International Week of Science and Peace

The International Week of Science and Peace was first observed during 1986 as part of the observance of the International Year of Peace. 

The organization of events and activities for the week was undertaken as a non-governmental initiative; the secretariat for the International Year of Peace was informed of the preparatory activities and the final summary of events that occurred during the week. The organizers sought to encourage the broadest possible international participation in the observance.

Based on the success of the 1986 observance, the organizers continued their efforts in successive years. 

In recognition of the value of the annual observance, the General Assembly adopted resolution 43/61 in December 1988, which proclaims the “International Week of Science and Peace”, to take place each year during the week in which 11 November falls. 

The General Assembly urged Member States and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to encourage relevant institutions, associations and individuals to sponsor events and activities related to the study and dissemination of information on the links between progress in science and technology and maintenance of peace and security; urged Member States to promote international co-operation among scientists and required the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly as its forty-fifth session on the activities and initiatives of Member States and interested organizations in connection with the week.

The annual observance of the International Week of Science and Peace is making an important contribution to the promotion of peace. 

The Week encourages greater academic exchanges on a subject of universal importance while also generating greater awareness of the relationship of science and peace among the general public. 

Based on observances of Science and Peace Week to date, it may be expected that participation each year will increase, contributing to greater international understanding and opportunities for co-operation in the applications of science for the promotion of peace throughout the year.

un.org

http://www.un.org/en/events/scienceday/week.shtml

A Mind from Math

Alan Turing, often considered the father of computer science, 
was born a century ago, in June of 1912.


Arguably, and it would be a tough argument to win if you took the other side, computers have had a greater impact on civilization than any other machine since the wheel. 

Sure, there was the steam engine, the automobile and the airplane, the printing press and the mechanical clock. Radios and televisions also made their share of societal waves. 

But look around. Computers do everything TVs and radios ever did. 

And computers tell time, control cars and planes, and have rendered printing presses pretty darn near obsolete. 

Computers have invaded every realm of life, from work to entertainment to medicine to education: Reading, writing and arithmetic are now all computer-centric activities. 

Every nook and cranny of human culture is controlled, colored or monitored by the digital computer. 

Even though, merely 100 years ago, no such machine existed. In 1912, the wordcomputer referred to people (typically women) using pencils and paper or adding machines.

Coincidentally, that was the year that Alan Turing was born. If you don’t like the way computers have taken over the world, you could blame him.

No one did more to build the foundation of computer science than Turing. In a paper published in 1936, he described the principle behind all of today’s computing devices, sketching out the theoretical blueprint for a machine able to implement instructions for making any calculation.

Turing didn’t invent the idea of a computer, of course. Charles Babbage had grand plans for a computing machine a century earlier (and even he had precursors). George Boole, not long after Babbage, developed the underlying binary mathematics (originally conceived much earlier by Gottfried Leibniz) that modern digital computers adopted. 

But it was Turing who combined ideas from abstract mathematical theory and concrete mechanical computation to describe precisely how, in principle, machines could emulate the human brain’s capacity for solving mathematical problems.

“Turing gave a brilliant demonstration that everything that can be reasonably said to be computed by a human computer using a fixed procedure can be computed by … a machine,” computer scientist Paul Vitányi writes in a recent paper (arxiv.org/abs/1201.1223).

Tragically, though, Turing didn’t live to see the computer takeover. 

He died a victim of prejudice and intolerance. His work lived on, though, and his name remains fixed both to the idealized machine he devised and to a practical test for machine intelligence, a test that foreshadowed powers that today’s computers have begun to attain.

complete info

http://scientificanniversary.blogspot.com.ar/p/mind-from-math.html

Apollo 11 moon landing memorabilia to be sold at auction

The crew of Apollo 11, the first men to walk on the Moon, helped their families plan for their deaths before they launched, memorabilia to be sold at auction has revealed.

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When the crew of Apollo 11 set off for the moon in 1969, they were feted as heroes and praised as pioneers.

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But mementoes to be sold at an auction commemorating the mission's 40th anniversary shows how the three astronauts secretly feared they may be on a one-way ticket – and how they helped their families to plan for their deaths

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With insurance companies unwilling to cover them for such a treacherous venture, and aware that government compensation in the event of their demise could be modest, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins dreamed up an idea for securing their loved ones' futures: autographed first-day covers.

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One of the signed envelopes – bearing the Apollo 11 mission emblem and postmarked at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, on July 16, 1969, the day of the launch – is among 400 lots going under the hammer in a sale of rare space memorabilia at Bonhams auction house in New York.

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"Since we were unable to obtain adequate life insurance due to the high risk nature of being an astronaut, we signed this group of covers and evenly distributed them to our families for safe keeping while we performed our mission," explained Buzz Aldrin, 79, in an accompanying letter certifying authenticity.

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"If an unfortunate event prevented our safe return, the covers would have provided a limited financial means of support to our families."

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The auction, one of many events marking the anniversary later this month, is expected to draw bidding from space enthusiasts and collectors around the world, and raise at least $1.5 million.

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"We have already had a lot of interest from people, both stateside and internationally," said Bonhams specialist Christina Geiger.

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"Much of the material comes directly from the collections of various astronauts and there's certainly the feeling that they were holding back on some of their better material for the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing."

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Among the items expected to attract the most interest is a selection of pages taken from the mission manual that was transported with Armstrong and Aldrin aboard the lunar landing module Eagle, setting out the computer procedures they needed to follow to set the spacecraft down safely.

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Considered Apollo 11's most historically significant documents, they were critical in guiding Armstrong through the final nail-biting minutes of the descent as he desperately tried to steer clear of craters and boulders, ultimately bringing the module to a halt with just 20 seconds' worth of fuel to spare before the world heard his announcement:

"The Eagle has landed."

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Another star lot lined up for auction is a page from Nasa's Apollo 11 flight plan, which the astronauts took to the moon and plotted their schedule, hour by hour.

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Aldrin has jotted on it the precise moments at which he and Armstrong set their footprints in the lunar soil, with the notes: "Neil's first step," and "My first step."

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According to the timeline the astronauts were supposed to take a three-hour rest after landing, before they ventured outside.

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"Needless to say, Neil and I had an abundance of energy and adrenaline surging through our bodies after this historic event and starting a rest period was the last thing on our minds," Aldrin noted, recalling how Armstrong won permission from mission control to bring the moonwalk forward.

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"The lunar surface was indeed desolate, but had a striking beauty all its own," Aldrin reminisced in his subsequent written account, which forms part of the auction lot.

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Other souvenirs include a section of Armstrong's training spacesuit, a scale model of the Saturn V rocket that launched the lunar explorers into space – formerly owned by the late Dr Maxime Faget, one of the rocket's lead designers – and a brush used on the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 to clean the astronauts' camera lenses.

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Moon dust is still embedded in its bristles.

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Jacqui Goddard

Miami

telegraph.co.uk