II. Pedia Sapiens: A Planetary Progeny Comes to Her/His Own Actual Factual Knowledge

B. The Spiral of Science: Manican to American to Earthicana Phases

Palla, Gergely, et al. Hierarchical Networks of Scientific Journals. arXiv:1506.05661. Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Eotvos University biophysicists including Tamas Vicsek show that even self-organizing technical literatures exhibit the same nested structures and dynamics as everywhere else. In one more instance nature and text become similar in kind. See below a posting on the same day Using Network Science and Text Analytics to Produce Surveys in a Scientific Topic (1506.05690) by Filipi Silva that also explains how universal complexities are grace scientific networks.

Scientific journals are the repositories of the gradually accumulating knowledge of mankind about the world surrounding us. Just as our knowledge is organised into classes ranging from major disciplines, subjects and fields to increasingly specific topics, journals can also be categorised into groups using various metrics. In addition to the set of topics characteristic for a journal, they can also be ranked regarding their relevance from the point of overall influence. One widespread measure is impact factor, but in the present paper we intend to reconstruct a much more detailed description by studying the hierarchical relations between the journals based on citation data. We use a measure related to the notion of m-reaching centrality and find a network which shows the level of influence of a journal from the point of the direction and efficiency with which information spreads through the network. We can also obtain an alternative network using a suitably modified nested hierarchy extraction method applied to the same data. The results are weakly methodology-dependent and reveal non-trivial relations among journals. The two alternative hierarchies show large similarity with some striking differences, providing together a complex picture of the intricate relations between scientific journals. (Abstract)

Hierarchical organisation is a widespread phenomenon in nature and society. This is supported by several studies, focusing on the transcriptional regulatory network of Escherichia coli, the dominant-subordinate hierarchy among crayfish, the leader-follower network of pigeon flocks, the rhesus macaque kingdoms, neural networks, technological networks, social interactions, urban planning, ecological systems, and evolution. However, hierarchy is a polysemous word, and in general, we can distinguish between three different type of hierarchies when describing a complex system: the order, the nested and the flow hierarchy. (2)

Perc, Matjaz. Self-Organization of Progress across the Century of Physics. Nature Scientific Reports. 3/1720, 2013. In the 1890s when this span begins, science was pursued by individual theorists and investigators, before telephone or electricity. Max Planck, now with many Institutes in his name, is an archetypal figure of the age. The present author is a University of Maribor, Slovenia, systems mathematician. Via our worldwide noosphere Whom, as if a 21st century Max and Maxine Planet (Planect), is today carrying out such a retrospective survey which can perceive such long-range patterns of nonlinear complex dynamics, as if a global collaborative cerebral process?

We make use of information provided in the titles and abstracts of over half a million publications that were published by the American Physical Society during the past 119 years. By identifying all unique words and phrases and determining their monthly usage patterns, we obtain quantifiable insights into the trends of physics discovery from the end of the 19th century to today. We show that the magnitudes of upward and downward trends yield heavy-tailed distributions, and that their emergence is due to the Matthew effect. This indicates that both the rise and fall of scientific paradigms is driven by robust principles of self-organization. Data also confirm that periods of war decelerate scientific progress, and that the later is very much subject to globalisation. (Abstract)

Perlovsky, Leonid. Editorial. Physics of Life Reviews. 1/1, 2004. A new journal that seeks to move beyond the old isolation of scientific disciplines and remove their artificial divide between “physical” and “biological” realms. What is then implied is a novel creative universe where the same phenomena recur everywhere.

And today physics of life includes chemistry of biomolecules and their dynamics, evolution of genes, languages, and cultures, origins of life, systems at the borderline between disorder and chaos, the first principles of emergent behavior and phase transitions in complex systems, and mechanisms of the mind….fundamental laws exist at all levels of organization of matter, from quarks to consciousness. (1)

Pesic, Peter. Labyrinth. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. An essay on the historic quest to find the hidden secrets and meanings of nature that inspired scientists from Newton to Einstein.

Pontzen, Andrew. The Universe in a Box: Simulations and the Quest to Code the Cosmos. New York: Riverhead Books, 2023. A University College London collegial cosmologist writes an initial book about this frontier 2020s turn to such computational methods which promise to radically advance our Earthuman project of multiversal quantification. Chapters proceed from Dark Matter, Energy and the Cosmic Web to Galaxies, Black Holes, Quantum Mechanics, Cosmic Origins and Simulations, Science, Reality. A current paper by AP is Explaining Dark Matter Halo Density Profiles with Neural Networks by Luisa Lucie-Smith, et at at arXiv:2305.03077. See also On the Decline of Star Formation during the Evolution of Galaxies at 2307.09526 for a separate instance. And in a planatural philosophia view, we note in amazement how incredible it is that our valiant intelligence is actually able to parse the parsec and articulate the ecosmic verses.

Over the last few years a new kind of physics has emerged to fill the gap between theory and experiment. By way of modern supercomputers, cosmologists can build simulated models that offer profound insights into the deep history of our universe. Today, physicists are translating their ideas and equations into computational code, finding that there is very much to be learned by this advance. Andrew Pontzen explains how physicists can now study exotic phenomena from black holes and colliding galaxies to dark matter and quantum entanglement, along with virtual realities. (Book)

My job as a cosmologist involves simulating the entire universe on computers. The goal is to understand what is out there, where it came from and how it relates to our lives here on Earth. (xiii) To understand the origins of our universe we need to trace them back into deep space and onto new galaxies, stars and planets. we need to simulate and interrelate them in a mini-universe by a careful appreciation of physical theory. (xxiii)

We use explainable neural networks to connect the evolutionary history of dark matter halos with their density profiles. The network captures independent factors within a low-dimensional representation to recover the relation between the early time assembly, inner profile, and the profile beyond the virial radius. The result thus illustrates the potential for machine-assisted scientific discovery in complicated astrophysical datasets. (2305.03077)

Cosmological simulations predict that during the evolution of galaxies, the specific star formation rate continuously decreases. To investigate the origin of this behavior, we use disk galaxies selected from the cosmological hydrodynamical simulation Magneticum Pathfinder and follow their evolution in time. We find that the mean density of the cold gas regions decreases with time. This supports the idea of inside-out growth of disk galaxies. (2307.09526)

Pugliese, Emanuele, et al. Unfolding the Innovation System for the Development of Countries: Co-Evolution of Science, Technology and Production. arXiv:1707.05146. A team of senior Italian physicists including Andrea Gabrielli and Luciano Pietronero achieve a novel analysis via multiplex, interactive networks of this active tripartite learning, knowledge, and creativity economy.

We show that the space in which scientific, technological and economic developments interplay with each other can be mathematically shaped using pioneering multilayer network and complexity techniques. We build the tri-layered network of human activities (scientific production, patenting, and industrial production) and study the interactions among them, also taking into account the possible time delays. Within this construction we can identify which capabilities and prerequisites are needed to be competitive in a given activity, and even measure how much time is needed to transform, for instance, the technological know-how into economic wealth and scientific innovation, being able to make predictions with a very long time horizon. Quite unexpectedly, we find empirical evidence that the naive knowledge flow from science, to patents, to products is not supported by data, being instead technology the best predictor for industrial and scientific production for the next decades. (Abstract)

Pyenson, Lewis and Susan Sheets-Pyenson. Servants of Nature. New York: Norton, 1999. A chronicle of the early scientific activities of exploration, precision, journals, museums, zoos, statistics, instruments and learned societies.

Ranaivoson, Ravo Tokiniaina, et al. Highlighting Relations between Wave-particle Duality, Uncertainity Principle, Phase Space and Microstates. arXiv:2205.08538. We cite this entry by eight natural philosophers at the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar as an instance, so it seems, that wherever they are, human beings will be innately moved to such scientific inquiries, which now proceed on this open global, eprint site. Once again our homo to Earthropo sapience appears distinguished by this participant contribution. We also note that their island is beset by climate extremes and social violence, which could be attended to if wealthy nations could stop fighting and altogether begin a GaiaWise remediation.

The wave-particle duality is often considered as the modern answer that man found by which to know the nature of light. The aim of this work is to perform an analysis of this wave-particle duality concept and to review the relations which exist between it, along with the uncertainty principle, phase space and microstates from statistical mechanics. Our work argues that a correct understanding cannot be achieved without quantum physics. (Excerpt)

Reill, Peter Hanns. Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. An erudite historical study of currents and conflicts in the 18th century encounter with a newly intelligible world. This endeavor took place in a time of “Learning to Read the Book of Nature” (Chapter 2) whose alphabetic, discernible creation is forgotten and denied today. Dichotomies involved static or dynamic versions, mechanical or organic models, the play of gender complements, and so on. The main theme of the book is that the counterpoint at that time of a minority Romantic naturphilosophie to a mechanical bent for linear absolutes is somewhat recovered in postmodernist views of a fluid, spontaneous reality.

Renn, Jurgen. The Evolution of Knowledge: Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. The MPI for the History of Science director publishes a collegial volume some 25 years in the making that from our late vantage achieves a fresh, integral surmise. Human history can now appear as a grand knowledge gaining project from Greece, China, and Europe to its present Anthropic worldwide transition. By such a vista, and in accord with this website, into the 21st century an epochal shift is much underway from individuals (men) and local groups to a “global learning process” (21) in the form of a collective, cumulative repository in its online noosphere (re V. Vernadsky and P. Teilhard). As we try to broach here, a new phase of guided facilitation so as to seek ways to better organize, translate and foster accessible usage. A detailed glossary with sections such as Cognitive Psychology and Science, Complex Systems Theory, Earth Systems, Epistemic Networks, and Knowledge Development then provides an expansive guide.

This book presents a new perspective about the history of science and technology, one that offers a grand narrative in which knowledge serves as a critical factor of cultural evolution. It examines the role of knowledge in global transformations going back to the dawn of civilization all the way to complex challenges confronting us today in the Anthropocene epoch shaped by humankind. Renn reframes the history of science and technology, analyzing key episodes such as the evolution of writing, the Scientific Revolution of early modernity, and the current digital globalization of scientific findings. (Publisher)

In chapter 13, we saw how epistemic communities may come into being by processes of self-organization involving cognitive networks. Clearly, even in its current form, the Web has immensely improved the conditions for such self-organizing networks. The challenges of the Anthropocene might act as a catalyst for the emergence of a global epistemic community beyond disciplinary trenches, for refocusing the Web on problems of knowledge, and for creating new bridges between the academic world and civil society. (408)

Epistemic Evolution: A process emerging from cultural evolution in which the knowledge economy of science has transformed from an accidental into a necessary condition for preserving, sharing, and developing the achievements of cultural evolution, and possibly even the survival of the human species on a global scale. (Glossary)

Ronan, Colin. Science: Its History and Development Among the World’s Cultures. New York: Facts on File, 1982. For the record, a reliable exposition from Greece and China to modern times.

Roszak, Theodore. The Gendered Atom. Berkeley, CA: Conari Press, 1999. A cultural historian decries the invasive, mechanistic cast of masculine dominance in science. The prescription is an end to gender bias in a science that can equally admit women and feminine sensibilities toward sympathetic relationships, which is good for the planet.

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