Will Durant

Jovan Stosic April 25, 2019

William James “Will“ Durant (/dəˈrænt/; November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was an American writer, historian, and philosopher. He became best known for his work The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife, Ariel Durant, and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy (1926), described as “a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy”.

He conceived of philosophy as total perspective or seeing things sub specie totius (a phrase inspired by Spinoza‘s sub specie aeternitatis). He sought to unify and humanize the great body of historical knowledge, which had grown voluminous and become fragmented into esoteric specialties, and to vitalize it for contemporary application.

The Durants were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant

Dotted note

Jovan Stosic April 21, 2019

Dotted notes and their equivalent durations. The curved lines, called ties, add the note values together.

In Western musical notation, a dotted note is a note with a small dot written after it. In modern practice, the first dot increases the duration of the basic note by half of its original value. This means that a dotted note is equivalent to writing the basic note tied to a note of half the value – for instance, a dotted half note is equivalent to a half note tied to a quarter note. Subsequent dots add progressively halved value, as shown in the example to the right. Though theoretically possible, a note with more than three dots is highly uncommon; only quadruple dots have been attested.

The use of a dot for augmentation of a note dates back at least to the 10th century, although the exact amount of augmentation is disputed; see Neume.

A rhythm using longer notes alternating with shorter notes (whether notated with dots or not) is sometimes called a dotted rhythm. Historical examples of music performance styles using dotted rhythms include notes inégales and swing. The precise performance of dotted rhythms can be a complex issue. Even in notation that includes dots, their performed values may be longer than the dot mathematically indicates, a practice known as over-dotting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dotted_note