|
The Sum Of Our Discontent
''The Sum of Our Discontent'' is a nonfiction book by David Boyle. It was published by Texere in 2001. The tagline and theme of the book is "Why numbers make us irrational". Premise The author's premise is that humans have been trying to improve the quality of life and happiness by using numbers to count an increasing amount of things, and while it has worked in many ways, it has also had a cost in sanitizing the representation of existence by trying to reduce everything to numbers, and has not often been very effective. This tension is very similar to the one described in the classic ''The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution'' of C. P. Snow. Synopsis The first chapter is entitled "A Short History of Counting". It describes the progression of numbers from being considered divine in early history to their present-day pragmatism. It opens in 1904 Berlin with the story of a counting horse named Clever Hans, who was, to the relief of all, proved by psychologist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos ( grc, Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, Pythagóras ho Sámios, Pythagoras the Samian, or simply ; in Ionian Greek; ) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and, through them, the West in general. Knowledge of his life is clouded by legend, but he appears to have been the son of Mnesarchus, a gem-engraver on the island of Samos. Modern scholars disagree regarding Pythagoras's education and influences, but they do agree that, around 530 BC, he travelled to Croton in southern Italy, where he founded a school in which initiates were sworn to secrecy and lived a communal, ascetic lifestyle. This lifestyle entailed a number of dietary prohibitions, traditionally said to have included vegetarianism, although modern scholars doubt that he ever advocated complete vegetarianism. The teachin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Malthus
Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book '' An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Malthus observed that an increase in a nation's food production improved the well-being of the population, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth, which in turn restored the original per capita production level. In other words, humans had a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living, a view that has become known as the " Malthusian trap" or the "Malthusian spectre". Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship, want and greater susceptibility to war famine and disease, a pessimistic view that is sometimes referred to as a Malthusian catastrophe. Malthus wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unintended Consequences
In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton and expanded by economist Thomas Sowell and psychologist Stuart Vyse.Robert K. Merton, Versatile Sociologist and Father of the Focus Group, Dies at 92 Michael T. Kaufman, '''' Unintended consequences can be grouped into three types: * ''Unexpected benefit' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accounting
Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "language of business", measures the results of an organization's economic activities and conveys this information to a variety of stakeholders, including investors, creditors, management, and regulators. Practitioners of accounting are known as accountants. The terms "accounting" and " financial reporting" are often used as synonyms. Accounting can be divided into several fields including financial accounting, management accounting, tax accounting and cost accounting. Financial accounting focuses on the reporting of an organization's financial information, including the preparation of financial statements, to the external users of the information, such as investors, regulators and suppliers; and management accounting focuses on the measure ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luca Pacioli
Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (sometimes ''Paccioli'' or ''Paciolo''; 1447 – 19 June 1517) was an Italian mathematician, Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and an early contributor to the field now known as accounting. He is referred to as the father of accounting and bookkeeping and he was the first person to publish a work on the double-entry system of book-keeping on the continent. He was also called Luca di Borgo after his birthplace, Borgo Sansepolcro, Tuscany. Several of his works were plagiarised from Piero della Francesca, in what has been called "probably the first full-blown case of plagiarism in the history of mathematics". Life Luca Pacioli was born between 1446 and 1448 in the Tuscan town of Sansepolcro where he received an abbaco education. This was education in the vernacular (''i.e.'', the local tongue) rather than Latin and focused on the knowledge required of merchants. His father was Bartolomeo Pacioli; however, Luca Pacioli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abacus
The abacus (''plural'' abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool which has been used since ancient times. It was used in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. The exact origin of the abacus has not yet emerged. It consists of rows of movable beads, or similar objects, strung on a wire. They represent digits. One of the two numbers is set up, and the beads are manipulated to perform an operation such as addition, or even a square or cubic root. In their earliest designs, the rows of beads could be loose on a flat surface or sliding in grooves. Later the beads were made to slide on rods and built into a frame, allowing faster manipulation. Abacuses are still made, often as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires. In the ancient world, particularly before the introduction of positional notation, abacuses were a practical calculating tool. The abacus is still used to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerbert Of Aurillac
Pope Sylvester II ( – 12 May 1003), originally known as Gerbert of Aurillac, was a French-born scholar and teacher who served as the bishop of Rome and ruled the Papal States from 999 to his death. He endorsed and promoted study of Arab and Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics and astronomy, reintroducing to Europe the abacus and armillary sphere, which had been lost to Latin Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era. He is said to be the first in Europe to introduce the decimal numeral system using the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. He is credited with the invention of the first mechanical clock in 996. Early life Gerbert was born about 946 in the town of Belliac, near the present-day commune of Saint-Simon, Cantal, France. Around 963, he entered the Monastery of St. Gerald of Aurillac. In 967, Count Borrell II of Barcelona (947–992) visited the monastery, and the abbot asked the count to take Gerbert with him so that the lad could study mathematics in Catalonia and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Eastern Roman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Hertz
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz ( ; ; 22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. The unit of frequency, cycle per second, was named the "hertz" in his honor.IEC History . Iec.ch. Biography Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was born in 1857 in , then a sovereign state of the German Confederation, into a prosperous and cultured Hanseatic family. His father wa ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babylon
''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babili'' * Kassite: ''Karanduniash'', ''Karduniash'' , image = Street in Babylon.jpg , image_size=250px , alt = A partial view of the ruins of Babylon , caption = A partial view of the ruins of Babylon , map_type = Near East#West Asia#Iraq , relief = yes , map_alt = Babylon lies in the center of Iraq , coordinates = , location = Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq , region = Mesopotamia , type = Settlement , part_of = Babylonia , length = , width = , area = , height = , builder = , material = , built = , abandoned = , epochs = , cultures = Sumerian, Akkadian, Amorite, Kassite, Assyrian, Chaldean, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sasanian, Muslim , dependency_of = , occupants = , event = , excavations = , archaeologists = Hormuzd Rassam, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magi
Magi (; singular magus ; from Latin '' magus'', cf. fa, مغ ) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Persian texts, predating the Hellenistic period, refer to a magus as a Zurvanic, and presumably Zoroastrian, priest. Pervasive throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia until late antiquity and beyond, ''mágos'' (μάγος) was influenced by (and eventually displaced) Greek '' goēs'' (γόης), the older word for a practitioner of magic, to include astronomy/astrology, alchemy, and other forms of esoteric knowledge. This association was in turn the product of the Hellenistic fascination for Pseudo-Zoroaster, who was perceived by the Greeks to be the Chaldean founder of the Magi and inventor of both astrology and magic, a meaning that still survives in the modern-day ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
