Новости за 05.08.2016

More on the contradictions of drug-testing in sports. “So, as the rules stand: having an incredibly rare gene mutation that boosts red blood cells is OK; training at altitude to boost red blood cells is OK; shelling out thousands of dollars to sleep in a tent that simulates altitude is OK; but injecting a drug, one approved for other medical uses that causes your body to act as if it’s at altitude — you’re a disgrace. How should we draw the line? Where does a fair advantage end and cheating begin?”

American electronic voting machines are almost absurdly easy to hack. None is more secure than a typical home computer. In this year’s presidential election 43 states will use voting or tallying machines at least 10 years old. What would happen if the election was sabotaged? “Both sides would accuse the other of corruption and sponsoring the attack. And the political response to the country of origin would prove equally difficult. What does an Election Day cyber-strike warrant? Cruise missiles?”

America grapples with its second great foreign-policy debate of the post-Soviet era. The first, from Bush 41 through 43, concerned the appropriate extent of a strong America’s global ambitions. Now the goalposts have moved, and Americans are debating whether their chastened country should give up the global leadership role held since WW2. “Isolationists must not prevail in this new debate over foreign-policy fundamentals — one which I had never imagined would take place in my lifetime”

“The ultimate driving food should be shaped and scaled exactly like a standard 12-ounce beverage can. Car cupholders have been designed with these cans in mind, so they have a place to sit, comfortably and with very easy access, in almost every car on the road. The cylinder should be made of something edible; the housing of this food is an integral component of the meal itself. That’s why I’ve chosen bagel dough as the material for the primary structure of the ultimate driving food”

On the place of slavery in the rise of America as a world power. “If we gave the two-and-a-half centuries of slavery the same scholarly attention as European feudalism and the Industrial Revolution, we could talk today about important threads running through our national and world history. And if those conversations could explore the economic facets of slavery, we could see that slavery was a critical factor in the economic growth of the U.S. and the rise of global capitalism”

Euler’s problem solved and explained. Eighteenth-century Königsberg was divided by a river called the Pregel, which contained two islands. Seven bridges linked the banks and islands. Was there a walk through the city that crossed every bridge exactly once? Euler saw that this was a question of topology. The lay-out of the city didn’t matter; what mattered was the connections. “Euler’s thoughts marked the beginning of graph theory, which you might also call network theory”

Portrait of the 17C Turkish world-traveller Evliya Çelebi. “His path crossed Buddhists and crusading warriors, the Bedouin and Venetian sailors, ambassadors, monks, sorcerers, and snake charmers. Along the way he wrote the Seyahatname (“Book of Travels”), a magnificent ten-volume sprawl of fantasy, biography, and reportage that is utterly unique in the canon of travel literature, and which confirms Evliya as one of the great storytellers of the seventeenth century”