The observed distribution of inclinations of long-period comets are why it's called the Oort cloud and not the Oort belt..
Short period comets are relatively close to the ecliptic, while very-long-period comets have evenly distributed inclinations suggesting that the objects in the Oort are more or less spherically distributed.
It should also be noted that a difference is often made between alphabets in the strict sense, where consonants and also vowels are represented by distinct symbols, and alphabets in the wider sense, where this is not the case (vowels are not represented at all or occasionally by certain consonant symbols typically when clarification is necessary). A writing system where symbols denote larger units of speech is not called an alphabet, but a syllabary. If it does not represent phonetic, but semantic units, it is called a logographic script. There are of course all kinds of mixed forms ("I ♥ NY").
Technically, a syllabary only refers to writing systems where the symbol represents the specific consonant and vowel pair, such as Japanese's Hiragana. For example, in a syllabary, the syllables "ka" and "ki" are two different symbols.
If the vowels are optional or not present, e.g. there's one "k" symbol regardless of the vowel, it's an Abjad. The archetypal Abjad is the Hebrew writing system.
If the vowels are written by adding them to the consonant symbol (similar to diacritics), it's called an Abugida. One example of this is the Ge'ez script in Ethiopia.
I did not want to make it too technical, so "Abjad" falls under "alphabets in the wider sense" and "Abugida" under "mixed forms". My comment was based on the assumption that the article in question does not necessarily refer to an alphabet in the strict sense. To make this clear, I did not think it was necessary to go into too much detail.
There are many specialized terms for different types of writing system, but those distinctions are generally of very little interest unless you're compiling a table of different writing systems.
Generally you look at what concepts are embodied in the script, and at the form of the glyphs. So:
You might have a script that assigns glyphs to phonemes. ("Language is made of sounds.")
You might have a script that assigns glyphs to consonants and doesn't bother to represent vowels. ("Language is made of sounds, and some of them are more important than others.")
You might have a script that assigns glyphs to syllables. ("Language is made of things you can say.")
You might have a script in which the glyphs assigned to syllables are composed of recognizable and conceptually distinct parts, but those parts have no independent representation. (Compare the glyphs ሀ ለ ሐ with the related glyphs ሄ ሌ ሔ.) ("Language is made of things you can say, but there are patterns.")
You might have a script that assigns glyphs to words, though in almost all cases you don't. The label "logographic script", applied to a script the labeler doesn't know well, is infinitely more popular than the concept "logographic script". I don't think any script has ever existed meeting the criterion of "it does not represent phonetic, but semantic units". But there are some, and used to be more, that leaned more or less strongly in that direction.
When I look at the ranking on p. 4, English does not appear to be very relevant. Switzerland is #31, but Greece #8. Romania is #12 just two places behind Germany #10. Italy is #46, France #49. India #69, China #91, Japan #92, Thailand #106.
The diagrams on p. 13 all have correlation coefficients (r values) between 0.56 and 0.61, which signify only moderate associations. And the causality from language to success behind such associations is very likely even weaker. In other words, people from many countries are good at English because their country is economically advanced (and not the other way round).
I think that on an individual level, it is very desirable to be able to at least read English very well because it opens up so many resources on the Internet. However, when it comes to economic impact, the ranking seems to suggest an extremely tenuous link at best. In addition, foreign language skills are likely to become even less relevant in the future as translation software improves.
This just seems like analyzing something until you’ve turned yourself around. By “extremely relevant” I don’t mean r=1. I just mean it matters.
Imagine doing that same analysis on a report of a country’s metal deposits. I’m sure it would be all over the place. But saying this topic isn’t worth writing ten words about would be silly.
In the early days of the internet, searching for things like C++ was really challenging because none of the first generation search engines could search for that particular string.
It could be motivated by the fact that Russell and Whitehead needed a symbol for printing that the printer had in his type case but could not be confused with anything else. Taking a iota and simply turning it upside down would then be a rather ingenious idea. But that is just my speculation ...
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1885938/whats-meani... says 'in the article Frege, Peano and Russell on Descriptions: a Comparison, Francisco A. Rodríguez-Consuegra tracks down the source to Peano's Studii di logica matematica (1897) as where the operator first appears'
And the Lambda looks like an upside-down V. The bases of all these upside-down letters do not match the baseline of the text. Obviously there were no special upside-down moveable types available of freshly cast for this book. Peano had to creatively repurpose what types were available.
I think both of those are correct, although they appear to be the paperback, as the hardcover has the front illustration on the inside and is otherwise plain.
The electronic version does feel rather odd, though. It's much harder to open it to a random page and find something interesting (say, a list of refugee scholars who at the time had moved to the US, 561-63), which, for me at least, is the point. I could find the vast majority of the information, if not all of it, elsewhere with little effort, if I was so inclined. It's more in the discovery aspect of it (and the advertisements, which are often absolute gems, although less so than the 1909 edition, which included two awkwardly arranged vertical ads which had large text of 'Rupture' on the left and 'Your Lungs' on the right so it reads as 'Rupture Your Lungs', and also "Dr." Rupert Weils, who claimed to be able to cure cancer at home, using "radiatized fluid", which I think is radioactive water; by 1944 they were much less blatantly wrong or poorly arranged.)
I have looked at the book contents and large parts of two book chapters are about this event, in one chapter about the circumstances that lead to the protest and in the other about its consequences.
Thanks for the Wikipedia link, I was not aware that the very important physicist Wilhelm Eduard Weber (for whom the magnetic flux unit is named), took also part in this protest.
How can such a high inclination be explained?
reply