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Definition Quotes

“In despair, I offer your readers their choice of the following definitions of entropy. My authorities are such books and journals as I have by me at the moment. (a) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy of a system which cannot be converted into work by even a perfect heat engine.—Clausius. (b) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy which can be converted into work by a perfect engine.—Maxwell, following Tait. (c) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy which is not converted into work by our imperfect engines.—Swinburne. (d) Entropy (in a volume of gas) is that which remains constant when heat neither enters nor leaves the gas.—W. Robinson. (e) Entropy may be called the ‘thermal weight’, temperature being called the ‘thermal height.’—Ibid. (f) Entropy is one of the factors of heat, temperature being the other.—Engineering. I set up these bald statement as so many Aunt Sallys, for any one to shy at. [Lamenting a list of confused interpretations of the meaning of entropy, being hotly debated in journals at the time.]”

ScienceEntropyDefinitionMaxwellJames Clerk MaxwellJames MaxwellClausiusRudolf ClausiusRudolf Julius Emanuel ClausiusRobinsonPeter Guthrie TaitPeter TaitTait
Author:Sydney Herbert Evershed
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“Nonetheless, it remains the case that the psychological literature on organised abuse has not provided a coherent explanation for the emergence of sexually abusive groups in a range of contexts, or for the difficulties that victims experience in disclosing their abuse and accessing care and support. The psychological model of organised abuse emphasises individual rather than social factors and so it tends to characterise organised abuse as a drama of psychological energies. Similar deficiencies can be found in attempts to theorise organised abuse that draw from psychiatric understandings of ‘paedophilia’ (eg Wyre 1996). This is a perspective that has proved particularly influential in public inquiries into allegations of organised abuse (for examples from Australia, see NCA Joint Committee Report 1995, Wood Report 1997, for examples from Britain, see Corby et at. 2001). These public inquiries have integrated the psychiatric notion of ‘paedophilia’ with existing stereotypes of organised crime to generate a model of ‘organised paedophilia’ or the ‘paedophile ring’, in which otherwise solitary sexual offenders with deviant sexual interests conspire to sexually abuse children for pleasure and/or profit. This psychiatric model may accurately describe some abusive men and groups but it has proven problematic as a catch-all explanation for organised abuse. Attempts to establish the existence of ‘paedophile rings’ often founders on semantic debates over whether alleged perpetrators meet the diagnostic criteria of a ‘paedophile’, sometimes leading to the confused and misleading conclusion that no ‘paedophile ring’ existed even where there is strong evidence that multiple perpetrators have colluded in the sexual abuse of multiple children.”

TheoryResearchSexual AbusePsychiatryRitual AbuseDefinitionPedophiliaOrganized AbusePedophile RingsSex RingsPaedophilia
Book:Organised Sexual Abuse
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“Life is both a particle and a wave, Lacey taught me, and also it's neither. But only when no one is watching. Once you measure it, it has to choose. It was the act of witnessing that turned nothing into something, collapsed possibility clouds into concrete and irrevocable truth. I'd only pretended to understand before, but I understood now: When no one was watching, I was a cloud. I was all possibilities.”

LifeWaveDefinitionParticleDefine Quote
Book:Girls on Fire
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“Yagya is a Sanskrit dialect that is not easily pronounceable by the people who speak English. They don’t have certain syllables in their vocabulary like Ksha, Tra, Gya, etc. So they pronounce Gya as Jna because syllable Gya is a combination of syllables Ja and Na; hence Yagya became Yajna. Hindi Translation - यज्ञ संस्कृत का शब्द है जिसका अंग्रेजी बोलने वाले लोग आसानी से उच्चारण नहीं कर सकते। उनकी शब्दावली में कुछ शब्दांश नहीं हैं जैसे कि क्ष, त्र, ज्ञ, इत्यादि। इसलिए वे ज्न का उच्चारण करते हैं क्योंकि शब्द ज्ञ शब्दांश ज और न का एक संयोजन है; इसलिए यज्ञ बना यज्न।”

TraditionVikrmnCa Vikram VermaDefinitionHinduSanskritYou By YouVedaYajnaYagya
Book:You By You
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“Hvor mange mennesker fikk mon gå frie og franke omkring, hvis det f.eks. i hver eneste gate derinne i byen var installert en Hieronimus med maktfullkommenhet til å sperre dem inne, som efter et Hieronimus skjønn var sinnssyke? Og, hvis det så fantes en av staten utnevnt overhieronimus, hvis bestilling det var å skulle se alle de små Hieronimusser på fingrene, mon så ikke disse småpaver en akker dag tur efter tur ville bli puttet i en vogn med en vokter og to portører og transportert til galehuset? Tenk hvor mange sinnssykeanstalter det så måtte bygges. Mange flere enn man kunne få Hieronimusser til å forestå. En mengde filialstater befolket av sinnssyke, spredt omkring i den egentlig stat, som sikkert også i virkeligheten ville være befolket av mer eller mindre sinnssyke, som måtte gå løs, fordi man ikke hadde plass i anstaltene. Og hvor skulle man så gjøre av de riktig gale, de som var farlige for den offentlige sikkerhet og for nestens liv og lemmer? Delm fikk man fort vekke kappe hodet av og grave ned, eller brenne opp i hui og hast.”

PowerAuthorityPsychiatryStateDefinitionSinnssykStatDefinisjonsmakt
Book:På St. Jørgen
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“Okay,” said Oggy. “What did they mean by asking you about being an afronaut?” Beaumont frowned at the statement. “We’re in space and things have not changed that drastically from two hundred years ago.” The old vet paused. “We are in space and we,” he said lifting his hand and showing it to Oggy. The boy smirked. “We, are the workers, the laborers. They,” Beaumont said, raising his chin in the direction of the three men on the opposite side of the compartment. “They, are the bosses, the managers. So, in this power structure they found a way to label us.” “We are afronauts,” Zuzu said with a disgusted look and a finger pointing to her hair. “They are astronauts.” “That don’t sound right,” said Oggy. “Right or wrong, it is what it is,” Beaumont said.” Excerpt From Onto a Sea of Stars Mark Sneed This material may be protected by copyright.”

DefinitionAfrofuturismAfronaut
Book:Onto a Sea of Stars: The Adventures of Christian Drake and The Unintentional Space Pirates
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“The real difference is this: the Christian says that he has knowledge; the Agnostic admits that he has none; and yet the Christian accuses the Agnostic of arrogance, and asks him how he has the impudence to admit the limitations of his mind. To the Agnostic every fact is a torch, and by this light, and this light only, he walks. The Agnostic knows that the testimony of man is not sufficient to establish what is known as the miraculous. We would not believe to-day the testimony of millions to the effect that the dead had been raised. The church itself would be the first to attack such testimony. If we cannot believe those whom we know, why should we believe witnesses who have been dead thousands of years, and about whom we know nothing? The Agnostic takes the ground that human experience is the basis of morality. Consequently, it is of no importance who wrote the gospels, or who vouched or vouches for the genuineness of the miracles. In his scheme of life these things are utterly unimportant. He is satisfied that “the miraculous” is the impossible. He knows that the witnesses were wholly incapable of examining the questions involved, that credulity had possession of their minds, that 'the miraculous' was expected, that it was their daily food.”

LifeMindReasonScienceBeliefKnowledgeAtheismMoralityEthicsEvidenceImportanceAtheistProofLimitationArroganceAgnosticTestimonyMiraclesFactSuperstitionAgnosticismCredulityDefinitionIngersollGospelsAgnostic DefinedChristian Gospels
Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol 1: Lectures
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“Thus, by science I mean, first of all, a worldview giving primacy to reason and observation and a methodology aimed at acquiring accurate knowledge of the natural and social world. This methodology is characterized, above all else, by the critical spirit: namely, the commitment to the incessant testing of assertions through observations and/or experiments — the more stringent the tests, the better — and to revising or discarding those theories that fail the test. One corollary of the critical spirit is fallibilism: namely, the understanding that all our empirical knowledge is tentative, incomplete and open to revision in the light of new evidence or cogent new arguments (though, of course, the most well-established aspects of scientific knowledge are unlikely to be discarded entirely). . . . I stress that my use of the term 'science' is not limited to the natural sciences, but includes investigations aimed at acquiring accurate knowledge of factual matters relating to any aspect of the world by using rational empirical methods analogous to those employed in the natural sciences. (Please note the limitation to questions of fact. I intentionally exclude from my purview questions of ethics, aesthetics, ultimate purpose, and so forth.) Thus, 'science' (as I use the term) is routinely practiced not only by physicists, chemists and biologists, but also by historians, detectives, plumbers and indeed all human beings in (some aspects of) our daily lives. (Of course, the fact that we all practice science from time to time does not mean that we all practice it equally well, or that we practice it equally well in all areas of our lives.)”

LifeScienceKnowledgePracticeArgumentCriticalPhysicsObservationBiologyChemistryInvestigationTestingWorldviewDetectivesMethodologyNatural ScienceDefinitionExperimentHistoriansEmpiricalCogencyFallibilism
Author:Alan Sokal
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“What we define ourselves us can sometimes bring forth the best images of ourselves--or vice versa, will create some of the worst restrictions we place on our lives.”

LifeWorstCreationIdentityBestCreateVice VersaWhatDefinitionOurselvesDefineRestrictionsThe Dark Dictionary
Book:The Dark Dictionary: A Guide to Help Eradicate Your Darkness, Restore Your Light, and Redefine Your Life.
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“How would I explain to him that I couldn’t make peace with him? How would I explain that if I did I would immediately lose my inner balance? How would I explain that one of the arms of my internal scales would suddenly shoot upward? How would I explain that my hatred of him counterbalanced the weight of evil that had fallen on my youth? How would I explain that he embodied all the evils in my life? How would I explain to him that I needed to hate him?”

HateEvilPeaceEnemyNovelForgivenessStructureCommunismMeaningDefinitionCzech
Book:The Joke
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