Brecht, Berthold, and John Willett (translator and editor) Ralph Manheim (editor), Life of Galielo, Methuen 1980 Jacket: 'Along with Mother Courage, the character of Galileo is one of Brecht's greatest creations, immensely live, human and complex. Unable to resist his appetite for scientific investigation, Galileo's heretical discoveries about the solar system bring him to the attention of the Inquisition. He is scared into publicly abjuring his theories but despite his self-contempt, goes on working in private, eventually helping to smuggle his rwitings out of the country,

As an examination of the problems that face not only the scientist but the whole spirit of free inquiry when brought into conflict with the requirements of government or official ideology, Life of Galileo has few equals.

Written in exile in 1937-1939 and first performed in Zurich in 1943, Galileo was first staged in English in 1947 by Joseph Losey in a version jointly prepared by Brecht and Charles Laughton, who played the title role. Printed here is a new complete translation by John Willett, joint editor of Brecht's Collected Plays in English, but the much shorter Laughton version is also included in full as an appendix, along with Brecht's own copious notes on the play.' 
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Chaitin, Gregory J, Information, Randomness & Incompleteness: Papers on Algorithmic Information Theory, World Scientific 1987 Jacket: 'Algorithmic information theory is a branch of computational complexity theory concerned with the size of computer programs rather than with their running time. ... The theory combines features of probability theory, information theory, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, and recursive function or computability theory. ... [A] major application of algorithmic information theory has been the dramatic new light it throws on Goedel's famous incompleteness theorem and on the limitations of the axiomatic method. ...' 
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Chaitin, Gregory J, Algorithmic Information Theory, Cambridge UP 1987 Foreword: 'The crucial fact here is that there exist symbolic objects (i.e., texts) which are "algorithmically inexplicable", i.e., cannot be specified by any text shorter than themselves. Since texts of this sort have the properties associated with random sequences of classical probability theory, the theory of describability developed . . . in the present work yields a very interesting new view of the notion of randomness.' J T Schwartz 
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Deighton, Len, City of Gold/MAMista, Random House 1998  
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Goldenfeld, Nigel, Carl Woese, "Biology's next revolution", Nature, 445, 7126, 25 January 2007, page 369. ' . . . the convergence of fresh theoretical ideas in evolution and the coming avalache of genomic data will profoundly alter our understanding of the biosphere =- and is likely to lead to a revision of concepts such as species, organism and evolution. Here we explain why we forsee such dramatic transformation and why we believe the molecular reductionism that dominated twentieth century biology will be superseded by an interdisciplinary approach the embraces collective phenomena'. back

Amy Kind, Eric Peterson, The Junkyard: A schlarly blog devoted to the study of imagination, 'A 1969 treatise by Jeremy Walker begins as follows. “One of the most striking features of nearly all philosophical psychologies has been their failure to deal at all adequately with imagination … This 'conspiracy of silence' is puzzling, and I can think of no hypothesis to account for it. For it cannot be denied that imagination is a power, or web of powers, which plays a central part in the structure of human activity and consciousness; and so a failure to consider this power adequately must lead to a philosopher's giving a distorted, or one-sided, account of the distinctively human. . . . ' Anna Abraham back

Ava Bogle, The Pleasure Project, 'In this hilarious, irreverent and sexy one-woman show, written & performed by Ava Bogle, five aliens preparing to leave earth in light of an impending nuclear war pose the question: Can the clitoris save humanity?' back

Euan Ritchie, Bek Christensen, Bill Bateman, Dale Nimmo, Don Driscoll, Grant Wardell-Johnson, Noel D Preece and Sarah Luxton, Australia's draft "Strategu for nature' doesn'r cut it. Here are nine ways to fix it, 'Australia arguably has the worst conservation record of any wealthy and politically stable nation. Since European arrival roughly 230 years ago, 50 animal and 60 plant species have gone extinct, including the loss of some 30 native mammals – roughly 35% of global mammal extinctions since 1500.' back

Gert-Jan Lokhorst (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Descartes and the Pineal Gland, 'The pineal gland is a tiny organ in the center of the brain that played an important role in Descartes’ philosophy. He regarded it as the principal seat of the soul and the place in which all our thoughts are formed. In this entry, we discuss Descartes’ views concerning the pineal gland. We also put them into a historical context by describing the main theories about the functions of the pineal gland that were proposed before and after his time.' back

Gervase Phillips, Antisemitism: how the origins of history's oldest hatred still hold sway today, 'Antisemitism is on the march. From the far-right demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, with their “Blood and Soil” chants and their “Jews will not replace us” placards to attacks on synagogues in Sweden, arson attacks on kosher restaurants in France and a spike in hate crimes against Jews in the UK. Antisemitism seems to have been given a new lease of life.' back

Herr Gott, dich loben wir - Wikipedia, Herr Gott, dich loben wir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, '"Herr Gott, dich loben wir" (Lord God, we praise you) is a Lutheran hymn, which Martin Luther wrote in 1529 as a translation and partial paraphrase of the Latin Te Deum. It is sometimes called the German Te Deum. The hymn was first published in 1529.' back

Codex Gigas - Wikipedia, Codex Gigas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Codex Gigas (English: Giant Book) is the largest extant medieval illuminated manuscript in the world, at 92 cm (36 in) tall. It is also known as the Devil's Bible because of a very unusual full-page portrait of the devil, and the legend surrounding its creation.' back

The Girl King - Wikipedia, The Girl King - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The 2015 film The Girl King is a biographical drama about Christina, Queen of Sweden. It was directed by Mika Kaurismäki and written by Michel Marc Bouchard who, following writing the screenplay for the film, wrote his stage play Christine, La Reine-Garçon which enjoyed a successful run in 2012 at Montreal’s Théâtre du Nouveau Monde and then in English at the Stratford Festival in 2014. The film premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival. back

Library Genesis, , 'More than seven years ago Aaron Swartz, who spared no risk in standing up for what we here urge you to stand up for too, wrote: "We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access. With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?"' back

Lizzy Davies, Descartes was 'poisoned by Catholic priest', 'For more than three and a half centuries, the death of René Descartes one winter's day in Stockholm has been attributed to the ravages of pneumonia on a body unused to the Scandinavian chill. But in a book released after years spent combing the archives of Paris and the Swedish capital, one Cartesian expert has a more sinister theory about how the French philosopher came to his end. According to Theodor Ebert, an academic at the University of Erlangen, Descartes died not through natural causes but from an arsenic-laced communion wafer given to him by a Catholic priest.' back

Lorenzo Bianchi, Stephen Hawking had pinned his hopes on 'M-theory' to fully explain the universe - here's what it is, 'This is when M-theory entered the game. During the second string revolution, in 1995, physicists proposed that the five consistent string theories are actually only different faces of a unique theory which lives in eleven spacetime dimensions and is known as M-theory. It includes each of the string theories in different physical contexts, but is still valid for all of them.' back

Malin Buska - Wikipedia, Malin Buska - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Malin Kristina Buska, (born 15 March 1984) is a Swedish actress. She was born and grew up in Övertorneå and studied in Luleå. She has acted at the Lule Stassteater and studied acting at Teaterhögskolan in Malmö between 2004 and 2007. She made her film debut in 2011 in the film Happy End. Buska also had a role in the film Snabba Cash III and the leading role in the 2015 film The Girl King, a biographical drama about Christina, Queen of Sweden.' back

Michael Gerson, The Last Temptation, 'How did something so important and admirable become so disgraced? For many people, including myself, this question involves both intellectual analysis and personal angst. The answer extends back some 150 years, and involves cultural and political shifts that long pre-date Donald Trump. It is the story of how an influential and culturally confident religious movement became a marginalized and anxious minority seeking political protection under the wing of a man such as Trump, the least traditionally Christian figure—in temperament, behavior, and evident belief—to assume the presidency in living memory.' back

Misha Glenny, Hitting Putin Where It Hurts, 'But the prime minister should have gone in harder. If she really wanted to teach Russia a lesson, she should have announced measures allowing her government to scrutinize the billions of dollars invested in Britain by Russian oligarchs and their associates, some of whom have criminal or intelligence backgrounds. This kind of transparency would hit President Vladimir Putin and his allies where it hurts most: their bank accounts.' back

Paul Mozur, A Reporter Rolled Her Eyes, and China's Internet Broke, 'With a fellow reporter’s fawning question to a Chinese official pushing past the 30-second mark, Liang Xiangyi, of the financial news site Yicai, began scoffing to herself. Then she turned to scrutinize the questioner in disbelief. Looking her up and down, Ms. Liang rolled her eyes with such concentrated disgust, it seemed only natural that her entire head followed her eyes backward as she looked away in revulsion. Captured by China’s national news broadcaster, CCTV, the moment spread quickly across Chinese social media.' back

Peace of Westphalia - Wikipedia, Peace of Westphalia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Peace of Westphalia (German: Westfälischer Friede) was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster, effectively ending the European wars of religion.' back

Robert Wellington, Friday essay: in defence of beauty in art, 'Art critics and historians have a difficult time dealing with beauty. We are trained from early on that the analysis of a work of art relies on proof, those things that we can point to as evidence. The problem with beauty is that it’s almost impossible to describe. To describe the beauty of an object is like trying to explain why something’s funny — when it’s put into words, the moment is lost.' back

Tim Dean, The greatest moral challenge of our time? It's how we think about morality itself, 'The best way to think about morality is as a cultural tool that we humans invented to help us live and work together in social situations. After all, we each have our interests that we want to pursue. They vary from individual to individual, but generally include things like being able to provide for ourselves and our loved ones, avoiding suffering and hardship, and pursuing pleasurable and fulfilling experiences.' back