Editorial

An editorial is a text written by the editor and it normally contains a description of the publication. One of its objectives is also to persuade the readers to participate and send articles or book reviews. Gaudium Sciendi is an on-line review of Sociedade Científica, which will publish articles on different scientific subjects. Reflecting on the two elements that constitute its title, we see that both "joy" and "wisdom" are two concepts that have been analysed since Antiquity. Joy has inspired writers, like Schiller, and musicians, like Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. We must also mention the importance of religious joy and the fact that the term is mentioned 222 times in the Bible. We ought as well to consider that wisdom or knowledge, the second word of the title of our review, is frequently referred to in the Bible and that in the Book of Proverbs (8: 22-31) it appears as a feminine figure. Reflecting on current ideas about knowledge, we see that the way we look at science has changed since the Enlightenment or Weber's and Humboldt's perceptions. Among the vast bibliography on the subject, I select Stuart Mill's On Liberty and Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, which refers to the changes due to informatics and recommends that in a just society knowledge should be accessible to all. Having in mind Lyotard's recommendations, for this first number of Gaudium Sciendi, I have selected articles from different scientific areas hoping they will constitute an excellent reading and research material that will bring the joy of wisdom to our readers.