The Molecular Universe

I was thinking recently about home construction - which caused me to read C.F. Innocent's famous book 'The Development of English Building Construction' (which I have placed here for future reference).

It is apparent in the book that Innocent regrets the destruction of ancient homes in England (the book was published in 1916), while recognizing that not everyone sees 'traditional' and 'unarchitectural' as being a good thing.

Here is passage from the book...where it seems that some Darwinian thought is entering into the world of architecture:

William Morris said that the homely old English cottages were models of architecture in their way. They have been called 'unarchitectural' but all's fair that’s fit, and they are valuable as examples of the appropriate use of materials, as illustrations of fitness to site and surroundings, and as specimens of architectural development, for just as the finest man had his origin in a simple cell, so the finest examples of our architecture can be traced back in their origin, step by step, to simple 'unarchitectural' buildings.

I doubt that C.F. Innocent lived in a daub and wattle cottage, but he certainly had an interest in preserving the history of construction.

Here is an index page to various interesting and useful books:

http://www.themolecularuniverse.com/data/books/

John Tyndall was an extraordinary person. Among his many discoveries and writings he found time to discuss the role of science in the world and spent a great deal of time popularizing science.

For example, in 1871 Tyndall wrote:

Thus the vocation of the true experimentalist is the continued exercise of spiritual insight, and its incessant correction and realization. His experiments constitute a body, of which his purified intuitions are as it were the soul.

Experiment, theory, and falsification in the seeking of natural truth were clear to Tyndall.

I put a copy of Tyndall's 'Fragments of Science for Unscientific People' here, and the quote above is on this page: here.

Today I experimented with putting a scanned book online. The resulting 'Macaulay Lord Clive and Warren Hastings' pages are here.

I scripted the processing as much as possible and the text is obtained through optical character recognition so it is not perfect - but it isn't disasterous either.

I am curious to see if these pages receive any traffic - I guess we shall see.

The line about 'every schoolboy' ('Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atahualpa.') which I suppose used to be a famous phrase is on page 9, here - in case you are interested.

Transliterated Farsi:
kolah bardar

Literal translation:
hat lifter (a swindler who lifts the wool over your eyes or lifts the hat from your head)

Transliterated Farsi:
Delam barat kheyli tang shodeh

Literal translation:
My heart for you very heavy became. (=I miss(ed) you).

Transliterated Farsi:
Javabe ablahan khamooshist

Literal translation:
The answer to an idiot's question silence is