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a Kempis, Thomas, and Aloysius Croft (Translator), Harold Bolton (Translator), The Imitation of Christ, Dover Publications 2003 Amazon Product Description 'This classic, second only to the Bible for religious instruction and inspiration, has brought understanding and comfort to millions for centuries. Written in a candid and conversational style, the topics include liberation from worldly inclinations, preparation and consolations of prayer, and the place of eucharistic communion in a devout life.'
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Christie, Agatha, Toward Zero, Berkley Publishing Group 1998 Jacket: '"I like a good detective story, but they begin in the wrong place! They begin with the murder. But the murder is the end. The story begins long before that." So remarks esteemed criminologist Mr Treves. Truer words have never been spoken, for a psychopathic killer has insinuated himself, with cunning manipulation, into a quiet village on the river Tern. But who is his intended victim? What are his unfathomable motives? And how and when will he reach the point of murder ... the zero point? In this ingenious and noteworthy departure for Agatha Christie, it is the intricate workings of a pathological mind that become the stuff of startling mystery as a group of friends at a seaside resort remain blithely unaware that their weekend will be the death of them all ...'
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Daniel-Rops, Henri, and R W Millar (translator), Jesus in His Time, Eyre & Spottiswoode 1955 Jacket: 'It has all the vivid but well-founded imagination of a great novel. It is garnished with an intimate knowledge of the sacred sites. . . .. An extraordinarily rich portrait of Jesus, which sets Him against the background of His own time and place and makes Him a living personality . . . '
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Everett III, Hugh, and Bryce S Dewitt, Neill Graham (editors), The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press 1973 Jacket: 'A novel interpretation of quantum mechanics, first proposed in brief form by Hugh Everett in 1957, forms the nucleus around which this book has developed. The volume contains Dr Everett's short paper from 1957, "'Relative State' formulation of quantum mechanics" and a far longer exposition of his interpretation entitled "The Theory of the Universal Wave Function" never before published. In addition other papers by Wheeler, DeWitt, Graham, Cooper and van Vechten provide further discussion of the same theme. Together they constitute virtually the entire world output of scholarly commentary on the Everett interpretation.'
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Fortun, Mike, and Herbert J Bernstein, Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-First Century, Counterpoint 1998 Amazon editorial review: 'Does science discover truths or create them? Does dioxin cause cancer or not? Is corporate-sponsored research valid or not? Although these questions reflect the way we're used to thinking, maybe they're not the best way to approach science and its place in our culture. Physicist Herbert J. Bernstein and science historian Mike Fortun, both of the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies (ISIS), suggest a third way of seeing, beyond taking one side or another, in Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the 21st Century. While they deal with weighty issues and encourage us to completely rethink our beliefs about science and truth, they do so with such grace and humor that we follow with ease discussions of toxic-waste disposal, the Human Genome Project, and retooling our language to better fit the way science is actually done.'
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Grob-Fitzgibbon, Benjamin, Imperial Endgame: Britain's Dirty Wars and the End of the Empire, Palgrave Macmillan 2011 Amazon Product Description 'The story of the British Empire in the twentieth century is one of decline, disarray, and despondency. Or so we have been told. In this fresh and controversial account of Britain's end of empire, Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon rejects this consensus, showing instead that in the years 1945-1960 the British government developed a successful imperial strategy based on devolving power to indigenous peoples within the Commonwealth. This strategy was calculated to allow decolonization to occur on British terms rather than those of the indigenous populations, and thus to keep these soon-to-be former colonies within the British and Western spheres of influence during the Cold War. To achieve this new form of informal liberal imperialism, however, the government had to rely upon the use of illiberal dirty wars. Spanning the globe from Palestine to Malaya, Kenya to Cyprus, these dirty wars represented Britain's true imperial endgame.'
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Jones, Alexander (ed), The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 Editor's Foreword: '. . . The Bible . . . is of its nature a written charter guaranteed (as Christians believe) by the Spirit of God, crystallised in antiquity, never to be changed . . . . This present volume is the English equivalent of [La Bible de Jerusalem] . . . an entirely faithful version of the ancient texts which, in doubntful points, preserves the text established and (for the most part) the interpretation adopted by the French scholars in the light of the most recent researches in the fields of history, archaeology and literary criticism.' (v-vi)
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Martel, Yann, The Life of Pi, Harcourt 2002 Editorial Reviews Amazon.com: 'Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion."
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Papers

Chaitin, Gregory J, "Randomness and Mathematical Proof", Scientific American, 232, 5, May 1975, page 47-52. 'Although randomness can be precisely defined and can even be measured, a given number cannot be proved random. This enigma establishes a limit in what is possible in mathematics'. back

Dobzhansky, Theodosius, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution", American Biology Teacher, 35, 3, 12 November 1937, page 125-129. Concluding paragraph: 'One of the great thinkers of our age, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, wrote the following: "Is evolution a theory, a system, or a hypothesis? It is much more it is a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems much henceforward bow and which they must satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of though must follow this is what evolution is." Of course, some scientists, as well as some philosophers and theologians, disagree with some parts of Teilhard’s teachings; the acceptance of his worldview falls short of universal. But there is no doubt at all that Teilhard was a truly and deeply religious man and that Christianity was the cornerstone of his worldview. Moreover, in his worldview science and faith were not segregated in watertight compartments, as they are with so many people. They were harmoniously fitting parts of his worldview. Teilhard was a creationist, but one who understood that the Creation is realized in this world by means of evolution.'. back

Goedel, Kurt, "On formally undecidable problems of Principia Mathematica and related systems I", Monatshefte fur Mathematik und Physik, 38, , 1931, page 173-198. Reprinted in Goedel, Kurt, Kurt Goedel: Collected Works Volume 1 Publications 1929-1936, Oxford UP 1986 pp 144-195. Amazon. back

Shannon, Claude E, "The mathematical theory of communication", Bell System Technical Journal, 27, , July and October, 1948, page 379-423, 623-656. 'A Note on the Edition Claude Shannon's ``A mathematical theory of communication'' was first published in two parts in the July and October 1948 editions of the Bell System Technical Journal [1]. The paper has appeared in a number of republications since: • The original 1948 version was reproduced in the collection Key Papers in the Development of Information Theory [2]. The paper also appears in Claude Elwood Shannon: Collected Papers [3]. The text of the latter is a reproduction from the Bell Telephone System Technical Publications, a series of monographs by engineers and scientists of the Bell System published in the BSTJ and elsewhere. This version has correct section numbering (the BSTJ version has two sections numbered 21), and as far as we can tell, this is the only difference from the BSTJ version. • Prefaced by Warren Weaver's introduction, ``Recent contributions to the mathematical theory of communication,'' the paper was included in The Mathematical Theory of Communication, published by the University of Illinois Press in 1949 [4]. The text in this book differs from the original mainly in the following points: • the title is changed to ``The mathematical theory of communication'' and some sections have new headings, • Appendix 4 is rewritten, • the references to unpublished material have been updated to refer to the published material. The text we present here is based on the BSTJ version with a number of corrections.. back

Turing, Alan, "On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem", Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 2, 42, 12 November 1937, page 230-265. 'The "computable" numbers maybe described briefly as the real numbers whose expressions as a decimal are calculable by finite means. Although the subject of this paper is ostensibly the computable numbers, it is almost as easy to define and investigate computable functions of an integrable variable or a real or computable variable, computable predicates and so forth. The fundamental problems involved are, however, the same in each case, and I have chosen the computable numbers for explicit treatment as involving the least cumbrous technique. I hope shortly to give an account of the rewlations of the computable numbers, functions and so forth to one another. This will include a development of the theory of functions of a real variable expressed in terms of computable numbers. According to my definition, a number is computable if its decimal can be written down by a machine'. back

Wilson, Kenneth G, "The Renormalisation Group and Critical Phenomena", Reviews of Modern Physics, 55, , July 1983, page 583. back

Links

Andrea Peterson, Why staggering umber of Americans have stopped using the Internet the way they used to, 'Nearly one in two Internet users say privacy and security concerns have now stopped them from doing basic things online — such as posting to social networks, expressing opinions in forums or even buying things from websites, according to a new government survey released Friday.' back

Ben Doherty, Seven in 10 Australians think the government should do more to help refugees, 'Australian people are among the most welcoming of refugees in the world, with seven in 10 saying the country should do more to assist people fleeing war and persecution, a global Amnesty International survey has found. . . . The attitude is in stark contrast to government statements this week. The immigration minister Peter Dutton argued that many refugees are uneducated and illiterate, and that accepting more into Australia would see them take jobs from Australians or burden the country’s welfare system.' back

Ben Doherty and Helen Davidson, Fact check: was Peter Dutton right abut 'illiterate' refugees 'taking jobs', 'Peter Dutton’s own department has said it is legal to arrive in Australia without a visa and to seek asylum. [Labor] Senator Kim Carr: I am just wondering how many people have been convicted of this offence [of arriving without a visa]? Vicki Parker, chief lawyer, legal and assurance division, Department of Immigration and Border Protection: Senator, as per the evidence I previously gave, there is no offence.' back

Cantor's theorem - Wikipedia, Cantor's theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In elementary set theory, Cantor's theorem states that, for any set A, the set of all subsets of A (the power set of A) has a strictly greater cardinality than A itself. For finite sets, Cantor's theorem can be seen to be true by a much simpler proof than that given below, since in addition to subsets of A with just one member, there are others as well, and since n < 2n for all natural numbers n. But the theorem is true of infinite sets as well. In particular, the power set of a countably infinite set is uncountably infinite. The theorem is named for German mathematician Georg Cantor, who first stated and proved it.' back

Ishaan Tharoor, Pope Francis says Islam and Christianity share 'an idea of conquest', 'In an interview with a French Catholic newspaper published this week, Pope Francis sent yet another shot across the bow of Europeans grandstanding over the threat of Muslim immigration. When asked by a journalist from La Croix about fears of Islam and terrorism, the pontiff suggested it was not productive to think of Islam as a threat and pointed to its shared roots with Christianity. “It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam," he said. "However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest." back

John 18:37, "You are a king then?" said Pilate, 'Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” ' back

Kenneth G Wilson, The Renormalisation Group and Critical Phenomena, Nobel Prize Lecture, 8 December 1982 back

Muriel Porter, Catholic bishops speak out — but is anyonelistening, '“The voiceless” they have identified – refugees and asylum seekers, Indigenous people, victims of family violence, the needy elderly, the mentally ill, the addicted, the world’s poor, the victims of modern slavery, unborn children and sexual abuse survivors – will only emerge as election deciders if they gain the advocacy of people or groups whose influence politicians fear. That no longer includes the churches. The Catholic bishops’ “vote for the voiceless” statement is itself destined to be voiceless.' back

Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:14, '14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.' back

Paul J. Burke, Undermined by Adverse Selection: Australia's Diect Action Abatement Subsidies, 'The government’s inability to know true project counterfactuals creates a major challenge. Projects with overgenerous baselines will be able to submit relatively low auction bids because the abatement they offer is largely non-additional, and thus cheap. These bids are well placed to secure funding. The scheme is thus susceptible to providing windfall informational rents to anyway projects, while delivering less abatement than notionally indicated.' back

Rafi Goldberg, Lack of Trust in Internet Privacy and Security May Deter Economic and Other Onlie Activities, 'Perhaps the most direct threat to maintaining consumer trust is negative personal experience. Nineteen percent of Internet-using households—representing nearly 19 million households—reported that they had been affected by an online security breach, identity theft, or similar malicious activity during the 12 months prior to the July 2015 survey.' back

reseachersagainstpacificblacksites.org, Researchers Against Pacific Black Sites, 'About Us Researchers Against Pacific Offshore Black Sites are committed to exposing the violence, tantamount to torture, that is being exercised on Australia’s asylum seekers and refugees who are detained there. These black sites, as locations that evade public scrutiny and accountability, enable violence against asylum seekers and refugees to be exercised with impunity. Our offshore detention black sites are constituted by neocolonial relations of power that are exploitative of the Pacific states in which they are located, as well as of the people who have sought protection from the Australian government.' back

Robert Mickens, Pope Urges Urgent Overhaul of European Economy, 'Pope Francis took a mighty swipe at another hornet’s nest with his recent speech on the future of Europe. Some Europeans were not at all pleased that a Jesuit from Argentina would dare criticize their native continent or—even worse—tell them it must change and that they must “update” the very idea of what Europe is all about. “A Europe capable of giving birth to a new humanism based on three capacities”—is how the pope put it—“the capacity to integrate, the capacity for dialogue, and the capacity to generate.” ' back

Sylvia Berryman, Democritus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Phlosophy), 'Democritus, known in antiquity as the ‘laughing philosopher’ because of his emphasis on the value of ‘cheerfulness,’ was one of the two founders of ancient atomist theory. He elaborated a system originated by his teacher Leucippus into a materialist account of the natural world. The atomists held that there are smallest indivisible bodies from which everything else is composed, and that these move about in an infinite void space.' back

Wolfram Research, Mathematica Technical and Scientific Software, 'About Wolfram Research Founded by Stephen Wolfram in 1987, Wolfram Research is one of the world's most respected software companies—as well as a powerhouse of scientific and technical innovation. As pioneers in computational science and the computational paradigm, we have pursued a long-term vision to develop the science, technology, and tools to make computation an ever-more-potent force in today's and tomorrow's world.' back

vol VII: Notes

2016

Notes

Sunday 15 May 2016

Monday 16 May 2016

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Wednesday 18 May 2016

Thursday 19 May 2016

Friday 20 May 2016

Saturday 21 May 2016

Further reading

Books

Papers

Links