Speculative History Research Articles

Some Reflections on Numerals in Sumerian towards a History of Mathematical Speculation

THE SUMERIAN NUMERALS HAVE MORE THAN ONCE since Samuel Noah Kramer's undergraduate days been the object of discussion, but still there is much that is puzzling about them. Unfortunately, the recent, comprehensive treatment of the subject by M. Powell became accessible to me only when this paper was practically finished.2 My study was induced by D. 0. Edzard's recent paper, where he treats the Sumerian numerals as listed in a school tablet from Ebla, and supplies much material upon which to reflect.3 Apparently, all that can be gleaned from the Sumerian material itself has by now been weighed and summed up, and since Sumerian has no known related languages, comparative historical research is impossible. Therefore I shall try to put the data in a typological context, comparing Sumerian numerals to numerals in other archaic languages. In order to escape subjectivity in using the latter term, I shall define as 'archaic' any language which, on the lexical level, has no or only poorly developed means of expressing abstract ideas, and on the grammatical level, is based on the opposition 'action vs. state' (or 'transitive action' vs. 'Intransitive action and state'). Such an opposition implies (a) that the subject of action (or of transitive action) is expressed by a specific oblique (ergative) case, while the subject of state, including the state resulting from an action, is expressed by the direct or absolute (usually zero) case, and (b) that a grammatical category of the direct object as distinct from the subject of a state does not exist in the syntax, nor that of the accusative case in the morphology.4 In an archaic language there are no adequate means, either lexical or grammatical, to express such abstract ideas as 'time', space', 'subject', 'object', 'cause', 'beauty', 'liberty', 'invention', 'multiplication', 'division' and many others, some of which appear to us elemental, as, e.g., the distinction between 'darkness', 'calamity', 'illness', and 'pain', etc., or between 'good', 'enjoyable', 'kind', 'happy', 'useful', 'lucky', etc. However, human thought is impossible without inductive thinking, i.e., thought which proceeds from particular facts to a generalization. In the absence of means to express general ideas, one resorts to generalization by tropes (metaphors and metonymies). All myths are actually generalizations of the empirical facts of life through tropes, and, like all tropes, they are pregnant with man's emotional attitudes to the facts. The development of lexical and grammatical means to express general ideas opens the way, on the one hand, for scientific thought, which has as its goal a nonemotional cognition of objects, and on the other, for specifically artistic thought, whose goal is the emotional cognition of man's attitude toward and relation to objects.

The N 2-broadened water vapor absorption line shape and infrared continuum absorption—I. Theoretical development

Attenuation of infrared radiation in the troposphere is dominated by water vapor absorption. Most past work on the spectroscopy of water vapor has been on the analysis of the rotational and vibrational bands. As a result, a thorough listing of line positions, line strengths, and half-widths exists today. Because of the weak continuum absorption in the water vapor windows centered at 10 and 4 μm, efforts to measure and model the continuum have not been as succesful as efforts in the analysis of the bands. Yet, a precise understanding of continuum absorption is important for long path energy transmission. For this reason, the study of the water vapor windows has had a long and speculative history. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the importance of far wing phenomena in characterizing H 2O continuum absorption. A total line shape for water vapor-nitrogen interactions valid under tropospheric conditions is derived. The complexity of such a model is substantial and many approximations are necessary to obtain a tractable theory. This effort represents one of the initial attempts at a far wing line shape solution of continuum absorption. Application of the model to existing experimental data is presented in the following article.

Geradamas, the Celestial Stranger

Four of those tractates from Nag Hammadi for which as a group the convenient but nebulous label ‘Sethian’ has been adopted use a strange and previously unknown designation for the primal Man that has so far defied satisfactory decipherment. The scholar last to venture a solution to the riddle prefaces his attempt, and a bibliographical litany of earlier attempts (including one of his own), with the discomforting admission that ‘eine voll befriedigende Deutung dieser Bezeichnung steht m. E. noch aus. Jede der bisher vorgeschlagenen Deutungen hat ihre offenkundigen Schwächen’.1 In this paper I propose to review and evaluate the interpretations that have so far been suggested and, at the risk of adding only another discordant note to the chorus, to offer what I believe is the correct solution, together with some suggestions as to the setting in which the name was formed, and why. It is of some significance for the history of early speculation about the prototypical Adam.

“Male and Female He Created Them”: Gen 1:27b in the Context of the Priestly Account of Creation

In the history of biblical interpretation and dogmatic speculation, Gen 1:26–28 has proved remarkably fecund as a source of exegetical and theological reflection. Literature on the passage is now boundless, but shows no sign of ceasing or abating, despite the appearance in recent decades of several exhaustive treatments of the text and the existence of substantial consensus among biblical scholars. The reason for the perpetual fascination of the passage lies in the nature and limits of the text. The verses contain a fundamental, and unique, statement of biblical anthropology and theology–presented in a terse and enigmatic formulation. A rare attempt within the OT literature to speak directly and definitively about the nature of humanity in relation to God and other creation, the statement is at once limited in its content, guarded in its expression, and complex in its structure. As a consequence, philologist and theologian are enticed and compelled in ever new contexts of questions and understandings to explore anew the meaning and implications of creation “in the divine image”–for it is this striking and unique expression, above all, that has dominated the discussion.

Intermediate Bosons: Weak Interaction Couriers

Recent progress toward a complete theory of the weak interactions has led to sharper predictions for the properties of the hypothetical weak-force particles known as intermediate bosons. The history of speculations about intermediate bosons is briefly summarized and the (as yet negative) searches carried out for these particles are reviewed. Prospects for future searches-both direct ad indirect-are surveyed, and the consequences of finding the expected or unexpected are noted.

Phonetically motivated parallels between child phonology and historical sound change

There is a long history of speculation in linguistic about the role of children, i.e., first language learners, in sound change. Many assume that the child is the initiator of sound change. More recently, however, important differences have been brought to light between child language phonology and diachronic phonology, thus calling into question the role of the child language learner in sound change. In this paper, we document several cross-language parallels between phonological processes exhibited by children learning their language and in “adult” phonology, i.e., allophonic variation, diachronic processes, dialect variation, etc. All are processes which can be explained phonetically by reference to acoustic-auditory factors. We argue, however, not that the “adult” sound patterns originated in child phonology, but that both stem from the same underlying physical phonetic causes, i.e., that both child and adult create such sound patterns independently, because they both possess the same phonetic apparatus. The question “who initiates sound change?” cannot, therefore, be answered by citing parallels, or lack of them, between child and adult phonology. Rather, we need to know who is it, child or adult, that is more likely to have his/her pronunciation mistakes copoied by others, in this way leading to a pronunciation change characteristic of a whole linguistic community?

Studies of Asilidae (Diptera) systematics and evolution: II. The tribes of Dasypogoninae

The Asilidae subfamily Dasypogoninae is divided in 5 tribes: Blepharepiini (1 genus), Lastaurini (11 genera), Isopogonini (16 genera), Megapodini (8 genera), and Dasypogonini (34 genera). A brief diagnosis of the tribes, a list of their genera, their distribution, and a speculative history of their phylogeny in the light of the present knowledge of continental drift, are given.

Middle Cretaceous Nappe Structures in Puerto Rican Ophiolites and Their Relation to the Tectonic History of the Greater Antilles: Reply

Radiolarian chert, serpentinized peridotite, pillow lava, and metamorphosed tholeiitic rocks form an ophiolite association in southwestern Puerto Rico. These are the oldest rocks in Puerto Rico and apparently represent exposed oceanic crust. Relations between the lithologies are complex; there is an older complex of serpentinized peridotite and metatholeiite 110 m.y. old or older, an intermediate pillow lava and felsite association, and a younger radiolarian chert formation of middle Cretaceous (Albian) or older age. A gravitational nappe structure, showing northward movement probably of Albian or earlier age, is composed of a disharmonically deformed sheet of radiolarian chert. Serpentinite occurs in small lenses along the sole of the nappe and probably served as a lubricant for movement of the nappe. A second nappe is suggested, on less extensive data, to have moved Campanian-Maestrichtian pelagic limestones northward over the older chert nappe. This movement occurred in Maestrichtian or later time and is perhaps synchronous with smaller northward slides of the same formation during the Maestrichtian about 20 km to the north. Other northward slides occurred in early Tertiary time in several places in southern Puerto Rico. Northward gravity transport of the nappes and other slides is opposite to the sense of tectonic transport indicated by northward-dipping axial planes in the volcanic and volcano-sedimentary rocks in central Puerto Rico. Similar relations exist in Cuba where thrust and gravity slides show northward motion toward and into the volcanic pile. Gravity transport may have been from an oceanic ridge northward toward a trench, with volcanism developing between the two structures. Early buckling of lithosphere plates into an oceanic ridge and complementary trench, before rupture and subduction, may provide the necessary relief for gravitational trench-ward slides. A speculative geologic history of the Greater Antilles contains three stages: (1) pre-Albian buckling of the lithosphere into ridge and trench, with gravitational sliding of crustal rocks toward the trench; (2) rupture of the lithosphere and Albian-Campanian (or Maestrichtian) subduction, forming volcanism between ridge and trench; (3) choking of the Benioff zone by continental lithosphere of the northern plate, and further Maestrichtian to Eocene movement resolved along lateral faults with fault-controlled volcanism along an ancestral Cayman trough–Puerto Rico trench trend.

Variation of the Strong and Electromagnetic Coupling Constants over Cosmological Times

THERE has been a long history of speculation on the possibility that the fundamental constants of physics may vary slowly over long periods of time1,2. This speculation was most recently brought forward as a possible explanation of the cosmological redshift2. Numerous authors pointed out that there are many reasons for ruling out any large scale variations of the fine structure constant (electrical charge) with time3. In this article, we show that on the basis of the liquid drop model of the nucleus and the observed half lives and abundances of the transuranium elements, approximate limits can be put on the rate of change of the ratio g2/e2, where e is the electric charge of the electron and g is the strong coupling constant. If we assume that the strong interactions do not vary as a function of time, then we find limits of the time rate change of e of about the same stringency as those in refs. 3, 4 and 5. If, however, we assume the conclusions3–5 that e does not change as a function of time, then we can show that the quantity must be less than ∼2×10−11 yr−1.

Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890-1936.

Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890-1936.

Reviews

Book Reviews in This Article:F. R. H. du Boulay. The Lordship of Canterbury. An Essay on Medieval Society.Elspeth M. Veale. The English Fur Trade in the Later Middle Ages. Faculty Office Registers, 1534‐1549. A Calendar of the first two Registers of the Archbishop of Canterbury s Faculty Office.A. J. Slavin. Politics and Profit: a study of Sir Ralph Sadler, 1507‐47.D. M. Livock (Ed.). City Chamberlains’ Accounts in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.A. M. Everitt. The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion.Peter Laslett. The World We Have Lost.Lionel Munby. Hertfordshire Population Statistics.A. D. Francis. The Methuens and Portugal, 1691‐1708.D. F. McKenzie. The Cambridge University Press, 1696‐1712. A Bibliographical Study.Sir Francis Hill. Georgian Lincoln. Camden Miscellany.R. M. Barton. A History of the Cornish China‐Clay Industry.John Burnett. Plenty and Want. A Social History of Diet in England from 1815 to the Present Day.M. W. Flinn (Ed.). Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain, by Edwin Chadwick, 1842.E. J. Hobsbawm. Labouring Men. Studies in the History of Labour.Frank Whitson Fetter. Development of British Monetary Orthodoxy, 1797‐1875.J. M. Hussey (Ed.). The Cambridge Medieval History.Henry J. Cohn. The Government of the Rhine Palatinate in the Fifteenth Century.Carlo M. Cipolla. Guns and Sails in the Early Phase of European Expansion, 1400‐1700.Alain Dubois. Die Salzversorgung des Wallis, 1500‐1610. Wirtschaft und Politik.Z. Y. Hershlag. Introduction to the Economic History of the Middle East.Sunil Kumar Sen. Studies in Industrial Policy and Development of India.Frank H. H. King. Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1845‐1895.William W. Lockwood (Ed.). The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan.Eijiro Honjo. The Social and Economic History of Japan.UNITED STATES OF AMERICAStuart Bruchey. The Roots of American Economic Growth, 1607‐1861: An Essay in Social Causation.Daniel H. Calhoun. Professional Lives in America: Structure and Aspiration, 1750‐1850.Frederick G. Jensen. Capital Growth in Early America.Alice E. Smith. George Smith's Money.Albert Fishlow. American Railroads and the Transformation of the Ante Bellum Economy.Eugene D. Genovese. The Political Economy of Slavery, Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South.David T. Gilchrist and W. David Lewis (Eds.). Economic Change in the Civil War Era.Thomas J. Pressly and William H. Scofield (Eds.). Farm Real Estate Values in the United States by Counties, 1850‐1959.Thomas W. Gavett. Development of the Labor Movement in Milwaukee.Gabriel Kolko. Railroads and Regulation, 1877‐1916.J. D. B. De Bow. The Industrial Resources, Statistics, etc. of the United States.Thomas R. Brooks. Toil and Trouble: A History of American Labor.Harvey S. Perloff, Edgar S. Dunn, Jr, Eric E. Lampard, and Richard F. Muth. Regions, Resources, and Economic Growth.J. Van Fenstermaker. The Development of American Commercial Banking: 1782‐1837.Robert F. Durden. The Climax of Populism: The Election of 1896.Cedric B. Cowing. Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890‐1936.Marshall R. Colberg. Human Capital in Southern Development, 1939‐1963.Joe S. Bain. International Differences in Industrial Structure: Eight Mations in the 1950's.Jacob Schmookler. Invention and Economic Growth.M. Da Pozzo and G. Felloni. La Borsa Valori di Genova nel secolo XIX.Valerio Castronovo. L'industria laniera in Piemonte nel secolo XIX.PERIODICAL LITERATURE, 1965

Populists, Plungers and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890-1936, by Cedric B. Cowing

Populists, Plungers and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890-1936, <i>by Cedric B. Cowing</i>

Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890–1936. By &lt;italic&gt;Cedric B. Cowing&lt;/italic&gt;. (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press. 1965. Pp. vi, 299. $6.50.)

Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890–1936. By Cedric B. Cowing. (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press. 1965. Pp. vi, 299. $6.50.) Get access Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890–1936. By Cowing Cedric B.. (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press. 1965. Pp. vi, 299. $6.50.) Jeannette P. Nichols Jeannette P. Nichols University of Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 71, Issue 3, April 1966, Pages 1085–1086, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/71.3.1085 Published: 01 April 1966

Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890-1936.

Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890-1936.

Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890-1936

Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890-1936

Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890–1936. By Cedric B. Cowing. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1965. Pp. vi + 229. $6.50. - The Great Boom and Panic, 1921–1929. By Robert T. Patterson. Chicago, Henry Regnery Company, 1965. Pp. xiv + 282. $6.50.

Populists, Plungers, and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890–1936. By Cedric B. Cowing. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1965. Pp. vi + 229. 6.50. - Volume 40 Issue 1

Grade Not

Perhaps no word has received such varied treatment from philosophers as the word ‘good’. No doubt this is largely due to the fact that it is a word with an unusually wide range of use. Aristotle, for example, realised that it is a term that can be applied to substances, qualities, relations, actions, passivities, times and places, and we may notice that he was of the opinion that the term must have different meanings when applied in these different categories. Many of the usages which are distinguishable in everyday speech have given rise to corresponding theories about the nature of goodness. Indeed if we survey the history of philosophical speculation about goodness, we find that there are just about as many theories about goodness as there are distinct uses of the word ‘good’. For example, goodness has been variously described as an unique quality, as a consequential property, as a relational property, etc., and the word ‘good’ has been described as a term of commendation or approval, and its attributive, predicative and instrumental senses, to name a few, have been distinguished.

Towards a Theory of Power and Political Instability in Latin America

o N^NE MAY consider James B. Conant has observed, an attempt... lower the degree of empiricism or extend the range of theory.... Almost all significant work of scientists today, I believe, comes under the heading of attempts reduce the degree of empiricism. 1 Despite the conception of science and theory prevalent in the natural sciences and reflected in the formulation of Conant, the discipline of political science has yet reject decisively the notion of theory as an aggregation of metaphysical speculations unrelated experience and practice. Academically, in fact, the field of political theory, within the discipline of political science, traditionally has defined its role as recording, with varied degrees of interpretation, the history of metaphysical speculations in the area of politics and the state.2 But theorizing, even about politics, as Lasswell and Kaplan correctly assert, not be confused with metaphysical speculation in terms of abstractions hopelessly removed from empirical observation and control. 3 Within a scientific framework, consequently, a theory of power and instability in Latin America must attempt discharge at least four functions. (1) An adequate theory must serve to reduce the degree of empiricism; that is, it must place in a broad and meaningful context the apparently disconnected manifestations of instability in Latin America. (2) It must offer generalizations regarding the exercise of power and the prevalence of instability in Latin America which are compatible with the available evidence. (3) It must offer a guide and provide a framework for relevant research. A scientific theory neither anticipates every future event nor solves every practical problem. A theory with scientific pretensions, however, does provide directions for the investigation and solution of subsequent problems. (4) A theory of Latin American instability, if it is

The Kinetic Basis of Molecular Biology

The authors set forth the logical consequences of the hypothesis that two molecules in reacting chemically first form an "activated complex" or intermediate molecule with an average lifetime of the order of one ten-trillionth of a second. An opening chapter traces the history of experimentation and speculation, beginning with the work of Arrhenius in 1889. The remaining chapters explain the implications of the hypothesis in the biochemistry of lun[ill]inescence, temperature effects, pressure effects, membrane potentials, transmission of nerve fibers, narcosis by anesthetics, and muscular contraction. The discussion is exhaustive and scholarly, and a reader who wishes to follow all of the text will find he needs a command of mathematics well beyond differential and integral calculus. An accurate bibliography, alphabetically arranged by authors' names, also serves as an author index, covers 85 pages, and is followed by a subject index. This book will be a necessary reference work for anyone

Some Early Speculations on the Origin of Human Races

T HE publication of Professor Count's anthology This Is Race has done much to stimulate interest in the history of research and speculation concerning the races of man, a subject which historians of science have only begun to explore. In 1946 Count (p. 142) divided the history of raciology into four periods-the eighteenth-century (to 1815), the pre-Darwinian period (1815-1860), the post-Darwinian period (1860-1914), the twentieth-century (since 1914)-and went on to describe the leading developments of the second period, with some reference to the earlier work of Blumenbach and Kant.' The present article deals with the period before 1815 and especially with theories of race formation.