In “Does God play dice?”, the English mathematician and popular science writer Ian Stewart speaks about chaos theory and its implications in mathematics, physics and even in computer science. This essay begins with a historical background on “kaos” from ancient Greek mythology and, later on in history, during the Renaissance where scientists and polymaths followed …
In Isaac Asimov’s “The Naked Sun”, social distancing – as we would now call it – is not just a useful device to underscore the difference between Earth and another planet: it is an integral part of the novel’s plot. First published in 1957, The Naked Sun is the second of Asimov’s four ‘Robot’ novels. …
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality is a book on physics and cosmology published in 2003 by Brian Greene. Greene is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician, string theorist and scientific speaker. In this book, some of the most important physical experiments and discoveries of the last century are described, …
Good morning EUROAVIAns!This Weekend Review is about “The Imitation Game” by Morten Tyldum. This film is about the true story of Alan Turing, an English mathematician and cryptanalyst, who during the Second World War was able to decipher the German messages created by the Enigma machine. The movie concerned both Turing’s private life and his extraordinary project. When …
“The Martian” is a science fiction film set on Mars in the year 2035. When the protagonist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is exploring the planet with his crew, a huge dust storm forces an emergency evacuation. But Mark is struck by debris during the storm and can’t take off with his colleagues and is presumed …
We live in time like fish in the water. Time flows. This seems unquestionably true and universal. But “reality is often very different from what it seems”. This is the idea with which Rovelli opens “The order of time”. In the introduction he explains the book’s structure, and how it is divided into three “unequal” …
“The Aviator” is a biographical film directed by Martin Scorsese. The film is about part of the life of Howard Hughes (Leonardo Di Caprio), an entrepreneur, a pilot, an engineer and a film director famous for his record breaking planes and his films. Whilst endowed with a strong personality, he suffers from a mental disorder …
There was a time when the term Aviation was synonymous to bravery and Aviators were the greatest heroes of that era. In the tremulous times between the two World Wars, these men were opening new routes in the harshest regions known on Earth: from Paris to Buenos Aires and from New York to Río Grande …
The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra is a bestseller that reconciles eastern philosophy and western science in a brilliant humanistic vision of the universe. Written in 1975, and since been translated in over 23 languages, it is a visionary exploration into the unexpected parallels of mysticism and modern physics. The Tai Chi (Yin & …
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola) is a portrait of two lost souls yearning for purpose and meaningful connection. Bob (Bill Murray) is a fading Hollywood actor in a midlife crisis. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is a young woman apprehensive about her future. Both of them are at an impasse in their lives where they mutually feel …
2001: A Space Odyssey is an epic science fiction masterpiece. It is one of the most ambiguous and controversial films ever. The director, Stanley Kubrick, deals with the themes of existentialism, human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence and extra-terrestrial life. The opening sequence is maybe the most significant. A tribe of hominids happen upon a mysterious monolith …