Heritage

From time to time I get second hand books through the post which turn out to have once been library books and come complete with all their stickers and bits and bobs of cardboard. Something which strikes a chord with me, probably from my childhood habit of using libraries (in the days when they had huge flat trays full of tickets) - a habit which was not maintained at university but which did have a brief second life in the first years of marriage. The library at Harringay West, a library which I am pleased to say is still visible in Street View, at least as of March. And I do make some use of our library here at Epsom.

Back with the post, there are other memorabilia and today saw an early photocopy of a couple of foolscap typescripts, with foolscap vanishing from the scene long before the arrival of word processors.

Two items, one described as 'The formalism of quantum mechanics', probably notes for a post-graduate philosophy seminar at the University of Bristol, the other described as 'A note on the Neumann proof', from which the snap is taken.

The work of one P. K. Feyerabend, an Austrian philosopher, wounded on the Eastern Front, who did indeed start his teaching career at Bristol in the mid 1950's, but went on to spend most of his time at Berkeley. Impressive Bing footprint.

The book involved was published in 1980, on a connected subject.

Reference 1: From being to becoming: time and complexity in the physical sciences - Ilya Prigogine - 1980. A chemical Nobel laureate who seems to have taken an interest in physics.