GEPCS – Group of Spectroscopy of Plasmas and Supersonic Jets
Category : Books General News Science news
Prof. Mario Bunge, a well-known philosopher of Science died last February 25, 2020. Bunge was professor of Logic and Methaphysics at the McGill University and author of many books, including Philosophy of Science, but also a longtime fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and has written several key articles on science and pseudoscience for Skeptical Inquirer.
Category : Books General News Talks University
Prof. Javier García Martinez, Vicepresident of IUPAC 2020-22 gave a talk at the Faculty of Sciences last October 15, 2019, with the title “What is the IUPAC doing for you?“. The visit celebrated the new Exhibition on the Periodic Table organized in collaboration between the Spanish Society of Chemistry and the Faculty of Sciences. The exhibition includes all kind of periodic tables in different sizes and formats, together with an exhibition of books and bibliographic material at the Campus Library.
Category : Books General News University
The Faculty of Sciences of the UVa has dedicated a Periodic Table wall poster featuring the spectra of the atomic elements, to celebrate the International Year of the Periodic Table (IYPT). This Periodic Table is a reproduction of the original work “Homage to the Elements” by visual artist Eugenia Balcells and contains a quote by Lucretius in “De rerum natura” (On the Nature of Things), written around 50BC, describing the atoms as “letters within words“.
The IYPT (and our barbaric times) are a good opportunity to read the 2012 Pulitzer winner “The Swerve” by Stephen Greenblatt, which contains a great presentation of the discovery of the book and the Epicurean Physics, which, even in a literary format, are far more reasonable than the opinions that arose in the 1500 years that followed its publication:
… atoms … are driven abroad and vexed
by blow on blow, even from all time of old,
they thus at last, after attempting all
the kinds of motion and conjoining, come
into those great arrangements out of which
this sum of things established is created.
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