An Introduction to the Astrolabe, the Medieval Smartphone

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Image by Anders Sand­berg, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Asked to imag­ine the char­ac­ter of every­day life in the Mid­dle Ages, a young stu­dent in the twen­ty-twen­ties might well reply, before get­ting around to any oth­er details, that it involved no smart­phones. But even the flashiest new tech­nolo­gies have long evo­lu­tion­ary his­to­ries, and, in…

The Book of Colour Concepts: A New 800-Page Celebration of Color Theory, Including Works by Newton, Goethe, and Hilma af Klint

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The Book of Colour Con­cepts will soon be pub­lished by Taschen in a mul­ti­lin­gual edi­tion, con­tain­ing text in Eng­lish, French, Ger­man, and Span­ish. This choice makes its abun­dance of explana­to­ry schol­ar­ship wide­ly acces­si­ble at a stroke, but even those who read none of those four lan­guages can enjoy the book. For…

The Founder of the Red Cross Creates a Diagram of the Apocalypse (1887)

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His­to­ry remem­bers Hen­ry Dunant (1828–1910) for two things–being the co-founder of the Red Cross move­ment and win­ning the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.

Less well known is his dia­gram of the Apoc­a­lypse. Between 1877 and 1890, notes the Red Cross Muse­um web­site, Hen­ry Dunant “pro­duced a series of dia­grams reflect­ing…

Coursera Offers $100 Off of Coursera Plus (Until March 31), Giving You Unlimited Access to Courses & Certificates

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A heads up on a deal: Between now and March 31, 2024, Cours­era is offer­ing a $100 dis­count on its annu­al sub­scrip­tion plan called “Cours­era Plus.” Nor­mal­ly priced at $399, Cours­era Plus (now avail­able for $299) gives you access to 7,000+ world-class cours­es for one all-inclu­sive sub­scrip­tion price. This includes…

The 15 Greatest Documentaries of All Time: Explore Films by Werner Herzog, Errol Morris & More

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There are two kinds of peo­ple in this world: those who rec­og­nize the phrase “corny dia­logue that would make the pope weep,” and those who don’t. If you fall into the for­mer cat­e­go­ry, your mind is almost cer­tain­ly filled with images of bleak Mid­west­ern win­ters, mod­est trail­er homes, hood­ed fig­ures smash­ing an already-junk­yard-wor­thy car, and…