Gukesh closes in on 2600
The year 2020 has begun well for youngster D. Gukesh. He won the Hillerød Chess Club open in Denmark, and went on to fly through the Cannes Open as well. In a field that had over ten grandmasters, Gukesh scored 7½/9 with a rating performance of 2667. While Gukesh's performance and live rating of 2565 is impressive, what is even more jaw-dropping is the fact that the youngster says he has never used an engine for his preparation! In this article, Gukesh sends us an annotated game from the Cannes Open which, like always, he has analysed all by himself. A detailed report on Gukesh's victory al...
What Australians often get wrong about our most (in)famous explorer, Captain Cook
With the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook's voyage to Australia, it is time to brush up on the history of our nation's most famous naval explorer.He's the one that discovered Australia, right?No.The idea that Cook discovered Australia has long been debunked, and was debated as recently as 2017 when Indigenous broadcaster Stan Grant pointed to an inscription on statue in Sydney's Hyde Park....
Al-Kindi, A forgotten Muslim Contribution to Human Civilization
“We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth from whatever source it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and foreign people. For him who seeks the truth there is nothing of higher value than truth itself.”Literally, the word philosophy means the love of wisdom. Since the inception of human life on earth, man tried to find clear answers to the various natural phenomena surrounding him. The first inquiries were baffling and far beyond the understanding of the primitive mind. Thus, answers came in form of mythological or religious...
The Ultimate Renaissance Man: Leon Battista Alberti
The name ‘Leon Battista Alberti’ not only recalls the Renaissance’s ideals but also the aesthetic standards of modern architecture. Educated in various disciplines from sciences to language, this Italian born talent was truly a Renaissance man with many talents. Here are five things you should know about Leon Battista Alberti.Alberti, a great humanist, did not limit himself to become one of the greatest architects in history, but also excelled as a writer, mathematician, humanist, cryptographer, linguist, philosopher, musician and archaeologist — earning the nickname ‘Universal Geniu...
Friedrich Nietzsche: The truth is terrible
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) pursued two main themes in his work, one now familiar, even commonplace in modernity, the other still under-appreciated, often ignored. The familiar Nietzsche is the “existentialist”, who diagnoses the most profound cultural fact about modernity: “the death of God”, or more exactly, the collapse of the possibility of reasonable belief in God. Belief in God – in transcendent meaning or purpose, dictated by a supernatural being – is now incredible, usurped by naturalistic explanations of the evolution of species, the behaviour of ma...
