This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Carnap calls such concepts as point, straight line, etc., which are given by implicit definitions, improper concepts. Their peculiarity rests on the fact that they do not characterize a thing by its properties, but by its relation to other things. Consider for example the concept of the last car of a train. Whether or not a particular car falls under this description does not depend on its properties but on its position relative to other cars. We could therefore speak of relative concepts, but would have to extend the meaning of this term to apply not only to relations but also to the elements of the relations.
To worship the product and ignore its development leads to dilettantism and reaction. Art cannot result from sophisticated, frivolous, or superficial effects.
To sense the invisible and to be able to create it ? that is art.
The concept of congruence in Euclidean geometry is not exactly the same as that in non-Euclidean geometry... "Congruent" means in Euclidean geometry the same as "determining parallelism," a meaning which it does not have in non-Euclidean geometry.
Clocks are inherently four-dimensional instruments, since the endpoints of their unit distances are events. Measuring rods, on the other hand, are three-dimensional measuring instruments; their end points are space points and they can be changed into four-dimensional measuring instruments only if events are produced at their end points according to a special rule.
Absolute time would exist in a causal structure for which the concept indeterminate as to time order lends to a unique simultaneity, i.e., for which there is no finite interval of time between the departure and return of a first-signal...
Common to the two geometries is only the general property of one-to-one correspondence, and the rule that this correspondence determines straight lines as shortest lines as well as their relations of intersection.
Monumentality is an affair of relativity. The truly monumental can only come about by means of the most exact and refined relation between parts. Since each thing carries both a meaning of its own and an associated meaning in relation to something else ? its essential value is relative. We speak of the mood we experience when looking at a landscape. This mood results from the relation of certain things rather than from their separate actualities. This is because objects do not in themselves possess the total effect they give when interrelated.
People |
One who wants to keep their yard tidy does not reserve a plot for the weeds.
Change | Civilization | Future | Global | Health | Inconvenient | Land | Security | Will |
Poor men do penance for rich men's sins.
Experience | Openness | People | Personality | Safe |
One who speaks fair words feeds you with an empty spoon.
Public money is like holy water, every one helps himself to it.
Nothing improves the taste of pasta more than a good appetite.
Take the will for the deed.
Focus | Government | People | Price | Government |