Week 43, book reviews

A selection of 19th- century scientific verse

By Various

In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was popular to convert scientific discoveries, formulas and complex scientific issues into poetry, delivered by verses.

I was astonished to find this rare and brilliant book, not because of the delicacy of the scientific data, which probably needs an update. My excitement was due to the method applied; scientists and formulators had tried to popularise their findings in the form of verses.

Imagine the father of electricity not writing just a formula that anyone slightly understands but putting effort into creating a lyric out of that. To simplify and, as a result, directly transfer his discovery to all.

What is the extra benefit of this system? You can memorise a poem and not just a dry equation.

This book was a lovely discovery; sadly, Goodreads does not indeed list this book in their database. The system should become a trend, a standard for all new scientists. You discover effects and write a paper that only a few understand? Why not put the trouble into writing a few lyrical lines to simplify and explain it to all?

We give billions to encourage women and people to learn STEM subjects, but only some use the right side of the brain; numerous of us use the left, aesthetic, more romantic side of the brain, and similar runes are inspirational.

Here we've a brilliant rediscovery; we always try to construct new ways of tutoring and transferring knowledge, but we've forgotten the old and intelligent ways. We should rediscover them! Poetry and science should go hand in hand . As they say, you need to simplify to understand it better.?

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Self and Self-Management Essays about Existing

by Arnold Bennett

After writing 45 book reviews in 5 weeks, I am fatigued with reviewing this one. Yes was a bit boring, mainly because it's the kind of book I could give my teen daughters to read, i.e., not virile enough.

Nonetheless, a few chapters contained a piece of good advice. The practice of keeping a journal is a self-enhancement system — something I was doing in the past and restarted lately. A journal can save good statistics on your mood, energy levels, and achievements. My journal template also contains three things that I'm thankful for, tasks to be completed, etc. I keep all secrets in my head, but occasionally I add issues that affect me heavily. Keeping a diary, in any form, is the number practice for self-improvement for me.

The other important chapter is related to dressing. As in Puritanical England and now, the dress-to-impress rule is still valid. I'm not going into details over the arguments used but surely dressing up nicely is one way of doing life business.

This book was a good gift for teen girls; you can find a copy for free in Librivox.

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The Pentecost of Calamity

by Owen Wister

One requirement is to know history to avoid repeating the same miscalculations or producing past agonies. However, why do we always assume good intentions from educated ones?

This is about the launch of WW1, and it starts with a description of Germany that fits my understanding of 2022. That gorgeous country, the fantastic nature and geographies that everything has harmony, planned and designed with perfect computations. Super clean and romantic, but a duality in the German soul is hard to explain. The author praises Germany, as I do, as a perfect country to live in, but also it starts to hate. Not by him but from Kaiser's speeches, he uses Shakespear, to be or not to be, to go on and claim that all the rest are fake and Germans are the only pure.

There, we see the influence of Nietzsche with his preternatural generalities. The Germans espoused the Superhuman( übermenschlich), the super race and, latterly, the super nation. Logically that's what you conclude if you read Nietzsche; superhumans can only come from the fantastic race and presumably live in a supernation that later needs living space( Lebensraum, the reason behind WW2). That's the sense one should apply when reading Nietzsche; he replaced God with a new holy trinity for them, as described above.

Germans were so inspired by their ultramodern-period champion; to be fair, some liked Marx, A German Jew, and division among them explained the holocaust later on. In reality, both Marx and Nietzsche have caused more deaths than any other philosopher in known history.?

Germans aren't one thing; there's also Prussia, the part of Germany mixed with Russia. The Teutonic orders Christianized the Baltics and wedded Russian nobles. Those are more aggressive than the rest. Their conglomerate-structure mindset, quality and high education made them the perfect generals. From my point of view, they started the problem. The well-educated became demagogues of a whole nation spreading the nihilism of Nietzsche to the masses.?

Churchill's saying that we must bomb Germany every 20 times wasn't his. In this book, it's every 200 years that Germans must be destroyed to maintain peace in Europe. The idea finds me against it, and the reeducation of Germans started at the end of WW2 with mass visitations to concentration camps, so they have no illusions about what their leaders did in their name.?

An excellent book for the launch of ww1. Watch out; the Prussians are the conclusion.

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The Discovery of the Future

by H.G. Wells

This is a philosophical lecture on the knowability of the future. H.G Wells rejects the "prophets" in favour of wisdom and pattern recognition. He gives numerous examples, for illustration, if Cesar was an essential part of history or if all the rudiments behind him were more important than the man. In essence, you can predict when a new Cesar will appear based on general conditions existing in society.?

The notorious HG Wells, with his imagination, made generations dream about how we can conquer the moon and other amazing effects like defending against aliens and how to conjure about creating a time machine. The champion in him presumably concluded that " stories" is the primary energy for invention. A story isn't a prophecy, but a dream towards a direction not well specified, as events can change the timeline, going zig-zag in essence. Still, the bottom line is that the ultimate concept of the" story" is always reached but not precisely as written in the story itself.

Through good observation, prognostications via soothsaying are attainable, but predictions are speculations because they aren't scientifically justified at the time of conception.?

They become realities by observation, something like the quantum experiment of the double spit; the observer influences the outcome on a larger scale: millions of books (the atoms) read by billions of humans (observer).?

Now, grounded on that, I understand the introductory rational logic of H.G Wells and can confidently tell that he's a genius. Why? Because he uses an old trick, storytelling, to spin the whole world into new dimensions. His goals are not dry scientific purposes but long-term plans for the entire human race.

To conclude, I've reached the same meta-conclusion as Wells, which currently takes 4 to 6 generations from when a science fiction book is published to become a reality. The number of generations needed improves as more humans become readers.

We may still need to discover his time machine, but we've time crystals in time loops. His "war on air", written in 1907, is how we currently make war. The" invisible man" is now a paint used in stealth fighter jets and cloak robes accessible to only a few.

The scary part is his conclusion about air-born contagions that could wipe out humanity easily. By observation specifically, he thinks of the what-if scenario if the earth itself releases a new pathogen. Probably he did not know about the permafrost in Russia, which presumably, holds millions of old times bacteria and pathogens are frozen under the ice. Only God knows what will happen when that permafrost layer melts completely. Indeed will release new bacteria that the sun rays will help them grow, cultivating new colonies of pathogens.

Finally,? I believe in one world super state, a confederation like Star Trek. Yet have to read his book: A Modern Utopia, but as he claims, dont let the title fool you. It is not a utopia that he describes but a dystopia as well. Only 1 book is ever written on Utopia by Plato; all the rest predict a dystopic future for mankind. And around this point, I started wondering who was the clever one that added Apocalypse into the new testament, as Bible and Mao red book are the most popular book ever read.?

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The Book of Tea

by Kakuzō Okakura

Tea is TAO/ DAO but why? Why is the tea ceremony tightly related to Zen rituals and DAO/ TAO?

This book tried to explain precisely this point, that a tea ceremony is a religious, cultural habit.?

Habits and customs are part of every single religion. As Christians, we clean the body by immersing our body in the water through the mystery of baptism. In eastern societies, they clean their body and soul daily with a tea ceremony.?

Water, we need 3 litres per day for our body to function correctly. So the ritualist need starts from our basic need to moisturise the body. Cleverly, it became a practicable habit to remind ourselves of the need.?

The tea water is flavoured with that pricy eastern spice with a plenitude of antioxidants, veritably nutritive. Forget Lipton tea; if you try Oolong Tea, you can easily understand why it is superior to Black tea. Nonetheless, Green tea, a cheap alternative, can protect you from cancer by lowering cholesterol. The Indians that have worked with them drink litres per day.

From that point alone, any religion seeking to keep their faithful in good shape would have employed tea as a daily practice. Numerous Orthodox monasteries I have visited in the Holy mountain use "mountain tea". Which is full of Iron that's precisely demanded by the majority of the Mediterranean population that has numerous forms of anaemia, like thalassaemia. Those things aren't done by coincidence. They are included in religion because they serve a purpose. Many may still need to remember the actual reasons, and now is the time to rediscover.

My conclusion is that the health benefits aren't added to the book.?

The book focuses more on the atmospheric part, the ritual. Zen can not be achieved by Starbucks' "pay and go" green tea extra large; you need to create the environment. To stay still (ATARAXIA ), be silent, contemplate, invest time in the process, and live in the moment.?

Japanese and others practising TAO crafted a unique concept around tea drinking; it influences architecture, art, and everything in between.?

I have yet to participate in a tea ceremony; while visiting Japan, I only joined them to drink Sake( rice vodka). Still, if you have seen some Japanese movies, they always contain that room with candles, a man sitting in a lotus position, without shoes and a geisha serving hot tea. I understand now that the scene isn't a tea bar but a religious practice.

I read this book and made a mistake comparing this ritual to my religion and was disappointed. We had some old habits, like spreading sweet scents around the house to protect us from evil spirits. Scientifically those scents are a perfect way to stop mosquitoes, but we replaced that process with marketable mosquito" snake" candles. I guess the observation (that repels mosquitoes that can carry malaria that causes sudden deaths) was replaced with motives like repelling evil spirits. Simplifications that Nevertheless, saved lives back then.?

Our rituals for contemplation and meditation have been reduced to Sunday church time and eating/drinking the" blood and flesh" of Christ via the communion practice.

While you stay in silence for 2 hours for the priest to end the ceremony, one could contemplate and meditate if not looking around and gossiping about how the other participants are dressed.

Of course, there are benefits to our rituals, but a tea ceremony from TAO and yoga from Buddhism are also good. We should have culturally appropriated them a long time ago; incorporating them into the Christianity practices of the 21st century is fine. The British got the point during the Victoria era, but all the rest did not. Except for the Republicans in the USA but for totally different reasons.?

Tea party, anyone? (as a reminder of how tea in general, can still influence society in a uniquely American way)