The universe and God: ancient Greece

In Western philosophy, the theory of infinite worlds dates back 2500 years to the “atomists” of ancient Greece. For philosophers like Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus, the universe was composed of microscopic atoms, moving eternally in a void, colliding haphazardly with one another until they formed a vortex. In this vortex, the heavy elements clustered together …

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The importance of Lucretius

Epicurus was a very serious person and his work, now lost, may have been hard going. He was fortunate that Lucretius was later able to explain Epicureanism in an accessible way. His six volumes of poetry now rank as outstanding pieces of literature in Latin. You might have the greatest idea ever thought up, but …

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Good news: at last the US tackles the opioid painkiller epidemic

In 2014, the overdose death rate from opioid addiction among white Americans aged 25 to 34 was five times higher than the equivalent figure in 1999. In New York state all prescriptions for a medicine will now be sent by doctors via the internet directly to a person’s pharmacy of choice. Because doctors will no …

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