Bibliolater 📚📜🖋📐 @bibliolater@social.cleverlibre.org

Good news for filmmakers and other art lovers: The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam makes more than 700,000 works available to download for free!

#art #arthistory #museum @academicchatter @academicsunite

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/?ii=0&p=0&from=2021-01-13T08%3A44%3A48.8566394Z

Directory of Open Access Journals
DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world, driven by a growing community, committed to ensuring quality content is freely available online for everyone.
https://doaj.org/
#academic #openscience #papers #research #search

English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar, and fellow at Pembroke College Thomas Gray was born #OTD in 1716.

He is widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, published in 1751. He was a self-critical writer who published only 13 poems in his lifetime, despite being very popular. He was even offered the position of Poet Laureate in 1757 after the death of Colley Cibber, though he declined. via @wikipedia

Thomas Gray at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/4626

#books #literature

Christmas Trilogy 2023 Part 1: Whose shoulders? #histsci
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2023/12/25/christmas-trilogy-2023-part-1-whose-shoulders/

Isaac Newton (England, 1642-1727) derived mathematical laws of mechanics that seemed perfection itself. Although superseded by Einstein's theory, Newton's equations are still used to calculate all but the most extreme motions. "Newton, forgive me," wrote Einstein; "you found the only way which in your age was just barely possible for a man with the highest powers of thought and creativity. The concepts which you created are guiding our thinking in physics even today..."

#books #physics
via @aip

@jglendenning @bibliolater @bookstodon Exactly this.

Furthermore if you're a good reader, you'll tend to accumulate, or at least that's how it's been for me. It's true that you could give/donate/sell books, but ideally already having a small set of books leads to keeping all the others.

For those who prioritize digital books, I recommend trying an open source project, Calibre. I manage my entire library with it and with GitHub to have an offsite copy.

https://calibre-ebook.com

@simonemargio @bibliolater @bookstodon

Yes! I love books right until the time I have to move them.

I have had to sell or donate more than I’d like to recall and all that I own are always available.

I have found that textbooks are much more useful with electronic copies and TTS as well.

Halley's Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley's prediction of its passage #OTD in 1758.

It did not pass through its perihelion until 13 March 1759, the attraction of Jupiter & Saturn having caused this retardation. This effect was computed before its return (with a one-month error to 13 April) by A. Clairaut, J. Lalande & N.-R. Lepaute. It was one of the earliest successful tests of Newtonian physics, & a clear demonstration of its explanatory power.

#astronomy

@bibliolater @bookstodon

It seems to me physical books are becoming outdated.

I currently read on my phone 90% and paper 10%. 5% of my phone reading is books though. Most of my 30+ hours weekly reading is articles including stuff like Wikipedia.

30 years ago 100% of my reading was paper and half of that was books.

I like to order source 1800’s material and such. Link++ is a great resource.

I don’t read fictional books much anymore. That’s all video for me now.

@bibliolater @bookstodon Ebooks for sure. My Kobo Libra H2O got me reading novels again.

@PChoate @bookstodon @bibliolater I’ve purchased more physical books in the last 3 years than I did total in the last 10 years. I forget the ebooks I purchase but my bookshelf is easy to see. there are some books that I just do better with physical (especially if it has a map). Plus my head has less headaches when I balance out between screens and not. I think theres a lot of people like me. But costs to print keep rising so it feels like it’s becoming a privilege to own

I'm reading this thesis these days. How Gauss determined the orbit of Ceres is a problem that has always fascinated me. The writing and the explanations are really clear.

It was known at the beginning of the 1800s that from two positions \(\mathbf{r}\) and \(\mathbf{r''}\) from the Earth to a celestial body you could calculate the orbital parameters of that body.

But how do you find such vectors from observations of right ascension and declination taken on Earth on different days? It's far from trivial! Gauss found how to do it. #physics #maths #astronomy

French astronomer Jean-Louis Pons was born #OTD in 1761.

Despite humble beginnings and being self-taught, he went on to become the greatest visual comet discoverer of all time: between 1801 and 1827 Pons discovered thirty-seven comets, more than any other person in history. In 1819, Pons was appointed director of the new astronomical observatory at Marlia, near Lucca, Italy, this being followed by him becoming director of the Museum Observatory in Florence. via @wikipedia

#science #astronomy

English physicist and mathematician James Prescott Joule died #OTD in 1818.

Joule studied the nature of heat, & discovered its relationship to mechanical work. This led to the law of conservation of energy, which in turn led to the development of the 1st law of thermodynamics. The SI derived unit of energy, the joule, is named after him. He worked with Lord Kelvin to develop an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale, which came to be called the Kelvin scale.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40706

#physics

Three tuning systems that dominated western music for centuries all fit into the same family!

• Pythagorean tuning has a lot of fifths with frequency ratios of exactly 3/2. It may go back to Mesopotamia, but it was discussed by Greek mathematicians and widely used in medieval European music, especially before 1300.

• Quarter-comma meantone has a lot of thirds with frequency ratios of exactly 5/4. It was introduced around 1550 and was popular for keyboard instruments until around 1690, since Baroque musicians loved these nice thirds.

• Equal temperament has the same frequency ratio between each pair of neighboring notes. It was widely adopted in France and Germany by the late 1700s and in England by the early 1800s, since musicians started wanting to easily switch between all possible keys.

In my article here I explain how you can get all 3 of these systems, and infinitely many others, just by adjusting the value of one parameter!

https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2023/12/18/quarter-comma-meantone-part-2/

@bibliolater @bookstodon I have worn glasses for over 60 years, adding bifocal strength about 20 years ago. My latest prescription came this year. I do fine with adequate font size in print books, but others really strain my eyes. In much the same way I don't care what type of print book it is, could be an old mmpb almost falling apart or a new first edition. The words inside are the most important part, and if it takes an ebook for me to read them then that is what I will do.