This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The famous assertion by Einstein that the length of a rod depends on its velocity and on the chosen definition of simultaneity. ...is based on the fact that we do not measure the length of the rod, but its projection on a system at rest. How the length of the projection depends on the choice of simultaneity can be illustrated by reference to a photograph taken through a focal-plane shutter. Such a shutter... consists of a wide band with a horizontal slit, which slides down vertically. Different bands are photographed successively on the film. Moving objects are therefore strangely distorted; the wheels of a rapidly moving car for instance, appear to be slanted. The shape of the objects in the picture will evidently depend on the speed of the shutter. Similarly, the length of the moving segment depends on the definition of simultaneity. One definition of simultaneity differs from another because events that are simultaneous for one definition occur successively for another. What may be a simultaneity projection of a moving segment for one definition is a "focal-plane shutter photograph" for another.
Men |
When I have an argument with someone, even with someone I am not very close with, I can't sleep at night thinking about it. It's terrible. But I still manage speak out frankly because I have also been gifted with the ability to read people. I can sense when they start to get irritated with me, and then, I shift.
Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people are surrounded by ?a world of enemies? - ?one against all? - and that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.
Public |
This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.
Man |
We may remember what the Romans... thought a cultivated person ought to be: one who knows how to choose his company among men, among things, among thoughts, in the present as well as in the past.
Everything rhythmically organic is true. Everything, which results from the proper feeling for rhythmically organized spiritual units, is true and alive ? alive within itself. When we lose the sense for such true beauty we lose our natural sense for the rich flavor of life, which is the basis for all inspirational work.
Man |
The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons
The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.
Man |
This shows to what extent violence and its arbitrariness were taken for granted and therefore neglected; no one questions or examines what is obvious to all.
Man |
To be sure, nothing is more important to the integrity of the universities than a rigorously enforced divorce from war-oriented research and all connected enterprises.
Man |
To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious.
We have chosen to write the biography of our disease because we love it platonically ? as Amy Lowell loved Keats ? and have sought its acquaintance wherever we could find it. And in this growing intimacy we have become increasingly impressed with the influence that this and other infectious diseases, which span ? in their protoplasmic continuities ? the entire history of mankind, have had upon the fates of men.
We are frequently faced with the necessity of looking for the picture required for the visualization of an object, not in the perception of this particular object, but in a different perceptual image... we can assert the discrepancy between the perceived picture and the objective state. This discrepancy... proves absolutely nothing against the fact that all visualizations are merely sense qualities of the perceptual space... If the parallelism is... to be visualized, we must supplement our assertion by the description of certain qualities with which we are familiar from perceptual space.
Of what does not concern you say nothing, good or bad.
Consideration | Man | Nothing |
Save something for the man that rides on the white horse.
The dog that has been beaten with a stick is afraid of its shadow.
Beginning | Circumstances | Risk |
Poverty wants many things, and avarice all.
Business | Government | Right | Wealth | Government | Business |