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Benvenuti in queste pagine dedicate a scienza, storia ed arte. Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Torino

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Grossatesta ed il Big Bang

Roberto Grossatesta è il filosofo medievale che si è posto il problema dell'origine del mondo, un modo ancora tolemaico con al suo centro la Terra. Come dice la Genesi "e la luce fu". La luce nella sua espansione sferica porta con se la materia e crea il mondo.

Dalla pagina sul "Ilemorfismo universale"
http://www3.unisi.it/ricerca/prog/fil-med-online/temi/htm/ilemorfismo.htm
La cosmologia: Roberto Grossatesta. All’interno di una visione cosmologica, anche Roberto Grossatesta, capofila della tradizione francescana a Oxford, pone i rapporti tra forma e materia nei termini di una intrinseca unione. Accogliendo pienamente alcuni aspetti della speculazione scientifica araba, egli parla della luce come “prima forma della corporeità”. Oggetto della creazione divina, la luce sintetizza la forma e la materia nella loro esistenza primordiale. Assolutamente semplice e priva di dimensionalità, essa produce la materia estesa moltiplicandosi infinitamente. Grossatesta affida dunque alla luce l’esistenza di una materialità sottile, di per sé e sin dall’origine dotata di forma. La naturale e necessaria autopropagazione della luce gli consente, inoltre, di spiegarne il dinamismo intrinseco, da cui nasce l’intero cosmo: che raccoglie la luce originaria come lumen nel mondo astrale e come virtus in quello elementare, senza perdere il suo carattere unitario dato dall’unica forma corporea da cui è provenuto.


Dal CORSO DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA PER I LICEI E PER GLI ADULTI CHE DESIDERANO CONOSCERLA: DALLA FILOSOFIA ANTICA A QUELLA CONTEMPORANEA, s cura di Francesco Lorenzoni, 2012, V.1, FILOSOFIA ANTICA E MEDIEVALE
"Ad Oxford Roberto Grossatesta, francescano, nato nel 1175, compie studi di specifica natura scientifica ed empirica sulle proprietà degli specchi e sulle lenti, benché all'interno di una "cosmologia della luce" (la prima realtà creata è la luce e le nove sfere celesti, mentre i quattro elementi terrestri si formano attraverso processi di diffusione, aggregazione e disgregazione della luce). Ma soprattutto egli esprime un principio che sarà a fondamento del pensiero di Galileo e della fisica moderna, vale a dire il principio dell'utilità dello studio delle linee, degli angoli e delle figure geometriche, poiché senza di esso non si può conoscere niente della filosofia naturale."

La teoria della luce di Roberto Grossatesta



estratto "Da Democrito ai quark, le grandi intuizioni della Fisica"
volume realizzato per il LXXXVII Congresso Nazionale della Società Italiana di Fisica

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Robert Grosseteste

A.C. Sparavigna (2014)
De Calore Solis, a Treatise on Heat by Robert Grosseteste. In: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCES, vol. 3 n. 1, pp. 27-31. - ISSN 2305-3925

A.C. Sparavigna (2014)
Robert Grosseteste and the Colours. In: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCES, vol. 3 n. 1, pp. 1-6. - ISSN 2305-3925

A.C. Sparavigna (2013)
From Rome to the Antipodes: The Medieval Form of the World. In: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LITERATURE AND ART, vol. 1 n. 2, pp. 16-25.

A.C. Sparavigna (2013)
Gabrio Piola e il suo Elogio di Bonaventura Cavalieri. Lulu Press, Inc, Raleigh, North Carolina , pp. 1-79. ISBN 9781291298567

A.C. Sparavigna (2013)
The Generation of Sounds According to Robert Grosseteste. In: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCES, vol. 2 n. 10, pp. 1-5. - ISSN 2305-3925

A.C. Sparavigna (2013)
On the Rainbow, a Robert Grosseteste's Treatise on Optics. In: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCES, vol. 2 n. 9, pp. 108-113. - ISSN 2305-3925

A.C. Sparavigna (2013)
Reflection and refraction in Robert Grosseteste's De Lineis, Angulis et Figuris. arXiv.org, Cornell University Library, Ithaca NY.

A.C. Sparavigna (2013)
Robert Grosseteste and his Treatise on Lines, Angles and Figures of the Propagation of Light. In: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCES, vol. 2 n. 9, pp. 101-107. - ISSN 2305-3925

A.C. Sparavigna (2013)
Robert Grosseteste and the Four Elements. In: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCES, vol. 2 n. 12, pp. 42-45. - ISSN 2305-3925

A.C. Sparavigna (2013)
Robert Grosseteste: the geometry to solve the complexity of the world. Scribd, San Francisco.

Sparavigna A.C. (2012)
Discussion of the De Generatione Sonorum, a treatise on sound and phonetics by Robert Grosseteste. Scribd, San Francisco, California.

A.C. Sparavigna (2012)
From Rome to the Antipodes: the medieval form of the world. arXiv.org, Cornell UniversityLibrary.

Sparavigna A.C. (2012)
Robert Grosseteste's colours. arXiv.org, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY.

Sparavigna A.C. (2012)
Sound and motion in the De Generatione Sonorum, a treatise by Robert Grosseteste. arXiv, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY.

Sparavigna A.C. (2012)
Translation and discussion of the De Iride, a treatise on optics by Robert Grosseteste. arXiv, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

The Pantheon as an astronomic instrument

Fiorenzo Laurelli (Twitter) published some interesting images on the sun in the Roman Pantheon.
In occasion of the Equinox he shows the light of the sun falling in this amazing temple. He is also providing an interesting reference of this subject: Il Pantheon come strumento astronomico, Fausto Masi, International EILES, 1996 .
Let us remember that the Pantheon is a building made of concrete. For more information on ancient concrete, see please my paper at the link http://www.ijsciences.com/pub/article/412




Saturday, February 1, 2014

stone circle - 2 - Jordan

Stone circles in Jordan.
Syrian desert.


Stone circle and desert kite

Stone circle and desert kite in Jordan

Stone circle - Jordan - 1


A stone circle in Jordan

About Jordan and the Syrian Desert, see also:

Desert kites - 1


The Syrian Desert is an arid land of south-western Asia, extending from the northern Arabian Peninsula to the eastern Jordan, southern Syria, and western Iraq, largely covered by lava fields. Considered in the past as a barrier between Levant and Mesopotamia, it is now crossed by several routes and pipelines. This desert possesses two volcanic regions. One is the Jabal al-Druze, in the As-Suwayda Governorate. The other field is that of the Harrat Ash Shaam.

When we observe this desert from space, we discover that this harsh environment was probably quite populated in ancient times. We can conclude this fact from some huge stone structures, the "desert kites", that can be easily seen in the images recorded by satellites. These structures were firstly observed by pilots of the Royal Air Force in the 1920s, flying over the desert. These pilots named them "kites", because these lines reminded of kites used by children to play, but in fact they are huge hunting traps.

We usually imagine our ancestors, before they settle down, as people simply hunting and gathering for food, but this is not true. The "desert kites" are the remains of an ancient hunting technique based on stone-walled traps, the construction of which surely involved several people for long times. The desert kites were used to push large herds of animals into some enclosures, or, in the worse case, to fall off from steep cliff edges. The simplest structure of a desert kite has a triangular shape, consisting of two long, low walls built of stones and arranged in a V-shape, like a  funnel, ending as a corral. Hunters pushed the game between the walls, trapping then the animals into the end of the structure. It is usually considered that animals were slaughtered “en masse”.

Typically, a desert kite possesses two, three or more small circular enclosures on the edge of its corral. Some ancient rock art images show these hunting traps, depicting the role of the 'walls' of the kites. Let us note that these walls are low and then not able to stop any game. In fact, the walls are not walls at all: they are the basements, in the rocky harraat, where stick some poles and build a fence with branches. These structures create a visual effect as a barrier for the animals.



"Kite" rock-drawing from Jordan,  G.L. Harding: The Cairn of Hani, Antiquity 28,1954:pp 165-7
(2007-02-22) In 1951, Harding discovered a burial cairn with Safaitic inscriptions. On one of the stones was scratched a hunting scane.The cairn is located in the heart of the 'Kite' area,there is no doubt that the drawing depicts a scane of the gazelles being hunted in such a' Kite'.

References
23 June 2011,  http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.4665 , http://arxiv.org/pdf/1106.4665v1.pdf
February 2009, Khaybar Desert Kites, Vanja Janežic
alsahra.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/khaybar-desert-kites.pdf
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146412866

Friday, December 27, 2013

Trundholm Sun Chariot and Langstrup Plate

Read please this post, very interesting

Les dues vides del Carro Solar de Trundholm, Publicat per Albert
títol del TREBALL DE FINAL DE GRAU,  carrera d'Humanitats  a la UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA.
at http://alauniversitat.blogspot.it/2013/11/les-dues-vides-del-carro-solar-de.html
And also /news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/bronze-age-calendar-120330.htm



By Nationalmuseet, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47971456

See also: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2512
Ancient bronze disks, decorations and calendars, Amelia Carolina Sparavigna
(12 Mar 2012) Recently, it was published that some ancient bronze disks could had been calendars, that is, that their decorations had this function. Here I am discussing an example, the disk of the Trundholm Sun Chariot, proposing a new interpretation of it, giving a calendar of 360 days. Some geometric diagrams concerning the decoration layout are also proposed. Comments: Ancient calendars, ancient time-keeping, Bronze Age, Trundholm Sun Chariot
Cite as: arXiv:1203.2512 [physics.pop-ph]

See also http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.4103
Number pi from the decoration of the Langstrup plate, Amelia Carolina Sparavigna
(19 Mar 2012), Studies of ancient bronze artifacts can be useful in understanding the progression of human knowledge of mathematics and geometry. Here I discuss the decoration composed by several circles and spirals of the Langstrup belt disk, an artifact of the Bronze Age found in Denmark. I am showing by measurements of diameters and distances of spirals, that the artist who made the decoration knew some approximations by rational numbers of the number pi, the dimensionless physical quantity representing the ratio of circumference to diameter. Comments: Ancient measurements of pi as ratio of circumference and diameters, giving rational numbers,
Cite as: arXiv:1203.4103 [physics.pop-ph]

Thursday, October 24, 2013

A literary experiment on Harry Potter and his social network

Literary works can be analyzed in the framework of the network theories, as proposed for instance by the Stanford Literary Laboratory, in some of their experiments. The plot of a play or a novel, can be displayed as a network of interacting characters, where the timeline of the plot is projected on a planar graph. We can discuss this approach and apply it to the first novel of the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowling, entitled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Besides being an entertaining application for teaching networks, this approach can help in highlighting some features of the plot structure.

More details at:A.C. Sparavigna, On Social Networks in Plays and Novels, The International Journal of Sciences, Volume 3, Issue 10, 2013, Pages: 20-25
 DOI: 10.18483/ijSci.312
http://www.ijsciences.com/pub/article/312

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Sea Silk (Bisso)

From Wikipedia - ...
China never managed to reach the Roman Empire directly in antiquity, although general Ban Chao sent Gan Ying as an envoy to "Daqin" in 97 AD. Gan Ying did not reach Daqin, he stopped at the coast of a large sea, because "sailor(s) of the Parthian west border" told him that the voyage to cross the sea might take a long time and be dangerous. Gan Ying left a detailed account of the Roman Empire, but it is generally considered to have been based on second hand information:
The Kingdom of Da Qin (the Roman Empire) is also called Lijian. As it is found to the west of the sea, it is also called the Kingdom of Haixi ("West of the Sea"). The territory extends for several thousands of li. It has more than four hundred walled towns. There are several tens of smaller dependent kingdoms. The walls of the towns are made of stone. They have established postal relays at intervals, which are all plastered and whitewashed. There are pines and cypresses, as well as trees and plants of all kinds.
- Gan Ying gives a very idealistic view of Roman governance which is likely the result of some story he was told while visiting the Persian Gulf in 97 AD. He also described, less fancifully, Roman products:
Their kings are not permanent. They select and appoint the most worthy man. If there are unexpected calamities in the kingdom, such as frequent extraordinary winds or rains, he is unceremoniously rejected and replaced. The one who has been dismissed quietly accepts his demotion, and is not angry. The people of this country are all tall and honest. They resemble the people of the Middle Kingdom and that is why this kingdom is called Da Qin. This country produces plenty of gold [and] silver, [and of] rare and precious [things] they have luminous jade, 'bright moon pearls,' Haiji rhinoceroses, coral, yellow amber, opaque glass, whitish chalcedony, red cinnabar, green gemstones, gold-thread embroideries, woven gold-threaded net, delicate polychrome silks painted with gold, and asbestos cloth.
They also have a fine cloth which some people say is made from the down of 'water sheep' [sea silk], but which is made, in fact, from the cocoons of wild silkworms (wild silk). They blend all sorts of fragrances, and by boiling the juice, make a compound perfume. [They have] all the precious and rare things that come from the various foreign kingdoms. They make gold and silver coins. Ten silver coins are worth one gold coin. They trade with Anxi [Parthia] and Tianzhu [North-western India] by sea. The profit margin is ten to one. . . . The king of this country always wanted to send envoys to the Han, but Anxi [Parthia], wishing to control the trade in multi-coloured Chinese silks, blocked the route to prevent [the Romans] getting through [to China].

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Moving sand dunes on Mars

Moving Sand Dunes on Mars, by Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy

Abstract: It was recently announced that the sand dunes on Mars can move. This important result was obtained by means of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), the camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The images, recorded three years apart, of the dunes in the Nili Patera caldera show that they move. Here we compare an image HiRISE of 2007 with an image of 1999 recorded by the Mars Global Surveyor. Therefore, with the help of Gimp, the GNU image processing software to enhance the images, we can see and measure the motion of the dunes during a longer period of time.

A dune on Mars which is moving. In the Nili Patera caldera.
199 on the left, 2007 on the right


More details and article at: