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Harris
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Harris said:
"
Beneficial all around, and particularly refreshing compared to the typical self-help literature of the genre. I loved the entwining of spirituality with material productivity (indeed, there shouldn't be a dichotomy in the first place) but Faris blew ...more "
“Sophie Germain had taught herself calculus at a young age. The daughter of a wealthy family, she had become entranced by mathematics after reading a book about Archimedes in her father’s library. When her parents found out that she loved mathematics and was staying up late at night to work on it, they took away her candles, left her fire unlit, and confiscated her nightgowns. Sophie persisted. She wrapped herself in quilts and worked by the light of stolen candles. Eventually her family relented and gave her their blessing. Germain, like all women of her era, was not permitted to attend university, so she continued to teach herself, in some cases by obtaining lecture notes from the courses at the nearby École Polytechnique using the name Monsieur Antoine-August Le Blanc, a student who had left the school. Unaware of his departure, academy administrators continued to print lecture notes and problem sets for him. She submitted work under his name until one of the school’s teachers, the great Lagrange, noticed the remarkable improvement in Monsieur Le Blanc’s previously abysmal performance. Lagrange requested a meeting with Le Blanc and was delighted and astonished to discover her true identity.”
― Infinite Powers: The Story of Calculus - The Language of the Universe
― Infinite Powers: The Story of Calculus - The Language of the Universe
“Caroline merely continued to look omniscient, which so annoyed me that I went on: “Perhaps you will tell me, Caroline, if I have a medical degree or if I have not?” “You have the medical degree, I dare say, James—at least, I mean I know you have. But you’ve no imagination whatever.” “Having endowed you with a treble portion, there was none left over for me,” I said drily.”
― The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
― The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
“As he deployed his forces, Newton imposed the same empirical rigor on his new job as he had with his pendulums and prisms. The Mint could not operate any faster than his men could spin their capstans, and every other step had to be timed to match the work of his presses. So Newton watched to “judge of the workmen’s diligence.” He saw how quickly the brutal effort needed to turn the press wore out its team. He observed just how nimble the man loading blanks and pulling finished coins from the press had to be to keep his fingers. Eventually, he identified the perfect pace: if the press thumped just slightly slower than the human heart, striking fifty to fifty-five times a minute, men and machines could stamp out coins for hours at a time. By autumn, Newton had the Mint’s output up to £100,000 every working week—a century ahead of Adam Smith, and more than double again before Henry Ford showed the world just how powerful time-and-motion rigor could be. Newton continued to drive his horses and men for the next two and a half years until the nation’s entire silver money supply had been remade. In all, under his command, the Mint recoined over £6 million—£6,722,970 0s. 2d., to be exact. As that last tuppence indicates, Newton, having spent the whole of his prior life as an essentially solitary thinker, proved to be a truly extraordinary administrator, bringing the effort home with accounts accurate to the penny and stunningly free of corruption.”
― Money For Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism
― Money For Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism
“THERE HE REMAINED for almost two years, cut off from every other scholar or mathematician. The isolation suited him. “In those days,” he would recall half a century later, “I was in the prime of my age for invention & minded Mathematics & Philosophy more than at any time since.”
― Money For Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism
― Money For Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism
“It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing, that feeling. After all, if you were small, the grimy beetle crawled on—which was just what you wanted it to do. Where the pilgrims imagined it crawled to I don’t know. To some place where they expected to get something, I bet! For me it crawled toward Kurtz—exclusively; but when the steam-pipes started leaking we crawled very slow.”
― Heart of Darkness
― Heart of Darkness
Islam
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A group for the Muslim readers as well as those who are interested in Islam. Spread the word to whoever it may concern. Don't be afraid to start new ...more
Non Fiction Book Club
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This group is for anyone who enjoys Non Fiction. Genres discussed here include Histories, Autobiographies, Biographies, Memoirs, Science and Technolog ...more
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Have you ever wanted to smack an uncle in the face for saying you're not a Muslim anymore? Have you ever heard an uncle giving tafseer and thought "th ...more
Classics and the Western Canon
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This is a group to read and discuss those books generally referred to as “the classics” or “the Western canon.” Books which have shaped Western though ...more
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What is Philosophy? Why is it important? How do you use it? This group looks at these questions and others: ethics, government, economics, skepticism, ...more
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