What is a good historical novel

Battle of Borodino, by Louis-François Lejeune

In the previous post I mentioned War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy as a paradigmatic example of a good historical novel. In my opinion, the three golden rules for good historical novels are the following:

1.      The main characters are fictitious: In the case of War and Peace those characters are Pierre, Natasha, Prince André and their relatives, friends and spouses.

2.      The real historical characters are secondary: In War and Peace the historical characters are Napoleon, Alexander I of Russia and General Kutuzov. These characters act in the novel exactly as they did in reality. Regarding them, facts are not invented, they are interpreted.

3.      The lives of both groups of characters are intertwined perfectly.

Is History science or literature?

Allegory of Science, by Sebastiano Conca

There are different kinds of sciences. Some are rigorous and have great predictive power, others less, others practically none. Let us look at a classification of the sciences:

·         Formal sciences: They start from axioms or postulates, more or less unassailable, and use deduction as the main method of reasoning. A few play the role of fundamental basis for other sciences. In this group, we can include mathematics, logic and theoretical computer science.

·         Natural sciences: They use induction as the main method of reasoning. Their objective is to discover fundamental laws that explain the working of the world. They rely more or less on logic and mathematics. These sciences include (in order of decreasing rigor) physics and astronomy; chemistry; biology, geology and paleontology.

·         Social Sciences: They use abduction as the main method of reasoning (see an earlier article in this blog). Their object of study is man or society. These sciences include psychology, economics, sociology, anthropology, politics, archeology and history.

·         Finally, the applied sciences, whose objective is to develop practical applications from the theoretical knowledge provided by the experimental and social sciences. They usually associate under the name of technology, although there are some disciplines that fall outside that umbrella, such as legal sciences, applied economics, medicine, or applied psychology.

Mistakes in popular science in the media: Stephen Hawking didn’t discover everything

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking has been in the last decades a scientific icon for the media. His painful personal situation turned him into a celebrity who inevitably attracts attention. Therefore, the media have a tendency to exaggerate his scientific work, attributing to him achievements that weren’t his, which he would be the first to repudiate, if he were still among us.

For example, on the occasion of his death, the following headlines appeared in several media:

•         AlDiaNews.com: Stephen Hawking, author of the Big Bang theory dies at 76

•         ElTiempoHoy: Creador de la teoría del Big Bang y los agujeros negros: fallece Stephen Hawking a los 76 años. (Creator of Big Bang’s theory and black hole theory: Stephen Hawking dies at 76).

•         Gizmodo Univisión: Del Big Bang a la Teoría del Todo: el increíble legado científico de Stephen Hawking (From the Big Bang to the Theory of Everything: Stephen Hawking’s incredible legacy).

Gödel and realism

Kurt Gödel

Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) was one of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century. In 1931, when he was 25, he rose to fame with his mathematical proof that the attempt to build a complete axiomatic system, from which one can deduce all the arithmetic of natural numbers or any equivalent system, is doomed to failure.

His first incompleteness theorem says the following:

Every consistent formal system as powerful as elementary arithmetic is not complete (it contains true undecidable propositions).

Let us look at a simplified informal demonstration:

Let theorem G say the following: This theorem G cannot be proved from the axioms and rules of system S.

• If we assume that Theorem G is false, system S is inconsistent, since a false theorem can be proved from the axioms and rules of S.
• Then if S is consistent, G must be true, and therefore cannot be proved from the axioms of S.
  

Gödel’s theorem shows that every axiomatic formalization of arithmetic is either inconsistent (it allows false theorems to be proved), or incomplete (it contains true theorems that cannot be proved).