualism of natural processes as can be witnessed in the Grand Canyon.
• 1831: Darwin leaves on a five-year around-the-world journey on the HMS Beagle.
• 1838: Charles Darwin formulates the theory of natural selection, which is not published for more than 20 years.
• 1859: On the Origin of Species sells out as soon as it is published.
• 1865 Czech monk Gregor Mendel publishes his research on inheritance, but the importance of his work is not recognised for 35 more years.
• 1871: In The Descent of Man, Darwin ties the human lineage to primate ancestors, provoking outrage in some quarters and the caricaturing of his image.
• 1882: Darwin dies.
• 1925: The Scopes Monkey trial in Tennessee tries a teacher based on a law that made it illegal to teach any theory that denies divine creation.
• 1936 - 1947: The modern synthesis combines Darwin's theory with Mendelian genetics.
• 1953: James D. Watson and Francis Crick discover the of DNA, making it possible to study the molecular biology of evolution.
• Mid-2000s: Genetic analyses have shown evidence of relatively recent human evolution -- dating back several thousand years.
• 2009: Darwin Day mars the naturalist's birthday on February 12 and will be observed with dozens of events in at least 10 countries. Stay abreast of what's happening at http://www.darwinday.org/.
  

LINK:
The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online can be accessed at http://darwin.online.org.uk/

SOURCES OF VARIATION
From Atoms to Traits
by David M. Kingsley
Charles Darwin saw that random variations in organisms provide fodder for evolution. Modern scientists are revealing how that diversity arises from changes to DNA and can even add up to complex creatures or even cultures.

The article observes:

SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, a prominent scientist of Charles Darwin's era doubted the theory laid out in On the Origin of Species. Because Darwin could not explain the cause of trait variations. the idea that nature selected advantageous variants seemed incomplete. In his personal copy of the book, Herschel wrote "D. recognises an unknown cause of slight individual differences -- but claims of 'natural selection' the character of a 'sufficient theory' in regard to the results of those differences.

The adaptation of sticklebacks is also mentioned.
LINKS:

Evolution: Constant Change and Common Threads. HHMI 2005 Holiday Lectures on Science. Sean B. Carroll and David M. Kinsley. Webcast or DVD available at http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/evolution

FUTURISM

What Will Become of Homo sapiens?
by Peter Ward
Contrary to popular belief, humans continue to evolve. Our bodies and brains are not the same as our ancestors' were -- or will be

KEY CONCEPTS

• People commonly assume that our species has evolved very little since prehistoric times. Yet new studies using genetic information from populations around the globe suggest that the pace of human evolution increased with the advent of agriculture and cities.
• If we are still evolving, what might our species look like in a millennium should we survive whatever environmental and social surprises are in store for us? Speculation ranges from the hopeful to the dystopian.
  
  

--- The Editors

In short, humanity's future could take one of several routes, assuming we do not go extinct:

Stasis. We largely stay as we are now, with minor tweaks, mainly as races merge.

Speciation. A new human species evolves on either this planet or another.
Symbiosis with machines. Integration of machines and human brains produces a collective intelligence that may or may not retain the qualities we now recognise as human

EDUCATION
The Latest Face of Creationism
by Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. Scott
Creationists who want religious ideas taught as scientific fact in public schools continue to adapt to courtroom defeats by hiding their true aims under ever changing guises
--- It's Your Move ---

[time line]

• Late 1910s and early 1920s: As high school attendance rises, more American students become exposed to evolution.
• 1925: Butler act in Tennessee outlaws the teaching of human evolution. Teacher John T. Scopes is prosecuted and convicted under the law, although the conviction is later overturned on a technicality.
• 1958: Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BCSC) is founded with funds from a federal government concerned about science education in the wake of Sputnik. BSCS's textbooks emphasise evolution, which was largely absent from textbooks after the Scopes trial; commercial publishers follow suit.
• 1968: Supreme Court rules in case of Epperson v. Arkansas that laws barring the teaching of evolution in public schools are unconstitutional. Teacher Susan Epperson was involved.

OWING TO THE UTTERLY UNRELIABLE QUALITY OF GOOGLE EDITING SOFTWARE, THE POSTING HAS TO END HERE.

Sandwalk: Nobel Laureates: Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod

Sandwalk: Nobel Laureates: Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod

This was brought to my attention by google alerts. It is just a reproduction of the nobel prize announcement but contains a large number of interesting links.

Feel Philosophy: Mysteries of the present will become more transparent if we can trace them to their origins in the very earliest past we can remember/not remember

INTERESTING ARTICLE ON PSYCHOLOGY

Feel Philosophy: Mysteries of the present will become more transparent if we can trace them to their origins in the very earliest past we can remember/not remember
This article by Tushar Mohapatra discusses Freud and Pavlov from the Marxist point of view. The author also mentions Trotsky's writing on the subject.

[brought to my attention by google alerts]

islamic mathematics

Islamic mathematics

ISLAMIC MATHEMATICS

The first article we refer to is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom . The House of Wisdom was a library and translation institute in the Abbasid era Baghdad, Iraq. The great scholars of the House of Wisdom (Arabic Bayt al-Hikma) included Al-Khwarizmi, the "father" of algebra, which takes its name from his book Kitab al-jabr. Caliph al-Mansur (reigned 754-775) built Baghdad and made it his capital. He founded a palace library modelled after the Sassanid Imperial Library. The secret of paper-making had been obtained from Chinese prisoners taken at the Battle of Talas (751).

The concept of library catalog was also introduced in the House of Wisdom and other medieval Islamic libraries, where books were organised into specific genres and categories.

Under caliph al-Mamun (reigned 813-833) the focus shifted from Persian to Greek texts. Al-Khwarizmi lived during this period. Another note on him is found at http://facstaff.uindy.edu/~oaks/MHMC.htm . The author of this article, Jeff Oaks, writes:

"Three major astronomical/geographical undertakings sponsored by al-Ma'mun were

• 
  
  the construction of observatories at Baghdad and Damascus, and the observations made there.
  
  
  
• 
  
  the calculation of the circumference of the earth based on the measurement of one terrestrial degree.
  
  
  
• 
  
  the construction of a world map.
  
  
  

In mathematics proper, algebra was invented to facilitate the calculations for the distribution of estates. The promulgation of Hindu numerals, together with algorithms for basic operations, also had practical consequences. Al-Khwarizmi wrote the earliest known treatises on both subjects."







Among the better known figures after al-Ma'mun's time was al-Farabi (870-950), who lived through the reign of six Abbasid caliphs. As a philosopher and scientist, he acquired proficiency in various branches of learning and is reported to have been an expert in different languages. He contributed considerably to science, philosophy, logic, sociology, medicine, mathematics and music. He came to be known as the 'Second Teacher' (al-Mou'allim al-Thani) Aristotle being the first. One of the important contributions of Farabi was to make the study of logic more easy by dividing it into two categories viz., Takhayyul (idea) and Thubut (proof). His work, aimed at the synthesis of philosophy and Sufism, paved the way for Ibn Sina's work.







Ibn Sina (980-1037), by the age of ten, had memorised the Quran and most of the Arabic poetry which he had read. When he reached the age of thirteen he began to study medicine and by the age of sixteen began to treat patients. He also studied logic and metaphysics. He wrote about 450 works of which around 240 have survived. Of the surviving works, 150 are on philosophy while 40 are devoted to medicine. He also wrote on psychology, geology, mathematics, astronomy, and logic. The mathematical topics he wrote on include geometry and mechanics.







Along with all other libraries in Baghdad, the House of Wisdom was destroyed during the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258. The Islamic legacy, however, continued in Spain until 1492 -- the year Columbus was sent to America; see http://wings.buffalo.edu/sa/muslim/Spain.htm .

A second wikipedia article which may be consulted is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_mathematics .

The Contribution to Mathematics: Al-Khwarizmi's book included the solution of quadratic equations. He introduced the technique of completing the square. He did not invent algebra. it was already practiced by trade groups and was transmitted before his time. The solution of quadratics already appears in the work of Brahmagupta (598-665) who developed some algebraic notation and presented methods to solve quadratics in his book Brahmasphutasiddhanta.







Although al-Farabi is described as a mathematician, not much is known of his actual contribution to the subject.







Ibn-Sina attempted to give a proof of Euclid's fifth postulate. His work on mechanics involves a classification of mechanisms going beyond that of Heron (~10-75) of Alexandria. He is known to have corresponded with the astronomer al-Biruni, whom he sent several letters to in answers to questions posed on topics such as philosophy, astronomy and physics.







Al-Biruni made important contributions to geodesy and geography. He was a contemporary of Mahmud of Ghazni, and wrote a book India when brought to the country to make astronomical observations.

References

1. 
   The wikipedia categories: History of Islamic Science | History of Iraq | Islamic Mathematics | Islamic Golden Age
   
2. 
   http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/Indexes/500_999.html
   
3. 
   http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/muslim/index.html
   

Also of interest

Quadratic, cubic and quartic equations