{"results":[{"id":"arxiv_2502.18583","title":"What are Foundation Models Cooking in the Post-Soviet World?","authors":[{"name":"Anton Lavrouk"},{"name":"Tarek Naous"},{"name":"Alan Ritter"},{"name":"Wei Xu"}],"abstract":"The culture of the Post-Soviet states is complex, shaped by a turbulent history that continues to influence current events. In this study, we investigate the Post-Soviet cultural food knowledge of foundation models by constructing BORSch, a multimodal dataset encompassing 1147 and 823 dishes in the Russian and Ukrainian languages, centered around the Post-Soviet region. We demonstrate that leading models struggle to correctly identify the origins of dishes from Post-Soviet nations in both text-only and multimodal Question Answering (QA), instead over-predicting countries linked to the language the question is asked in. Through analysis of pretraining data, we show that these results can be explained by misleading dish-origin co-occurrences, along with linguistic phenomena such as Russian-Ukrainian code mixing. Finally, to move beyond QA-based assessments, we test models' abilities to produce accurate visual descriptions of dishes. The weak correlation between this task and QA suggests that QA alone may be insufficient as an evaluation of cultural understanding. To foster further research, we will make BORSch publicly available at https://github.com/alavrouk/BORSch.","source":"arXiv","year":2025,"language":"en","subjects":["cs.CL"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.18583","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2502.18583","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2025-02-25T19:09:56Z","score":69},{"id":"arxiv_2503.09137","title":"\"Dark comet\" 2005 VL$_1$ is unlikely to be the lost Soviet-era probe Venera 2","authors":[{"name":"Federico Spada"}],"abstract":"Loeb \u0026 Cloete (2025) intriguingly suggest that the near-Earth object 2005 VL$_1$ could be the lost Soviet probe Venera 2. Here I evaluate the plausibility of such a claim against the available data. I have re-determined the orbit of 2005 VL$_1$ (including a non-gravitational acceleration component) using the astrometric observations retrieved from the Minor Planet Center (MPC) database. By propagating the orbit of 2005 VL$_1$ over the period of the Venera 2 mission, I compare this object's distance from the Earth and from Venus at the times of the probe's launch and flyby with Venus, respectively. My analysis, which takes into account realistic uncertainties on both the orbit of 2005 VL1 and the position of Venera 2, decisively rules out the proposed identification. My approach relies entirely on open-source software and publicly available data, and could represent a viable method to assess similar claims in the future.","source":"arXiv","year":2025,"language":"en","subjects":["astro-ph.EP"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.09137","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.09137","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2025-03-12T08:02:00Z","score":69},{"id":"arxiv_2503.04313","title":"Episodes from the history of infinitesimals","authors":[{"name":"Mikhail G. Katz"}],"abstract":"Infinitesimals have seen ups and downs in their tumultuous history. In the 18th century, d'Alembert set the tone by describing infinitesimals as chimeras. Some adversaries of infinitesimals, including Moigno and Connes, picked up on the term. We highlight the work of Cauchy, Noël, Poisson and Riemann. We also chronicle reactions by Moigno, Lamarle and Cantor, and signal the start of a revival with Peano.","source":"arXiv","year":2025,"language":"en","subjects":["math.HO"],"doi":"10.1080/26375451.2025.2474811","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04313","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.04313","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2025-03-06T10:58:17Z","score":69},{"id":"arxiv_2407.14315","title":"Soviet Mathematics and Economic Theory in the Past Century: An Historical Reappraisal","authors":[{"name":"Ivan Boldyrev"}],"abstract":"What are the effects of authoritarian regimes on scholarly research in economics? And how might economic theory survive ideological pressures? The article addresses these questions by focusing on the mathematization of economics over the past century and drawing on the history of Soviet science. Mathematics in the USSR remained internationally competitive and generated many ideas that were taken up and played important roles in economic theory. These same ideas, however, were disregarded or adopted only in piecemeal fashion by Soviet economists, despite the efforts of influential scholars to change the economic research agenda. The article draws this contrast into sharper focus by exploring the work of Soviet mathematicians in optimization, game theory, and probability theory that was used in Western economics. While the intellectual exchange across the Iron Curtain did help advance the formal modeling apparatus, economics could only thrive in an intellectually open environment absent under the Soviet rule.","source":"arXiv","year":2024,"language":"en","subjects":["math.HO","econ.TH"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.14315","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.14315","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2024-07-19T13:48:07Z","score":68},{"id":"arxiv_2410.15938","title":"Quantifying world geography as seen through the lens of Soviet propaganda","authors":[{"name":"M. V. Tamm"},{"name":"M. Oiva"},{"name":"K. D. Mukhina"},{"name":"M. Mets"},{"name":"M. Schich"}],"abstract":"Cultural data typically contains a variety of biases. In particular, geographical locations are unequally portrayed in media, creating a distorted representation of the world. Identifying and measuring such biases is crucial to understand both the data and the socio-cultural processes that have produced them. Here we suggest to measure geographical biases in a large historical news media corpus by studying the representation of cities. Leveraging ideas of quantitative urban science, we develop a mixed quantitative-qualitative procedure, which allows us to get robust quantitative estimates of the biases. These biases can be further qualitatively interpreted resulting in a hermeneutic feedback loop. We apply this procedure to a corpus of the Soviet newsreel series 'Novosti Dnya' (News of the Day) and show that city representation grows super-linearly with city size, and is further biased by city specialization and geographical location. This allows to systematically identify geographical regions which are explicitly or sneakily emphasized by Soviet propaganda and quantify their importance.","source":"arXiv","year":2024,"language":"en","subjects":["physics.soc-ph","cond-mat.stat-mech","econ.EM"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.15938","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.15938","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2024-10-21T12:07:10Z","score":68},{"id":"doaj_10.14746/strp.2024.49.1.7","title":"Claiming the wall: How memorial plaques reshape urban landscapes in Russia","authors":[{"name":"Kiun Hwang"}],"abstract":"\nThis article explores the significance of memorial plaques in Russian cities as sites of history, memory and aesthetics that create a new sensorium of the urban sphere. The plaques, affixed to historic buildings, serve as tangible markers that commemorate significant events and figures from the past. Taking the case of the historic center of St. Petersburg, the article examines how these plaques create a sense of historicity and contribute to the formation of a shared cultural background within the urban sphere. The plaques evolve from simple inscriptions to more elaborate and visually appealing designs. It also highlights the controversies surrounding the selection of individuals to be materialized and remembered and the aesthetic concerns raised by some residents. Meanwhile, the two contemporary projects challenge traditional commemorative practices and their aesthetics: Last Address, which commemorates victims of political repression through individualized plaques, and the Gandhi artist group’s street art interventions. These projects offer alternative approaches to memorialization and engage in dialogue with existing monuments and plaques. These micro-interventions show grassroot resistance within memorializing practices and aesthetics. The article emphasizes the contested nature of public space and the role of memorial plaques in shaping collective memory and historical narratives in Russian cities.\n","source":"DOAJ","year":2024,"language":"","subjects":["History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics","Literature (General)"],"doi":"10.14746/strp.2024.49.1.7","url":"https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/strp/article/view/43379","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":68},{"id":"arxiv_2306.17647","title":"A Brief History of Space VLBI","authors":[{"name":"Leonid I. Gurvits"}],"abstract":"Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry is a radio astronomy technique distinguished by a record-high angular resolution reaching single-digit microseconds of arc. The paper provides a brief account of the history of developments of this technique over the period 1960s-2020s.","source":"arXiv","year":2023,"language":"en","subjects":["astro-ph.IM"],"doi":"10.1109/HISTELCON56357.2023.10365962","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.17647","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.17647","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2023-06-30T13:34:32Z","score":67},{"id":"arxiv_2203.07488","title":"Tweets in Time of Conflict: A Public Dataset Tracking the Twitter Discourse on the War Between Ukraine and Russia","authors":[{"name":"Emily Chen"},{"name":"Emilio Ferrara"}],"abstract":"On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. In the days that followed, reports kept flooding in from layman to news anchors of a conflict quickly escalating into war. Russia faced immediate backlash and condemnation from the world at large. While the war continues to contribute to an ongoing humanitarian and refugee crisis in Ukraine, a second battlefield has emerged in the online space, both in the use of social media to garner support for both sides of the conflict and also in the context of information warfare. In this paper, we present a collection of over 63 million tweets, from February 22, 2022 through March 8, 2022 that we are publishing for the wider research community to use. This dataset can be found at https://github.com/echen102/ukraine-russia and will be maintained and regularly updated as the war continues to unfold. Our preliminary analysis already shows evidence of public engagement with Russian state sponsored media and other domains that are known to push unreliable information; the former saw a spike in activity on the day of the Russian invasion. Our hope is that this public dataset can help the research community to further understand the ever evolving role that social media plays in information dissemination, influence campaigns, grassroots mobilization, and much more, during a time of conflict.","source":"arXiv","year":2022,"language":"en","subjects":["cs.SI","cs.CY","cs.DL"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.07488","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.07488","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2022-03-14T20:52:02Z","score":66},{"id":"doaj_10.21603/2078-8975-2021-23-4-995-1004","title":"International Students’ Adaptation in Russia: its Varying Due to the Student’s Culture of Origin","authors":[{"name":"V. A. Fedotova"}],"abstract":"The study aims to identify peculiarities of sociocultural adaptation (factors, coping strategies and anticipatory competence) of students from India, China and Arab countries. The research is based on the data obtained from the first-, second- and third-year students from India (73 respondents), China (45 respondents), Arab countries (64 respondents). The “Russian language proficiency” factor shows more significance for students from India and China, compared to students from Arab countries. Students from China, India and Arab countries tend to start and maintain relationships, to participate in academic activities, to have hobbies and interests and interact with other students. The prosocial coping strategy is predominant for Arab, Indian and Chinese students, regardless of their culture of origin, which proves  universality of the strategy. Representatives of a polychronic culture (students from Arab countries and India) lack temporal anticipatory competence,with Arab students showing the lowest value of this parameter. Chinese  students differ from representatives of a polyactive culture (Arab students) or a reactive-polyactive culture (Indian students) as they can hardly predict how a person they know would act in a certain situation.","source":"DOAJ","year":2022,"language":"","subjects":["History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics","Psychology"],"doi":"10.21603/2078-8975-2021-23-4-995-1004","url":"https://vestnik.kemsu.ru/jour/article/view/5111","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":66},{"id":"doaj_10.31168/2073-5731.2022.1-2.3.06","title":"Топос города — широкое поле для создания курса лекций в рамках проекта NEWSLA","authors":[{"name":"Лидия Танушевска"}],"abstract":"\nПроект NEWSLA — это проект, получивший поддержку программы ERASMUS MUNDUS. Включает в себя универсальную подготовку современной формы второй ступени высшего образования по славистике, подготовлен тремя университетами (Силезский университет в Катовицах, Остравский университет в Остраве, Университет имени Св. Кирилла и Мефодия в Скопье). Программа обучения, разрабатываемая в рамках этого проекта, будет содержать также курс на тему «Город в литературе и культуре» этих трех стран, охватывающий следующие темы: город как центр мира, город как мифологическое место, геокультурная символика города, феномен «потерянных» городов, отношение человека к городу, фланирование или искусство прогулки по городу и город как переводческая проблема. В статье представлены различные аспекты и примеры из указанной программы обучения.\n\r\n\nСтатья поступила в редакцию 17.01.2022.\n\r\n\nЦитирование\nТанушевска Л. Топос города — широкое поле для создания курса лекций в рамках проекта NEWSLA // Славянский альманах. 2022. No 1–2. С. 293–303. DOI: 10.31168/2073-5731.2022.1-2.3.06\n","source":"DOAJ","year":2022,"language":"","subjects":["History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics","Slavic languages. Baltic languages. Albanian languages"],"doi":"10.31168/2073-5731.2022.1-2.3.06","url":"https://slavicalmanac.ru/index.php/slavicalmanac/article/view/150","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":66},{"id":"arxiv_2105.10979","title":"Mathematics education policy as a high stakes political struggle: The case of Soviet Russia of the 1930s","authors":[{"name":"Alexandre V. Borovik"},{"name":"Serguei D. Karakozov"},{"name":"Serguei A. Polikarpov"}],"abstract":"This paper is an introduction to our ongoing more comprehensive work on a critically important period in the history of Russian mathematics education; it provides a glimpse into the socio-political environment in which the famous Soviet tradition of mathematics education was born. The authors are practitioners of mathematics education in two very different countries, England and Russia. We have a chance to see that too many trends and debates in current education policy resemble battles around mathematics education in the 1920s and 1930s Soviet Russia. This is why this period should be revisited and re-analysed, despite quite a considerable amount of previous research. Our main conclusion: mathematicians, first of all, were fighting for control over selection, education, and career development, of young mathematicians. In the harshest possible political environment, they were taking potentially lethal risks.","source":"arXiv","year":2021,"language":"en","subjects":["math.HO"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10979","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.10979","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2021-05-23T17:22:49Z","score":65},{"id":"doaj_10.15688/jvolsu4.2021.4.9","title":"Crafts by Nomads of the Ural and Turgai Regions at the Beginning of the 20th Century","authors":[{"name":"Marat Kappasov"}],"abstract":"         Introduction. The article, based on the “Materials on the Kyrgyz (Kazakh) Land Use Collected and Developed by the Statistical Parties of the Turgai-Ural Resettlement Region”, examines the crafts of the nomads of the Lbischensky, Uralsky, Turgai, Irgiz, Temir uyezds in the early 20th century. Temir, Lbishchensky and Ural uyezds belonged to the Ural region, Turgai and Irgiz uyezds to the Turgai region.  Methods and materials. Using the mathematical method, the method of comparative analysis and content analysis, the author shows how much income per person came from crafts in the studied uyezds and proves that crafts were only additional industries and could not compete with nomadic cattle breeding. The article examines the crafts that brought the greatest income. Farmhands, transportation, groundhog hunting, fishing, etc., were well-known crafts; the Muslim spiritual cult and its servants was an unusual craft.  Analysis. Our article shows that the studied uyezds had their own craft specializations. For example, a significant number of nomads in Lbischensky uyezd were engaged in transportation, in Turgai uyezd in hunting groundhogs, in Irgiz uyezd in hunting and fishing.  Results. At the end of the article, the author concludes that the majority of nomads were primarily engaged in crafts as farmhands due to their poverty.","source":"DOAJ","year":2021,"language":"","subjects":["History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics","International relations"],"doi":"10.15688/jvolsu4.2021.4.9","url":"https://hfrir.jvolsu.com/index.php/en/component/attachments/download/2592","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":65},{"id":"doaj_10.15826/qr.2021.4.633","title":"«Я знала, что Машиах должен прийти»: еврейская праздничная обрядность в условиях советского города","authors":[{"name":"Elena Glavatskaya"},{"name":"Elizaveta Zabolotnykh"}],"abstract":"\nФеномен этнической мобилизации, развернувшейся на всем постсоветском пространстве, невозможно понять без изучения форм сохранения и трансляции этнической идентичности в советское время. При всей обширности историографии, посвященной изучению еврейской идентичности в советский период, сюжеты, связанные с религиозностью, редко становились объектом исследований. Цель работы – выявить религиозные практики, которые продолжали существовать в среде еврейского населения Свердловска до 1961 г. – времени закрытия синагоги. В качестве источников использованы отчеты уполномоченного по делам религиозных культов и данные, полученные в ходе полевых исследований среди жителей города. Авторы постарались выяснить, насколько сохранялась и в какой форме помнится календарная обрядность, а что ушло из повседневной жизни свердловских евреев. В результате проведенных исследований было установлено, что численность религиозной общины в 1950‑е гг. достигала 500 чел., что составляло около 3 % от всего еврейского населения города. При этом еврейская религиозная община Свердловска являлась самой крупной и активной во всей области. В синагоге большее число прихожан собиралось на Песах, Йом Кипур, Рош ха-Шана и Суккот. Меньше верующих приходило на Хануку, а Пурим вообще остался незамеченным для уполномоченного по делам религиозных культов. Особенность воспоминаний информантов о праздниках (в основном о Песахе и Пуриме) – то, что все они связаны с описанием угощений. Это объясняется рядом факторов: обстоятельствами послевоенного голодного времени; возрастом информантов – все они были детьми, для которых вкусная еда являлась важнейшей составляющей любого праздника; уходом традиции в приватную сферу домашних застолий; стремлением старших родственников оградить детей от угроз, связанных с возможными обвинениями в религиозности. Полученные результаты позволяют утверждать, что праздничная обрядность, продолжая сохраняться даже в нерелигиозных семьях, хотя и в ограниченном виде, на протяжении 1940–1950‑х гг. подпитывала еврейскую идентичность.\n","source":"DOAJ","year":2021,"language":"","subjects":["History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics"],"doi":"10.15826/qr.2021.4.633","url":"https://qr.urfu.ru/ojs/index.php/qr/article/view/4201","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":65},{"id":"doaj_10.15688/jvolsu4.2021.6.23","title":"The Concept of “Miracle in a Fiery Furnace” in Byzantium and Its Later Reminiscences","authors":[{"name":"Alexandr Romensky"}],"abstract":"         Introduction. The article discusses the motive of a “miracle in a fiery furnace”, based on the story of the Three Holy Children in the Book of Daniel.  Methods. The study provides a comparative analysis of the Biblical topos about the trial by fire in Byzantine, Western European and Eastern sources. A semiotic approach of textual study is used.  Analysis. In Byzantine hagiography and hymnography, the plot of the “Three Holy Children” was interpreted as a prototype of the Incarnation, so, the sacred situation was reproduced in new historical conditions. In the Lives of Bishops of Cherson, the plot about miracle in the furnace is used for construction the local sacred history. Similar motives are found in the narratives about the baptism of Rus, such as Vita Basilii (the fifth book of Theophanes Continuatus), Vita beati Romualdi by Petrus Damiani, Historia de predicatione episcopi Brunonis. In narrative about conversion of Özbeg Khan to Islam, literary plot was connected with shamanistic representations about the holy fire.  Results. The Biblical topos of the “fiery furnace” underwent a semantic transformation within the framework of various discourses. It was used in Byzantine texts for constructing the Christian Identity, while was enhanced by Turkic mythology in Muslim tradition.","source":"DOAJ","year":2021,"language":"","subjects":["History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics","International relations"],"doi":"10.15688/jvolsu4.2021.6.23","url":"https://hfrir.jvolsu.com/index.php/en/component/attachments/download/2717","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":65},{"id":"arxiv_2009.02331","title":"History entanglement entropy","authors":[{"name":"Leonardo Castellani"}],"abstract":"A formalism is proposed to describe entangled quantum histories, and their entanglement entropy. We define a history vector, living in a tensor space with basis elements corresponding to the allowed histories, i.e. histories with nonvanishing amplitudes. The amplitudes are the components of the history vector, and contain the dynamical information. Probabilities of measurement sequences, and resulting collapse, are given by generalized Born rules: they are all expressed by means of projections and scalar products involving the history vector. Entangled history states are introduced, and a history density matrix is defined in terms of ensembles of history vectors. The corresponding history entropies (and history entanglement entropies for composite systems) are explicitly computed in two examples taken from quantum computation circuits.","source":"arXiv","year":2020,"language":"en","subjects":["quant-ph","hep-th","physics.hist-ph"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.02331","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.02331","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2020-09-04T18:00:01Z","score":64},{"id":"doaj_10.14746/strp.2020.45.1.5","title":"Традиции Ильи Ильфа и Евгения Петрова и Компромисс Сергея Довлатова","authors":[{"name":"Светлана Зайцева"}],"abstract":"","source":"DOAJ","year":2020,"language":"","subjects":["History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics","Literature (General)"],"doi":"10.14746/strp.2020.45.1.5","url":"https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/strp/article/view/23386","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":64},{"id":"doaj_10.21603/2078-8975-2020-22-2-329-339","title":"Military Diaries: Content, Features, and Potential (Based on the Great Patriotic War Sources)","authors":[{"name":"A. S. Kuznetsov"}],"abstract":"The present research featured the content, specific features, and potential of military diaries as a historical source in the anthropology of the Great Patriotic War. The study was based on the views of the leading Soviet and modern specialists in the field of source studies and historical methodology. The author defined three approaches to the place of diaries in the classification of historical sources: 1) diaries as ego-documents, 2) military diaries as memoirs, 3) diaries as a separate group of personal documents. The research objective was to determine the potential of military diaries as a source for anthropological studies of the Great Patriotic War. The method of content analysis revealed the most important aspects for the dairy writers in extreme military environment. The biographical method based on the diary analysis made it possible to describe the image of homo militaris during the Great Patriotic War. Military diaries demonstrated a great potential for studies of war routine, healthcare, psychology, and enemy perception through the eyes of an ordinary military participant, the psychology of warring man, the perception of an enemy during World War I.","source":"DOAJ","year":2020,"language":"","subjects":["History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics","Psychology"],"doi":"10.21603/2078-8975-2020-22-2-329-339","url":"https://vestnik.kemsu.ru/jour/article/view/4679","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":64},{"id":"arxiv_1905.03225","title":"SETI in Russia, USSR and the post-Soviet space: a century of research","authors":[{"name":"Lev M. Gindilis"},{"name":"Leonid I. Gurvits"}],"abstract":"Studies on extraterrestrial civilisations in Russia date back to the end of the 19th century. The modern period of SETI studies began in the USSR in the early 1960s. The first edition of the I.S. Shklovsky's book {\\it Universe, Life, Intelligence} published in 1962 was a founding stone of SETI research in the USSR. A number of observational projects in radio and optical domains were conducted in the 1960s - 1990s. Theoretical studies focused on defining optimal spectral domains for search of artificial electromagnetic signals, selection of celestial targets in search for ETI, optimal methods for encoding and decoding of interstellar messages, estimating the magnitude of astro-engineering activity of ETI, and developing philosophical background of the SETI problem. Later, in the 1990s and in the first two decades of the 21st century, in spite of acute underfunding and other problems facing the scientific community in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union, SETI-oriented research continued. In particular, SETI collaborations conducted a number of surveys of Sun-like stars in the Milky Way, searched for Dyson spheres and artificial optical signals. Several space broadcasting programs were conducted too, including a radio transmission toward selected stars. Serious rethinking was given to incentives for passive and active participation of space civilisations in SETI and CETI. This paper gives an overview of past SETI activities. It also gives a comprehensive list of publications by authors from Russia, the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet space, as well as some SETI publications by other authors. The rich heritage of SETI research presented in the paper might offer a potentially useful background and starting point for developing strategy and specific research programs of the near future.","source":"arXiv","year":2019,"language":"en","subjects":["astro-ph.IM","physics.pop-ph"],"doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2019.04.030","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.03225","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.03225","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2019-05-07T07:25:30Z","score":63},{"id":"arxiv_1906.10635","title":"Widening Perspectives: The Intellectual and Social Benefits of Astrobiology, Big History, and the Exploration of Space","authors":[{"name":"Ian Crawford"}],"abstract":"Astrobiology is the field of science devoted to searching for life elsewhere in the Universe. It is inherently interdisciplinary, integrating results from multiple fields of science, and in this respect has strong synergies with 'big history'. I argue that big history and astrobiology are both acting to widen human perspectives in intellectually and socially beneficial directions, especially by enhancing public awareness of cosmic and evolutionary worldviews. I will further argue that these perspectives have important implications for the social and political organisation of humanity, including the eventual political unification of our planet. Astrobiology and big history are also concerned with the future of humanity, and I will argue that this future will be culturally and intellectually enriched if it includes the exploration of the universe around us.","source":"arXiv","year":2019,"language":"en","subjects":["physics.pop-ph"],"doi":"10.22339/jbh.v3i3.3312","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.10635","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.10635","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2019-06-15T01:06:22Z","score":63},{"id":"arxiv_1912.00914","title":"A Changing Dichotomy: The Conception of the \"Macroscopic\" and \"Microscopic\" Worlds in the History of Physics","authors":[{"name":"Zhixin Wang"}],"abstract":"This short essay traces the conceptual history of micro- and macroscopicity in the context of physical science. By focusing on three distinct episodes spanning five centuries, we show the scientific and philosophical meanings of this antonym pair, despite never being far from \"the small\" and \"the large,\" have been evolving as the frontier of science advances. We analyze the intellectual and material impetus for these movements, and conclude that this conceptual history reflects the changing interaction between the natural world and humankind.","source":"arXiv","year":2019,"language":"en","subjects":["physics.hist-ph","physics.pop-ph"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.00914","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.00914","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2019-12-02T16:42:08Z","score":63}],"total":2893649,"page":1,"page_size":20,"sources":["CrossRef","arXiv","DOAJ"],"query":"History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics"}