3 ideas
| 13007 | Archimedes defined a straight line as the shortest distance between two points [Archimedes, by Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Archimedes gave a sort of definition of 'straight line' when he said it is the shortest line between two points. | |
| From: report of Archimedes (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 4.13 | |
| A reaction: Commentators observe that this reduces the purity of the original Euclidean axioms, because it involves distance and measurement, which are absent from the purest geometry. |
| 20767 | Culture is now dominated by boredom, so universal it is unnoticed [Heidegger, by Aho] |
| Full Idea: Heidegger came to say that the cultural mood had changed from 'anxiety' to 'boredom'. The danger is that our boredom has become so ubiquitous and all-encompassing that it is now hidden. | |
| From: report of Martin Heidegger (Contributions to Philosophy [1938]) by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 9 'Conc' | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what the danger of boredom is if it is 'hidden'. It rather depends what else is hidden with it. |
| 15314 | Faraday's single field of variable forces introduces a criterion of Unity into what is ultimate [Faraday, by Harré/Madden] |
| Full Idea: In Faraday lines of force picture the directional structure of powers,...so the fundamental entity is a single, unified field. ...A new criterion of the ultimate has stepped in: Unity. The universal field is still the final explanation, but not invariant. | |
| From: report of Michael Faraday (Experimental Researches in Electricity [1859]) by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B | |
| A reaction: Almost Parmenides, except that the field is not invariant. But that was always the ancient objection to the One - that it offered no explanation of change. |