Gertner, Jon, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, Penguin Press 2012 Book description: 'Bell Laboratories, which thrived from the 1920s to the 1980s, was the most innovative and productive institution of the twentieth century. Long before America's brightest scientific minds began migrating west to Silicon Valley, they flocked to this sylvan campus in the New Jersey suburbs built and funded by AT&T. At its peak, Bell Labs employed nearly fifteen thousand people, twelve hundred of whom had PhDs. Thirteen would go on to win Nobel prizes. It was a citadel of science and scholarship as well as a hotbed of creative thinking. It was, in effect, a factory of ideas whose workings have remained largely hidden until now. New York Times Magazine writer Jon Gertner unveils the unique magic of Bell Labs through the eyes and actions of its scientists. These ingenious, often eccentric men would become revolutionaries, and sometimes legends, whether for inventing radio astronomy in their spare time (and on the company's dime), riding unicycles through the corridors, or pioneering the principles that propel today's technology. In these pages, we learn how radar came to be, and lasers, transistors, satellites, mobile phones, and much more. 
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Hobson, M P, and G. P. Efstathiou, A. N. Lasenby, General Relativity: An Introduction for Physicists, Cambridge University Press 2006 Amazon Editorial Reviews Book Description 'After reviewing the basic concept of general relativity, this introduction discusses its mathematical background, including the necessary tools of tensor calculus and differential geometry. These tools are used to develop the topic of special relativity and to discuss electromagnetism in Minkowski spacetime. Gravitation as spacetime curvature is introduced and the field equations of general relativity derived. After applying the theory to a wide range of physical situations, the book concludes with a brief discussion of classical field theory and the derivation of general relativity from a variational principle.'  
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Lonergan, Bernard J F, Insight : A Study of Human Understanding (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan : Volume 3), University of Toronto Press 1992 '. . . Bernard Lonergan's masterwork. Its aim is nothing less than insight into insight itself, an understanding of understanding' 
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McGregor, Richard, The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, Harper 2010 Amazon editorial review: From Publishers Weekly 'McGregor, a journalist at the Financial Times, begins his revelatory and scrupulously reported book with a provocative comparison between China's Communist Party and the Vatican for their shared cultures of secrecy, pervasive influence, and impenetrability. The author pulls back the curtain on the Party to consider its influence over the industrial economy, military, and local governments. McGregor describes a system operating on a Leninist blueprint and deeply at odds with Western standards of management and transparency. Corruption and the tension between decentralization and national control are recurring themes--and are highlighted in the Party™s handling of the disturbing Sanlu case, in which thousands of babies were poisoned by contaminated milk powder. McGregor makes a clear and convincing case that the 1989 backlash against the Party, inexorable globalization, and technological innovations in communication have made it incumbent on the Party to evolve, and this smart, authoritative book provides valuable insight into how it has--and has not--met the challenge. ' Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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Veltman, Martinus, Diagrammatica: The Path to the Feynman Rules, Cambridge University Press 1994 Jacket: 'This book provides an easily accessible introduction to quantum field theory via Feynman rules and calculations in particle physics. The aim is to make clear what the physical foundations of present-day field theory are, to clarify the physical content of Feynman rules, and to outline their domain of applicability. ... The book includes valuable appendices that review some essential mathematics, including complex spaces, matrices, the CBH equation, traces and dimensional regularization. ...' 
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Aquinas, Summa, Prima Pars:Prologue, 'Prologue: Because a teacher of Catholic doctrine should teache not just advanced students, but also beginners, as The Apostle Paul said in the First Letter to the Corinthians 3_1-2: "like infants in Christ, I give you milk to drink, not food:" our proposed intention in this work is to teach those things pertaining to the Christian religion in such a way as to suit beginners. . . . ' back

Beethoven, Ninth Symphony (Sir George Solti), London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBCSingers, London Voices and Chorus of Welsh National Opera back

Carl R Nave, The interaction of radiation with matter, 'You may click on any of the types of radiation for more detail about its particular type of interaction with matter. The different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum have very different effects upon interaction with matter. Starting with low frequency radio waves, the human body is quite transparent.' back

Dirac equation - Wikipedia, Dirac equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In particle physics, the Dirac equation is a relativistic wave equation derived by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1928. In its free form, or including electromagnetic interactions, it describes all spin-1⁄2 massive particles such as electrons and quarks, for which parity is a symmetry, and is consistent with both the principles of quantum mechanics and the theory of special relativity, and was the first theory to account fully for special relativity in the context of quantum mechanics. It accounted for the fine details of the hydrogen spectrum in a completely rigorous way.' back

E.J.Dionne Jr., Pope Francis does something impossible for Trump, 'Francis continued to preach his gospel of economic justice by warning that it is a “harmful ideological error” to cast “the social engagement of others” as “worldly, secular, materialist, communist or populist.” On the contrary, he saw holiness as demanding an engagement with “the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged.”' back

Jonana Mendelssohn, Friday essay: can art really make a difference, 'Before the early 19th century, war was most commonly depicted as a heroic venture, while death was both noble and surprisingly bloodless. Then came Goya with his Disasters of War to show the full horror of what Napoleon inflicted on Spain. The art showed, for the first time, the suffering of individuals in the face of military power. After Goya, war could never be seen as a truly heroic venture.' back

Linda Wright, Guide to the Classics: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, back

Phosphorylation - Wikipedia, Phosphorylation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Phosphorylation is the addition of a phosphate (PO43-) group to a protein or other organic molecule. Phosphorylation turns many protein enzymes on and off, thereby altering their function and activity. Protein phosphorylation in particular plays a significant role in a wide range of cellular processes. Its prominent role in biochemistry is the subject of a very large body of research (as of March 2012, the Medline database returns nearly 200,000 articles on the subject, largely on protein phosphorylation).' back

Rachel Brodsky, From Madonna to Janella Monae: how female sexuality progressed in pop, 'Fortunately, more than two decades later, R&B-soul luminary Janelle Monáe has rescued us from a lifetime of negative Aerosmith-word associations by taking back the song title, teaming up with art-pop nymph Grimes and swapping out the I for a Y. In 2018, we get Pynk, a silky, joyful, funk-fused gem that, like the Aerosmith track, is about the vagina and also starts each line with the word “pink”. But where Tyler was blunt and blundering, Monáe is slick and sophisticated.' back

Shield of the Trinity - Wikipedia, Shield of the Trinity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Shield of the Trinity or Scutum Fidei is a traditional Christian visual symbol which expresses many aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity, summarizing the first part of the Athanasian Creed in a compact diagram. In late medieval England and France, this emblem was considered to be the heraldic arms of God (and of the Trinity).' back

Tendayi Bloom, Windrush generation latest to be stripped of their rights in the name of 'migration control', 'Some of those who came legally to the UK as part of the “Windrush generation”, many of whom are now elderly, have lost their jobs, homes, and bank accounts after being unable to demonstrate their legal status. They have been denied NHS services. They have been detained. And it’s likely that some have been deported.' back

Wagner, Der Ring Des Nibelungen: Das Rheingold, 'Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied. . . . Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four parts that constitute the Ring cycle are, in sequence: Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold) Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) Siegfried Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)' back

Wagner, Gotterdammerung (Beyreuth Festspielhaus), 'Bayreuth, 79 Pierre Boulez, Patrice Chéreau Brünnhilde - Gwyneth Jones Siegfried - Manfred Jung Hagen - Fritz Hübner Alberich - Hermann Becht Gunther - Franz Mazura Gutrune - Jeannine Altmeyer' back