A new edition of the "Science Wednesday with Mădălin Bunoiu and his guests" series will take place at La Două Bufnițe Bookstore, on the theme "Revolution, creativity, metaphysics - about the philosophical structure of scientific thinking", with prof. university Dr. Claudiu Mesaroş.
The book that starts the discussion:
"Anaximander of Miletus or the birth of scientific thought" by Carlo Rovelli, Humanitas Publishing House, 2023. Translated by Patricia Apostol.
The first philosophers of ancient Greece appear in the 6th century BC, in Asia Minor, on the Ionian coast of the Aegean Sea: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras. Aristotle calls them "physicists" because, breaking away from the mythical tradition, they try to explain natural phenomena without appealing to the gods. In other words, it discovers and develops reason to understand the world—a revolution in thought that, continued for two thousand six hundred years, led to modern science.
Physicist Carlo Rovelli, one of the protagonists of quantum gravity research, gives us a scientist's perspective on the role played by Anaximander of Miletus in this intellectual revolution. Anaximander's contributions are a huge leap in knowledge: he is the first to realize that the whole sky is under the Earth, so that the Earth floats in space; he is the first geographer; explains, sometimes with surprising intuition, meteorological phenomena through natural causes; understands that life originated in the sea and that living things are subject to evolution; and, perhaps the most daring speculation, conceives the existence of an invisible entity, the apeiron, the unifying element for all objects perceived by our senses—an idea found in modern theoretical physics.
Bringing to the fore the figure of Anaximander, who rightly can stand next to Newton or Einstein, Rovelli has the opportunity to analyze the historical circumstances of the appearance of the "Greek miracle" - the importance of the creation of a phonetic alphabet and the establishment of democracy - and the very condition of science, which involves the cultivation of the critical spirit, the permanent questioning of what we think we know, the courage to give up comfortable certainties. Rovelli's book urges you to think rationally.
This book, like the others written by Alexandru Stermin, is the story of a journey. Embarking, along with the narrator, on an adventure sparked by the sight of an orangutan in a zoo on the shores of the Baltic Sea, we reach far in time and space. We venture from the world of myth into the reality of the world's largest swamp, the Brazilian Pantanal. From exuberant Rio de Janeiro, we follow Darwin's footsteps to the fabulous Galápagos Islands. Along the way, we explore the intimacy of ourselves and other life, we dare to look into the eyes of the animal within us - just, just, we will find the answer to the question hidden in the wilderness of this book:
Do we have a life, or are we the Life?
“How I Became a Wizard. From an exploratory notebook", Humanitas Junior Publishing House, 2023. Illustrations by Mădălina Surducan, recommended age 6+
Passionate biologist and tireless traveler in space, in time and in himself, Alexandru N. Stermin is, above all, a man who loves the magic of the world around him, which he traverses with his step and examines with always curious eyes. Through these notes, he invites you to accompany him on a fabulous journey through the world, from the past of mankind to the recent present and from the largest swamp in Transylvania to the Amazonian jungle. Are you ready?