This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Henri Poincaré, fully Jules Henri Poincaré
Perceptual space, under its triple form, visual, tactile and motor, is essentially different from geometric space. It is neither homogeneous, nor isotropic; one can not even say that it has three dimensions. It is often said that we ‘project’ into geometric space the objects of our external perception; that we ‘localize’ them. Has this a meaning, and if so what? Does it mean that we represent to ourselves external objects in geometric space? Our representations are only the reproduction of our sensations; they can therefore be ranged only in the same frame as these, that is to say, in perceptual space. It is impossible for us to represent to ourselves external bodies in geometric space, as it is for a painter to paint on a plane canvas objects with their three dimensions. Perceptual space is only an image altered in shape by a sort of perspective, and we can represent to ourselves objects only by bringing them under the laws of this perspective. Therefore we do not represent to ourselves external bodies in geometric space, but we reason on these bodies as if they were situated in geometric space.
Meaning | Perception | Reason | Space |
The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find the animal-cule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on eternity – all find room to consist in the small creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb.
Appetite | Doctrine | Eternity | God | Life | Life | Little | Omnipresence | Taste | World | God |
Leaving aside genetic surgery applied humans, I foresee that the coming century will place in our hands two other forms of biological technology which are less dangerous but still revolutionary enough to transform the conditions of our existence. I count these new technologies as powerful allies in the attack on Bernal's three enemies [the world, the flesh and the devil]. I give them the names 'biological engineering' and 'self-reproducing machinery'. Biological engineering means the artificial synthesis of living organisms designed to fulfil human purposes. Self-reproducing machinery means the imitation of the function and reproduction of a living organism with non-living materials, a computer-program imitating the function of DNA and a miniature factory imitating the functions of protein molecules. After we have attained a complete understanding of the principles of organization and development of a simple multicellular organism, both of these avenues of technological exploitation should be open to us.
Enough | Imitation | Means | Organization | Principles | Technology | Understanding | Will |
The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity.
A human heart can never grow old if it takes a lively interest in the pairing of birds, the reproduction of flowers, and the changing tints of autumn leaves.
Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
All of us human beings are born under sin, and our very origin is in sin.
Simeon ben Azai, sometimes Ben Azai
If a word be worth one Shekel, silence is worth two.
Congenital killers and criminals are possessed of not one but two Y chromosomes, bearing a double dose, as it were, of genetically undesirable maleness.