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Wednesday – the day of Odin

For most of us, Wednesday is just yet another day in the middle of the working week. We seldom ask ourselves what are the meaning and the origins of words that we are used to. Especially, the names of the days, months, countries, planets, constellations, etc. They are laid so deep in our memories and consciousness that we take them for granted. However, each name has its semantic roots and historical background. And believe me, most of the time they are truly amazing and unpredictable. Today, we will follow a bit from the story of one really common name – Wednesday.

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Journal Description

SWS Journal of Social Sciences & Arts (SSA) is a quarterly multidisciplinary peer-reviewed academic research journal, published online in Vienna, Austria by SGEM WORLD SCIENCE (SWS) International Society.
Our journal is issued both online and on paper and is completely open access (Online ISSN 2664-0104), thereby aspiring to facilitate the communication and exchange among scientists from all around the world and to encourage individual researchers in publishing their scientific work.

Portrait of Blaise Pascal; Image credit: gettyimages.com

Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was one of the most distinguished French polymaths of early Modern Times. He was a child prodigy. Pascal's earliest works date from the time he was just 16 years old. He made important contributions in mathematics and physics. A great inventor, he constructed one of the firsts mechanical calculators. In his later life, he became a Catholic theologian, philosopher, and writer demonstrating a well-elaborated and refined writing style. His last and unfinished work - Thought (Pensées) – a collection of fragments, is a delicate and yet incredibly powerful illustration of his concise and aphoristic genius.

Below you can enjoy and muse upon seven quotes by the French master of eloquence:

Herbert Marcuse in Newton, Massachusetts in 1955. Photo credit: Wikiedia; under CC BY-SA 3.0

5 quotes by Herbert Marcuse

"The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment."

"Art breaks open a dimension inaccessible to other experience, a dimension in which human beings, nature, and things no longer stand under the law of the established reality principle...The encounter with the truth of art happens in the estranging language and images which make perceptible, visible, and audible that which is no longer, or not yet, perceived, said, and heard in everyday life."

"Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves."

"The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of one's own destruction, has become a "biological" need."

"By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. For "totalitarian" is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests."

A circular bioeconomy turns waste streams into new products. Image credit - Josh Power / Unsplash

Bioeconomy

A circular bioeconomy – which turns renewable biological resources and waste streams into new products – is at the heart of the EU's efforts to slash its carbon emissions while also maintaining economic growth. But what does a bioeconomy look like and how do we get there?

Horizon Magazine asked five young experts and activists what the bioeconomy means to them – and what needs to happen for it to become a reality.