The book titled The French Mathematician by Tom Petsinis is one of the best of its genre. It is not often that biographies are written in the form of fiction. The author, having adopted the form of novel for this work, captures the essence of the character of Evariste Galois, the brilliant young French Mathematician…
Antarctic Expedition: The different approaches adopted by Captain Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen in their attempts to reach the South Pole
The expeditions to the South Pole of Captain Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen are now part of historic legend. But during 1911 when they both set out to conquer the South Pole, very few expected them to achieve their mission. Amundsen will be remembered as the first man to conquer the frigid vastness of Antarctica…
Movie Review: Grown Ups (2010)
As with other Adam Sandler starrers, the 2010 released Grown Ups too excels in that special brand of American humor. Sandler and his co-stars, including Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider and Chris Rock were first part of a successful basketball team in school. The ocassion of the funeral of their coach brings them together…
Should morality be based solely on religion?
Religion has long been an integral part of human civilization. Religion effectively started when humans realized the power of nature and their subordination to this power. And being the most intelligent species on earth, human beings conceived the notion of ‘appeasing’ the Gods in return for favorable natural events. For example, offering animal and human…
Galileo’s Daughter – A Drama of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel
Galileo Galilei was one of the most influential scientists of the modern era. His discovery and development of telescopes and his study of the cosmos revolutionized scientific understanding of the day. But his discoveries and inferences were disliked by the dominant religious institutions of his time, for they challenged the Christian theocratic view of the…
The Ways of Her Household by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Ulrich argues that housekeeping can be a challenging, complex task requiring real skill and intelligence. How so? At the beginning of the essay, Ulrich sets out the details of some of the daily chores that women in Colonial America performed each day. Unlike the electronic amenities and appliances available to women in modern times, the…
Summary of chapters 3,4 & 5 of the book ‘The Economics of Women, Men, and Work’ by Blau, Ferber & Winkler
Chapter 3 of the book is titled The Family as an Economic Unit. Here the authors discuss the importance of the concept of family for the functioning of neoclassical economic models. In the United States and other Western capitalist democracies, the neoclassical economics is the dominant paradigm for analysis and policy. In this context, it…
History of the eradication of Smallpox
Smallpox has been one of the most fatal infectious diseases to have afflicted humankind in recorded history. From the earliest recorded occurrences of the disease we learn that the disease spread rapidly where ever human population was dense and killed one in five of infected persons. Children were particularly vulnerable, as it claimed one in…
Two Lives of Charlemagne by Einhard and Notker the Stammerer: Summary and Analysis
Charlemagne, translated into English as Charles the Great, was the King of the Franks, who expanded his empire to as further south as Italy. We learn from the two biographies that Charlemagne was instrumental in the spread of culture and arts to all corners of his kingdom. By closely associating himself with the Papacy, he…
Quranic and Biblical Depictions of Solomon (Sulayman)
The Judeo-Christian religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have several common characteristics. All three of them originate from what is presently referred to as the Middle East and thus share a common cultural and geographic heritage. Islam being the most modern of the religions has derived some of its precepts from its immediate predecessor Christianity. …