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vol VII: Notes

2019

Notes

Sunday 3 February 2019 - Saturday 9 February 2019

[Notebook: DB 83: Physical Theology]

[page 98]

Sunday 3 February 2019

Coupling mind and heart? Heart is the old style, established by evolution and to a significant degree hard wired, ie built into the body [the layer of symmetry beneath mind. Mind, on the other hand, is more attuned to social and scientific evolution, changing at a greater rate [a new degree of freedom]. Religion is matter of the heart, with a time constant of the order of 200 years. Theology we would like to see become a matter of mind, which in my case has taken about

[page 99]

50 years (1967 - 2017) to consolidate the one bit change from the universe is not to the universe is divine to the point where it may gain academic validation.

Michael Moore: Fahrenheit 11/9 Fahrenheit 11/9 - Wikipedia

We may imagine that the evolutionary process basically explains the placing of every atom in every living body, some through symmetries like unbound water, other through broken symmetries, like the iron atoms in the haem protein. Haemoglobin - Wikipedia

Akira Kurosawa - Ran (King Lear) Tragedy / desire / Buddhism / potential Ran (film) - Wikipedia, Buddhism - Wikipedia, Four Noble Truths - Wikipedia

Monday 4 February
Tuesday 5 February 2019

Every new layer in the structure of the universal network adds new degrees of freedom by exploiting the indeterminate features of the layer beneath it to generate new combinations and permutations of process, some of which are self sustaining and so fitted to survive in the context in which they find themselves. We see this process happening across the whole structure of the universe. The most relevant to us is the interplay of science technology and politics which governs the local trajectories of human social life in different communities.

Always looking for excitement, a new signal, a new idea, and find it hard to work on simply documenting and explaining

[page 100]

older ideas. The hope always is that by going over the old stuff new insights will emerge.

A digital version of Maxwell's equations" not-E → B, not-B → E, each of these operations requiring ½h, so the full cycle E → B → E = h, so that E(energy) = hf. Maxwell's equations - Wikipedia

New essay: potentia et actus: from Aristotle to modern physics [emphasizing the fact that modern physics rejects Aristotle's axiom that no potential can become actual without the action of an agent already in act, which is the basis of Aristotle's argument for the unmoved mover and Aquinas first proof for the distinction of God and the world. In modern physics potentials realize themselves if they are not inhibited: I fall in gravitational potential if I am not held up by the Earth].

Thursday 7 February 2019

The big problem facing the naturalization of morality is the [contrast between the] businesslike survival at any costs structure built into evolution and the social ethic implicit in morality. We claim that morality trumps violence, but it requires very finely tuned structure to achieve this result, a balance of countervailing forces similar to that implements in tripartite constitutional systems of legislative, executive and judiciary. What we seek is a cybernetic algorithmic expression of this ideal state at the foundation for a peaceful state of coexistence of a set of agents acting in a space of limited resources. The Trump administration and many others are stress testing current constitutional models of governance and drawing our attention to the weak spots, specifically the slow process of detecting and

[page 101]

eliminating corruption. Vance Packard Packard: The Hidden Persuaders

I'm feeling pregnant and lazy, as though everything is in the bag. Can this feeling be trusted, or should I make myself work harder? On the whole pressure does not seem to increase the rate of insight so much as putting more people on the job.

A little calculation off the cuff:

1. a hectare of 25% efficient photovoltaic cells producing 240W m-1 produces 10 000 kWh, ie 3.6 x 1010 J day-1 = 1.3 x 1013 J pa.

2. a hectare of some crop producing 40 te of dry mattee pa @ 20 MJ kg-1 = 8 x 1011 J pa. 1 / 2 = 1.3 x 1013 / 8 x 1011 = 0.16 x 102 ie 16x more energy per hectare.

The evolution of morality: love versus rape.

Buddhism, like many other religions, seems to be a 'formalist" (platonic) religion which is in denial about potential, passion or lust which it tends to associate with the body and sensation, as in [the] first 'noble truth: "unguarded sensory content gives rise to craving and clinging to impermanent states and things which are dukka, incapable of satisfying and painful". Harking back to Parmenides who lived about the same time as the origin of Buddhism, The intellectuals of the era seemed to prefer eternity to motion and this error remains in force in Catholic theology and elsewhere, perhaps motivated by the invention of writing, a static representation of the dynamics of life [and the notion that 'what is written' could only remain true if what is written about did not change].

[page 102]

Friday 8 February 2019

Potential is a statistical creation related to Cantor's theorem and the second law of thermodynamics.

Potential and entropy: I am attracted toward new elements in my own life and repelled by sameness / boredom and, on the symmetry with respect to complexity principle, we are inclined to extrapolate across the board.

In the language of the holy mystics, I am feeling a bit dry. Maybe the problem is age and fading intelligence. Hunting, gathering, searching, gambling, most activities in life have a relatively low probability of success but in a sufficient proportion of cases the average payoff is enough to sustain life. Impatience can lead to failure. Maybe I am just not smart or lucky enough to fulfill my ambition, but while there is life there is hope. Kevin O'Brien SJ (Loyola Press)

Anatole Kaletsky: 'In times of political turmoil, events can move from impossible to inevitable without ever passing through the improbable. Anatole Kaletsky: Is Canceling Brexit Now Inevitable?

Saturday 9 February 2019

The creation of the world is governed by evolution which is the interplay of variation (random interaction) and selection (controlled interaction) which we understand broadly

[page 103]

through the principle of requisite variety. What more is there to say? Only application. Snuggled on bed on a cold morning waiting for the random interaction of ideas that will motivate me to get up, do a little grooming, make coffee and write. I a very much in the neuroscience mode, observing myself to understand the world very much as Einstein observed a light beam to understand the universe. Variation and selection are both network functions, random communications (matings) and selections (rejection of inconsistencies). Divine structure emerged by evolution whose first appearance in Western Christian theology is the Trinity, with analogies of mating [and reproduction] in almost all other theologies.

Variation by revolution, selection by judgement in battle, eg Rogan (or any other history of conquest and empire) ie politics. Rogan: The Arabs: A History

This stuff which I feel that I have been saying for decades, tends to break the block in the composition of development / cybernetics / evolution. Why Now? A process of selection, perhaps, finally settling on a headline concept for the article, the interplay of control and lack of control which governs the birth and death of empires and every other structure in god's body.

Source, particle, person, agent: initial singularity is the first agent, the original particle person, maybe Yahweh or Allah.

Conservation of energy in a zero energy universe. How is the bifurcation between potential and kinetic created? What is the dynamic relationship between formal fixed points

[page 104]

(potentials) and motion (kinetic)? This is the fundamental question of creation, first fixed by Augustine's psychological model of the trinity, elaborated by Aquinas and Lonergan. Can we get at it through the personal microcosm and the principle of symmetry with respect to complexity?

Supernova 2014, film. Alice Pickard

War and control: reproduction.

Motion and potential are duals and perhaps that is all there is to say at the lowest physical layer of the universe, where there is just enough structure for fixed point theorems to hold, ie in a manifold.

Third law: action and reaction are equal and opposite [motion and stillness are equivalent and opposite].

Copyright:

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Further reading

Books

Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)

Kawabata, Yasunari, and Edward G Seidensticker (translator), Master of Go, Vintage (May 28, 1996) Language: English ISBN-10: 0679761063 ISBN-13: 978-0679761068  
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Packard, Vance, The Hidden Persuaders, Pelican/Penguin Books 1957-1974 ' It is staggering that a book published in 1957 should remain so relevant, vibrant and important over 5 decades later. This is the story of how the consumer society was created by motivating the public to desire, consume and replace what they probably don't need and didn't know that they wanted. All the techniques described continue to be used to manipulate the public and drive an economy based on consumption, built in obsolescence and fad. This should be essential reading for all young people in secondary school. However, unfortunately, the power of the persuaders is so great and our will, mine included, so weak that even knowing we are being manipulated for other's profit we continue to fall for it over and over again. Bob Barr 
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Rogan, Eugene, The Arabs: A history, Basic Books 2011 ' In this definitive history of the modern Arab world, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan draws extensively on Arab sources and texts to place the Arab experience in its crucial historical context for the first time. Tracing five centuries of Arab history, Rogan reveals that there was an age when the Arabs set the rules for the rest of the world. Today, however, the Arab world’s sense of subjection to external powers carries vast consequences for both the region and Westerners who attempt to control it.' 
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Sacks, Oliver, Seeing Voices: A Journey into the world of the Deaf, University of California Press 1989 Jacket: '... begins with a history of deaf people in the United States, the often outrageous ways in which they have been treated in the past, and their continuing struggle for acceptance in the hearing world. And it examines the amazing and beautiful visual language of the deaf - Sign - which has only in the past decade been recognised fully as a language - linguistically complete, rich and as expressive as any spoken language. ...' 
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Sacks, Oliver, Migraine: Understanding a Common Disorder, University of California Press 1985 Amazon book description: 'The many manifestations of migraine can vary dramatically from one patient to another, even within the same patient at different times. Among the most compelling and perplexing of these symptoms are the strange visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs sometimes experience. Portrayals of these uncanny states have found their way into many works of art, from the heavenly visions of Hildegard von Bingen to Alice in Wonderland. Dr. Oliver Sacks argues that migraine cannot be understood simply as an illness, but must be viewed as a complex condition with a unique role to play in each individual's life.' 
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Sacks, Oliver, An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales, Vintage 1996 Jacket: 'Sacks is a sympathetic clinician who uses his patients' problems as a launch pad for wider speculations about the nature of the mind . . . Sacks' descriptions of cases are both medical and literary. He writes with a moving directness and simplicity, his obvious sympathy acquitting him of any charge that he might be exploiting the misfortunes of others . . . The final effect is wonder at the infinite variety of the human mind and experience.' The Times 
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Sacks, Oliver, and Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, , Knopf978-1400040810 2007 Jacket: 'Oliver Sacks' compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we think about our own brains. and the human experience. In Musicophilia he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians and everyday people - from a man who is struck by lightning and suddenly inspired to become a pianist at the age of forty-two, to an entire group of children with Williams syndrome who are hypermusical from birth.' 
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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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Waugh, Evelyn, The Life of the Right Reverend Ronald Knox Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford and Protonotary Apostolic to His Holiness Pope Pius XII, Chapman & Hall 1959 Preface: 'This book, I surmise, will prove to be the forerunner of many weightier studies of [Ronald Knox]. Its primary puspose is to tell the story of his exterior life, not to give a conspectus of his thought; still less to measure his spiritual achievements. His published works provide abundant material for research and criticism by specialists in many subjects. Here I have attempted to give the essential biolgraphical facts that they will need.' 
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West, Morris, The Clowns of God, Toby Press 2003 Book Description Publication Date: September 2003 'What would happen, if the members of the Roman Curia discovered that the Pope was about to publicly state that he had received a private revelation that the world was about to end? Pope Gregory XVII claims to have received a private revelation of the end of the world - an apocalypse coming not in some distant future but at any moment. Is he a madman, as his cardinals suspect, a mystic, or a fanatic grasping for an unholy power?' 
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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

Einstein, Albert, B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen,, "Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?", Phys. Rev., 47, , 1935, page 777-780. Abstract: 'In a complete theory there is an element corresponding to each element of reality. A sufficient condition for the reality of a physical quantity is the possibility of predicting it with certainty, without disturbing the system. In quantum mechanics in the case of two physical quantities described by non-commuting operators, the knowledge of one precludes the knowledge of the other. Then either (1) the description of reality given by the wave function is not complete or (2) these two quantities cannot have simultaneous reality. Consideration of the problem of making predictions concerning a system on the basis of measurements made on another system that has previously interacted with it leads to the result that if (1) is false then (2) is also false. One thus is led to conclude that the description of reality as given by a wave function is not complete.'. back

Herzfeld, Charles, "How the change agent has changed", Nature, 451, 7177, 24 January 2008, page 403-404. 'As the US military research arm turns fifty -- and other branches of government seek to adopt its famously nimble approach -- a former director reflects on what worked and what didn't.' Herzfeld. back

Nature editorial, , "A little less Disneyland: DARPA should focus on its founding values", Nature, 451, 7177, 24 January 2008, page 374. 'Today some of DARPA's activities remain firmly rooted in its cold-war research past . . . But, as was on show in a California Disneyland hotel last year, the agency's director, Anthony Tether, has also tried jazzing things up a bit, by sponsoring competitions such as the $2-million 'grand challenge' robot car race. . . . Such approaches may be useful in helping the government think outside the box, but DARPA must be careful not to stray too far down that path. . . . The agency's next director must take the agency back to basics, or risk losing the edge that comes from the inspired patronage of risky research. Above all, DARPA needs to concentrate more on projects that could lead to long-term payoffs in the fight against terrorism, in ways we cannot yet imagine.' Editorial. back

Weinberger, Sharon, "Still in the lead?", Nature, 451, 7177, 24 January 2008, page 390-393. 'Half a century after its creation, the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is considered a paragon of government innovation. But some question whether it is still relevant.'. back

Links

Alice Pickard, Review: Supernova 2014, ' In Supernova Tamar van den Dop perfectly crafts the unusual situation where we find ourselves actually wanting a young man to be involved in a serious car crash… Yet rather than being sadistic, we are being sympathetic –sympathising with bored teenager Meis (Gaite Jansen), her unemployed father (Bob Schwarze) and her desperately unfulfilled mother, played by none other than the multi-talented director herself.' back

Anatole Kaletsky, Is Canceling Brexit Now Inevitable?, ' LONDON – In times of political turmoil, events can move from impossible to inevitable without even passing through improbable. In early 2016, the idea of Britain leaving the European Union seemed almost as absurd as the next American president being the six-time bankrupt and serial sex pest Donald Trump. A few months later, Brexit and the Trump presidency were universally acknowledged as the inevitable consequence of an anti-elitist, anti-globalization backlash that was predictable decades ago.' back

Andrew Linden and Warren Staples, Haynes failure to tackle bank structure means that in a decade or so another treasurer will have to call another royal commission , ' Every 10 to 15 years it’s the same. Ever since financial deregulation in the 1980s we’ve had a finance industry scandal followed by an inquiry, a quick fix, and a declaration that it shouldn’t happen again. . . . Even though Hayne emphasises the link between systemic misconduct, governance, structure and prudential (system-wide) risk, something that Treasury, the RBA and Australia’s three business regulator amigos, APRA, ASIC and the ACCC, have long rejected, he makes no concrete suggestions to tackle it.' back

Bradford Vivian, To fully appreciate black history, the US must let go of lingering Conferderate nostalgia, ' As a nation, the U.S. is debating the meaning of Confederate symbolism and history. . . . In my research I explore why people choose to remember some parts of the past and not others. I have also studied how communities choose to forget portions of the past in order to overcome longstanding conflicts. Based on this work, I would argue that nostalgic versions of Confederate history inhibit our ability to memorialize African-American historical experiences and achievements as centerpieces of U.S. history. back

Buddhism - Wikipedia, Buddhism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Buddhism is the world's fourth-largest religion with over 520 million followers, or over 7% of the global population, known as Buddhists. Buddhism encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on original teachings attributed to the Buddha and resulting interpreted philosophies. Buddhism originated in ancient India as a Sramana tradition sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, spreading through much of Asia.' back

Camilla Nelson, Hidden women of history: Tarpe Mills 1940s comic writer, and her feisty superhero Miss Fury, ' In April 1941, just a few short years after Superman came swooping out of the Manhattan skies, Miss Fury – originally known as Black Fury – became the first major female superhero to go to print. She beat Charles Moulton Marsden’s Wonder Woman to the page by more than six months. More significantly, Miss Fury was the first female superhero to be written and drawn by a woman, Tarpé Mills.' back

Dominic O'Sullivan, The Crwon is Maori too - citizenship, sovereignty and the Treaty of Waitangi, ' This week, New Zealand marked Waitangi Day, which commemorates the 1840 signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The treaty allowed Britain to establish government over its settlers (Article One), guaranteed ongoing Māori authority over their own affairs (Article Two) and gave Māori the rights and privileges of British subjecthood, which over time has become New Zealand citizenship (Article Three). / back

Fahrenheit 11/9 - Wikipedia, Fahrenheit 11/9 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Fahrenheit 11/9 is a 2018 American political documentary by filmmaker Michael Moore about the 2016 United States presidential election and the subsequent presidency of Donald Trump. The film had its world premiere on September 6, 2018 at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released in the United States on September 21, 2018, by Briarcliff Entertainment.' back

Four Noble Truths - Wikipedia, Four Noble Truths - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, '
1. Unguarded sensory contact gives rise to craving and clinging to impermanent states and things which are dukkha, "incapable of satisfying" and painful.
2. This craving keeps us caught in samsara, the endless cycle of repeated bhava ("becoming") and jāti (literally: "birth", interpreted as rebirth, but also as birth of the ego, and the continued dukkha that comes with it.
3. There is a way to end this cycle, namely by attaining nirvana, cessation of craving, whereafter birth and the accompanying dukkha will no longer arise again.
4. This can be accomplished by following the eightfold path,confining our automatic responses to sensory contact by restraining oneself, cultivating discipline and wholesome states, and practicing mindfulness and dhyana (meditation).' back

Gideon Levi and Alex Levac, Israel Builds Settlements While Razing Palestinian Homes. If That's Not Apartheid, What Is?, ' Neither Hanani nor his neighbors will ever have the slightest chance to live here in safety or tranquility. They are sons of the land whom Israel is out to dispossess. It’s a plan as methodical as it is malicious, designed to start with the weakest link in the population: communities of shepherds and cave dwellers, in areas that Israel has always coveted for itself – in the South Hebron Hills, along the ridge of the West Bank and in the Jordan Valley. ' back

Gram-Schmidt process - Wikipedia, Gram-Schmidt process - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, particularly linear algebra and numerical analysis, the Gram–Schmidt process is a method for orthogonalizing a set of vectors in an inner product space, most commonly the Euclidean space Rn. The Gram–Schmidt process takes a finite, linearly independent set S = {v1, …, vn} and generates an orthogonal set S' = {u1, …, un\ that spans the same subspace as S. The method is named for Jørgen Pedersen Gram and Erhard Schmidt but it appeared earlier in the work of Laplace and Cauchy.' back

Green Book (film) - Wikipedia, Green Book (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Green Book is a 2018 American comedy-drama film. Set in the Deep South in the 1960s, it follows a tour between African-American classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), an Italian-American bouncer who served as Shirley's driver and bodyguard. Directed by Peter Farrelly, the film was written by Farrelly, Brian Currie and Vallelonga's son, Nick Vallelonga, based on interviews with his father and Shirley, as well as letters his father wrote to his mother.[5] The film is named after The Negro Motorist Green Book, a mid-20th century guidebook for African-American travelers written by Victor Hugo Green, to help them find motels and restaurants that would accept them.' back

Haemoglobin - Wikipedia, Haemoglobin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Hemoglobin (American) or haemoglobin (British) . . . is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein in the red blood cells (erythrocytes) of almost all vertebrates . . . Haemoglobin in the blood carries oxygen from the lungs or gills to the rest of the body (i.e. the tissues). There it releases the oxygen to permit aerobic respiration to provide energy to power the functions of the organism in the process called metabolism.' back

Jason Alexandra, Murray-Darling Basin damage done, we must now restore trust in its management, ' Among the more sensational findings of the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission was that the authority responsible for administering the plan acted unlawfully and failed to use the best available science, including climate science. The inquiry's report, handed down this week, marked an extraordinary chapter in the Murray-Darling Basin's controversial and contested reforms, and revealed much about the messy way in which water and climate law, science and politics interact. Restoring public trust in the governance of the basin is increasingly urgent. . . . I was the only former MDBA senior executive to provide evidence to the royal commission, while the Commonwealth refused participation in the inquiry, and blocked current MDBA staff from attending.' back

Jason Horowitz, Pope Francis Breaks Some Taboos on Visit to Persian Gulf, ' ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Pope Francis used the keynote address of his roughly 40-hour stay in the United Arab Emirates to breach delicate taboos on Monday, specifically mentioning Yemen, where his hosts are engaged in a brutal war, and calling on countries throughout the Gulf region to extend citizenship rights to religious minorities. . . . “Human fraternity requires of us, as representatives of the world’s religions, the duty to reject every nuance of approval from the word ‘war,’” Francis said at the towering Founder’s Memorial in Abu Dhabi. “Let us return it to its miserable crudeness,” he added. “Its fateful consequences are before our eyes. I am thinking in particular of Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya.” ' back

Jonah Engel Bromwich and Sapna Maheshwari, Meet the Creator of the Egg That Brok Instagram, ' When Chris Godfrey learned in early January that the record for “likes” on an Instagram post was held by the celebrity and businesswoman Kylie Jenner, he took it as a challenge. He remembers thinking: “Could something as universal and simple as an egg be great enough to beat that record?” It could! Just nine days after the thought, that record was cracked. Mr. Godfrey had beaten Ms. Jenner’s post about her infant daughter with a simple picture of an egg. . . . Why an egg? Mr. Godfrey explained: “An egg has no gender, race or religion. An egg is an egg, it’s universal.” ' back

Kate Miller-Heidke, Zero Gravity, ' Kate Miller-Heidke won the first ever Australian National Final for the Eurovision Song Contest 'Australia Decides' with her song Zero Gravity. She will represent her country at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv in May. back

Kevin O'Brien SJ (Loyola Press), Experiences of Boredom or Dryness in Prayer, ' Our relationship with God in prayer has a certain rhythm. There are moments of great highs and lows but also very ordinary times. Most of life is in fact quite ordinary. In our prayer life, we can be quick to judge these ordinary times. “Nothing is happening,” we may say with frustration, particularly if we feel boredom or dryness when we pray. We can experience a strong temptation to stop praying or to shortchange our prayer time. When this happens, the first thing to do is resist the temptation.' back

Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts - Wikipedia, Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts - Wikipedia, free encyclopedia, 'Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (Indonesian: Marlina Si Pembunuh dalam Empat Babak) is a 2017 Indonesian drama film directed by Mouly Surya and written by Surya and Rama Adi, based on a story conceived by Garin Nugroho. The film has been described as a "Satay Western", combining aspects of the feminist Western genre with an Indonesian setting.[2] It was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.[3][4] The song "Lazuardi" from the soundtrack is composed and performed by Jakarta indie rock band Efek Rumah Kaca.[5] It was selected as the Indonesian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. back

Maxwell's equations - Wikipedia, Maxwell's equations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Maxwell's equations are a set of partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electromagnetism, classical optics, and electric circuits. The equations provide a mathematical model for electric, optical and radio technologies, such as power generation, electric motors, wireless communication, lenses, radar etc. Maxwell's equations describe how electric and magnetic fields are generated by charges, currents, and changes of the fields. One important consequence of the equations is that they demonstrate how fluctuating electric and magnetic fields propagate at the speed of light.' back

Melissa Davey, Female genital mutilation: 53,000 Australians have had procedure, report estimates, ' An estimated 53,000 women and girls born overseas and now living in Australia have undergone female genital mutilation in their lifetime, data released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on Wednesday found.' back

Michael McGowan, Special deals 'swindling' public schools aout of billions, new analysis shows, ' . . . the long-term bilateral agreements struck between the commonwealth and every state and territory except Victoria late last year show the original definition of the SRS has been railroaded to allow states and territories to include “extra expenditure items” as up to 4% of their total SRS. It means that every state and territory bar the ACT is able to partially count expenditure explicitly excluded from the original definition of the School Resourcing Standard as part of their overall education budget.' back

Najah Al-Otaibi, The Pope's visit to the UAE today is the first step in undoing the damage casued by his predecessor, ' . . . Pope Francis’s visit, which comes appropriately enough at the start of the UAE’s Year of Tolerance, is a significant step for both sides. Pope Francis is keen to protect the region’s Christian population, but he is also keen to undo the damage caused by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who not only equated Islam with violence but also quoted from a medieval text declaring Prophet Muhammad “evil and inhuman.” back

Niraj Chokshi, Colonists Brought Death, Disease and Climate Change to the Americas, Study Finds, ' When they arrived in the Americas centuries ago, European colonists brought pestilence and death. Their arrival was so devastating, in fact, that it may have contributed to a period of global cooling, according to a new study. . . . The authors found that disease and war wiped out 90 percent of the indigenous population in the Americas, or about 55 million people. The earth, they argue, then reclaimed the land that these populations left behind. The new vegetation pulled heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and into the land, contributing to what scientists refer to as the “Little Ice Age.” ' back

Parousia - Wikipedia, Parousia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Parousia (Greek: Παρουσία) is an ancient Greek word meaning presence, arrival, or official visit.' back

Ran (film) - Wikipedia, Ran (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Ran (乱, Japanese for "chaos" or "turmoil") is a 1985 epic period drama film directed, edited and co-written by Akira Kurosawa. The plot derives from William Shakespeare's King Lear and includes segments based on legends of the daimyō Mōri Motonari. The film stars Tatsuya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging Sengoku-period warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons.' back

S Matrix - Wikipedia, S Matrix - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, the Scattering matrix (S-matrix) relates the initial state and the final state for an interaction of particles. It is used in quantum mechanics, scattering theory and quantum field theory.' back

Self-adjoint operator, Self-adjoint operator, 'In mathematics, a self-adjoint operator on a complex vector space V with inner product ⟨ ⋅ , ⋅ ⟩ . . . is a linear map A (from V to itself) that is its own adjoint: ⟨ A v , w ⟩ = ⟨ v , A w ⟩ . . . If V is finite-dimensional with a given orthonormal basis, this is equivalent to the condition that the matrix of A is Hermitian, i.e., equal to its conjugate transpose A*. By the finite-dimensional spectral theorem, V has an orthonormal basis such that the matrix of A relative to this basis is a diagonal matrix with entries in the real numbers. In this article, we consider generalizations of this concept to operators on Hilbert spaces of arbitrary dimension.' back

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