Ralph Lewin's interests intersect mine in two quite different ways. First of all, Lewin is a renowned marine microbiologist, and most of my current projects are marine as well. But secondly he is well known among fans (of which I am one) of the artificial language Esperanto, even being the co-author of a translation of "Winnie The Pooh" into the language. What I hadn't known until today was that Lewin had combined his interests in two papers from the early sixties: Difektita Aŭtotrofo de Mutaciita Chlamydomonas (Defective Autotrophy of Mutated Chlamydomonas) and La Enpreno de Strontio en Kokolitoforoj (The Takeup of Strontium in Cocolithophores). In both cases Lewin wrote papers which except for an English abstract, were entirely in Esperanto. And while it's true that Esperantists have organizations such as Akademio Internacia de la Sciencoj San-Marino that occasionally publish scientific reports in Esperanto, Lewin's papers were in a mainstream journal -- Plant & Cell Physiology. Makes me wonder what the neesperantistoj thought when they saw the papers...
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Ralph Lewin's algal physiology papers in Esperanto
Ralph Lewin's interests intersect mine in two quite different ways. First of all, Lewin is a renowned marine microbiologist, and most of my current projects are marine as well. But secondly he is well known among fans (of which I am one) of the artificial language Esperanto, even being the co-author of a translation of "Winnie The Pooh" into the language. What I hadn't known until today was that Lewin had combined his interests in two papers from the early sixties: Difektita Aŭtotrofo de Mutaciita Chlamydomonas (Defective Autotrophy of Mutated Chlamydomonas) and La Enpreno de Strontio en Kokolitoforoj (The Takeup of Strontium in Cocolithophores). In both cases Lewin wrote papers which except for an English abstract, were entirely in Esperanto. And while it's true that Esperantists have organizations such as Akademio Internacia de la Sciencoj San-Marino that occasionally publish scientific reports in Esperanto, Lewin's papers were in a mainstream journal -- Plant & Cell Physiology. Makes me wonder what the neesperantistoj thought when they saw the papers...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I hold Ralph in the greatest esteem. He represents a wonderful old-fashioned, nearly romantic approach to science, one that I miss greatly in the current mainstream. That he should have published in Esperanto tells of his cheerful disdain for the conventional. Thanks for pointing this out
Elio Schaechter
On similar note, see this posting on my own blog
Je simila temo, vidu ĉi tiu artikolo el mia propra blogo
http://roughguidetoevolution.blogspot.com/2008/07/language-and-life-from-evolution-to.html
Nun (tro malfrue!) vi povas trovi artikolon pri li en la angla kaj esperanta Wikipedia:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_A._Lewin
- http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_A._Lewin
I wonder who peer-reviewed them.
Post a Comment