British Museum and St. Thomas Aquinas

• I went there in April of 2012 to learn more about the origin of Islamic religion. There was an exhibition on the origin of Hajj. Photos were not allowed, and I cannot show photos from the exhibition. Yet, I have other interesting items from London.
  1. Click here for photos from the British Museum. Other than special exhibitions, photos are allowed in many areas in the Museum building.
  2. My London page. This is my comprehensive London page. I update this page whenever I come back from London.

  3. Taxis in London. London taxis have many interesting exterior appearances.
  4. Cafes in London. London has many fast-food places, with some exotic names, such as Cafe Nero, Wagamana. Does Nero sound like a decent person to you? Wagamana is a Japanese word for a domineering non-traditional Japanese woman.
  5. Stores in London. London has many department stores like Debenham, Mark and Spencer, and Harrod. It is a pleasure to walk around in those stores, even though I seldom buy things.

• I have a strong Christian background and I can give a scientific or historical interpretation to every story in the Old Testament, except that of Moses dividing the water. I have been and still am interested in how the Old Testament was written.

  I am also interested in how the Quran was written. I know some Christian clergies who attempted to read the Quran. According to them the Quran's logic is not straight, and it is a zig-Zag logic going nowhere. To me, this is the most interesting aspect of the Quran. Let me get back to this point later, and let us look at more photos.

  Portrait of Thomas Aquinas in the Aquinas quarter at the Church of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples (Italy).

• I am not not the first one to be interested in the Quran with a strong Christian background. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) played the pivotal role in shaping up the present from of Christian ideology. While studying Islamic literature, he discovered the works of the Greek philosopher named Aristotle. Aristotle was a completely forgotten figure throughout the Medieval Christian world. Can this modern world exist without Aristotle? Aristotle resurfaced in the Western world thanks to Saint Thomas' interest in Islamic literature.

  I do not know exactly how the word "Dark Ages" is defined. There seems to be a tendency to mean the period from 500 AD to 1500 AD when people were not allowed to paint naked women in the style of ancient Greek sculptures. I disagree, this period was dark because there were no intellectual developments. They were without Aristotle.

  When I was in Naples in 1998, after sensing my strong interest in Thomas Aquinas, Professor Salvadore Solimeno took me to Saint Thomas' quarter at Church of San Domenico Maggiore . Here are some photos I took there.

  1. In this photo Professor Solimeno is talking to the church official in charge of the Aquinas quarter. It is clear from this photo that you have to be somebody to enter the place.
  2. Portrait of Thomas Aquinas was there.
  3. This is a full view of the wall with his portrait.
  4. It was a great honor for me to have a photo in front of this portrait. The church official was of course quite knowledgeable about the life of Saint Thomas. At that time, digital cameras were not available, and the photo was not able to cover the full image of the portrait.

  5. This is a view of the Church of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples. (photo from the public domain).
  6. This is the interior of the Church (photo from the public domain).

  7. In 2001, I was attending a conference in Prague, and Professor Solimeno was spending his vacation days there with his wife. We ran into each other at Prague's Old Town. We had a photo there. I am posting this photo here in order thank him again for spending one Saturday morning with me in 1999 for my education.

• Let us go back to the issue of zig-zag logic. In the Quran, there are four prophets before Mohammed, namely Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. While the logic of the Old Testament is largely genealogical, the Quran derives virtues from all those prophets. Thus, the logic jumps from one prophet to another. Indeed, it is a two-dimensional logic. Using this logic, Mohammed derives the ultimate wisdom.

  To those Christians who are accustomed to the Bible's one-dimensional logic, the Quran's two-dimensional logic is very strange. It is indeed a zig-zag logic, and it is totally confusing.

  Dirac and Wigner (top), Dirac and Feynman.

  I published many papers in the past, and I still enjoy writings papers not readily understandable to referees. It is because those readers are not accustomed to the two-dimensional or zig-zag logic I usually employ in my papers. In my papers, Einstein is my God, and Dirac, Wigner, and Feynman are my prophets. Those prophets address the common issue of making quantum mechanics consistent with relativity. On the other hand, there are soft spots in their papers. Those soft spots can be made up from the issues addressed by other prophets.

• Click here for the table summarizing my zig-zag logic.

• Then, why do I need this strange zig-zag logic?
  1. When Einstein formulated his special relativity, he did it for point particles. Did he ever worry about Lorentz-boosted hydrogen atom? This is the homework problem Einstein left for us to solve.
  2. In order to solve the problem, physicists of the 20th Century formulated quantum mechanics. The electron orbits are now standing waves.
  3. Can we then Lorentz-boost standing waves?
  4. Click here for the resolution of this problem, based on a two-dimensional zig-zag logic.