Hasil untuk "Medieval history"

Mikhail G. Katz

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.

Kiwhan Song, Boyuan Chen, Max Simchowitz et al.

Classifier-free guidance (CFG) is a key technique for improving conditional generation in diffusion models, enabling more accurate control while enhancing sample quality. It is natural to extend this technique to video diffusion, which generates video conditioned on a variable number of context frames, collectively referred to as history. However, we find two key challenges to guiding with variable-length history: architectures that only support fixed-size conditioning, and the empirical observation that CFG-style history dropout performs poorly. To address this, we propose the Diffusion Forcing Transformer (DFoT), a video diffusion architecture and theoretically grounded training objective that jointly enable conditioning on a flexible number of history frames. We then introduce History Guidance, a family of guidance methods uniquely enabled by DFoT. We show that its simplest form, vanilla history guidance, already significantly improves video generation quality and temporal consistency. A more advanced method, history guidance across time and frequency further enhances motion dynamics, enables compositional generalization to out-of-distribution history, and can stably roll out extremely long videos. Project website: https://boyuan.space/history-guidance

Martina Del Popolo

Constance Carta

El exemplum XXVI del Libro del conde Lucanor (1335) merece que nos detengamos en el motivo del árbol, tercer personaje por derecho propio de esta fábula alegórica ‒junto con las personificaciones de la Verdad y la Mentira, dos conceptos clave en la obra manuelina–. El simbolismo del árbol, y el de cada una de sus partes (ramas, hojas, flores, frutos, tronco, sombra, raíces), es explotado por don Juan Manuel de forma muy sugerente, traspasando los límites de la simple comparación: ello le permite abrir el sentido del relato a lecturas complementarias y, a veces, incluso en apariencia contradictorias. Este tupido bosque de metáforas e interpretaciones sirve tanto al propósito narrativo como a la intención del autor, pero también permite acercarse al corpus de textos conocidos por el noble castellano y estudiar el modo en que se apropia de ellos para crear una obra altamente original.

Robert van Leeuwen

The early history of string theory is marked by a shift from strong interaction physics to quantum gravity. The first string models and associated theoretical framework were formulated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the context of the S-matrix program for the strong interactions. In the mid-1970s, the models were reinterpreted as a potential theory unifying the four fundamental forces. This paper provides a historical analysis of how string theory was developed out of S-matrix physics, aiming to clarify how modern string theory, as a theory detached from experimental data, grew out of an S-matrix program that was strongly dependent upon observable quantities. Surprisingly, the theoretical practice of physicists already turned away from experiment before string theory was recast as a potential unified quantum gravity theory. With the formulation of dual resonance models (the "hadronic string theory"), physicists were able to determine almost all of the models' parameters on the basis of theoretical reasoning. It was this commitment to "non-arbitrariness", i.e., a lack of free parameters in the theory, that initially drove string theorists away from experimental input, and not the practical inaccessibility of experimental data in the context of quantum gravity physics. This is an important observation when assessing the role of experimental data in string theory.

Donato Pirovano

La sostanza onirica è una componente importante della narrazione e della sostanza epifanica che caratterizza la Vita nova. Collocati in punti strategici della storia, tutti convergenti verso il (o dal) kérigma della morte o meglio assunzione al cielo di Beatrice, questi episodi si configurano come premonizioni e come aperture dell’orizzonte narrativo. In questo contributo sono analizzate le due, forse tre visiones in somniis, che si trovano rispettivamente nei paragrafi III, XII e XLII. Nella comune dimensione onirica e nella prefigurazione di qualcosa che avverrà tutte e tre mantengono un carattere enigmatico.

Mirela Džehverović, Amela Pilav, Belma Jusić et al.

Numerous archaeological sites in Bosnia and Herzegovina represent a historical heritage and testify to the rich cultural, social, and political life of medieval Bosnia. Bobovac, the capital of the Bosnian Kingdom after King Tvrtko I's coronation in 1377, featured a royal complex with a palace, church, and fortification. Recent molecular-genetic research on skeletal remains from Bobovac aims to uncover medieval ancestors' customs and genetic origins. Fifteen well-preserved teeth samples from Bobovac were processed. STR amplification employed PowerPlex® Fusion and Investigator® 24plex QS Kits, with Y-STR profiles generated using the PowerPlex® Y23 System. Fourteen partial autosomal STR profiles were obtained, enabling sex determination and kinship analysis. STR amplification success varied due to ancient DNA degradation, with larger loci showing lower amplification rates. Kinship analysis confirmed appropriate marker selection, demonstrating high reliability for determining close relationships. Integrating aDNA analysis with archaeological research enhances our understanding of historical populations, connecting archaeology and forensic genetics to contribute to the broader narrative of human history.

Leonid I. Gurvits

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.

Nicolas Perreaux

This article examines the importance of graphic representations in the social sciences, and particularly in (medieval) history, taking as its starting point a reflection by {É}tienne-Jules Marey, a physiologist and pioneer of 19th-century photography and cinema. Marey believed that the visual should replace language in many fields. Indeed, the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries saw an exponential multiplication of visual media, particularly with the advent of digital technology. However, this ''graphics revolution'' has not affected all disciplines equally. Significant differences remain between scientific fields such as astrophysics, anthropology, chemistry and medieval history, despite their shared commitment to describing dynamic processes and changes of state. Yet, while historians have already digitized a large part of the cultural heritage from Antiquity to the 10th-13th centuries, exploration of this corpus using visualizations remains limited. There is therefore untapped potential in this field.This article begins by outlining a typology and quantification of the past and potential roles of visual representations in medieval history. It examines two distinct intellectual approaches: 1. the use of visuals to support a scientific discourse (majority) and 2. the construction of a historical discourse based on observations made from visual figures with the aim of modeling phenomena invisible to the naked eye. The author thus examines the use of ''images'' in medievalism, focusing on the annual volumes of the Soci{é}t{é} des historiens m{é}di{é}vistes de l'enseignement sup{é}rieur (SHMESP), up to 2006. Two other parts of the text look at the still-rare forms of visual representation in medieval history, particularly those with a ''heuristic vocation'', using iconographic objects, parchments, buildings and digitized texts. The article suggests various visualization techniques, such as network analysis, the creation of ''stemmas 2.0'' and interactive chronologies, which could benefit the discipline. These methods could potentially profoundly change our understanding of ancient societies, by showing the dynamic relationships between different aspects of these societies. One of the most important advances expected from these visual methods is a better understanding of the patterns of development in medieval Europe, which varied from region to region. The hypothesis is that the scarcity of heuristic graphics in medieval history stems from the relationship with ancient documents and the historical method based on narration and exemplarity. The article thus questions the value of ''visual modelling'' in medieval history, and highlights the challenges associated with the widespread adoption of this approach in the humanities and social sciences. Finally, the text invites us to reflect on the nature and functioning of heuristic visual devices, by comparing medieval ''images'' and contemporary scientific visuals. In both cases, the point is to materialize the invisible in order to show something that exists beyond the visual. The author suggests that this way of approaching visuals could play a growing role in the decades to come, particularly in the field of data science.

Doreen Fraser, Maria Papageorgiou

The formulation of a measurement theory for relativistic quantum field theory (QFT) has recently been an active area of research. In contrast to the asymptotic measurement framework that was enshrined in QED, the new proposals aim to supply a measurement framework for measurements in local spacetime regions. This paper surveys episodes in the history of quantum theory that contemporary researchers have identified as precursors to their own work and discusses how they laid the groundwork for current approaches to local measurement theory for QFT.

Inés Calderón Medina

A pesar de los esfuerzos del Papado por implantar el modelo de matrimonio canónico, los reyes de Portugal, León y Castilla mantuvieron relaciones de concubinato con mujeres nobles. Utilizando las crónicas regias de los siglos XII y XIII y los Livros de Linhagens portugueses se estudia la construcción de la imagen y memoria de las concubinas y cómo fueron utilizadas en los procesos de construcción de las monarquías hispánicas y de la identidad nobiliaria. Asimismo, se analiza la evolución de su percepción social entre los siglos XII y XIV. Las crónicas destacan las relaciones ilegítimas para subrayar la hegemonía castellana, para mostrar la sangre regia de su descendencia, o las silencian por motivos políticos. Las genealogías crean imágenes positivas de ellas porque aportan sangre real a su familia, aunque en ocasiones, las utilizan para atacar a sus parientes. En ambos tipos de fuentes se observa la evolución desde una imagen positiva, hasta el desprecio o el silencio a medida que avanza la implantación del matrimonio establecido en Letrán.

Petrushko Liudmyla

The goal of the research. The article aims to comprehensively reconstruct the vision of sadness and tears presented in the instructive literature of Egyptian-Palestinian monasticism. Methodology. The research uses methods of analysis, synthesis and generalization, classification and systematization, induction and deduction, narrative, historical-typological, historical-problematic, historical-comparative, historical-systemic, historical-genetic, terminological analysis, content analysis and interpretive. Scientific novelty. The article presents a comprehensive reconstruction of the vision of unhappy emotions in the translated instructive literature. The peculiarities of understanding sadness and weeping in the Orthodox tradition are consideredand generalized. The idea of the significance of tears for medieval monasticism hasbeen further developed. Conclusions. As a result of the analysis of rich in historical content the source base, it is clarified that the monastic tradition of the Christian East distinguished between three types of sadness and weeping. They are characterizedby relevant assessments such as positive, neutral (positive-neutral) and negative, which depends on how those unhappy emotions correlate with the cause of the salvation of the soul. The central aspect of theology is sorrow and tears of love for Lord. There is distinctive ethics of the unhappy emotions which involves the means of achievement of the spiritual crying, its perseverance, maintenance, and affirmationin purity; the methods of combating the sinful sadness; the transition from corruptand natural tears to the pleasing to God ones. The connotation of the unhappy emotionsin the Christian tradition is generally negative. It is due to the understanding of their place in human history: sorrows and tears have appeared as a forced consequence of Adam and Eve lapse from virtue. There was no sign of it in Paradise of Eden; the same will be in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Gustavo Rodrigues Rocha, Dean Rickles, Florian J. Boge

It will be presented in this chapter a historical account of the consistent histories interpretation of quantum mechanics based on primary and secondary literature. Firstly, the formalism of the consistent histories approach will be outlined. Secondly, the works by Robert Griffiths and Roland Omnès will be discussed. Griffiths' seminal 1984 paper, the first physicist to have proposed a consistent-histories interpretation of quantum mechanics, followed by Omnès' 1990 paper, were instrumental to the consistent-histories model based on Boolean logic. Thirdly, Murray Gell-Mann and James Hartle's steps to their own version of consistent-histories approach, motivated by a cosmological perspective, will then be described and evaluated. Gell-Mann and Hartle understood that spontaneous decoherence could path the way to a concrete physical model to Griffiths' consistent histories. Moreover, the collective biography of these figures will be put in the context of the role played by the Santa Fe Institute, co-founded by Gell-Mann in 1984 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Hartle is also a member of the external faculty.

Carlo Ebanista, Simone Marinaro

La notizia, supportata da una lunga tradizione erudita, per cui sotto il complesso di Santa Maria della Vita a Napoli si collochi una catacomba dedicata a san Vito, dove un tempo si ergeva una chiesa intitolata al medesimo santo, è stata sempre circondata da incertezza. Nonostante la catacomba sia tuttora irrintracciabile, lo studio, mosso dal fine di chiarire il complesso di fonti al riguardo, ha conseguito notevoli risultati, accertando l’esistenza storica e i caratteri della primitiva chiesa, individuando in loco numerose cavità ipogee non funerarie, nonché riportando all’attenzione degli studiosi un’immagine mariana dimenticata, proveniente dagli ambienti sotterranei preesistenti al convento.

Leonardo Castellani

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.

Carl-Fredrik Nyberg-Brodda

This article aims to be a self-contained account of the history of the B. B. Newman Spelling Theorem, including the historical context in which it arose. First, an account of B. B. Newman and how he came to prove his Spelling Theorem is given, together with a description of the author's efforts to track this information down. Following this, a high-level description of combinatorial group theory is given. This is then tied in with a description of the history of the word problem, a fundamental problem in the area. After a description of some of the theory of one-relator groups, an important part of combinatorial group theory, the natural division line into the torsion and torsion-free case for such groups is described. This culminates in a statement of and general discussion about the B. B. Newman Spelling Theorem and its importance.

Fernando B. Figueiredo, João M. Fernandes

In 1782 José Monteiro da Rocha, astronomer and professor of the University of Coimbra, presented in a public session of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Lisbon a memoir on the problem of the determination of the comets' orbits. Only in 1799, the "Determinação das Orbitas dos Cometas" (Determination of the orbits of comets) would be published in the Academy's memoires. In that work, Monteiro da Rocha presents a method for solving the problem of the determination of the parabolic orbit of a comet from three observations. Monteiro da Rocha's method is essentially the same method proposed by Olbers and published under von Zach's sponsorship two years before, in 1797. To have been written and published in Portuguese was certainly a hindrance for its dissemination among the international astronomical community. In this article, we intend to present Monteiro da Rocha's method and trying to see to what extent Gomes Teixeira's assertion (Teixeira 1934) that Monteiro da Rocha and Olbers must figure together in the history of astronomy, as the first inventors of a practical and easy method for the determination of parabolic orbits of comets, is justified.

Ian Crawford

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.

Zhixin Wang

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.

Pierre Pretou

The reception and appropriation of Roman history under the Valois through copies and translations of luxurious manuscripts owned by these kings, their relatives and great officers, connect the medieval imaginary of antiquity to this dynasty. French political iconography of the 14th and 15th centuries combines the governance of the City of Rome with the origins of the kingdom since the translation of Ab Urbe Condita of Tite-Live by Pierre Bersuire, the copies of Jean Mansel's Fleurs des histoires, the translations of De Civitate Dei by Raoul de Presles and the vernacular translation of the writings of Valère Maxime by Simon de Hesdin and Nicolas de Gonesse. By thousands, these miniatures on a universe of men and cities, order and disorder, peace and revenge, concord and discord, identify the public space, the speech, the just power, the contestation, the tyranny, the circulation pacificator of the law, but rarely give way to women, except to associate them with bloody scenes. The serial analysis of the narrow corpus of female representation shows that the appropriation of the image of Roman history gives a singular place to the genre in the representation of conflicts and their resolution in urban areas. The painted women who emerge from Roman stories of the late Middle Ages French escort a world of ancient men experiencing the soothing role of law. Can we conclude for these rare women who accompany scenes of conflict and peace that the painter gives them a historical role as mediators and reinterprets the actions of Roman women? Does he reconsider the construction of public order at the end of the French Middle Ages or is it first of all the historized formulation of a political theory of marriage?