The Modern World

After two thousand years we are back in a similar situation. While the evidence for an expanding universe was accumulating and the quantum theory was being formulated, theoretical advances with far-reaching consequences for cosmology were made elsewhere. Advances which led to the formulation of the theory of relativity, the only theory that enquires into the nature of matter and its distribution through space. 

Anti-science at its most effective invokes religious dogma to stifle scientific enquiry. A familiar example is Aristotle s prime mover, the only source of mechanical interaction, associated with a perfect god. In this case the philosopher came to share in the divine authority, which for centmies defied the onslaught of experimental physics. 

In the case of relativity and cosmology mrreason prevents the spread of scientific understanding. Based on irrelevant empirical awareness, however naive, relativistic phenomena are discussed pseudo-scientifically in non-relativistic context, for instance, to demonstrate the impossibility of time dilation if, by definition, universal time flow is empirically known to be absolute and invariant. 

Many others find it equally hard to stomach the notion of cmved space. Imagine those in a two-dimensional world with all motion restricted to a flat surface. Immediately we understand how such beings must have a mental block against picturing their surface as being curved. Only being aware of 

The decisive argument against big-bang cosmology is the fact that it is not a relativistic cosmology, as claimed. Ironically, many opponents of the theory, notably Halton Arp (1998), fail to appreciate this criticism and in order to refute the big bang, reject the theory of general relativity. 

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Scurvy results from a dietary vitamin C deficiency and involves the inability to form collagen fibrils properly. This is the result of reduced activity of prolyl hydroxylase, which is vitamin C-dependent, as previously noted. Scurvy leads to lesions in the skin and blood vessels, and, in its advanced stages, it can lead to grotesque disfiguration and eventual death. Although rare in the modern world, it was a disease well known to sea-faring explorers in earlier times who did not appreciate the importance of fresh fruits and vegetables in the diet. 

Merger of the ALEE and the IRE in 1963 into the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) preseiwed in its name a sense of the earlier bifurcation of the profession, but in fact the lines had become quite blurred and the numerous constituent societies drew and continue to draw from both traditions. At the end of the centuiy, the IEEE was easily the largest professional organization in the world with membership over 350,000. Its thirty-six constituent societies provided an indication of the degree to which electricity has pervaded the modern world, ranging from Communications and Lasers Electron... 

Yergin, D., and Stanislaw, J. (Contributor) (1998). The Commanding Heights The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That Is Remaking the Modern World. New York Simon Schuster. 

RNAse is an enzyme that catalyses the breakdown of RNA molecules into their component nucleotides. RNAses are extremely common in the modern world, resulting in very short life spans for any RNA that is not in a protected environment. 

Nisbet, I.C.T. (1989). Organochlorines reproductive impairment and declines in bald eagle populations mechanisms and dose-response relationships. In B.U. Meyburg and R.D. Chancellor (Eds.) Raptors in the Modern World. Proceedings of the Third World Conference on Birds of Prey and Owls, Berlin 483-489. 

The materialism of this eschatology expressed not body-soul dualism but rather a sense of self as a psychosomatic unity. The idea of person, bequeathed by the Middle Ages to the modern world, was not a concept of soul escaping body or soul using body it was a concept of self in which physicality was integrally bound to sensation, emotion, reasoning, identity-and therefore finally to whatever one means by salvation. ... 

Christianity. The course of the alchemical mystery is followed from the Near East through the Byzantine Empire and into Europe. During these travels many pioneers in this field are met, including Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, and Nicholas Flamel. The letters of Sendivogius to the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, almost completely unknown to the modern world, are discussed"... 

David T. Courtwright, Forces of Habit. Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 2001. David Courtwright is Professor of History at the University of North Florida. 

Essentially all biological catalysts in the modern world are themselves proteins, enzymes. However, in 1989 Sidney Altman and Thomas Cech received the Nobel prize in chemistry for showing that RNA itself could act as a catalyst for some biological reactions. This led to the idea that in an earlier time, as life was evolving, RNA may have been both the information molecule (a role usually played by the more stable DNA now) and the catalyst (the role that protein enzymes now play.) Since this idea indicates that in early times the synthesis of proteins was catalyzed by RNA, not by protein enzymes, the intriguing question is whether this is still true today. 

Botulism is thought to be one of the most deadly known toxins in the modern world it is able to kill an average adult with an estimated tiny dose. Botulism can also be turned into... 

In the modern world, we are accustomed to taking the chemical stability of glass very much for granted - we rely on the durability of glass for so many things, such as windows and (until the widespread availability of plastics) bottles, as well as its use in the chemical laboratory as an extremely inert and unreactive container. In addition to its apparent inertness, glass has a number of other beneficial properties, such as its transparency or the ability to take on virtually any colour as the result of the addition of a small amount of transition metals. 

The spread of economic development has pushed the use of automobiles to all parts of the modern world. The bulk of industrialized nations including Japan, Britain, Germany, France and others have seen great increases in energy use. At the end of the 20th century, the U. S. used more energy per capita than any other nation, twice the rate of Sweden and almost three times that of Japan or Italy. In 1988, the United States, with only 5% of the earth s population, consumed 25% of all the world s oil and released about a fourth of the world s atmospheric carbon. 

However, they do more than merely replace. They are lighter than metals, less brittle than glass, tougher than wood, less permeable than paper, more resistant than ceramics, and more decorative than cardboard. Plastics, and polystyrene as one of them, have secured their own firm place in the modern world and it is hard to imagine life without them. 

The Scientist and the Modern World. Trans. Wis. Acad., Sci., Arts, Letters, 53, 1-7 (1964). Presidential Address to Wisconsin Academy. 

Over the past years, some symposia and colloquia groups have provided especially valuable insights at critical times, and I would like to thank colleagues at the New Trends in the History of Science conference in Utrecht in August 1986, the Beckman Center symposium, Chemical Sciences in the Modern World, in May 1990, the International Summer School in History of Science in Uppsala in June 1990, and the conference on research schools in New Haven in December 1990. 

Physics and Chemistry Commensurate or Incommensurate Sciences " The Invention of Physical Science Intersections of Mathematics, Theology and Natural Philosophy Since the Seventeenth Century. Essays in Honor of Erwin N. Hiebert, ed. Mary Jo Nye et al. (Dordrecht Kluwer, 1992) 105224 "National Styles Research Schools in French and English Chemistry, 18801930," Osiris [2]8 (1993) 3049 and "Philosophies of Chemistry since the Eighteenth Century," in Seymour Mauskopf, ed., Chemical Sciences in the Modern World (Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press, in press). I am grateful for permissions to publish materials previously published. 

From a sampling of nineteenth-century statements about the aims of chemistry as a scientific discipline, Robert Friedel found the key words to be "composition," "properties," and "change." In Robert Friedel, "Defining Chemistry Origins of the Heroic Chemist," in Seymour Mauskopf, ed., Chemical Sciences in the Modern World. 

Justus Liebig and the Construction of Organic Chemistry." In Chemical Sciences in the Modern World. Ed. 

The Quiet Revolution of the 1850s Scientific Theory as Social Production and Empirical Practice." In Chemical Sciences in the Modern World. Ed. Seymour Mauskopf. Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press, in press. 

The complexity of the modern world is often beyond the explicit understanding of any individual. Much of this complexity stems from the technology inherent in our lifestyle, resulting in a standard of living undreamed of by some futurists. The standard of living, in terms of comfort, convenience, health and safety is however, not without its cost. 

But wait. Let s remember that chemicals have virtually transformed the modern world in extraordinarily beneficial ways. During the past 100 years the chemical industry has offered up, and we have eagerly consumed, thousands of highly useful materials and products. Among these products are many that have had profoundly beneficial effects on human health - antibiotics and other remarkable medicinal agents to prevent and cure diseases, pesticides to protect crops, preservatives to protect the food supply, plastics, fibers, metals and hundreds of other materials that have enhanced the safety and pleasures of modern... 

Trauma is unfortunately and remarkably common in the modern world. At least 40% of adults in the United States have been exposed to a traumatic life event. The prevalence of PTSD is also considerably higher than typically assumed with an overall lifetime rate in the United States of approximately 8%. 

As in the modern world, plant materials were used not only to treat disease but also for other purposes, the most important of which was to produce hallucinogenic, psychedelic, or other "out-of-body experiences. Many cultures throughout history have made the use of such materials an integral part of their religious ceremonies. For... 

Traditionally, lead compounds have been discovered in one of two ways. The hrst is one of trial and error. This is the way many plant and animal products and minerals have been found to be effective in the treatment of some medical disorder. For example, no one knows when the hrst person learned that chewing on the bark of the willow tree [Salix alba) helped relieve pain and reduce fever, but willow bark has been used in many cultures for untold centuries for just that purpose. Today we know that the active ingredient in willow bark is a derivative of salicylic acid (CgH4(OH)COOH), which today is sold commercially as aspirin or one of its analogs. Drug researchers continue to rely heavily on the study of folk medicines—a science known as ethnopharmacology—for the discovery of new plant and animal products that may have medical applications in the modern world. Indeed, scientists have discovered that the medical... 

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