The Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction hypothesis, proposed as an explanation of the Michelson-Morley result, fails to account for the Kennedy-Thorndike result. Hence, Grünbaum argues, the hypothesis has been falsified. However, the contraction hypothesis as formulated by Lorentz is false for the very fundamental reason that it entails a contradiction, namely, the consequence that light waves must have a variable velocity along what by definition is taken to be a rest length. Furthermore, the attempt to resolve this contradiction by coupling the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction (...) with the hypothesis that clock rates are a function of velocity, is open to a sound, methodological objection. The Michelson-Morley result is fully satisfied, provided only that the lengths of the interferometer arms, in the longitudinal and transverse positions, are thought to be related to one another in a certain ratio, and this ratio may be interpreted as a contraction in both arms. Since this twofold contraction hypothesis suffices to explain both the Michelson-Morley and the Kennedy-Thorndike results, and since it entails no contradiction, there is no need to correct both the length of rods and the rate of clocks. Therefore, the combined clock-rod hypothesis, and with it the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction hypothesis, must be rejected. (shrink)

RésuméLe raisonnement selon lequel la simultanéité est relative du point de vue de l'observateur est fondamental dans la Relativité restreinte. Pourtant, l'analyse de ce raisonnement mène aux critiques suivantes:1. Le raisonnement appartient à la physique classique plutǒt qu'à la physique relativiste, en ce qu'il adopte la conception classique de la propagation de la lumière et ignore le principe de la constance de la vitesse de la lumière.2. Il entre en conflit avec l'évidence empirique, car son hypothèse de base et son (...) mode de raisonnement sont presque exactement analogues à ceux qui amenèrent Michelson et Morlay à attendre un résultat positif lors de leur expérience d'interférence.3. Il est logiquement inacceptable, car il repose à la fois sur l'affirmation et sur la négation d'un système de référence privilégié.Bien plus, on montre que l'application correcte des transformations de Lorentz mène non pas à la conclusion que la simultanéité est relative, mais plutǒt à celle qu'elle est absolue.The argument that simultaneity is relative to the viewpoint of an observer, is fundamental to Special Relativity. However, analysis of this argument leads to the following strictures: the argument belongs to classical physics rather than to relativity physics, in that it adheres to the classical view of the propagation of light, and ignores altogether the relativistic principle of the constancy of the velocity of light; the argument conflicts with empirical evidence, in that its basic assumption and mode of reasoning are almost exactly analogous to those which led Michelson and Morley to expect a positive result from their interferometer experiment; the argument is logically untenable, in that it rests on both the affirmation, and the denial, of a privileged frame of reference. Furthermore, it is shown that proper application of the Lorentz transformation, in actually transforming data from one system to another, must lead, not to the conclusion that simultaneity is relative, but rather to the conclusion that it is absolute. (shrink)

Melbourne and Mars was first published in Australia in 1889. The author, Joseph Fraser, was born in England and came to Melbourne, via New Zealand, in 1885. "Marvellous Melbourne," as it was then known, was one of the world's richest and fastest-growing cities, its wealth coming from rich gold deposits. As well as having Australia's wealthiest citizens, however, it also had Australia's worst slumsThis 2020 reprint is introduced and edited by Alexandra Roginsky and Zachary Kendall, of Deakin (...) University. Except for correcting a few spelling errors, they retain the original text.Joseph Fraser was a phrenologist as well as an avid orator and writer.1 He never prospered and, when writing this book, was dying from... (shrink)

What happens when we release fifty Year 9 students from the confines of the traditional classroom and set them free to study history in small teams in the Melbourne CBD? Go on the trail of the hidden histories of some of Melbourne's most recognisable places with the Galileo Team at The University High School. -/- .

Vodola, Max Review(s) of: Melbourne before mannix: Catholics in public life 1880-1920, by Patrick Morgan, (Ballan: Connor Court, 2012), pp. 234, $29.95.

Most studies of homelessness emphasise the suffering and social exclusion experienced by people living without secure housing. It is only more recently that scholars have turned their attention to the means by which homeless people struggle to maintain their health and wellbeing despite their exclusion. This interest has been a strong feature of recent affective and performative geographies of homelessness. This chapter adds to this literature by offering insights into the affective and performative aspects of health-in-the-making, along with novel empirical (...) reports of the lived experience of health and wellbeing in specific homeless communities in Melbourne. I address the first aim by extending recent geographical work on ‘niching practices’ in urban settings. I argue that select urban sites support the health-in-the-making of homeless people by affording the creation of enabling niches. Turning to my ethnographic data, I indicate how these niches enable the expression of novel durational agencies and affective capacities. These reports help to elucidate the means by which precarious life is managed in cities. I conclude by briefly considering the implications of my analysis for ongoing efforts to articulate a novel politics of homelessness grounded in an affective right to the city. (shrink)

Food systems are being affected by multiple shocks related to climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical events. Food prices and food insecurity are rising globally as a result, raising questions about the effective governance of food security during shocks. This paper critically examines the governance of food security in Melbourne, Australia during a major food system shock, the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws on document analysis and 34 stakeholder interviews with 41 participants from government, industry and civil society between (...) May 2020 and March 2021. The paper examines the role of these actors in governance mechanisms for two important aspects of food system governance during the COVID-19 pandemic, continuity of food supply and delivery of emergency food relief. Clark et al.’s (2021) “governance engagement continuum” is used to show how civil society groups were excluded from these formal governance mechanisms, instead establishing their own spaces of “self-governance”. The resilience aims associated with these governance mechanisms are also analyzed using Zurek et al.’s (2022) “three R’s” (robustness, recovery and reorientation) framework. Our study highlights the significant role of food industry actors in the continuity of food supply and delivery of emergency food relief, and it shows the vulnerabilities of emergency food relief that depends on industry food “surpluses” as a model for addressing food insecurity during food system shocks. We conclude that greater government leadership is needed in the governance of food security during food system shocks, and in implementation of legislative and policy approaches that are grounded in the human right to food. (shrink)

This article explores how children’s everyday lifeworlds shape participation in classroom communities and the development of scholarly habitus. Drawing on a qualitative study in one Melbourne primary school, fifty Year 4 children (aged 9–10) completed ‘learning dialogues’ across a school week, producing written and drawn reflections on what they looked forward to, how they felt about school, and why these experiences mattered. Reflexive thematic analysis, informed by sociocultural concepts of lifeworlds and habitus, identified two themes: Teamwork (coordination, role-taking, planning (...) talk) and Becoming a community (belonging, transition, and relational warmth). Children consistently linked enjoyment, motivation, and confidence to collaborative experiences such as the ‘Christmas Cup.’ We argue that dispositions for participation are social accomplishments emerging through routine collaboration within stable classroom ecologies, offering a child-centred account of engagement that complements test-based measures of success. (shrink)

Algorithmic probability and friends: Proceedings of the Ray Solomonoff 85th memorial conference is a collection of original work and surveys. The Solomonoff 85th memorial conference was held at Monash University's Clayton campus in Melbourne, Australia as a tribute to pioneer, Ray Solomonoff, honouring his various pioneering works - most particularly, his revolutionary insight in the early 1960s that the universality of Universal Turing Machines could be used for universal Bayesian prediction and artificial intelligence. This work continues to increasingly influence (...) and under-pin statistics, econometrics, machine learning, data mining, inductive inference, search algorithms, data compression, theories of intelligence and philosophy of science - and applications of these areas. Ray not only envisioned this as the path to genuine artificial intelligence, but also, still in the 1960s, anticipated stages of progress in machine intelligence which would ultimately lead to machines surpassing human intelligence. Ray warned of the need to anticipate and discuss the potential consequences - and dangers - sooner rather than later. Possibly foremostly, Ray Solomonoff was a fine, happy, frugal and adventurous human being of gentle resolve who managed to fund himself while electing to conduct so much of his paradigm-changing research outside of the university system. The volume contains 35 papers pertaining to the abovementioned topics in tribute to Ray Solomonoff and his legacy. (shrink)

The four-year wrangle over the ownership of what was then thought to have been the largest known meteorite, recognized near Melbourne in 1860, provides a fine-grained example of the interaction between scientific internationalism, metropolitan appetite for specimens, and colonial civic pride.

_Aëtiana IV: Towards an Edition of the Aëtian Placita: Papers of the Melbourne Colloquium, 1–3 December 2015_ provides a critical discussion from various angles by a plurality of authors of the reconstruction of the _Placita_ and the relevance of the compendium for the history of Greek philosophy.

They came from an old world to a new land. The Yiddish speakers from Eastern Europe brought few material possessions but clung to a language and a culture that defined who they were, a way of life that had endured pogroms, persecution and a genocide that pushed them to the brink of extinction. Melbourne gave them a second chance at life, an opportunity to rebuild a secular Yiddish world that sat at the core of their existence. Hardship had taught (...) these Jews to be resilient, fiercely independent and great institution builders. A community centre quickly became the beating heart of Yiddish Melbourne. The arts flourished, newspapers were launched and schools were established. But these immigrants also brought their competing political ideals and hotly contested notions of what it meant to be a Jew in this corner of the world. Their arrival in Melbourne was not always welcomed. Australian authorities only grudgingly accepted them as immigrants, in restricted numbers and under the sponsorship of Jews already living here. Yiddish speakers, with their boisterous demeanour and high visibility, challenged the authority of the established Jewish community, which traced its origins to the first settlement and which believed that ‘blending in’ was the antidote to antisemitism. Using the voices of the immigrants themselves, along with archival sources, Taft and Markus give a compelling account of how these Yiddish speakers came to shape, change and define an entire community. (shrink)

In 1980 grey-headed flying-foxes, a species now listed as "vulnerable to extinction," made camp at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne (RBGM). In May 2000 the RBGM started to kill bats. The killing was halted when Humane Society International (HSI) filed for the bats’ protection under federal and state conservation laws. Over the next 13 months, conservationists, garden officials and scientists, politicians, animal activists, and others all played a part in a chain of events that demonstrates the tangled web of (...) scientific involvement in politics and how different views within the scientific community may lead to conflicting positions on conservation strategies. (shrink)

This conversation between two scholars of international law focuses on the contemporary realities of feminist analysis of international law and on current and future spaces of resistance. It notes that feminism has moved from the margin towards the centre, but that this has also come at a cost. As the language of women’s rights and gender equality has travelled into the international policy worlds of crisis management and peace and security, feminist scholars need to become more careful in their analysis (...) and find new ways of resistance. While noting that we live in dangerous times, this is also a hopeful discussion. (shrink)

Christ’s name is often taken in vain, but not in this book title. It is at once a prayer and a cry of anguish. Robinson was deputed to deal with the whole abuse problem in the Archdiocese of Sydney and knows horrid things at first hand: abuse and clerical cover-ups, both.Bishop Robinson’s book is practical—if perhaps at the time of publication unduly sanguine. He calls, in chapter 13 for ‘A New Council for a New Church’ to enable to get the (...) problem of sexual abuse fixed and for the Church to get out of its self-constructed ‘prison of the past’.See Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus, Melbourne, Garrett Publishing 2007: reviewed in Sophia, vol.47, pp.231–239 in 2008. See page 119 and passim. The authoritarian Church to date has not squarely faced, and not by any means fixed, the sexual abuse problem. It can do this, Robinson argues, only if it changes both its ways and its structures. Such a change, Robinson suggests, could happen if there we. (shrink)

This paper uses academic and lay discourses to examine the ways in which "the city" is constructed in its relationship to "wildlife." The paper examines the negative and essentialized ways in which the city's relationship to wildlife has been represented in postcolonial theory and animal geography. The paper further explores these theoretical framings of the city in the empirical context of the relocation of an urban, flying fox colony, which provides opportunities to reconsider these bounded conceptualizations of the city.