Dear Malathi and Venkat Its really timely that the discussion hasturned in the direction of CERN just at the advent of the release of Angels nad Demons...when i first read the book I was fascinated to learn about the www and the halodron collider.... but am eager to see the filmy version of it
ACtually the Internet/World Wide Web was the idea of an English scientist name Tim Berners-Lee who worked at CERN. The US Military bought his idea and gave their powerful computers as base for testing and implementing it. Of course once it worked they wanted to keep it patented to them which Lee was against and the idea was publicised to the whole world.
Some also make the distinction and say the Internet was invented by US Military while World Wide Web was invented by CERN.
Yeah Brown is definitely a good writer. I can't say I enjoyed Angels and Demons as much as I did the Da Vinci Code though. It is full of odd and highly improbable situations. Perhaps since it is a predecessor to Da Vinci Code the author may have matured in his work.
actually people are now differentiating between the internet and the world wide web forms of internet in much smaller scales existed much earlier
the us air force, to the british post office can claim some credit for earlier versions
n 1985, the United States' National Science Foundation (NSF) commissioned the construction of the NSFNET, a university 56 kilobit/second network backbone using computers called "fuzzballs" by their inventor, David L. Mills. i remember my classmates in school and college who went to the us in late eighties telling me how trhey played chess and 20 questions with some one a few hundred miles away.
Although the basic applications and guidelines that make the Internet possible had existed for almost two decades, the network did not gain a public face until the 1990s. On 6 August 1991, CERN, a pan European organisation for particle research, publicized the new World Wide Web project
actually people are now differentiating between the internet and the world wide web forms of internet in much smaller scales existed much earlier
the us air force, to the british post office can claim some credit for earlier versions
n 1985, the United States' National Science Foundation (NSF) commissioned the construction of the NSFNET, a university 56 kilobit/second network backbone using computers called "fuzzballs" by their inventor, David L. Mills. i remember my classmates in school and college who went to the us in late eighties telling me how trhey played chess and 20 questions with some one a few hundred miles away.
Although the basic applications and guidelines that make the Internet possible had existed for almost two decades, the network did not gain a public face until the 1990s. On 6 August 1991, CERN, a pan European organisation for particle research, publicized the new World Wide Web project
Although i learnt a lot of stuff from them, Somehow i was not impressed by angels and deamons or digital fortress. Da Vinci Code was a masterpiece though. I felt Digital Fortress was particularly very predictable as to what is going to happen next.
I beg to differ.. digital fortress was a load of hocus-pocus.. if you really want to know more about encryption etc.. read a book by Simon Singh on it.. where he talks about how codes developed (from the humble Ceaser's code) to current day RSA based encryption strategies.
Hi, Arun..what book is that...book u have mentioned written by simon singh..is it that good than dan brown's book or u just telling it because it was an indian writer....
Can you let me know which book it is? I'm much interested in this topic. Actually i thought that Dan Brown's books give a good starting knowledge on this subject.
I think he is referring to a book called "The Code Book". It is not fiction book, rather it traces the history of encryption. I heard that is a very good book.
Precisely. It is called the Code Book. Wonderful book.. He also wrote another book called Fermat's Last Theorem, tracing the history of attempts to solve this right upto its final solution.
My humble appeal to fellow book lovers, please do not confuse Dan Brown and other very convincing writers of fiction to be stating any facts as they are. Brown actually got into a lot of trouble even with Da Vinci Code by stating on his website that everything he had there was historical fact. He retracted and changed it later.
It is very common among book lovers and sometimes even movie lovers to make this misjudgement - like we talked of the holocaust before and there are an incredible number of people who think it is like it is in numerous hollywood movies. Very very far from the truth - but can provide a gateway for our interest, just like PS provided a gateway for so many of us for interest in culture and history.
Definitely Venkat, I do agree. Brown stimulated interest in a lot of things not thought of before also - like nobody really thought the person next to Jesus in Last Supper painting looks startlingly like a female and many not so popular people before him did suggest Jesus could have been married.
Also just after his novel was released they did find a 'secret code' in Da Vinci's work which added up to a musical note (the research was going on long before his book but nevertheless the discovery was sensational because of his book).
> Also just after his novel was released they did find a 'secret code' in Da Vinci's work which added up to a musical note (the research was going on long before his book but nevertheless the discovery was sensational because of his book).
Hi
davinci was just one crazy man in crazier times. he was lucky to have lived so long. half the things that he did were punishable by death in those days law. by burning on the stake. but he continued to do them and recorded them too in his own codes.
of course though people remember him for the mona lisa his achievements were elsewhere and much better.
Leonardo was more of a scientist than an artist but whatever he did his genius was unparelled. He is one of the earliest known vegetarians (in Rome that too!) and is credited with so many inventions starting with bobbin on seweing machine that it is fairly common to say if you don't know who invented something it is probably him.
His scientific notebook called Codex Leicester, (named after the Duke of Leicester who owned it first) is now in posession of Bill Gates who has made it digital and available for the rest of the world. It had explanations (among other things including his grocery list and debt details) of why fossils are found on the moon and luminosity of the moon, both of which were found to be accurate hundreds of years later.
> Leonardo was more of a scientist than an artist but whatever he did his genius was unparelled. He is one of the earliest known vegetarians (in Rome that too!)
Many authors have speculated on various aspects of Leonardo's personality. One such aspect is his respect for life evidenced by his vegetarianism and his habit, described by Vasari, of purchasing caged birds and releasing them
in is obsession to draw human and animal bodies to perfection davinci dissected dead bodies of men and animals.
though it is later said he had permission to do it it was very common for unconnected people to be charged as witches and burnt for the same crime.
venketesh
and is credited with so many inventions starting with bobbin on seweing machine that it is fairly common to say if you don't know who invented something it is probably him. > > His scientific notebook called Codex Leicester, (named after the Duke of Leicester who owned it first) is now in posession of Bill Gates who has made it digital and available for the rest of the world. It had explanations (among other things including his grocery list and debt details) of why fossils are found on the moon and luminosity of the moon, both of which were found to be accurate hundreds of years later. > > >
My earlier mail (the below one) says Leonardo was a genius painter and exceptional engineer, the arguement is about which skill in him was higher and not whether Leonardo was a good engineer or not. He was still a better engineer/scientist than most normal people like us put together but its just that i feel a Mona Lisa is a thousand times better work than a helicopter, a tank or a textile machine invention.
Rahul, Leonardo postulated how moon gets its light and how fossils are found on the moon, hundreds of years before scientists studied all that with sophisticated instruments and technology (and proved he was right!).His theories on leverage and cantilevers are responsible for several inventions including machines that grind lenses for spectacles and huge bridges across rivers. The wiki article on his science would help understand better
Noone denied the beauty of his artwork but to trivialise him as a scientist is not right, he was among the greatest thinking and creative minds of our time. One cannot possibly say which is more valuable, his science or his art, as much as one can choose one eye over another.
the very aspect that he ruined a majority of his art works by experimenting on new methods shows his interest in methods than in art. most of his wall frescoes fell to pieces before his eyes
you know michealangelo used to call him " that lyre player from milan"
Please forgive my typo, fossils on moutains and luminosity of the moon. Here is a great article from NASA's website on what Leonardo discovered which the scientific world compounded to much later.
Actually Monalisa symbolises the heart of 'enigma' or struggle between opposites that is at the heart of any true creative person. Monalisa is far from a beautiful woman (if you look closely she even has a light moustache!) but her engimatic smile is what compels the viewer to see her again and again.
I agree with Venkat that Leonardo was a good artist although I do understand that is a personal opinion. There were lots of painters who were far greater than him, Raphael and most of the Impressionists did lot of paintings that are worth dying for. Leonardo is a genius thinker, not a genius painter, and his genius so apparent in what he wrote in his notebooks. He pre concieved so much and his brain could hardly hold all that he knew that he left out lot of detail and there fore the detail oriented scientific world did not get what he was thinking right away. But to understand how the moon gets its light and what can hold a bridge together with hardly any instruments...now there is no word for that other than...PURE GENIUS...