Monika’s Pensieve

In the report below, Al Jazeera interviewed people in Beirut about their city and about their views on many issues. It looks like a fascinating place :)

The first physicist to use mathematics to describe and prove what he had discovered was a man called al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham, who was born in what is now Iraq, over a 1000 years ago. Many key European scientists (like Newton and Copernicus) developed ideas that originated with al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham.
In fact, amongst many things, he [...]

It’s a little freaky to think that something like this can happen so easily… Basically three of the four cables that run below the ocean between Europe, the Middle East and Asia have snapped.
Communication with the Middle East is already difficult in the present state and the disruption may bring massive losses to businesses, but [...]

I’m following up my previous post. It’s been a few days and the USA still hasn’t even owned up to conducting the raid.

{BOOK DIARY}
I had intended to post a little about the books I’m reading, but as you may have noticed I haven’t so far ;-P I’m far from being an avid reader, but (amazingly enough) I have read a few books since moving my blog here, so it’s high time I told you about them *grin* [...]

The Arab dhow, the first of its kind ever found, proves something equally startling - that mariners from the Persian Gulf were trading on a scale, and over distances, unmatched by human beings until Vasco da Gama set sail for India at the end of the 15th Century.
See the article here.