Almagest

The Mediterranean windmill is a mechanism constructed by using only local materials like stone, timber and wrought iron. It is an ingenious, unfaultable and robust machine, with a sophisticated control system, very easy to manage and repair, wasting nothing, and using only renewable wind power. In this paper, taking into consideration the existing wind power capacity of the west Anatolian coast, the functioning and the capacity of the typical Mediterranean windmill is discussed in detail. There exist two kind of windmill: the eastern type with vertical and the western type with horizontal sail shaft. In the Mediterranean windmill with horizontal sail shaft, the top of the tower and the main gear can manually be directed to the prevailing wind direction. The sail area, the speed of the rotating stone and the grinding power can be regulated approximately each time by the miller at the beginning of the operation. The upper stone distance is manually or automatically controlled by an arm balanced by a counterweight. Using mathematical calculations, we show that the maximum windmill power is approximately one third of the theoretical wind power. One Mediterranean windmill can easily meet the annual flour need for small settlements of about 50 houses.

In 1824 Sadi Carnot published Réflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu in which he founded almost the entire thermodynamics theory. Two years after his death, his friend Clapeyron introduced the famous diagram PV for analytically representing the famous Carnot’s cycle: one of the main and crucial ideas presented by Carnot in his booklet. Twenty-five years later, in order to achieve the modern version of the theory, Kelvin and Clausius had to reject the caloric hypothesis, which had influenced a few of Carnot’s arguments. Relying on the possibility of studying the history of science by means of logical investigation, in this paper I shall propose an historical/epistemological research on Sadi Carnot’s original thermodynamics theory in which the French scientist presents more than two principles, all of which are expressed by double negated sentences (generally speaking) within non-classical logic.

After the modernization process that started in the 18^th gave a new orientation to the Ottoman Empire towards the West, simplifying and making Turkish the language of state, education and press became one of the most emphasized issues during the Reform Era (Tanzimat, 1839-1876). The simplification of language was deemed to be a social issue for the first time in this era, as the Ottoman intellectuals thought that advances in philosophical thinking, expansion of education and even diffusion of scientific knowledge would only be possible through a simplified language. Among those who succeeded in these efforts was Şemseddin Sami, well known for his multi-dimensional studies in the field of language and his remarkable lexicographic work.

This article introduces the Gök, a monograph written in simple language and style in 1879 by Şemseddin Sami. Gök is not a scientific work on astronomy. Rather, it attempts to introduce the readers to basic knowledge in astronomy and to inform them about the developments in this field. Therefore, Şemseddin Sami’s treatise Gök, along with his other works included in the Pocket Library edition can be understood as one of the first examples of popularization of science in the Ottoman Empire. Şemseddin Sami’s use of simplified language in popularizing science actually paved the way for further attempts at making Turkish the language of science at large. In a certain sense, Gök, which is analyzed in this paper, could be seen as Şemseddin Sami’s contribution, at the social level, to the academic endeavors of making Turkish language of science.

This paper aims to provide a general assessment of the Ottoman nautical terminology as this appears in Ottoman archival records of the 18^th century. Through the examination of the nautical terms, phrases and words of the time, it attempts to give an idea of the technological state of the Ottoman navy at the time.

In the late 19^th and early 20^th century, Ernst Haeckel gained recognition as a scientist and a philosopher whose entire work revolved around Darwin’s theory. He contributed to the dissemination of Darwinian theory in the German lands and in France, but also in many other countries, like early modern Greece, which were under the cultural influence of the French and the Germans. The Darwinian theory Haeckel promoted was a patchwork of both Darwin’s ideas and his own. Moreover, Haeckel put forward a philosophical system he called Monism, which aimed to replace all religions.

Haeckel’s ideas were introduced in Greece during the second half of the 19^th century, along with Darwin’s theory, and because the two were introduced together, often Haeckelian ideas were mistakenly attributed to Darwin. Haeckel’s ideas were promoted mainly by faculty and students of the University of Athens (the only Greek university at the time), who were championing a mechanistic view of the world. On the other hand, their adversaries were not only theologians but also secular scholars. Haeckel’s ideas reemerged in Greece in the second decade of the 20th century, and paved the way for the introduction of dialectical materialism.

There was much cosmetics unearthed in Chinese excavation sites, but seldom relevant analysis on them can be seen. Until now, there is not an uniform view on the origin of Chinese cosmetics known as “Hu” powder, and the controversy surrounding it is focused on whether it had been introduced from the west or not. This paper tries to determine the source of the craft of “Hu” powder by the analysis of a sample from an ancient site. Furthermore, we provide a new view on culture communication based on women’s make-up.

It is typically recognized that Gödel’s negative results undermined Hilbert’s Program, at least in its strictest form. In this paper we point out the way in which Hilbert himself had created the possibility of Gödel doing so. We highlight the crucial role Hilbert played in the evolution and stabilization of the term “completeness”, and analyze the impact of his work on results obtained by researchers working close to him, but also by authors belonging to different traditions of mathematical practice, and whose views (that is, mathematical and philosophical views) on the nature of their field did not coincide with those of Hilbert; the major example here is Kurt Gödel. Furthermore, we show that an informal version of the modern notion of completeness is already presented by Hilbert as early as 1899. Our historiographical objective is thus twofold: on the one hand, to suggest a new way of showing what we mean when we say that the completeness theorem took about thirty years to be stated as such, and merely one year to be resolved; and on the other, to point out networks of exchange of ideas and the double nature of these ideas, as mathematical practices, and as (meta)mathematical or epistemological views.

In 1824 Sadi Carnot published Réflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu in which he founded almost the entire thermodynamics theory. Two years after his death, his friend Clapeyron introduced the famous diagram PV for analytically representing the famous Carnot’s cycle: one of the main and crucial ideas presented by Carnot in his booklet. Twenty-five years later, in order to achieve the modern version of the theory, Kelvin and Clausius had to reject the caloric hypothesis, which had influenced a few of Carnot’s arguments. Relying on the possibility of studying the history of science by means of logical investigation, in this paper I shall propose an historical/epistemological research on Sadi Carnot’s original thermodynamics theory in which the French scientist presents more than two principles, all of which are expressed by double negated sentences (generally speaking) within non-classical logic.