One of the reasons why early modern people chronicled current events in their communities, was to search for patterns. Chroniclers frequently recorded odd weather patterns (scorching summers or... Show moreOne of the reasons why early modern people chronicled current events in their communities, was to search for patterns. Chroniclers frequently recorded odd weather patterns (scorching summers or frigid winters), famines, troop movements, wars, epidemics, prices, prodigies, monstrous births, and other premonitions to search for elements that could help them to comprehend current, and to anticipate on, future events. In this paper I will explore how chroniclers from the Low Countries constructed causal relations between various phenomena and events, and how that changed between 1500 and 1850. I will do so by combining computational and historical methods to analyse 250 early modern Dutch chronicles, focusing especially on authors of the middling sort (e.g., farmers, merchants, and local officials). As a result, we gain insight on how they tried to get grip on current events in their attempt to limit future harm.In this paper I will focus especially on how chroniclers collected data on epidemics, meteorological phenomena, and food- and fuel prices, knowledge which they regarded as useful. Using this evidence, I will argue that throughout the period, this group continued to believe in the idea that disruptive events could have both human and natural but also supernatural origins. Both faith and reason conditioned responses to potential hazards, and the solutions chosen were discussed side-by-side, usually without an apparent sense of conflict. However, natural explanations became more complex over time, which resulted in more detailed explanations on the causes and consequences of (future) hazards. By focussing on the information that chroniclers regarded as useful, and studying the causal relations they constructed, we can not only reconstruct how chroniclers coped with contemporary hazards and crises, but also how they used their chronicle as a compass and anchor to get some grip on events as they sailed into an uncertain future. Show less
An important unsolved problem that affects practically all attempts to connect string theory to cosmology and phenomenology is how to distinguish effective field theories belonging to the string... Show moreAn important unsolved problem that affects practically all attempts to connect string theory to cosmology and phenomenology is how to distinguish effective field theories belonging to the string landscape from those that are not consistent with a quantum theory of gravity at high energies (the ``string swampland{''}). It was recently proposed that potentials of the string landscape must satisfy at least two conditions, the ``swampland criteria{''}, that severely restrict the types of cosmological dynamics they can sustain. The first criterion states that the (multi-field) effective field theory description is only valid over a field displacement Delta phi <= Delta similar to O (1) (in units where the Planck mass is 1), measured as a distance in the target space geometry. A second, more recent, criterion asserts that, whenever the potential V is positive, its slope must be bounded from below, and suggests vertical bar del V vertical bar/V >= c similar to O (1). A recent analysis concluded that these two conditions taken together practically rule out slow-roll models of inflation. In this note we show that the two conditions rule out inflationary backgrounds that follow geodesic trajectories in field space, but not those following curved, non-geodesic, trajectories (which are parametrized by a non-vanishing bending rate Omega of the multi-field trajectory). We derive a universal lower bound on Omega (relative to the Hubble parameter H) as a function of Delta,c and the number of efolds N-e, assumed to be at least of order 60. If later studies confirm c and Delta to be strictly O (1), the bound implies strong turns with Omega/H >= 3 N-e similar to 180. Slow-roll inflation in the landscape is not ruled out, but it is strongly multi-field.}} Show less
