Forbidden Planet

I saw Metropolis about 15 years ago and then read the book about 8 years later. The book is better than the movie. As I grow older, the futile image of constantly feeding and tending the machines grows stronger in my mind. I recognized pater noster as Latin for Our Father (as in the opening of the Lord's Prayer) and assumed that Thea von Harbou's references to the pater noster machine were overt references to a machine that consumed and ate its workers (much like Cronus in Greek mythology ate his children – or perhaps Moloch, to whom children were sacrificed). I only recently discovered that a pater noster machine is a type of slow moving elevator invented in 1884 . Image nabbed from here .

I have a great love for Stoic philosophy, but there is one aspect that bugs me as being completely irrational. Stoicism extols the supremacy of the mind and reason over emotions. However, contrary to popular belief it is not about being unfeeling or insensible to emotion as Seneca points out in a letter to his friend Lucilius: "There is this difference between ourselves and the other school (the Cynics. richard) : our ideal wise man feels his troubles, but overcomes them; their wise man does not even feel them." (Letter 9) He continues, "If he loses a hand through disease or war, or if some accident puts out one or both of his eyes, he will be satisfied with what is left, taking as much pleasure in his impaired and maimed body as he took when it was sound. While he does not pine for these parts if they are missing, he prefers not to lose them." (Letter 9) In a later letter he basically wipes away his earlier reasoning and effectively says, "When life become...

I am sure most people have heard or read the quote attributed to Sir Isaac Newton: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. It sounds like a wonderfully humble and self-effacing comment. We can easily imagine Newton slipping that in as he is being lauded for his contribution to science. The actual context is a little more interesting. Newton was involved in a number of controversies during his life. The best known is probably between him and Liebniz over the invention of calculus (which historians now say was developed independently by both). Of course, he was also involved in conflict with Robert Hooke. Hooke criticized Newton's work on numerous occasions. Probably the most serious accusation came in 1675, when Hooke accused Newton of stealing work on optics from him (you might remember that Newton showed a prism will split light into a rainbow of colours - Hooke claims it was his discovery). A number of letters were exchanged between the two over this ...