Author Archives: Nicolae Sfetcu

One of the most characteristic productions of the century is De jure belli et pacis (1625) by Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), the author of the doctrine of the law of nature, which claims to find universal rules and obligatory for all … Read More

Let us indicate, in its essential features, the change of mind produced by the prodigious success and by the diffusion of Newton’s celestial mechanics: at the beginning of the 18th century, a sort of Cartesian orthodoxy reigned almost everywhere in … Read More

It is visible that there is, looking at things broadly, a reduction in the taste and the power of analysis which had marked the eighteenth century; from the end of the 18th century, we noticed in Rousseau and many illuminists … Read More

The poet and the analyst, the seer and the man of reflection, after Coleridge and Carlyle, these two types emerged in English thought with extremely marked features and in irreconcilable opposition. James Mill tried to transmit to his son, John … Read More

Identity Pinocchio is, above all, what he is not. His identity is often played to the limit, imagined by himself and everyone he meets along the way. Pinocchio is the name of life that is simultaneously inorganic, human and animal. … Read More

Functioning Figure 3. Isotope exchange plant with water distillation. Source: Magazine, no. 7/2008. Translation and editing Nicolae Sfetcu With the help of the previously prepared sodium sulfide, it was proceeded to the preparation of hydrogen sulfide used in the isotopic … Read More

Generally speaking, removing from previous doctrines everything which gives them their apocalyptic and visionary character, you obtain new doctrines which have a skeptical and discouraged aspect, or which, conversely, expect a lot from human forces and very little from natural … Read More

The middle of the century saw the end of all the hopes, more or less sincere, that were placed in the great philosophical and social constructions. The second period opened which lasted until around 1890. The general theme of thought … Read More

(The Anticitera mechanism, an analog computer built in Antigua to predict astronomical positions and eclipses. Algunas de las ciencias de las primeras civilizaciones fueron la astronomy y las mathematics) The history of science is the study of the evolution of … Read More

From 1800 to the present day, we can distinguish three large, fairly well-defined periods: from 1800 to 1850, an extraordinary flowering of broad and constructive doctrines, which claim to reveal the secret of nature and history and to make known … Read More

Our notion of “intelligent behavior” is strongly biased by our understanding of the brain and how computers work: intelligence is located in our heads. In fact, however, a lot of behavior that looks intelligent can be achieved by very simple … Read More

Now I must add that I consider these changes beneficial. Let us indeed leave ponderable matter behind. What would my situation be with regard to light, and more generally electromagnetic facts, if my dimensions of space and time had remained … Read More