Plato's cave

Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet

by Claire L. Evans  · 6 Mar 2018  · 371pp  · 93,570 words

commonalities that can bolster our solidarity. One more: the history of computers is an alphabet salad. We’ll meet ENIAC and UNIVAC and ARPANET and PLATO and the WWW. It can be difficult to read these acronyms without feeling like the past is yelling at you. Please don’t despair. It

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more than fifty years. One nameless noodle, a passage forking off the subterranean Echo River, became important a century after Bishop was buried near the cave’s main entrance, his grave marked by only a cedar tree. In Bishop’s lifetime, every landowner in Central Kentucky claimed a cave entrance; if not

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couple spent all their vacations deep underground. “I get cold when he’s not keeping me company,” she wrote in one caving diary. “There’s quite a draft here; the cave’s breathing.” Will didn’t come along on the final connection trip. He’d been at Patricia’s side on earlier surveys, pushed

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had a group doctrine: no exploration without survey. A map is the only way to see a cave in its entirety, and making maps is caving’s equivalent of summiting mountains. It’s also a survival mechanism. To stay safe, cavers map as they go, “working rationally and systematically to locate known

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former coworker of Will Crowther’s, recalling the topographical data stored on the computers at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, noted in 1985 that “Adventure’s Colossal Cave, at least up to a point (or down to a point) is the same as the one in Kentucky, and the description and geology of

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“source cave,” the Bedquilt section of Mammoth, was able to document clear parallels between the cave’s geology and Crowther’s descriptions. Like the fluorescein dye with which speleologists trace the course of underground streams, Adventure’s version of caving culture stained the entire network. Cavers seek connections, which they discover through systematic survey, collective

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, the most famous archaeologist to study Mammoth, Patty Jo Watson, inferred an entire agricultural economy from the grains digested by the corpses preserved in the cave’s constant temperature and humidity. To understand a people, we must know how they ate. To understand a program, we must know its makers—not only

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monitor, we see beyond the real. Symbols applied to raw granite, to canvas, to code: all of it lights up the darkness. There’s a lamp in the cave. Do you know what to do? GET LAMP Good. Now hold it tight, we’ll need to take it with us. We’ll

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might someday be replaced with electronic learning systems running specialized software. They called this Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations, or PLATO. The software was built on their mainframes. The PLATO model was to offer distributed low-cost education, with a number of centrally hosted teaching programs accessed remotely by students at

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glowing orange terminals like the one in Marisa’s basement. Although PLATO terminals would eventually be installed in universities and schools from Illinois to Cape Town, very few people would ever have one at home. Not that

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Marisa took advantage of her unique situation to learn anything. PLATO offered lessons in everything from arithmetic to Hebrew, but she used it to talk to boys. “I didn’t have any interest in programming,” she

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me what I was wearing; it didn’t get dirty or anything like that, but it was very flirty, and it was really fun.” Wherever PLATO terminals were installed, students were chatting, posting messages about “science fiction, women’s rights, football, the defense budget, rock ’n’ roll

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a primitive version of e-mail called Personal Notes, public “Group Notes” that served as bulletin boards, and one-on-one chat, called TERMType. The PLATO community piloted all the tropes that would become common in online communities—including men impersonating women—and like the Community Memory terminals emerging simultaneously in

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the Bay Area, it had its own wonky grassroots counterculture. Marisa was, in PLATO slang, a zbrat: a kid using her father’s log-in to mingle on the nascent network. She doesn’t remember ever seeing another female

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the boss’s son, she chatted with college students in Boulder, Colorado, and in Champaign-Urbana, at the University of Illinois, where the PLATO software was being developed. PLATO users shared recipes, gave each other love advice, used emoticons, and played fantasy role-playing games. For a suburban kid in the Midwest

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, all of this was totally unexpected, as though a household appliance had suddenly become a window into another dimension. PLATO altered the course of Marisa’s life. When most people her age still thought of computers as monolithic calculators in university basements, she understood that

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Ivana Trump, merger-and-acquisition, junk-bond boom-time”—she discovered BBS culture, and The WELL. “Oh my God,” she thought. “This is just like PLATO but with interesting people!” She was eager to relive her adolescent flirtations, but The WELL didn’t do it for her. On today’s Web

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fast-girl charisma that popped from the screen. “She knows she’s smart, powerful and beautiful,” wrote Stacy, “part tart”—those formative years cyberflirting on PLATO had served her well—“part total queen.” She became the conference manager, the host of hosts, and the object of plenty of one-sided ardor

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their own freedom. “a bowl of spaghetti”: Roger W. Brucker, “Mapping of Mammoth Cave: How Cartography Fueled Discoveries, with Emphasis on Max Kaemper’s 1908 Map” (Mammoth Cave Research Symposia, Paper 4, October 9, 2008, http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/mc_reserch_symp/9th_Research_Symposium_2008/Day_one/4.) One nameless noodle

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. Zopf, Thomas A. Brucker, P. Gary Eller, Stephen G. Wells, and John P. Wilcox, The Grand Kentucky Junction: A Memoir (St. Louis, MO: Cave Books, 1984), 96. “It’s an incredible feeling”: Roger W. Brucker and Richard A. Watson, The Longest Cave (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 213. Will ran a

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“map factory”: Ibid., 171. “plotting commands on huge rolls”: Dennis G. Jerz, “Somewhere Nearby Is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther’s Original ‘Adventure’ in Code and in Kentucky,” Digital Humanities Quarterly (2007), www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/1/2/000009/000009.html. In 1969, BBN

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encountered: www.legacy.com/obituaries/dispatch/obituary.aspx?n=john-preston-wilcox&pid=145049233. “completely different from the real cave”: Jerz, “Somewhere Nearby Is Colossal Cave.” “Adventure’s Colossal Cave, at least”: Walt Bilofsky, “Adventures in Computing,” Profiles: The Magazine for Kaypro Users 2, no. 1 (1984): 25, https://archive.org/stream

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with the author, July 26, 2016. “science fiction, women’s rights: “Between PLATO and the Social Media Revolution,” May 10, 1983, http://just.thinkofit.com/between-plato-and-the-social-media-revolution. including men impersonating women: David R. Woolley, “PLATO: The Emergence of Online Community,” in Social Media Archaeology and Poetics, ed. Judy

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and Ivana Trump”: Marisa Bowe, “When I Grow Up,” Vice.com, November 30, 2004, www.vice.com/read/when-I-v11n3. “This is just like PLATO”: Bowe, interview with the author, July 26, 2016. “I’m allergic to the Grateful Dead”: Digital Archaeology, “www.word.com, circa 1995,” 5:18, posted

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, 119 Perlman, Radia, 123–28 Phiber Optik, 136, 187 Pickering, Edward Charles, 23 PicoSpan, 132, 135 Pierce, Julianne, 237 Plant, Sadie, 11, 21, 80, 238 PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations), 178–81 Pleasant Company, 235 Poetics (Aristotle), 226 Pollock, Scarlet, 239 Powers, Richard, 88 presidential election of 1952, 60

The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget (Travel Guide eBook)

by Rough Guides  · 1 Jan 2019  · 1,909pp  · 531,728 words

an information centre at the park entrance where you must register, and where guided hikes can be arranged. Trails include an easy hour’s ramble to Pinturas Rupestres (cave paintings), a longer trail leading to Lago Belgrano, a 16km trek to Lago Burgmeister and a tough three-hour ascent of Cerro León

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B$40, while a smaller number offer a set dinner (cena) in the evening and also have a range of à la carte main dishes (platos extras), rarely costing more than B$30–40. For B$50–75 you should expect a substantial meal in more upmarket restaurants, while about B

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attractions – high valleys and deep canyons, ringed by low mountains whose twisted geological formations are strewn with fossils, dinosaur footprints and labyrinthine limestone cave complexes. The park’s cactus and scrubby woodland supports considerable wildlife – including flocks of parakeets and the rare and beautiful red-fronted macaw. The main attractions are the

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tribes, illustrated with artefacts and black-and-white photos of Aónikenk and Kawéskar people, as well as on European settlement, the story of the Milodon’s cave, and the region’s first German settler, Hermann Eberhard; look out for his ingenious collapsible boat that turns into a suitcase. Arrival and information By

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. Mon–Sat 11am–10pm. El Divino Niño Southwest Bay 316 827 7489. This local beach shack institution is best known for its awesome mixed plate (plato mixto para dos), with enough lobster, conch, shrimp, crab and fish to sink a ship (C$60,000), but also does fried fresh fish, amazing

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reach the winding alley of La Ronda, one of Quito’s oldest streets. This atmospheric cobbled lane is lined with restaurants, bars and cave-like art galleries. It’s a popular spot at night to listen to live music or have a canelazo (a hot mix of naranjilla, cinnamon water and aguardiente

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(from S/18), the strong cocktails really hit the spot. Daily 5.30pm–late. Pukasoncco Av Libertadores s/n 949 052 610. A veritable Aladdin’s cave of pre-Columbian-style crafts, this unpromising bamboo hut set back from the road also houses a small restaurant. Artist-chef Sanson lovingly prepares healthy

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walk to each). The Peruvian and French hosts are experts on activities in the local area and can advise on reaching nearby cave paintings and waterfalls. Dorms S/25, doubles S/52 Hospedaje Los Jazmines Jr Amazonas 775 076 361 812, hospedajelosjazmines.com.pe; map. A comfortable hostel in a converted colonial house

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Armas, all of which offer standard day-trips to Kuélap (S/90); Karajía, combined with either Pueblo de Los Muertos or the Quiocta Cave (S/90); and Gocta waterfall (S/60). Turismo Explorer, at Jr Grau 509 on the plaza (041 478 162, turismoexplorerperu.com), is highly recommended and the guides speak excellent

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Plaza Chacao; map. Not a pizzeria as the name suggests, but rather an informal lunch spot serving up authentic Lebanese food, prepared fresh daily. The Plato Mixto gives a rounded taste of the kitchen’s delights, washed down with refreshing yoghurt drinks. Gets very busy at lunchtime. Mon–Sat 9am–5pm

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Kenya Sector El Guácharo 0416 396 8376. Friendly tour guide and local legend Carlos Kenya runs his “Lost Boys”-style homestay close to the Guácharo cave. There’s a dormitory and four cosy en-suite doubles. Carlos also runs tours and volunteering projects throughout the region. BsS200 Posada Dios es Amor las

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) Menu Cena Dinner Comida típica Typical cuisine Cuchara Spoon Cuchillo Knife Desayuno Breakfast La cuenta, por favor The bill, please Merienda Set menu Plato fuerte Main course Plato vegetariano Vegetarian dish Tenedor Fork Fruit (frutas) Cereza Cherry Chirimoya Custard apple Ciruela Plum Fresa/frutilla Strawberry Guayaba Guava Guineo Banana Higo Fig Limón

The Rough Guide to New Zealand: Travel Guide eBook

by Rough Guides  · 1 Jan 2024  · 1,383pp  · 367,401 words

kleptomaniac kea It’s hard not to love these trickster alpine parrots, even if one has just shredded your windscreen wipers. See page 72. DIY caving There’s something raw and thrilling about an unaided exploration of Cave Stream, a 600m-long tunnel carved by an alpine stream. See page 419. Most

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St. Bargain hole-in-the-wall serving Korean pancakes with delectable fillings such as pork, red bean, chicken and cheese, or sugar and cinnamon. $ Tanuki’s Cave 319b Queen St; www.tanukiscave.co.nz. Excellent yakitori and sake bar in a cave-like basement setting, with a more formal restaurant above. Tuck

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the laidback atmosphere of this bohemian town. See page 174 2 Waitomo Abseil or blackwater raft into labyrinthine caves on some of the world’s best adventure caving trips, often illuminated by a glittering canopy of glowworms. See page 177 3 Te Aroha Rejuvenate in the geyser-fed hot soda springs in

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until 1989 that the caves were returned to their Māori owners, who receive a percentage of all revenue generated and participate in the site’s management. Waitomo Caves Discovery Centre I-SITE, 21 Waitomo Caves Rd • Daily: late Dec to mid-Jan 8.30am–6.45pm; mid-Jan to late Feb 8

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depart every 30min • Charge; combination ticket available with Aranui cave and/or Ruakuri cave • www.waitomo.com Bus tours all stop at Waitomo’s original cave experience, Waitomo Glowworm Caves, 500m west of the i-SITE. Paved walkways and lighting pick out the best of the stalactites and stalagmites, and there’s a

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; 1hr • Charge • www.waitomo.com You descend into a vast, theatrically lit void to access the “The Den of the Dogs” as Ruakuri Cave’s name translates. Waitomo’s longest guided underground walking tour follows suspended walkways, linking spectacular, subtly lit cavern passages, as guides thread the practicalities of cave creation and the

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an abseil is followed by several “wet” hours, navigating upstream through squeezes, behind a small waterfall and into a glittering glowworm grotto. There’s also an abseil-free cave-tubing trip (4hr), the active abseil-heavy Haggas Honking Holes (4hr) and St Benedict’s Caverns (3hr 30min), a dry trip with abseils

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–May 10am, 11am, 2pm & 3pm • 3hr • Charge • www.glowworm.co.nz For a gentle but impressive underground experience, it is hard to beat Spellbound’s two-cave combo, starting off with a peaceful drift along a subterranean stream beneath a canopy of magnificent glowworms. The second cave has the pick of the

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through forest to a riverside boardwalk, leading into a narrow limestone gorge topped by a double bridge formed by the remains of a collapsed cave roof. It’s especially dazzling at night when the undersides glimmer with constellations of glowworms. In daylight, don’t miss the rest of the walk, through farmland

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the best material is in the Te Awa section, covering all aspects of the Manawatu River from geology and ecology to bug life (there’s a weta cave) and a tank of native fish (effectively grown-up whitebait). The stunning carpet is an aerial view of the entire region. Throughout the galleries

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the second largest digital workshop in the world that has worked on almost 100 blockbuster movies, from Avatar to Blade Runner 2049. Visit the workshop’s Weta Cave, on the corner of Camperdown Road and Weka Street (daily 9am–5.30pm; free; www.wetanz.co.nz; bus #2 from the city) – look

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are represented, as are most of its alpine plants, and the remote interior is a haven for wildlife, including rare carnivorous snails and giant cave spiders. The park’s extraordinary landscapes are best seen by walking the Heaphy Track (78km; 4–5 days), which links the Aorere Valley in Golden Bay with

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Highlights Highlights are marked on the map on page 363 1 Karamea and the Oparara Basin Set a day aside to explore this remote area’s caves harbouring moa bones, vast limestone arches and cooling placid streams. See page 368 2 Pancake Rocks Layered like a stack of pancakes, this geological curiosity

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no shortage of activities, including thrilling fly-in rafting trips down the West Coast’s steep rivers. The limestone bedrock makes for some adventurous caving, and there’s plenty of hiking, with the Heaphy Track to the north, several excellent trails around Punakaiki and a stack of tramps around the glaciers. Most

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to the main Oparara carpark. Even if you don’t complete the loop, it’s worth pressing on to a viewpoint just beyond the cave scramble, where there’s a great view back to the rock formation. Kohaihai River At the end of the road, 17km north of Karamea Visitors with no

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the effort to dine at this smart suburban café-restaurant, which turns out superb modern Kiwi bistro dishes, most cooked on its Texan-wood grill. $$ Plato 2 Birch St; www.platocafe.co.nz. Dunedin’s seafood connoisseurs make their way across the overpasses and railway tracks to fill this excellent bistro

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; www.gibbstonvalley.com. It can be a bit of a circus these days, but then Gibbston’s original winery does have the region’s only “wine cave”. Tour the cave and taste three wines (five tours daily), or opt for a standard cellar door sampling (four wines). There’s a good restaurant and

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kayak. See page 518 7 The Catlins Coast The southern tip of New Zealand is a sparsely populated region of majestic waterfalls, giant Cathedral Caves, Curio Bay’s fossilized forest and plenty of penguins, seals and Hector’s dolphins. See page 524 Fiordland and Southland For all New Zealand’s grandeur, no

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’re not planning to visit the more impressive underground attractions at North Island’s Waitomo (see page 177), make time for Te Anau Glowworm Caves. The town’s full Māori name, Te Ana-au, means “cave with a current of swirling water” and it was a search for the town’s namesake

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great views, plus there’s free espresso, oodles of TV channels, parkas to borrow and plenty of parking spots. $$$$ Rosie’s Backpacker Homestay 23 Tom Plato Drive; www.rosiesbackpackers.co.nz. This small, relaxed backpackers sleeps just twelve in a family home with lake and mountain views – and even after over

I You We Them

by Dan Gretton

Suffolk. Potholes, more of a track now. The words continue, interspersed with songs of yearning, where the love is very intertwined with death. Cave’s now talking about Lorca’s writing on ‘duende’ – the inexplicable sadness that is found in so much great writing and music. This quality that is instantly recognisable but

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so much and compared to ‘glass shards’ which he believed would disable people’s memories. Ironically, we only know about this view of Socrates’ because Plato wrote down his thoughts later on – in the dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus: ‘for this discovery of yours [writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners

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Italie (1803–04) by François-René de Chateaubriand. 3 ‘for this discovery of yours [writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls …’ from Phaedrus by Plato, written in 360 b.c. 4 There are certain things in life with beginnings, middles and endings. And in fact, I love such activities. But

Lonely Planet Mexico

by John Noble, Kate Armstrong, Greg Benchwick, Nate Cavalieri, Gregor Clark, John Hecht, Beth Kohn, Emily Matchar, Freda Moon and Ellee Thalheimer  · 2 Jan 1992

structure was dedicated to the sun god was validated in 1971, when archaeologists uncovered a 100m-long underground tunnel leading from the pyramid’s west flank to a cave directly beneath its center, where they found religious artifacts. It’s thought that the sun was worshiped here before the pyramid was built

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entrance –just as long as you’re not afraid of the dark – at your own pace. Guides generally do not speak English. From the cave exit it’s possible to hike down a path to the fast-flowing Río Dos Bocas, which runs through the mountainside. Outside of the rainy season, there

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pine forests and glimpses of bobcats and bighorn sheep. The Sierra de San Francisco, part of the Vizcaíno reserve, holds more than 60 cave painting sites. At Baja’s southern tip, Reserva de la Biosfera Sierra de la Laguna is great for trekking through cardón and palo verde forests, with jewel-like

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cliff dwellings inhabited from about 1200 to 1450. You get only distant overlooks of the first two, Cueva del Nido del Águila (Eagle’s Nest Cave) and Cueva Mirador (Lookout Cave), but you can enter houses in the Cueva de la Serpiente (Cave of the Serpent), where the restored adobe dwellings cut through

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La Boca reservoir, for a look at its attractive plaza principal. Grutas de García An illuminated, 2.5km route leads through 16 chambers in Garcia’s Caves ( 8347-1533; adult/child M$60/45; 9am-5pm), located 1100m up in the Sierra El Fraile. The caves, reached by a spectacular ride in

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talents of a Mexican named Carlos and a Cuban-born chef named Lucía? A vibrant, colorful little restaurant serving specialities from both countries. Try the plato Carlos y Lucía: shrimp or fish cooked in brandy, accompanied by rice, veggies and plantains. Vittore Italian Grill (Map; 986-24-24; Av Playa Gaviotas

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you at the cave entrance before Bolonchén (M$15, 25 minutes). In addition, colectivos depart for Bolonchén from the north side of Hopelchén’s plaza, passing near the caves. Check with the driver for return times. Hwy 261 continues north into Yucatán state to Uxmal, with a side road leading to the

Parks Directory of the United States

by Darren L. Smith and Kay Gill  · 1 Jan 2004

Features: Established to preserve Carlsbad Cavern and numerous other caves within a Permian-age fossil reef, the park contains 113 known caves, including Lechuguilla Cave—the nation’s deepest limestone cave at 1,567 feet and third longest. From early spring through October, nearly 400,000 Mexican free-tail bats call Carlsbad

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Caverns home and visitors can watch the evening bat flight from the outdoor amphitheater at the cave’s natural entrance. 1. US National Parks PARKS DIRECTORY OF THE UNITED STATES—5th EDITION picnic area, rest rooms (u), visitor center (u), self-guided tour

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13,063-foot Wheeler Peak, 5,000-yearold bristlecone pine trees, 75-foot limestone Lexington Arch, and the tunnels and decorated galleries of Lehman Caves are the park’s major features. ★163★ GREAT EGG HARBOR NATIONAL SCENIC & RECREATIONAL RIVER c/o National Park Service 200 Chestnut St Philadelphia, PA 19106 Web: www

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system in the world with more than 365 miles explored and mapped. The park contains several species of endangered plants and animals, including Eggert’s Sunflower, the Eyeless Cave Shrimp, and several species of river mussels, among others. ★236★ MARSH-BILLINGS-ROCKEFELLER NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK 54 Elm St Woodstock, VT 05091 Web

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. Activities: Camping, hiking, auto touring, guided cave tours and prairie hikes. Special Features: Here in the scenic Black Hills, one of the world’s longest and most complex caves is well known for its outstanding display of boxwork, an unusual cave formation composed of thin calcite fins resembling honeycombs. The park’s

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sheep, black and grizzly bear, wolf, coyote, caribou, and mountain lion. The Castleguard Caves in the remote northwest corner of the park form Canada’s longest cave system. life in the park includes 43 species of orchids and more than 20 varieties of ferns, including the rare northern holly fern. ★410★ CAPE

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the public; other portions of the refuge are open during daylight hours. Primary Wildlife: Endangered gray bats and Indiana bats. Special Features: The refuge’s double-entrance cave has been a major maternity cave for gray and Indiana bats. In 1997, a summer count documented 300,000 to 400,000 gray bats

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his papers. Center include information on the tours as well as interactive displays and a theater with a video program. During the summer months, the cave’s Big Room serves as a nursery for about 1,000 female cave myotis bats. ★1435★ LAKE HAVASU STATE PARK 699 London Bridge Rd Lake Havasu

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the longest underwater cave systems in the continental United States. About 28,000 feet of its underwater passages have been explored and surveyed by cave divers. Park’s natural features include two major springs, a major spring run, and six sinkholes. ★2006★ OSCAR SCHERER STATE PARK 1843 S Tamiami Trail Osprey, FL

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number of cave-adapted animals known in the state, including the cave salamander and at least two species of bats. Approximately 6 miles of the cave’s passages have been mapped. Days and hours of operation vary seasonally, but, when open, no one is allowed to enter the cave after 2:30

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War II. The land for the park was originally purchased through a joint effort by Fayette, Franklin, Union, and Wayne counies. ★2367★ WYANDOTTE CAVES STATE RECREATION AREA 7315 S Wyandotte Cave Rd Leavenworth, IN 47137 Web: www.in.gov/dnr/forestry/stateforests/wyandtcv.htm Phone: 812-738-2782 Size: 26,000 acres

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. Activities: Camping, hiking, interpretive programs. Special Features: Park contains more caves than any other state park in Iowa. An extensive trail system links the park’s caves, overlooks, and other geological formations including ‘‘Natural Bridge,’’ which stands nearly 50 feet above Raccoon Creek, and 17-ton ‘‘Balanced Rock.’’ ★2404★ MCINTOSH WOODS STATE

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House SHS Finger Lakes SP First Missouri State Capitol SHS Fort Davidson SHS General John J. Pershing Boyhood Home SHS Governor Daniel Dunklin’s Grave SHS Graham Cave SP Grand Gulf SP Ha Ha Tonka SP Harry S Truman Birthplace SHS Harry S Truman SP Hawn SP 81 41 44 54 22

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, guided cave tours, nature programs. Special Features: Missouri’s largest state park includes a visitor center and tours of Ozark Caverns, informing visitors about the cave’s Angel’s Showers—streams of water that continuously pour from the stalactites—and its other features. ★3017★ LAKE WAPPAPELLO STATE PARK HC 2, Box 102 Williamsville

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biking, horseback riding, interpretive programs. Special Features: Natural geological formations are the principal features at this day-use park. A natural rock bridge, Devil’s Icebox Cave, and numerous sinkholes are part of the large limestone cave system dating back thousands of years. A boardwalk and other trails lead visitors to the

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center (uu). Activities: Camping, hiking, volleyball, spelunking, guided cave tours, interpretive programs. Special Features: The 0.75-mile-long underground cavern is the nation’s largest gypsum cave open to guided tours, offering visitors the opportunity to view massive boulders of pink, white, and even rare black alabaster. From March to September

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County. Facilities: Hiking, bicycling, and nature trails. Activities: Hiking, bicycling, bird-watching. Special Features: Also known as Friedrich Wilderness Park. ★4963★ HARRIET ISLAND REGIONAL PARK Plato Ave & Waubasha St Saint Paul, MN 55102 Web: www.stpaul.gov/depts/parks/ Phone: 612-632-5111; Fax: 612-632-5115 Size: 510 acres. Location

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Park (WI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Governor Thompson State Park (WI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gowdy (Curt) State Park (WY). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grafton Lakes State Park (NY) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grafton Notch State Park (ME). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Graham Cave State Park (MO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Graham’s Island State Park (ND) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grand Gulf State Park (MO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grand Haven State Park (MI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grand Isle State Park (LA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grand Isle State Park

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61 Monongahela River: PA 141 Montauk Springs: MO 3026 Monterey Bay: CA 1087 Montezuma Castle: AZ 248 Montgomery (L. M.): PE 434 Moore’s Knob: NC 3599 Moose Cave: ME 2576 Mordecai Yell: TX 4307 Morgan (Daniel): SC 81 Morgan (Julia): CA 1519 Mormon Island: NE 3162 Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail

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, 4525 Robert Frost: NH 3277 Robert Gamble: FL 1956 Robert Gray: WA 4578 Robert R. Livingston, Jr.: NY 3429 Roberto Clemente: NY 3542 Robinson’s Ice Cave: MN 2879 Rock Island: WI 4764 Rock Island Lighthouse: NY 3463 Rock Run Grist Mill: MD 2654 Rockefeller Forest: CA 1610 Rockefeller (John D.) Jr

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Tuolumne Sequoia Groves: CA 1139 Turquoise Trail: NM 1216 Turtle Back Zoo: NJ 4923 Tuskegee Institute: AL 348 Twain (Mark): MO 3021 Twin Cave: IN 2359 U Ulysses S. Grant: MO 350; NY 145, 3462; TN 117, 326; VA 16, 282 Umpqua Lighthouse: OR 3950 Union Pacific Caboose Park: NE 3187 Union

USA Travel Guide

by Lonely, Planet

Louisville, Kentucky, where the tonsil-singeing native bourbon awaits…. Scenic Hwy 62 heads west and leads to the Lincoln Hills and southern Indiana’s limestone caves. A plunge into Marengo Cave ( 812-365-2705; www.marengocave.com; 9am-6pm, to 5pm Sep-May) , north on Hwy 66, is highly recommended. It offers a

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abundant campgrounds and cabins at Hocking Hills State Park ( 740-385-6165; www.hockinghills.com; 20160 Hwy 664; campsites/cottages from $24/130) . Old Man’s Cave is a scenic winner for hiking. Hocking Valley Canoe Livery ( 740-385-8685; www.hockinghillscanoeing.com; 31251 Chieftain Dr; 2hr tours $42; Apr-Oct) lets

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History Tours WALKING ( 651-292-1220; www.wabashastreetcaves.com; 215 S Wabasha St; 45min tours $6; 5pm Thu, 11am Sat & Sun) Explore St Paul’s underground caves, which gangsters once used as a speakeasy. The fun ratchets up on Thursday nights, when a swing band plays in the caverns (admission $7). Festivals

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Park (Click here) Bizarrely eroded rocks and canyons offer an unforgettable spectacle. » Wind Cave National Park (Click here) Below ground is one of the world’s largest cave formations; above ground deer, antelope and bison play. » Homestead National Monument (Click here) Farmland has hikes amid rivers and wildflowers. » Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve

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and forest, sits just south of Custer State Park. The central feature is, of course, the cave, which contains 132 miles of mapped passages. The cave’s foremost feature is its ‘boxwork’ calcite formations (95% of all that are known exist here), which look like honeycomb and date back 60 to 100

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& Eating Wiesbaden HOTEL $$ ( 970-325-4347; www.wiesbadenhotsprings.com; 625 5th St; r from $132; ) Few hotels can boast their own natural indoor vapor cave (and it’s rumored that, long ago, Chief Ouray used this one). This quirky new-age inn charms with quilted bedcovers, free organic coffee and a spacious

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between tables because dishes change twice daily. It’s all freshly prepared, innovative and beautifully presented. The undecided can’t go wrong by ordering the Plato Poca Cosa and letting chef Suzana D’avila decide. Great margaritas, too. Pasco Kitchen & Lounge AMERICAN $$ (www.pascokitchen.com; 820 E University Blvd; lunch $9

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should be reserved well in advance (call 877-444-6777 or visit www.recreation.gov). Bring long sleeves and closed shoes; it gets chilly. The cave’s other claim to fame is the 300,000-plus Mexican free-tailed bat colony that roosts here from mid-May to mid-October. Be here

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York’s Central Park. It embraces an outdoor theater, zoo, observatory, museum, antique trains, golf, tennis, playgrounds, bridle paths, 53 miles of hiking trails, Batman’s caves and the Hollywood Sign. The Ranger Station (4730 Crystal Springs Dr) has maps. Griffith Observatory OBSERVATORY, PLANETARIUM (www.griffithobservatory.org; 2800 Observatory Rd; observatory free

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-like heat makes exploring dangerous. Sights Park highlights include: Fonts Point desert lookout; Clark Dry Lake for birding; the Elephant Tree Discovery Trail ; Split Mountain’s wind caves; and Blair Valley , with its Native American pictographs and morteros (seed-grinding stones). Further south, Agua Caliente County Park has hot springs. Sleeping & Eating

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waterfalls. The road meets the Kings River, its roar ricocheting off granite cliffs soaring over 4000ft high, making this one of North America’s deepest canyons. Boyden Cavern CAVE ( 559-965-8243; www.boydencavern.com; Hwy 180; 45min tour adult/child $13/8; May–mid-Nov) While smaller and less impressive than

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, Jun, Sep & Oct, closed Nov-Apr) , 13 miles south of Bend. Nearby attractions include Lava Butte , a perfect cone rising 500ft, and Lava River Cave , Oregon’s longest lava tube. Four miles west of the visitor center is Benham Falls , a good picnic spot on the Deschutes River. Newberry Crater was once

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rooms at Dogwood Motel ( 541-496-3403; www.dogwoodmotel.com; 28866 N Umpqua Hwy; d $70-75; ) . OREGON CAVES NATIONAL MONUMENT This very popular cave (there’s only one) lies 19 miles east of Cave Junction on Hwy 46. Three miles of passages are explored via 90-minute walking tours ( 541-592

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the decent Junction Inn ( 541-592-3106; 406 Redwood Hwy; d from $70; ) , along with a few restaurants. For fancy lodgings right at the cave there’s the impressive Oregon Caves Chateau ( 541-592-3400, www.oregoncaveschateau.com; d from $90-165; May-Oct) ; grab a milk shake at the old-fashioned

Southeast Asia on a Shoestring Travel Guide

by Lonely Planet  · 30 May 2012

: tau tau (wooden effigies) of long-lost relatives guarding graves carved out of vertical limestone rock faces or hung from the roof of deep caves. And there’s the intermingling of the two: incredibly festive and colourful four-day funerals where buffalo are slaughtered and stewed, palm wine is swilled from bamboo

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, caving has to be the town’s main draw. Unless you buy a map from BKC bookshop (Market St; 7am-7pm) and do the caves yourself, it’s possible to go in an organised group. Check your guesthouse for info. The most famous cave, Tham Jang (admission 15,000K), 1km south of

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US$100. Pathana Boupha Antique House ANTIQUES (29/4 Ban Visoun; 8.30am-5.30pm) Follow the sweeping stairs in the garden to this Aladdin’s cave of antique Buddhas, golden naga, silver betel nut pots, Akha-style bracelets and Hmong necklaces. OckPopTok CLOTHING Ban Wat Nong (www.ockpoptok.com; 73/5

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pashminas. While the town itself has little to offer, it’s a good place to stay en route to the fascinating Vieng Xai Caves. Sleeping & Eating Sam Neua’s digs are unspectacular but reasonable value. They’re found beside the Nam Sam River. For cheap fǒe (rice-noodle soup), samosas, spring rolls

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as well as some interesting knick-knacks. Little India is best reached on the Star or Putra LRT to Masjid Jamek station. * * * BATU CAVES Get closer to KL’s Indian culture by visiting the Batu Caves (admission free; 8am-8pm), a system of three caves 13km northwest of the capital. The most

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travellers on their way to the Cameron Highlands. Luckily, the local bus station is only about 400m from the most interesting part of town. * * * CAVE TEMPLES Ipoh’s jungle-clad limestone hills are riddled with caves that locals believe to be a great source of spiritual power. There are Buddhist cave temples

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-km Niah National Park ( 085-737-454/0; www.sarawakforestry.com; admission RM10; park office 8am-5pm) is home to one of Borneo’s gems, the Niah Caves. In addition to lots of bats, they shelter some of the oldest evidence of human habitation in Southeast Asia. Sights & Activities Niah Archaeology Museum

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250m across and up to 60m high. Reached along a 3.1km plankwalk through the rainforest. Painted Cave CAVE A short walk from the Great Cave. It’s easy to miss the small fenced-off area by the entrance that protects the (now empty) death ships and the ancient paintings. Many of

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Park Few national parks anywhere in the world pack so many natural marvels into such a small area. From some of the world’s most incredible (and accessible) caves (www. mulucaves.org) to brilliant old-growth rainforest to natural oddities such as the Pinnacles formation, Gunung Mulu National Park ( 085-792300; www

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map of the park on which you can plan out your daily itinerary. Ask about jungle trails that can be explored without a guide. Mulu’s ‘show caves’ (caves that can be visited without special training or equipment) are its most popular attractions and for good reason: they are awesome. Cave routes that

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way to see what a tropical rainforest is all about, since most of the flora and fauna do their thing high above the ground. Deer Cave & Lang’s Cave CAVES (per person RM20; departures 2pm & 2.30pm) Over 2km in length and 174m in height, Deer

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Cave is the world’s largest cave passage open to the public. (It was considered the world’s largest cave passage, full stop, until an even larger one was discovered in Vietnam in 2009.) Every evening around

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against the BN. History Early Influences The earliest evidence of human life in the region is a 40,000-year-old skull found in Sarawak’s Niah Caves. But it was only around 10,000 years ago that the aboriginal Malays, the Orang Asli, began moving down the peninsula from a probable

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Caves, the spot where the best-preserved mummies lurk. The keys are with a caretaker who lives up the hill from the caves. From the caves, it’s about a 45-minute walk out to the Halsema Hwy. * * * SAGADA POP 1550 / ELEV 1547M The epitome of mountain cool, Sagada (1477m) is where

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, where you can also snag a map (P10) and hire a private jeepney if need be. Our favourite excursion is the thrilling half-day cave connection. Sleeping Sagada’s basic but charming guesthouses, featuring cosy linens and buckets of hot water (P50), are a delight. Sagada Homestay GUESTHOUSE $ ( 0919 702 8380; s

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opposite ends of D’Mall, Smoke is Boracay’s best value, with freshly cooked Filipino food, appetising coconut-milk curries and a P80 Filipino breakfast. Plato D’Boracay SEAFOOD $$ (D’Talipapa market; seafood per kg P100-150) The lobster, prawns and other shellfish at this family-style seafood grill come straight

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offshore, plus some giant peaks on Biliran Island off Leyte. Sights & Activities Spelunking, climbing, scrambling, bird-watching, mountain biking – you name it, Samar’s got it. Spelunking CAVING A spelunking tour of the Jiabong Caves, close to Catbalogan, is one of the Visayas’ top one-day adventures. The tour is run by

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of Tam Coc are a surreal sight, while further south the extraordinary Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park is home to three gargantuan cave systems (including the world’s largest cave) set in tropical forest studded with towering peaks. * * * ITINERARIES One Week Begin in Hanoi, immerse yourself in Old Quarter life and

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fence via a 1.8km trail. It’s 3km from Son Trach. At the time of research there’s no public access to the world’s largest cave, Hang Son Doong. The sheer scale of the principal cavern (5km long, 150m wide and over 200m high) was only confirmed in 2009. Oxalis

Is God a Mathematician?

by Mario Livio  · 6 Jan 2009  · 315pp  · 93,628 words

fits so excellently the objects of physical reality?” This sense of utter bewilderment is not new. Some of the philosophers in ancient Greece, Pythagoras and Plato in particular, were already in awe of the apparent ability of mathematics to shape and guide the universe, while existing, as it seemed, above the

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actual, intrinsic value. By setting the stage, and to some extent the agenda, for the next generation of philosophers—Plato in particular—the Pythagoreans established a commanding position in Western thought. Into Plato’s Cave The famous British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) remarked once that “the safest generalization that can

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be made about the history of western philosophy is that it is all a series of footnotes to Plato.” Indeed, Plato (ca. 428–347 BC) was

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science, and language to religion, ethics, and art and to have treated them in a unified manner that essentially defined philosophy as a discipline. To Plato, philosophy was not some abstract subject, divorced from everyday activities, but rather the chief guide to how humans should live their lives, recognize truths, and

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actions by the political faction that courted him at the time convinced him otherwise. Later in life, this initial repulsion by politics may have encouraged Plato to outline what he regarded as the essential education for future guardians of the state. In one case, he even attempted (unsuccessfully) to tutor

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death, and his nephew Speusippus succeeded him in that position. Unlike academic institutions today, the Academy was a rather informal gathering of intellectuals who, under Plato’s guidance, pursued a wide variety of interests. There were no tuition fees, no prescribed curricula, and not even real faculty members. Still, there

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rather unusual “entrance requirement.” According to an oration by the fourth century (AD) emperor Julian the Apostate, a burdensome inscription hung over the door to Plato’s Academy. While the text of the inscription does not appear in the oration, it can be found in another fourth century marginal note. The

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been traversed hundreds, if not thousands of times by the great man. Figure 8 The legendary inscription above the Academy’s door speaks loudly about Plato’s attitude toward mathematics. In fact, most of the significant mathematical research of the fourth century BC was carried out by people associated in one

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way or another with the Academy. Yet Plato himself was not a mathematician of great technical dexterity, and his direct contributions to mathematical knowledge were probably minimal. Rather, he was an enthusiastic

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his writings are thickly sprinkled with mathematical terms and that he everywhere tries to arouse admiration for mathematics among students of philosophy.” In other words, Plato, whose mathematical knowledge was broadly up to date, could converse with the mathematicians as an equal and as a problem presenter, even though his personal

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mathematical achievements were not significant. Another striking demonstration of Plato’s appreciation of mathematics comes in what is perhaps his most accomplished book, The Republic, a mind-boggling fusion of aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and

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politics. There, in book VII, Plato (through the central figure of Socrates) outlined an ambitious plan of education designed to create utopian state rulers. This rigorous if idealized curriculum envisaged an

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mathematics, five years of dialectic, and fifteen years of practical experience, which included holding commands in time of war and other offices “suitable to youth.” Plato gave clear explanations as to why he thought that this was the necessary training for the would-be politicians: What we require is that those

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ideas put him not only above all the mathematicians and philosophers of his generation, but identified him as an influential figure for the following millennia. Plato’s vision of what mathematics truly is makes strong reference to his famous Allegory of the Cave. There he emphasizes the doubtful validity of the

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information provided through the human senses. What we perceive as the real world, Plato says, is no more real than shadows projected onto the walls of a cavern. Here is the remarkable passage from The Republic: See human

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prisoners in the cave who mistake the shadows for reality. (Figure 9 shows an engraving by Jan Saenredam from 1604 illustrating the allegory.) In particular, Plato stresses, mathematical truths refer not to circles, triangles, and squares that can be drawn on a piece of papyrus, or marked with a stick in

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true. The right triangle we might draw on paper is but an imperfect copy—an approximation—of the true, abstract triangle. Another fundamental issue that Plato examined in some detail concerned the nature of mathematical proof as a process that is based on postulates and axioms. Axioms are basic assertions whose

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be self-evident. For instance, the first axiom in Euclidean geometry is “Between any two points a straight line may be drawn.” In The Republic, Plato beautifully combines the concept of postulates with his notion of the world of mathematical forms: Figure 9 I think you know that those who occupy

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diameter which they draw…the object of the inquirer being to see their absolute counterparts which cannot be seen otherwise than by thought [emphasis added]. Plato’s views formed the basis for what has become known in philosophy in general, and in discussions of the nature of mathematics in particular, as

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already there long before Columbus (or Leif Ericson) discovered it, mathematical theorems existed in the Platonic world before the Babylonians ever initiated mathematical studies. To Plato, the only things that truly and wholly exist are those abstract forms and ideas of mathematics, since only in mathematics, he maintained, could we gain

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absolutely certain and objective knowledge. Consequently, in Plato’s mind, mathematics becomes closely associated with the divine. In the dialogue Timaeus, the creator god uses mathematics to fashion the world, and in The

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that are testable by experiments. Rather, for him, the mathematical character of the world is simply a consequence of the fact that “God always geometrizes.” Plato extended his ideas on “true forms” to other disciplines as well, in particular to astronomy. He argued that in true astronomy “we must leave the

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heavens alone” and not attempt to account for the arrangements and the apparent motions of the visible stars. Instead, Plato regarded true astronomy as a science dealing with the laws of motion in some ideal, mathematical world, for which the observable heaven is a mere

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mathematics. Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, the man who essentially established science as an organized enterprise did not care as much (and certainly not as much as Plato) for mathematics and was rather weak in physics. Even though Aristotle recognized the importance of numerical and geometrical relationships in the sciences, he still regarded

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power of geometry is the most potent instrument of all to sharpen the mind and dispose it to reason perfectly, and to speculate? Didn’t Plato have good reason to want his pupils to be first grounded in mathematics? Simplicio appears to agree and he introduces the comparison with logic:

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physical space. How then could one still defend the concept of God as a mathematician? After all, if “God ever geometrizes” (a phrase attributed to Plato by the historian Plutarch), which of these many geometries does the divine practice? The rapidly deepening recognition of the shortcomings of the classical Euclidean geometry

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of the foundations of geometry on the basis of numbers. The German mathematician Jacob Jacobi (1804–51) presumably expressed those shifting tides when he replaced Plato’s “God ever geometrizes” by his own motto: “God ever arithmetizes.” In some sense, however, these efforts only transported the problem to a different

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perception operates most naturally and intuitively in no more than three dimensions. We can relatively easily imagine how our three-dimensional world would look in Plato’s two-dimensional universe of shadows, but going beyond three to a higher number of dimensions truly requires a mathematician’s imagination. Some of the

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a straight edge and a compass (the common geometrical construction process of the ancient Greeks) requires dividing a line into the golden ratio. Figure 62 Plato added another dimension to the mythical meaning of the golden ratio. The ancient Greeks believed that everything in the universe is composed of four elements

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: earth, fire, air, and water. In Timaeus, Plato attempted to explain the structure of matter using the five regular solids that now bear his name—the Platonic solids (figure 65). These convex solids

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with the stable cube, the penetrating fire with the pointy tetrahedron, air with the octahedron, and water with the icosahedron. Concerning the dodecahedron (Figure 65d), Plato wrote in Timaeus: “As there still remained one compound figure, the fifth, God used it for the whole, broidering it with designs.” So the dodecahedron

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historian: Discussed in Cherniss 1945, Mekler 1902. To which the Neoplatonic philosopher: Cherniss 1945, Proclus ca. 450. “What we require is that those who take”: Plato ca. 360 BC. “The science of figures, to a certain degree”: Washington 1788. is no more real than shadows projected: An interesting discussion of the

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allegory can be found in Stewart 1905. Plato’s views formed the basis: For interesting discussions of Platonism and its place in the philosophy of mathematics, see Tiles 1996, Mueller 1992, White 1992

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Annals of Science, 1, 115. ———. 1956. In Newman, J. R., ed. The World of Mathematics (New York: Simon & Schuster). Fowler, D. 1999. The Mathematics of Plato’s Academy (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Franzén, T. 2005. Gödel’s Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to Its Use and Abuse (Wellesley, Mass.: A. K. Peters). Frege

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(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Goldstein, R. 2005. Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (New York: W. W. Norton). Gosling, J. C. B. 1973. Plato (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). Gott, J. R. 2001. Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe (Boston: Houghton Mifflin). Grassi, O. 1619. Libra Astronomica ac Philosophica. In

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1992. Isaac Newton: Adventurer in Thought (Oxford: Blackwell). Reissued 1996 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Hamilton, E., and Cairns, H., eds. 1961. The Collected Dialogues of Plato (New York: Pantheon). Hamming, R. W. 1980. The American Mathematical Monthly, 87(2), 81. Hankins, F. H. 1908. Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician (New York: Columbia

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://www.gslis.utexas.edu/~wyllys/QueteletResources/index.html. Hardy, G. H. 1940. A Mathematician’s Apology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Havelock, E. 1963. Preface to Plato (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). Hawking, S. 2005. God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs that Changed History (Philadelphia: Running Press). Hawking, S., ed.

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In Long, A. A., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ———. 2006. “Pythagoras.” In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pythagoras. Hume, D. 1748. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Republished 2000 in The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume, edited

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Life. Translated by J. Dillon and J. Hershbell. (Atlanta: Scholar Press). Irvine, A. D. 2003. “Russell’s Paradox.” In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell-paradox. Isaacson, W. 2007. Einstein: His Life and Universe (New York: Simon & Schuster). Jaeger, M. 2002. The Journal of Roman Studies

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Books). Mueller, I. 1991. In Bowen, A., ed. Science and Philosophy in Classical Greece (London: Garland). ———. 1992. In Kraut, R., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ———. 2005. In Koestier, T., and Bergmans, L., eds. Mathematics and the Divine: A Historical Study (Amsterdam: Elsevier). Nagel, E., and Newman

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W. H. Freeman and Company). Petsche, J.-J. 2006. Grassmann (Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag). Pinker, S. 1994. The Language Instinct (New York: William Morrow and Company). Plato. Ca. 360 BC. The Republic. Translated by A. Bloom, 1968 (New York: Basic Books). Plutarch. Ca. 75 AD. “Marcellus.” Translated by J. Dryden. In Clough

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Oxford University Press). Rosenthal, J. S. 2006. Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities (Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press). Ross, W. D. 1951. Plato’s Theory of Ideas (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Rouse Ball, W. W. 1908. A Short Account of the History of Mathematics, 4th ed. Republished 1960 (Mineola

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Raton, Fla.: Chapman & Hall/CRC). ———. 2007. Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry (New York: Perseus Books). Stewart, J. A. 1905. The Myths of Plato (London: Macmillan and Co.). Stigler, S. M. 1997. In Académie Royale de Belgique, Bulletin de la Classe des Sciences, Mémoires, collection 8(3), 47. Strohmeier

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.0646 [gr-qc]. Tennant, N. 1997. The Taming of the True (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Theon of Smyrna. Ca. 130 AD. Mathematics, Useful for Understanding Plato. Translated by R. Lawlor and D. Lawlor, 1979 (San Diego: Wizards Bookshelf). Tiles, M. 1996. In Bunin, N., and Tsui-James, E. P., eds.

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century BC. De Architectura. In Rowland, I. D., and Howe, T. N., eds. 1999. Ten Books on Architecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Vlostos, G. 1975. Plato’s Universe (Seattle: University of Washington Press). Von Gebler, K. 1879. Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia. Translated by J. Sturge. Reprinted 1977 (Merrick, N

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and B. White). White, L. A. 1947. Philosophy of Science, 14(4), 289. White, N. P. 1992. In Kraut, R., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Whitehead, A. N. 1911. An Introduction to Mathematics (London: Williams & Norgate). Reprinted 1992 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). ———. 1929. Process and

The Greatest Story Ever Told--So Far

by Lawrence M. Krauss  · 21 Mar 2017  · 335pp  · 95,280 words

. It amply demonstrates that the discovery that ‘nature really follows the simple and elegant rules intuited by the twentieth- and twenty-first-century versions of Plato’s philosophers’ is one of the most astonishing achievements of the human intellect.” —Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics (emeritus), MIT “Charming . . . Krauss has

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seems. The harbinger of this notion, the “ur” story if you will, was written twenty-three centuries before Lewis penned his fantasy. I refer to Plato’s Republic, and in particular to my favorite section, the Allegory of the Cave. But in spite of its early provenance, it illuminates more directly

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and more clearly both the potential necessity and the potential perils of searching for understanding beyond the reach of our immediate senses. In the allegory, Plato likens our experience of reality to that of a group of individuals who live their entire lives imprisoned inside a cave, forced to face a

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wall. I show the drawing below, which came from the high school text in which I first read this allegory, in a 1961 translation of Plato’s dialogues. The drawing is amusing because it clearly reflects as much about the time it was drawn as it does the configuration of the

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in the dialogue. Why, for example, are the prisoners here all women, and scantily clad ones at that? In Plato’s day, any sexual allusion might easily have displayed young boys. Plato argues that the prisoners will view the shadows as reality and even give them names. This is not unreasonable, and

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are what they see. They are also likely to hear only the echoes of noises made behind them as the sounds bounce off the wall. Plato likened a philosopher to a prisoner who is freed from bondage and forced, almost against his will, to not only look at the fire, but

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the glare of the fire and the sunshine beyond the cave hurting his eyes. Objects will appear completely unfamiliar; they will not resemble their shadows. Plato argues that the new freeman may still imagine the shadows that he is used to as truer representations than the objects themselves that are casting

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sky, and his soul and mind will be liberated of the illusions that had earlier governed his life. If the person returns to the cave, Plato argues, two things would happen. First, because his eyes would no longer be accustomed to the darkness, he would be less able to distinguish the

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his former society, or the honors given to those who might best recognize the shadows and predict their future, as worthy of his respect. As Plato poetically put it, quoting from Homer: “Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they

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do and live after their manner.” So much for those whose lives are lived entirely in illusion, which Plato suggests includes most of humanity. Then, the allegory states that the journey upward—into the light—is the ascent of the soul into the intellectual

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world. Clearly in Plato’s mind only a retreat to the purely “intellectual world,” a journey reserved for the few—aka philosophers—could replace illusion with reality. Happily, that

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challenge remains for scientists today: to see what is behind the shadows, to see that which, when you drop your preconceptions, doesn’t disappear. While Plato doesn’t explicitly mention it, not only would his fellow prisoners view the poor soul who had ventured out and returned as handicapped, but they

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was useful from an evolutionary perspective, as thinking beings we can move beyond it. In this regard, I cannot resist quoting one last admonition in Plato’s allegory: “In the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen

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, is also inferred to be the author of all things good and right, parent of light, and . . . the immediate source of reason and truth.” Plato further argues that this is what those who would act rationally should strive for, in both public and private life—seeking the “good” by focusing

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we might want to exist. Only through rational examination of what is real, and not by faith alone, is rational action—or good—possible. Today, Plato’s vision of “pure thought” has been replaced by the scientific method, which, based on both reason and experiment, allows us to discover the underlying

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considered ‘sacred.’ Five hundred years of science have liberated humanity from the shackles of enforced ignorance.” Philosophical reflections aside, the prime reason I am introducing Plato’s cave here is that it can provide a concrete example of the nature of the scientific discoveries at the heart of the story I want to

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be exactly the same as the maximum length of the shadow when it is pointing in the other direction. Plato’s cave thus becomes an allegory for far more than he may have intended. Plato’s freed man discovers the hallmarks of the remarkable true story of our own struggle to understand nature on

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prior experience to uncover profound and beautiful simplifications and predictions that can be as terrifying as they are wonderful. But just as the light beyond Plato’s cave is painful to the eyes at first, with time it becomes mesmerizing. And once witnessed, there is no going back. Chapter 2 * * * SEEING IN THE

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say, “I see,” to a friend who is trying to explain something, we convey far more than just an observation, but rather a fundamental understanding. Plato’s allegory was appropriately centered on light—light from a fire to cast the shadows on the cave wall and light from the outside to

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observations of the world imprison our minds, and frame our description of the fabric of the universe, remained unappreciated for more than twenty centuries following Plato. Once serious minds began to investigate in detail the hidden nature of the universe, it took over four centuries for them to fully resolve the

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. He used the mathematics to unravel the hidden nature of that most fundamental of all physical quantities—which had eluded the great natural philosophers from Plato to Newton. The most observable thing in nature: light. Consider the following thought experiment. Take an electrically charged object and jiggle it up and down

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, however, the job of the natural philosopher is to probe deeper than this. It is said that fortune favors the prepared mind. In some sense, Plato’s cave prepared our minds for Einstein’s relativity, though it remained for Einstein’s former mathematics professor Hermann Minkowski to complete the task. Minkowski was a

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a student, Einstein appeared to have a great disdain for the significance of pure mathematics. Time would change that view. Recall that the prisoners in Plato’s cave also saw from shadows on their wall that length apparently had no objective constancy. The shadow of a ruler might at one time look like

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: and, at another time like this, at 6 cm: The similarity with the example I presented when discussing relativity is intentional. In the case of Plato’s cave dwellers, however, we recognized that this length contraction occurred because the cave dwellers were merely seeing two-dimensional shadows of an underlying three-dimensional object

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reason our different perspectives of space and time when we are moving relative to one another are not simple rotations, as in the case of Plato’s cave, but something a little more complicated. Nevertheless, in one fell swoop, the very nature of our universe had changed. As Minkowski poetically put it in

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inadequate to capture the full picture. The surface world we experience hides key aspects of the processes that underlie the phenomena we observe. So too Plato’s philosophers could not discover the biological processes that govern humans by observing just the shadows of humans on the wall. No level of analysis

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, objects are undergoing many different classical behaviors—as well as classically forbidden behaviors—at the same time. Quantum mechanics, like almost all of physics since Plato, began with scientists thinking about light. So it is appropriate to begin to explore quantum craziness by starting with light, in this case by returning

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) was so compelling that it helped lay the basis of Maxwell’s discovery of electromagnetic waves. Young’s experiment is simple. Let’s return to Plato’s cave and consider a screen placed in front of the back wall of the cave. Place two slits in the screen as shown below (as seen

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discovery of quantum mechanics began with a consideration of light. Recall that if we perform Young’s double-slit experiment in Plato’s cave with light rays, we get the interference pattern on the wall that Young discovered, which demonstrated that light was indeed a wave. So far, so

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not be flipped. Thus, in the mirror a left-handed particle will turn into a right-handed particle. (And so, if the poor souls in Plato’s cave had had mirrors, they might have felt less strange about the shadows of arrows flipping direction.) This working picture of left-handed particles is not

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come the ice? And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth? —JOB 38:29 It is easy to pity the poor protagonists in Plato’s cave, who may understand everything there is to know about the shadows on the wall, except that they are shadows. But appearances can be deceiving. What

…

forces would behave as if they were different forces. If the physicist or mathematician living on the crystal was clever, or, like the mathematician in Plato’s cave, lucky enough to leave the crystal, it would soon become clear that the special direction that governed the physics of the world they were used

…

you could perform within the superconductor, as long as it remained superconducting, would reveal that photons are massless in the outside world. If you were Plato’s philosopher inside such a superconductor, you would have to intuit an incredible amount about the outside world before you could infer that a mysterious

…

There is remarkable poetry in nature, as there often is in human dramas. And in my favorite epic poems from ancient Greece, written even as Plato was writing about his cave, there emerges a common theme: the discovery of a beautiful treasure previously hidden from view, unearthed by a small and

…

merely shadows. In this sense, the greatest story every told, so far, has been slowly playing out over the more than two thousand years since Plato first imagined it in his analogy of the cave. But as remarkable as this story is, two elephants remain in the room. Two protagonists in

…

it does when putting the final touches on a paper, possibly late at night, alone in your study. I suppose it may resemble the reaction Plato described that his poor philosophers might have as they are dragged out into the sunlight away from the cave for the first time. To have

…

discovered that nature really follows the simple and elegant rules intuited by the twentieth- and twenty-first-century versions of Plato’s philosophers is both shocking and reassuring. It hints that the willingness of scientists to build an intellectual house of cards that could come tumbling

…

did so because the story I have told is the most profound example of this wise observation that I know of. I next described Plato’s Allegory of the Cave because I know of no better or more lyrical representation of the actual history of science. The triumph of human existence has been

…

learn to appreciate the wonder of the accident we are privileged to witness. Light played a major role in our story, as it did in Plato’s allegory. Our changing perception of light led us to a changing understanding of the essence of space and time. Ultimately that changing perception made

…

word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function. A action quantum, 79 Alda, Alan, 51 Allegory of the Cave (Plato), 11–14, 15, 247, 303, 304. See also Plato’s cave allegory alpha particles, 116 alpha rays, 119 Ampere, André-Marie, 30 Anderson, Carl, 94, 117, 132, 146–47 Anderson, Philip, 194

…

) cycle, 136 Cassen, Benedict, 169 Catholic Church early pioneers in science and, 21–22 Galileo’s belief about Earth and rest and, 45, 47 cave allegory. See Plato’s cave allegory Chadwick, James, 117–19, 121, 123, 128 Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan (“Chandra”), 153 Chew, Geoffrey, 192, 235 Chopra, Deepak, 86, 99 Clay Mathematics Institute

…

understanding, 19, 43 learning by seeing and, 19 Maxwell’s research on, 33–34, 36–43, 94 Newton’s research on, 22–24, 73–74 Plato’s cave allegory and role of, 13, 17, 19, 304 religion’s focus on, 19–20 speed of, equation for, 42 understanding our place in universe and

…

–81, 89, 115 research on nucleus makeup and, 115–16 revolutionary approach to research used by, 78–79 Planck’s constant, 79 Plato, 11–14, 15, 39, 65, 201 Plato’s cave allegory, 247, 273–74 Einstein’s relativity and, 65–66 experience of reality and, 11 history of science and, 13, 303 nature

…

on quantum mechanics and, 92, 95, 151 impact of Einstein’s discovery of, 95 Minkowski’s four-dimensional “space-time” theory and, 66–68, 71 Plato’s cave allegory and, 65–66 ruler measurement example of, 65–67 religion compatibility between science and, 21, 22 early pioneers in science and belief in, 21

…

Earth and rest and, 45, 46–47 longing as ultimate motive for exploration in, 6 role of light in, 19–20 renormalization, 105–6 Republic (Plato), 11. See also Allegory of the Cave Riess, Adam, 295 Roosevelt, Franklin D., Einstein’s letter to, 129 Ross, Graham, 204 Royal Institution, 25, 26

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Raising Cubby: A Father and Son's Adventures With Asperger's, Trains, Tractors, and High Explosives

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Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing

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Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002)

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The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us

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The Slow Fix: Solve Problems, Work Smarter, and Live Better in a World Addicted to Speed

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The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History

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Talk to Me: How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think

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Nobody's Perfect: Writings From the New Yorker

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White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

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Israel & the Palestinian Territories Travel Guide

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The Future Won't Be Long

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Insight Guides Pocket Turkey (Travel Guide eBook)

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Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House

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Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind

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The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

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The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move

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Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive

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Lonely Planet Peru

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The Library: A Fragile History

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Pocket Rough Guide Barcelona (Travel Guide eBook)

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Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food

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The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World

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The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention

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The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet

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Canary Islands Travel Guide

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Your Computer Is on Fire

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The Rough Guide to Portugal (Travel Guide eBook)

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Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination

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Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters

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In Patagonia:

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Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks

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Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines

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The Other Israel: voices of refusal and dissent

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Happy Inside: How to Harness the Power of Home for Health and Happiness

by Michelle Ogundehin  · 29 Apr 2020  · 245pp  · 78,125 words

Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century

by Christian Caryl  · 30 Oct 2012  · 780pp  · 168,782 words

The Sum of All Fears

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The mote in God's eye

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Anathem

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Alistair Cooke's America

by Alistair Cooke  · 1 Oct 2008  · 369pp  · 121,161 words

Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole

by Benjamin R. Barber  · 1 Jan 2007  · 498pp  · 145,708 words

Reset: How to Restart Your Life and Get F.U. Money: The Unconventional Early Retirement Plan for Midlife Careerists Who Want to Be Happy

by David Sawyer  · 17 Aug 2018  · 572pp  · 94,002 words

Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving With the Self-Absorbed

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We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang - the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam

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Supertall: How the World's Tallest Buildings Are Reshaping Our Cities and Our Lives

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The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives

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The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture

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