Einstein, Albert, and Robert W Lawson (translator) Roger Penrose (Introduction), Robert Geroch (Commentary), David C Cassidy (Historical Essay), Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Pi Press 2005 Preface: 'The present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics. ... The author has spared himself no pains in his endeavour to present the main ideas in the simplest and most intelligible form, and on the whole, in the sequence and connection in which they actually originated.' page 3  
Amazon   back

Keneally, Thomas, Three Cheers for the Paraclete, Viking Press 1984 Jacket: 'Keneally's novel about a doubting priest is rich in unexpected visions and sudden epiphanies. He writes like an Angel' New York Times Book Review 
Amazon   back

Lewis, Clive S, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, Harcourt 1995 Amazon editorial Review: Ingram 'First published in 1955, the classic autobiography of the literary scholar and children's author recounts his journey from a youthful atheism to a thoughtful Christianity, his experiences in World War I, and his introduction to Oxford.'  
Amazon   back

Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, The Belknap Press, Harvard University Press 1971 ' Preface: In presenting a theory of justice I have tried to being together into one coherent view the ideas expressed in the papers I have wrtiten over the past dozen years or do. All the central topics of these essays are taken up again, usually in considerably more detail. . . . Perhaps I can best explain my aim in this book as follows. During much of modern moral philosophy the predominant systematic theory has been some form of utilitarianism. . . . What I have attempted to do is to generalize and carry to a higher order of abstraction the traditional theory of social contract as represented by Locke, Rousseau and Kant. In this way I hope that the theory can be developed so that it is no longer open to the more obvious objections thought to be fatal to it. Moreover this theory seems to offer an alternative systematic account of justice that is superior, or so I argue, to the dominant utilitarianism of the tradition. The theory that resultds is highly Kantian in nature.'  
Amazon   back

Rawls, John, and (edited by Samuel Freeman), Collected Papers, Harvard University Press 1999 Editor's Preface: 'John Rawls's A Theory of Justice is one of the most influential works in moral and political philosophy written in the twentieth century. Twenty years in the making, it was preceded by a series of papers treating many of its major themes (Chapter 1-10 of this volume). Rawls's Political Liberalismhas a less extended but more complex period of development, beginning with the 1980 Dewey Lectures at Columbia University (Chapter 16) and extending through a series of papers written during that decade (Chapter 17-18 and 20-22). . . . This collection contains nearly all of Rawls's published papers.' 
Amazon   back

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. ...' 
Amazon   back

Wilczek, Frank, The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces, Basic Books 2008 ' In this excursion to the outer limits of particle physics, Wilczek explores what quarks and gluons, which compose protons and neutrons, reveal about the manifestation of mass and gravity. A corecipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, Wilczek knows what he’s writing about; the question is, will general science readers? Happily, they know what the strong interaction is (the forces that bind the nucleus), and in Wilczek, they have a jovial guide who adheres to trade publishing’s belief that a successful physics title will not include too many equations. Despite this injunction (against which he lightly protests), Wilczek delivers an approachable verbal picture of what quarks and gluons are doing inside a proton that gives rise to mass and, hence, gravity. Casting the light-speed lives of quarks against “the Grid,” Wilczek’s term for the vacuum that theoretically seethes with quantum activity, Wilczek exudes a contagious excitement for discovery. A near-obligatory acquisition for circulating physics collections.' --Gilbert Taylor  
Amazon   back

Alethea Arnaquq-Baril - Wikipedia, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedi, ' Alethea Arnaquq-Baril MSC is an Inuk filmmaker, known for her work on Inuit life and culture. She is the owner of Unikkaat Studios, a production company in Iqaluit, which produces Inuktitut-language films. She was awarded the Canadian Meritorious Service Cross MSC, in 2017 in recognition of her work as an activist and filmmaker. She currently works part-time at the Qanak Collective, a social project which supports Inuit empowerment initiatives.' back

Aquinas Summa I, 3, 1 Proemium, Of the Simplicity of God, 'Cognito de aliquo an sit, inquirendum restat quomodo sit, ut sciatur de eo quid sit. Sed quia de Deo scire non possumus quid sit, sed quid non sit, non possumus considerare de Deo quomodo sit, sed potius quomodo non sit. . . . Potest autem ostendi de Deo quomodo non sit, removendo ab eo ea quae ei non conveniunt, utpote compositionem, motum, et alia huiusmodi. Primo ergo inquiratur de simplicitate ipsius, per quam removetur ab eo compositio.' back

Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 7, Is God altogether simple?, 'I answer that, The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways. First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His "suppositum"; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple. . . . ' back

Bang-bang control - Wikipedia, Bang-bang control - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In control theory, a bang–bang controller (on–off controller), also known as a hysteresis controller, is a feedback controller that switches abruptly between two states. These controllers may be realized in terms of any element that provides hysteresis. They are often used to control a plant that accepts a binary input, for example a furnace that is either completely on or completely off. Most common residential thermostats are bang–bang controllers.' back

Ben Hubbard and Eric Schmitt, As Kurds Tracked ISIS Leader. U.S. Withdrawal Threw Raid Into Turmoil, ' American officials would not discuss the specific intelligence provided by the Kurds, but said that their role in finding Mr. al-Baghdadi was essential — more so than all other countries combined, as one put it — contradicting President Trump’s assertion over the weekend that the United States “got very little help.” Yet even as the Syrian Kurdish fighters were risking their lives in the hunt that led to Mr. al-Baghdadi’s death this weekend, Mr. Trump abruptly shattered America’s five-year partnership with them.' back

Brouwer fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, Brouwer fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Brouwer's fixed-point theorem is a fixed-point theorem in topology, named after Luitzen Brouwer. It states that for any continuous function f with certain properties there is a point x₀ such that f(x₀) = x₀. The simplest form of Brouwer's theorem is for continuous functions f from a disk D to itself. A more general form is for continuous functions from a convex compact subset K of Euclidean space to itself. back

Eness Elias, An Israeli Singer Taps Into Her Moroccan Roots 0In Show of Defiance Against Hebrew, ' Being a singer “was not among my chosen professions,” says Bloch, adding that the decision followed a long process. She began by studying with singer Ziva Attar, “one of the women who influenced me most,” and then in 2014 musician Roee Fadida invited her to join an ensemble that plays contemporary arrangements of Moroccan music. “I had a physical reaction to that music,” she recalls. “It’s like you smell a roll outside a bakery and you have to take a bite.” ' back

Exodus, Exodus 3.14, 'New International Version God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'" ' back

Graham Nerlich, On the sovereign independence of spacetime, back

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The World's Best Cross-Border Investigative Team, 'Founded in 1997, ICIJ was launched as a project of the Center for Public Integrity to extend the Center’s style of watchdog journalism, focusing on issues that do not stop at national frontiers: cross-border crime, corruption, and the accountability of power. Backed by the Center and its computer-assisted reporting specialists, public records experts, fact-checkers and lawyers, ICIJ reporters and editors provide real-time resources and state-of-the-art tools and techniques to journalists around the world.' back

Kevin Brown, Reflections on Relativity, By Maciej Ceglowski on January 27, 2012 Format: Paperback 'This wonderful book has long been available online, but I'm delighted to see that the author has chosen to publish it in physical form. This is the kind of book you really want to be able to flip through and fill with marginalia. I've been reading through it about once a year, and each time I find myself understanding it a little better. The author has a great gift for presenting challenging material in a way that remains accessible to those of us who haven't made it past calculus. Equal parts history, philosophy of science, and physics textbook, it's an absolute treasure, and I'm delighted to finally be able to give the author some money.' back

Knvul Sheikh, Is Crispr the Next Antibiotic?, ' Crispr is a specialized region of DNA that creates what amount to genetic scissors — enzymes that allow the cell (or a scientist) to precisely edit other DNA or its sister molecule, RNA. (Crispr is shorthand for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.”) Crispr was originally discovered in bacteria, where it helps keep track of past injury. When a virus attacks, the bacterium stores small chunks of the viral genome within its own DNA. This helps the bacterium recognize viral infections when they occur again. Then, using Crispr-associated enzymes, it can disarm the virus and prevent the infection from spreading.' back

Matt Wade, Rich-poor gap is driving migration, 'Amid the non-stop political fireworks over border control and migration policy, we pay surprisingly little attention to the global economic forces that drive the mass movement of people. The sheer scale of wealth and income inequality is fundamental. All the talk about the stellar economic growth rates in some emerging economies, and the rapid formation of a global middle class has distracted some attention from the huge disparities that still exist between rich and poor countries. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/richpoor-gap-is-driving-migration-20131029-2we6n.html#ixzz2jBegm1fZ' back

Matthew Hall, Why a sense of kinship is key to caring about the living world, Leading thinkers in environmental economics and conservation are asking a pressing question. Why are we ignoring the destruction of the living world? Recently, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) published a global assessment of biodiversity that set out alarming statistics: a million species at threat of extinction, 75% of terrestrial environments severely altered by human activity, and a 30% reduction in global habitat integrity. Despite all this, practical solutions to redress an ecological crisis — land use and economic reform, action on climate change and improvements to environmental governance — are not prioritised. One key reason for this is how we frame our relationship to the living world.' back

Michael Gerson, Evangelicals have been reshaped into the image of Trump himself, ' I thought of drunk, naked Noah while reading the Public Religion Research Institute’s 2019 American Values Survey. In the PRRI survey’s pages, white evangelical Protestants (WEPs) are fully disrobed. And it is an embarrassing sight. Consider the matter of immigration. Republicans who are WEPs are the most likely group to say that immigrants are invading America and changing its culture. More than 90 percent of WEPs favor more restrictive immigration policies. They support the policy of family separation at the border more strongly than other religious groups and more strongly than Americans as a whole.' back

Paul Krugman, Manufacturing Ain't Great Again? Why, ' Could Trump have been more successful at boosting manufacturing? Well, things might look very different if he had actually followed through on his campaign promises to make big investments in infrastructure, which would have created a lot of sales for U.S. manufacturing. As it is, however, Trump is presiding over an economy that, despite low unemployment, doesn’t feel like a boom to most Americans. And he has utterly failed in his politically crucial promise to make manufacturing in key swing states great again.' back

Pauli exclusion principle - Wikipedia, Pauli exclusion principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Pauli exclusion principle is the quantum mechanical principle that no two identical fermions (particles with half-integer spin) may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. A more rigorous statement is that the total wave function for two identical fermions is anti-symmetric with respect to exchange of the particles. The principle was formulated by Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1925.' back

Publeaks.nl, Publeaks.nl, 'Anonymous leaks to the lress' back

Rupert Neate, Superyachts and private jets: spending of corrupt super-rich revealed, ' Research by Transparency International, an anti-corruption campaign group, found more than £300bn of suspect funds have been funnelled through the UK banks, law firms and accountants before being spent on a £1m Cartier diamond ring, masterpiece art works from Sotheby’s, and a £50,000 Tom Ford crocodile-skin jacket with matching crocodile-skin handbag from Harrods.' back

Ruth Schuster, How We Created Superbugs by Provoking Primordial Superpowers in Bacteria, ' In 2017, antibiotic resistance genes were reported in staphylococci obtained from the permafrost at Mammoth Mountain in Siberia, dating to the Middle Miocene (around 16 million to 11 million years ago). There is yet more evidence. The point is, antibiotic resistance is clearly a natural phenomenon that predates the modern selective pressure of antibiotic use by doctors and vets. The propensity is hardwired into the bacterial genome.' back

Samira Shackle, The first Pakistani Nobel laureate few have heard of, ' Until Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, there had only ever been one Pakistani Nobel laureate: the scientist Abdus Salam, who won the physics prize in 1979. But despite being the first Pakistani to win a Nobel, his historic achievement was not celebrated in his home country. Instead, he was largely ignored due to his religious identity.' back

UNESCO, UNESCO Constitution, 'The Governments of the States Parties to this Constitution on behalf of their peoples declare: That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed; . . . ' back

Wojciech Hubert Zurek, Quantum origin of quantum jumps: breaking of unitary symmetry induced by information transfer and the transition from quantum to classical, 'Submitted on 17 Mar 2007 (v1), last revised 18 Mar 2008 (this version, v3)) "Measurements transfer information about a system to the apparatus, and then further on -- to observers and (often inadvertently) to the environment. I show that even imperfect copying essential in such situations restricts possible unperturbed outcomes to an orthogonal subset of all possible states of the system, thus breaking the unitary symmetry of its Hilbert space implied by the quantum superposition principle. Preferred outcome states emerge as a result. They provide framework for the ``wavepacket collapse'', designating terminal points of quantum jumps, and defining the measured observable by specifying its eigenstates. In quantum Darwinism, they are the progenitors of multiple copies spread throughout the environment -- the fittest quantum states that not only survive decoherence, but subvert it into carrying information about them -- into becoming a witness.' back

Xenophanes - Wikipedia, Xenophanes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Xenophanes of Colophon (Ancient Greek: Ξενοφάνης ὁ Κολοφώνιος IPA: [ English: c.570 – c.475 BC) was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and social and religious critic.' back