What are you reading?

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am rereading "The Republic of Plato".


“In practice people who study philosophy too long become very odd birds, not to say thoroughly vicious; while even those who are the best of them are reduced by...[philosophy] to complete uselessness as members of society.”
― Plato, Plato's Republic: The Theatre of the Mind

“The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers become rulers in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.”
― Plato, Plato's Republic

“Have you ever sensed that our soul is immortal and never dies?”
― Plato, The Republic

[pinhodecarlos]

Paper: A numerical model of slug flow in vertical tubes.

[Duke of Buckingham]

That seems interesting ... by the way what does that mean?

Sorry for my ignorance pinhodecarlos.

Give me a quick explanation about it ...

[pinhodecarlos]

When you are drilling a well the structure can be horizontal, inclined or vertical. In real life you have the three. On my PhD I will be concerned about the vertical tubes and what happens to the multiphase flows when they come up, liquid and gas. While they come up different types of flows and patterns can happen, the flow can be bubbly, slug, churn or annular. I will concentrate my effort on the transition from bubbly flow to slug flow of vertical tubes with gas-lift technique. This technique ensures by injecting a gas to increase the well production and therefore new numeric models and experiences on a real set-up are necessary to predict the production of the well and also to be sure when the various flows transitions will happen and to calculate a bunch of stuff (fraction void, velocities, flow rate, pressure, etc), so that the mechanical parts of the drilling wells don't get breakdown.
So I am reading a bunch of papers on this area.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am trying to read MY COMPUTER and that is not easy, I start to think this computer is a female because is so difficult to understand ...

maybe in the end, it will be as a woman and give much more than it asks ...

But somehow is fun and challeging ... as a book ... as woman.

I am going to read it and read it and read it ... because there is a passage that makes me come back once more.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading "Walden II", that is a scientific fiction book writen by Burrhus Frederic Skinner in 1948.

The book suggests us to use our knowledge about human behavior to create a social environment where we will take productive and creative lives without compromising the possibilities of those who will follow us, so they can do the same.

It is a good social study with no compromise with the science itself, maybe better it is a study about how B. F. Skinner brain started to construct his experimental analysis of behavior.

[Duke of Buckingham]

We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Евгений Замятин, Clarence Brown

A masterpiece of wit and black humor that accurately predicted the horrors of Stalinism, We is the classic dystopian novel. Its message of hope and warning is as timely at the end of the twentieth century as it was at the beginning.

A book about the discovery -- or rediscovery -- of inner space...and much about that disease the ancients called the soul.

A good book, not that I agree with much of it but it is a different point of view in a different world on another time.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am with a very bad flu so I am reading "The Flu" by Jacqueline Druga.

In 1918 forty million people succumbed to a particular strain of swine flu. It appeared out of nowhere, and just as quickly as it surfaced, the Spanish Flu vanished. Gone for good. Or so we thought. Though mankind has anticipated its resurfacing for some time, mankind is ill prepared. Mutated and with a vengeance, the Spanish Flu returns.

Better that you read it to know more ...

[finalfugue]

Knocked out: On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace - Donald Kagan
In my nose: Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy - James Fallows
On deck: Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Incredibly recommended from last year: The Son - Philipp Meyer

[DrPop]

Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence by Seth Shostak. He is the lead Astronomer at the SETI Institute.