Quotations from "And Man Created God" - A History of the World at the Time of Jesus by Selina O'Grady
"At the end of the first century BC, the world was full of gods. Thousands of them .."
"Galilee probably had more holy men, or Hasidim, living a life of poverty and performing miracles and healings than any other district of Palestine. < > As for miracles, people in the ancient world found nothing surprising in the idea of exceptional people performing exceptional deeds ..."
"Most Jews, including Jesus' family, thought they could juggle the demands of being both Jewish and Roman < > Some of Jesus' brothers had Greek names; some Jewish."
"Cults sprang up all over Galilee and Judaea, proclaiming their belief that the kingdom of God was at hand and that the Messiah would appear in their lifetime."
"About one or two years after he started preaching, Jesus and some of his followers joined the hundreds of thousands of Jews from all around the empire travelling to Jerusalem for Passover."
"Yet, according to the biblical historian Geza Vermes, Jesus would probably never have been executed if he had < > not made his religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It was in the already tense city of Jerusalem that his opposition to the Pharisees, his association with John the Baptist{his executed cousin}, and the claims made by some of his followers that he was the Messiah became such an incendiary combination to the authorities."
"Jesus was arrested by the Temple guard, which Paul had already or would soon join, and was charged with blasphemy. But blasphemy was a crime only under Jewish not Roman law < > So he was further charged with being a royal pretender, or political agitator, claiming to be the Messiah. This was an act of sedition, which was a crime under Roman law .."
"Pilate passed the buck for the final time and let the mob decide Jesus' fate."
"But why the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate and Caiphas, the Roman-appointed ruler of Jerusalem, and Antipas, Rome's client king, were so keen to escape responsibility for Jesus' execution is unclear. It may have been because Jesus had come to Jerusalem at a time when tensions between Jews and Romans were riding so high that the need to appease both 'sides' was particularly important and particularly difficult. It was unlikely to have been fear of Jesus' popularity, since the crowd standing in the courtyard of Pilate's fortress gave the thumbs down to Jesus."
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Experimental Blog # 188
Comments on 2 books:
# 1 "Math on Trial - How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom" by Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez
This mother and daughter mathematical team describe 10 historical or recent criminal trials where mathematics, that is, statistics and probability, were seriously misunderstood and/or misapplied to determine guilt or innocence. These math subjects, statistics and probability, turn out to be far more complicated than very many people really understand. This results in that the verdict of innocent or guilty depends on the authority of those explaining the particular math application.
The conclusion seems to be that a jury of peers of the accused can not and does not really decide the case, when such complicated mathematics is used. It might be said that this book subtly suggests that prison is not the right place for all guilty people.
#2 "Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an - Islam and the Founders" by Denise A. Spellberg
About 20 years ago many people were calling Thomas Jefferson a hypocrite. Another way to put the matter is to question whether "actions really, or always, speak louder than words", as the saying goes.
It certainly appears that in the life and work of Thomas Jefferson it was not so. The author, Denise Spellberg, describes Thomas Jefferson's intellectual efforts, that is, his words, in overwhelming detail; and he still seems overwhelmingly intellectually impressive. At the same time, Thomas Jefferson lived his whole long life on the product of African slavery, and not once convincingly spoke or acted against this way of life.
Thomas Jefferson's contemporary, John Adams, was intellectually just the opposite on the matter of African slavery, but he is hardly remembered very positively for anything.
Comments on 2 books:
# 1 "Math on Trial - How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom" by Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez
This mother and daughter mathematical team describe 10 historical or recent criminal trials where mathematics, that is, statistics and probability, were seriously misunderstood and/or misapplied to determine guilt or innocence. These math subjects, statistics and probability, turn out to be far more complicated than very many people really understand. This results in that the verdict of innocent or guilty depends on the authority of those explaining the particular math application.
The conclusion seems to be that a jury of peers of the accused can not and does not really decide the case, when such complicated mathematics is used. It might be said that this book subtly suggests that prison is not the right place for all guilty people.
#2 "Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an - Islam and the Founders" by Denise A. Spellberg
About 20 years ago many people were calling Thomas Jefferson a hypocrite. Another way to put the matter is to question whether "actions really, or always, speak louder than words", as the saying goes.
It certainly appears that in the life and work of Thomas Jefferson it was not so. The author, Denise Spellberg, describes Thomas Jefferson's intellectual efforts, that is, his words, in overwhelming detail; and he still seems overwhelmingly intellectually impressive. At the same time, Thomas Jefferson lived his whole long life on the product of African slavery, and not once convincingly spoke or acted against this way of life.
Thomas Jefferson's contemporary, John Adams, was intellectually just the opposite on the matter of African slavery, but he is hardly remembered very positively for anything.
Experimental Blog # 187
Quotations from "China's Silent Army" - The Pioneers, Traders, Fixers and Workers Who Are Remaking the World in Beijing's Image by Juan Pablo Cardenal and Heriberto Araujo, translated by Catherine Mansfield
" ... at exactly 8:08 p.m. on August 8, 2008, history changed its course. That moment marked the beginning of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games..."
"September 15, 2008, just three weeks after the end of the Olympics, marked the beginning of the crisis which threatened the downfall of the Western financial system."
"In a little less than a year, China's prestige and position in the rest of the world had taken a 180-degree turn, from treacherous dictatorship to savior of the world's economy."
"In just ten years the country has multiplied its trade with the rest of the world six times, with an increase from $510 billion in 2001 to $2.97 trillion in 2010."
"As there is no welfare state, the Chinese people save over 40 percent of their earnings, which represents the highest rate of savings in the world. < > this huge quantity of deposits is combined with < > "financial repression," which < > means that depositors are forced to lose money with their savings."
"Therefore the magic wand of limitless funding is paid for at great expense by Chines savers ..."
" ... the whole planet can now hear the deafening grinding of the tectonic movements caused by the rise of China < > The new world order is excellent news for many countries in the developing world. China's pragmatism offers undisputable benefits to < > many African countries that today have access to infrastructure which they had never even dreamed of .."
" ... who is capitalizing on the opportunities offered by China if it is not the local populations?
" ... you probably already know the answer: the local elites, whether economic and/or political, in both democratic countries and autocratic regimes."
Friday, August 1, 2014
Experimental Blog # 186
Notes and quotations from "Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field" - How Two Men Revolutionized Physics by Nancy Forbes and Basil Mahon and "The Age of Radiance" - The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era by Craig Nelson
From "Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field":
"Faraday's first notion of lines of force, < > grew into Maxwell's sophisticated mathematical theory, which predicted that every time a magnet jiggled, or an electric current was turned on or off, a wave of electromagnetic energy would spread out into space < >, changing the nature of space itself."
" ... something in space must be storing electromagnetic energy and transmitting its forces, .."
"Maxwell had achieved the seemingly impossible - he had derived the theory of the electromagnetic field directly from the laws of dynamics."
"These were the laws of motion that had been discovered by Newton, with one addition - the principle that energy was conserved in any closed system. The concept of energy in space was central to Maxwell's new approach ..."
"It{the mathematics} described how the various quantities interacted with one another and how they varied in space and time."
From "The Age of Radiance":
Of all the scientists referred to in this very comprehensive and probably controversial book, Robert Oppenheimer seems to be a close second to Enrico Fermi.
In the photo section of the book Craig Nelson says that, "Edward Teller{possibly fourth most referred to scientist after Leo Szilard} was the Richard Nixon of physics, testifying against Robert Oppenheimer and leading Ronald Reagan down the path of Star Wars. But many believe his invention if the hydrogen bomb made Alfred Nobel's dream come true, keeping the Cold War cold and the world at peace." The author expresses these opinions more than once in his book.
From "Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field":
"Faraday's first notion of lines of force, < > grew into Maxwell's sophisticated mathematical theory, which predicted that every time a magnet jiggled, or an electric current was turned on or off, a wave of electromagnetic energy would spread out into space < >, changing the nature of space itself."
" ... something in space must be storing electromagnetic energy and transmitting its forces, .."
"Maxwell had achieved the seemingly impossible - he had derived the theory of the electromagnetic field directly from the laws of dynamics."
"These were the laws of motion that had been discovered by Newton, with one addition - the principle that energy was conserved in any closed system. The concept of energy in space was central to Maxwell's new approach ..."
"It{the mathematics} described how the various quantities interacted with one another and how they varied in space and time."
From "The Age of Radiance":
Of all the scientists referred to in this very comprehensive and probably controversial book, Robert Oppenheimer seems to be a close second to Enrico Fermi.
In the photo section of the book Craig Nelson says that, "Edward Teller{possibly fourth most referred to scientist after Leo Szilard} was the Richard Nixon of physics, testifying against Robert Oppenheimer and leading Ronald Reagan down the path of Star Wars. But many believe his invention if the hydrogen bomb made Alfred Nobel's dream come true, keeping the Cold War cold and the world at peace." The author expresses these opinions more than once in his book.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Experimental Blog # 185
Quotations and notes from "The Cold War - A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis
"He{Stalin} acknowledged, in a wistful but revealing comment in 1947, that" {had}"Churchill delayed opening the second front in northern France by a year, the Red Army would have come to France < > {we} toyed with the idea of reaching Paris.""
"Atomic bombs were meant to be dropped, as soon as they were ready, on whatever enemy targets yet remained."
"Truman and his advisors < > encouraged Soviet military officers to tour the ruins of Hiroshima, and allowed them to witness the first postwar tests of the bomb, held in the Pacific in the summer of 1946."
"By 1959, he{Eisenhower} was insisting gloomily that if war came "you might as well go out and shoot everyone you see and then shoot yourself.""!!
"The charges made against Khrushchev" < > "on the day his Kremlin colleagues announced their intention to depose him{October 13, 1964}". " He was accused of rudeness, distraction, arrogance, incompetence, nepotism, megalomania, depression, unpredictability, and growing old."!!
On the night of May 9th, 1970, "unable to sleep, the president of the United States{Richard Nixon}, accompanied only by his valet and a driver, slipped out of the White House to try to reason with students maintaining a vigil in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Nixon was nervous to the point of incoherence, rambling on about Churchill, appeasement, surfing, football, his own environmental policies, and the advantages of traveling while young."
"Most experts would probably have agreed", in 1980, that "the global balance of power < > had been tilting in Moscow's favor through most of the 1970s." But "it has long since been clear - and should have been clearer at the time - that the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies were on the path to decline, and that détente was concealing their difficulties."
"He{Stalin} acknowledged, in a wistful but revealing comment in 1947, that" {had}"Churchill delayed opening the second front in northern France by a year, the Red Army would have come to France < > {we} toyed with the idea of reaching Paris.""
"Atomic bombs were meant to be dropped, as soon as they were ready, on whatever enemy targets yet remained."
"Truman and his advisors < > encouraged Soviet military officers to tour the ruins of Hiroshima, and allowed them to witness the first postwar tests of the bomb, held in the Pacific in the summer of 1946."
"By 1959, he{Eisenhower} was insisting gloomily that if war came "you might as well go out and shoot everyone you see and then shoot yourself.""!!
"The charges made against Khrushchev" < > "on the day his Kremlin colleagues announced their intention to depose him{October 13, 1964}". " He was accused of rudeness, distraction, arrogance, incompetence, nepotism, megalomania, depression, unpredictability, and growing old."!!
On the night of May 9th, 1970, "unable to sleep, the president of the United States{Richard Nixon}, accompanied only by his valet and a driver, slipped out of the White House to try to reason with students maintaining a vigil in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Nixon was nervous to the point of incoherence, rambling on about Churchill, appeasement, surfing, football, his own environmental policies, and the advantages of traveling while young."
"Most experts would probably have agreed", in 1980, that "the global balance of power < > had been tilting in Moscow's favor through most of the 1970s." But "it has long since been clear - and should have been clearer at the time - that the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies were on the path to decline, and that détente was concealing their difficulties."
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Experimental Blog # 184
Quotations and notes from "Strange Rebels - 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century" by Christian Caryl
"As events unfold around us, we interpret what we see through the prism of precedent, and then are amazed when it turns out that our actions never play out the same way twice."
"The upheaval in Iran had an explosive effect on the rest of the Islamic world."
" .. both Washington and Moscow failed to predict the forces that the invasion{of Afganistan in late 1979}would unleash."
"These five stories": the rise of Deng Xiaoping to the "top job" in China, the election of Margaret Thatcher as Britain's prime minister, the choice of Karl Jozef Wojtyla{John Paul II}as the Pope of the Catholic church, the rise of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as the leader of Iran, and the "budding Islamists" of Afganistan{who eventually defeated the Soviet invaders}, "have much more in common than at first meets the eye."
"The protagonists of 1979 were, in their own ways, participants in a great backlash against revolutionary overreach."
"Marxism < > was not just an academic theory about historical truth; its adherents believed that they held the key to superior economic management as well."
"Westerners did not know what to make of Khomeini. The leaders of contemporary revolutions were supposed to be flamboyant, strident, perhaps even promiscuous or a bit messy - like Mao or Che or the student activists in Paris or Frankfurt in the 1960s."
"As events unfold around us, we interpret what we see through the prism of precedent, and then are amazed when it turns out that our actions never play out the same way twice."
"The upheaval in Iran had an explosive effect on the rest of the Islamic world."
" .. both Washington and Moscow failed to predict the forces that the invasion{of Afganistan in late 1979}would unleash."
"These five stories": the rise of Deng Xiaoping to the "top job" in China, the election of Margaret Thatcher as Britain's prime minister, the choice of Karl Jozef Wojtyla{John Paul II}as the Pope of the Catholic church, the rise of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as the leader of Iran, and the "budding Islamists" of Afganistan{who eventually defeated the Soviet invaders}, "have much more in common than at first meets the eye."
"The protagonists of 1979 were, in their own ways, participants in a great backlash against revolutionary overreach."
"Marxism < > was not just an academic theory about historical truth; its adherents believed that they held the key to superior economic management as well."
"Westerners did not know what to make of Khomeini. The leaders of contemporary revolutions were supposed to be flamboyant, strident, perhaps even promiscuous or a bit messy - like Mao or Che or the student activists in Paris or Frankfurt in the 1960s."
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Experimental Blog # 183
Notes and Quotations from "The Man of Numbers - Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution" by Keith Devlin
"Prior to the thirteenth century < > the only Europeans who were aware of the system{the Hindu-Arabic number system} were < > scholars, who used it solely to do mathematics. < > That state of affairs started to change after 1202", when Leonardo of Pisa completed Liber abbaci, or "Book of calculation".
In 628 Brahmagupta, who lived in Bhillamala northwest India, introduced the number zero in his "mammoth treatise" called "The opening of the universe".
"In addition to its treatment of Hindi-Arabic arithmetic, Liber abbaci covers the beginnings of algebra and some applied mathematics."
"The Hindu-Arabic system took longer to migrate beyond Italy's borders, < > In 1494, the money changers in Frankfurt attempted to prohibit its use just as the Florentines had two centuries earlier .."
"If Shakespeare had not lived, for example, Hamlet would never have been written. In contrast, if Euclid had not proved that there are infinitely many primes, someone else would have."
"Hindu-Arabic arithmetic falls into the category of something waiting to be found."
"Prior to the thirteenth century < > the only Europeans who were aware of the system{the Hindu-Arabic number system} were < > scholars, who used it solely to do mathematics. < > That state of affairs started to change after 1202", when Leonardo of Pisa completed Liber abbaci, or "Book of calculation".
In 628 Brahmagupta, who lived in Bhillamala northwest India, introduced the number zero in his "mammoth treatise" called "The opening of the universe".
"In addition to its treatment of Hindi-Arabic arithmetic, Liber abbaci covers the beginnings of algebra and some applied mathematics."
"The Hindu-Arabic system took longer to migrate beyond Italy's borders, < > In 1494, the money changers in Frankfurt attempted to prohibit its use just as the Florentines had two centuries earlier .."
"If Shakespeare had not lived, for example, Hamlet would never have been written. In contrast, if Euclid had not proved that there are infinitely many primes, someone else would have."
"Hindu-Arabic arithmetic falls into the category of something waiting to be found."
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