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Algebraic varieties that are locally isomorphic to open subsets of affine space will be called plain. Plain varieties are smooth and rational. The converse is true for curves and surfaces, and is unknown in general. It is shown that plain varieties are stable under blowup in smooth centers.

Embracing the belief that humblest of individuals participated in Jesus’s birth with their presence and gifts alongside wisest, Christians every era have wished to display own participation contribution this foundational Christian event. This article describes ways which a traditional, rural-inspired society like Santiago, Chile at end nineteenth beginning twentieth centuries expressed itself t...

According to a wrong interpretation of the Bell theorem, it has been repeatedly claimed in recent times that we are forced by experiments to drop any possible form of realism in the foundations of quantum mechanics. In this paper I defend the simple thesis according to which the above claim cannot be consistently supported: the Bell theorem does not concern realism, and realism per se cannot be...

Russell (1913) famously characterised the “law of causality” as a harmful “relic of a bygone age”, and urged the “complete extrusion” of the word ‘cause’ from the philosophical vocabulary. His justification for this proposal is, in large part, the descriptive claim that physicists, in particular, but more generally the practitioners of any ‘advanced’ science, do not in fact seek causes, conjoin...

The young Scottish physician Mungo Park, aged 23, arrived in Africa in 1795 with a mission as specific as it was complex in those bygone days, namely to travel the entire length of the River Niger. In 1799, the story of this journey was published in a book that sold 1500 copies in the first month alone, with two further editions published that same year, as well as the translation of the work i...