Robert Dover Quotes

… understanding consists in reducing one type of reality to another.” Claude Levi-Strauss

A Foundational system serves not so much to prop up the house of mathematics as to clarify the principles and methods by which the house was built in the first place.

E vedo chiaramente cosa mi resta da fare come mio dovere. Vi ringrazio con tutta l'anima per queste lezioni; ho gli occhi aperti e infine mi vedo per quello che sono.

Sull’Atlantico gravava un’area di bassa pressione che, muovendosi verso oriente incontro a quella di alta pressione dislocata sulla Russia, non manifestava ancora alcuna tendenza a spostarsi verso nord per scansarla. Le isotere e le isoterme facevano il loro dovere. La temperatura dell’aria era nella norma rispetto alla temperatura media annua, rispetto a quella del mese più freddo come a quella del mese più caldo e all’oscillazione mensile aperiodica della temperatura. Il sorgere e il tramontare del sole e della luna, le fasi lunari, quelle di Venere, dell’anello di Saturno e molti altri importanti fenomeni rispettavano le previsioni degli annuari di astronomia. Nell’aria il vapor acqueo possedeva la massima elasticità e l’umidità era scarsa. Ovvero, con un’espressione che, quantunque un po’ fuori moda, caratterizza benissimo questo insieme di fatti: era una bella giornata d’agosto dell’anno 1913.

Non esiste alcun dovere tanto sottovalutato quanto l'essere felici. Quando siamo felici, disseminiamo il mondo di buone azioni involontarie, che rimangono sconosciute persino a noi stessi, o, quando vengono scoperte, soprendono per primo il benefattore.

Dunkirk was to hold out until the day on which all the Allied troops in the pocket who could embark to Britain had done so. Ramsay and the British Government initially assumed that no more than 45,000 troops could be saved, but over the nine days between dawn on Sunday, 26 May and 03.30 on Tuesday, 4 June, no fewer than 338,226 Allied soldiers were rescued from death or capture, 118,000 of whom were French, Belgian and Dutch. Operation Dynamo – so named because Ramsay’s bunker at Dover had housed electrical equipment during the Great War – was the largest military evacuation in history so far, and a fine logistical achievement, especially as daylight sailings had to be suspended on 1 June due to heavy Luftwaffe attacks.

Longevi, ci chiamavamo tra noi. Eravamo una sorta di Dorian Gray ambulanti senza un ritratto marcescente in soffitta e, durante i secoli, avevamo collezionato i più stravaganti epiteti: streghe, vampiri, angeli, demoni, doppelgänger. Non avremmo mai conosciuto le gioie della maternità o della paternità, poiché i nostri figli morivano – senza eccezioni – appena venuti alla luce. Avremmo potuto tentare all’infinito, accontentarci di sentire per nove mesi i loro calci ovattati attraverso la pelle del ventre, per poi dover accettare di vederli spegnersi appena fatto capolino nel mondo. Avevo seppellito tre figli, tutti nati morti alle prime avvisaglie di autunni distanti vite intere l’uno dell’altro. Alcune sere percepivo ancora la sensazione asfissiante della terra bagnata sotto le unghie. Temere che la propria creatura, di cui non hai mai udito il pianto, possa sentire freddo sotto la terra è il primo segnale di una follia disperata. Scavare tra le lacrime per riabbracciare quel corpo inerme e bianco, che non è mai stato vivo se non nel buio del tuo grembo, e poi desistere in un barlume di lucidità è un’esperienza straziante. Si rimane con un pugno di fango in mano, la gola stretta dall’angoscia e il cuore vuoto. Ho sentito tre figli crescere e perire dentro di me. E se fossi così folle da riprovarci, un quarto, un quinto e un sesto mi farebbero singhiozzare dalla gioia e poco dopo dal tormento. Così sarà per sempre. È una delle mie tante condanne. Malachia, Robert e io non potevamo dirci amici. Tuttavia lo eravamo, quasi inevitabilmente, per una serie di eventi e per la maledizione che ci univa. Nella mia lunga carriera ne avevo profanati di sarcofagi, templi e necropoli. Così innumerevoli, che ormai avevo perso il conto. Eppure, con tutti gli anatemi che mi ero tirata addosso, nessuno di questi era ancora riuscito a farmi apprezzare quello sotto il quale ero nata.

The White Cliffs of Dover had been sculpted all along their length into the gigantic visages of famous Brits – another attempt at injecting rebrand vibrancy into the declining real-world economy.

The interesting and valuable fact about the cluster variables is that they all seem to be nearly equal in actual luminosity, regardless of the length of the period.

DELTA GEMINORUM and PLUTO. The new planet (arrow) is shown here shortly after discovery at Lowell Observatory, in February 1930. Date of Photograph is March 4, 1930.

Another mystery concerns the fact that this white star has so often been described as “greenish” or “pale emerald”. Olcott refers to it as “the only naked-eyel star that is green in color”, while T.W.Webb refers to its “beautiful pale green hue”.

The music of the Lyre, in Greek legend, cast such a spell that Orpheus charmed every living creature with it, even persuading the grim guardians of the Underworld to allow him to rescue his beautiful wife Eurydice from the Land of the Dead. Having been warned to cast no glance upon her until the couple had safely reached the upper world, Orpheus unfortunately lost Eurydice at the last moment by disobeying the fateful order. The story is one of the most popular of the Greek legends, and was the subject of the opera Orpheo ed Euridice by Gluck in 1762, and a ballet by Stravinsky in 1947.

The hydrogen reaction operates most efficiently at the center of a star, where the temperature and pressure are greatest. Eventually, the hydrogen supply becomes depleted in this region, and the star develops a “core” of helium. The hydrogen reaction must then operate in a zone surrounding the core. As the core grows in mass, the hydrogen zone slowly increases in radius. This evolution is slow at first, but proceeds more and more rapidly as time goes on. When about 10% of the star’s mass has gone into the helium core, the star has evolved from the original point “A” on the diagram to the point “B”. By the time the point “C” is reached, the core contains 20% of the mass of the star. The increase in size and luminosity has become noticeable, and the star can now be classified as a subgiant. As more and more helium is added to the core, the outer regions continue to expand and the star follows the evolutionary path to point “D” where approximately 30% of the mass is contained in the core. Now, although the expansion lowers the star’s surface temperature, the increase in size more than compensates for this, and the total radiation therefore increases vastly as the evolution proceeds. When the star arrives at point “E” the diameter has increased by a factor of several hundred, and the luminosity is about 1000 times the original value. The star is now a typical red giant.

Mathematically-minded persons will thus perceive immediately that the magnitude scale is a logarithmic one and that the number 2.512 is the fifth root of 100.

Far more demoralizing to Americans than British operations in New England was their invasion of the Chesapeake. In 1814 London officials ordered Major General Robert Ross “to effect a diversion on the coasts of the United States of America in favor of the army employed in the defence of Upper and Lower Canada.” At the same time, Prevost, who was angry over the burning of Dover and other depredations in Upper Canada, asked Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane to “assist in inflicting that measure of retaliation which shall deter the enemy from a repetition of similar outrages.”104 The British had successfully targeted the Chesapeake in 1813, and both Ross and Cochrane regarded it the best place to achieve their goals in 1814. The bay’s extensive shoreline remained exposed, and the region’s two most important cities—Washington and Baltimore—offered inviting targets.

the Horsehead must be classed as one of the most difficult objects in the sky. Barnard could find no definite sign of it with the 40-inch Yerkes refractor in 1913,

There is no doubt that the Veil is expanding into a dusty region and sweeping up the interstellar material as it does so. The sky within the loop is noticeably clearer than the area outside, as evidenced by the difference in the number of faint stars visible in the two regions. This effect is plainly seen on the photograph on page 802

It consists of a brilliant nucleus about 2’ in diameter, surrounded by a dusky halo of light that gives it a glittering gem-like appearance. The background is dark but glimpses of numerous, faint stars can be obtained in clear conditions.

Sir William Herschel, with his great reflector, spoke of M53 as “one of J the most beautiful sights I remember to have seen in the heavens.

M85 (NGC 4382) Position 12228nl828. One of the bright members of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, the great aggregation of external systems which is centered some 5° to the south. The chief facts concerning this very remarkable cluster are given in the constellation section on Virgo; the most notable members lying north of the border in Coma are: M85, M88, M98, M99, M100, and NGC 4565.

ship built by English settlers in the New World. In 1607, at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Maine, the Plymouth Company erected a short-lived fishing settlement. A London shipwright named Digby organized some settlers to construct a small vessel with which to return them home to England, as they were homesick and disenchanted with the New England winters. The small craft was named, characteristically, the Virginia. She was evidently a two-master and weighed about thirty tons, and she transported furs, salted cod, and tobacco for twenty years between various ports along the Maine coast, Plymouth, Jamestown, and England. She is believed to have wrecked somewhere along the coast of Ireland.6 By the middle of the seventeenth century, shipbuilding was firmly established as an independent industry in New England. Maine, with its long coastline and abundant forests, eventually overtook even Massachusetts as the shipbuilding capital of North America. Its most western town, Kittery, hovered above the Piscataqua. For many years the towns of Kittery and Portsmouth, and upriver enclaves like Exeter, Newmarket, Durham, Dover, and South Berwick, rivaled Bath and Brunswick, Maine, as shipbuilding centers, with numerous shipyards, blacksmith shops, sawmills, and wharves. Portsmouth's deep harbor, proximity to upriver lumber, scarcity of fog, and seven feet of tide made it an ideal location for building large vessels. During colonial times, the master carpenters of England were so concerned about competition they eventually petitioned Parliament to discourage shipbuilding in Portsmouth.7 One of the early Piscataqua shipwrights was Robert Cutts, who used African American slaves to build fishing smacks at Crooked Lane in Kittery in the 1650s. Another was William Pepperell, who moved from the Isle of Shoals to Kittery in 1680, where he amassed a fortune in the shipbuilding, fishing, and lumber trades. John Bray built ships in front of

Few records exist to establish a definitive date as to when the first ships were built in the Piscataqua region. Fishing vessels were probably constructed as early as 1623, when the first fishermen settled in the area. Many undoubtedly boasted a skilled shipwright who taught the fishermen how to build “great shallops”as well as lesser craft. In 1631 a man named Edward Godfrie directed the fisheries at Pannaway. His operation included six large shallops, five fishing boats, and thirteen skiffs, the shallops essentially open boats that included several pairs of oars, a mast, and lug sail, and which later sported enclosed decks.5 Records do survive of the very first ship built by English settlers in the New World. In 1607, at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Maine, the Plymouth Company erected a short-lived fishing settlement. A London shipwright named Digby organized some settlers to construct a small vessel with which to return them home to England, as they were homesick and disenchanted with the New England winters. The small craft was named, characteristically, the Virginia. She was evidently a two-master and weighed about thirty tons, and she transported furs, salted cod, and tobacco for twenty years between various ports along the Maine coast, Plymouth, Jamestown, and England. She is believed to have wrecked somewhere along the coast of Ireland.6 By the middle of the seventeenth century, shipbuilding was firmly established as an independent industry in New England. Maine, with its long coastline and abundant forests, eventually overtook even Massachusetts as the shipbuilding capital of North America. Its most western town, Kittery, hovered above the Piscataqua. For many years the towns of Kittery and Portsmouth, and upriver enclaves like Exeter, Newmarket, Durham, Dover, and South Berwick, rivaled Bath and Brunswick, Maine, as shipbuilding centers, with numerous shipyards, blacksmith shops, sawmills, and wharves. Portsmouth's deep harbor, proximity to upriver lumber, scarcity of fog, and seven feet of tide made it an ideal location for building large vessels. During colonial times, the master carpenters of England were so concerned about competition they eventually petitioned Parliament to discourage shipbuilding in Portsmouth.7 One of the early Piscataqua shipwrights was Robert Cutts, who used African American slaves to build fishing smacks at Crooked Lane in Kittery in the 1650s. Another was William Pepperell, who moved from the Isle of Shoals to Kittery in 1680, where he amassed a fortune in the shipbuilding, fishing, and lumber trades. John Bray built ships in front of the Pepperell mansion as early as 1660, and Samuel Winkley owned a yard that lasted for three generations.8 In 1690, the first warship in America was launched from a small island in the Piscataqua River, situated halfway between Kittery and Portsmouth. The island's name was Rising Castle, and it was the launching pad for a 637-ton frigate called the Falkland. The Falkland bore fifty-four guns, and she sailed until 1768 as a regular line-of-battle ship. The selection of Piscataqua as the site of English naval ship construction may have been instigated by the Earl of Bellomont, who wrote that the harbor would grow wealthy if it supplemented its export of ship masts with “the building of great ships for H.M. Navy.”9 The earl's words underscore the fact that, prior to the American Revolution, Piscataqua's largest source of maritime revenue came from the masts and spars it supplied to Her Majesty's ships. The white oak and white pine used for these building blocks grew to heights of two hundred feet and weighed upward of twenty tons. England depended on this lumber during the Dutch Wars of the

Form is the spatial envelope of the imagination. The larger the form the grander the imagination required to fill it.