Auyang, Sunny Y., How is Quantum Field Theory Possible?, Oxford University Press 1995 Jacket: 'Quantum field theory (QFT) combines quantum mechanics with Einstein's special theory of relativity and underlies elementary particle physics. This book presents a philosophical analysis of QFT. It is the first treatise in which the philosophies of space-time, quantum phenomena and particle interactions are encompassed in a unified framework.' 
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Edelman, Shimon, The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life, Basic books 2012 Jacket: ' "The ancient injunction to 'Know thyself' gets a lively update in Shimon Edelman's eclectic examination of 'knowing' and 'self' through the lens of twenty-first century cognitive science. Its human to wander thoughtfully through real and imaginary landscapes, learning as we go—this is happiness, embodied in Edelman's witty odyssey, which provokes the very pleasures it describes.' Dan Lloyd, Brownell Professor of Philosophy, Trinity College 
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Kuhn, Thomas S, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, U of Chicago Press 1962, 1970, 1996 Introduction: 'a new theory, however special its range of application, is seldom just an increment to what is already known. Its assimilation requires the reconstruction of prior theory and the re-evaluation of prior fact, an intrinsically revolutionary process that is seldom completed by a single man, and never overnight.' [p 7]  
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Stewart, Michael, Keynes and After, Penguin 1999 'Amazing how such a small book could give so much information about an economic theory that changed the world. In "Keynes and After," Michael Stewart does not waste any words in telling the reader how revolutions in thought occur when the prevailing theory can no longer be reconciled with the observable facts. That expression (in the "conclusion" in the book) could itself be an excellent thought for the current global politicians who seem to be clueless and not seeing the observable facts as to how to save the global economy. . . . ' Indrajith A Weeraratne 
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Collins, Scott L, "Biodiversity Under Global Change", Science, 326, 5958, 4 December 2009, page 1353-1354. 'Many common plant species, such as prairie grasses, have evolved traits for the efficient capture and use of two key resources that limit terrestrial productivity: nitrogen (N) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Over the past 60 years, human activity has vastly increased the availability of these resources. Atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by 40%, and N availability has more than doubled. These changes are likely to have important consequences for species interactions, community structure, and ecosystem functioning. On page 1399 of this issue, Reich investigates one important consequence, biodiversity loss, based on a long-term elevated CO2 and nitrogen fertilization experiment '. back

Sussman, Michael R, George N Phillips Jr, "How Plant Cells go to Sleep for a Long, Long Time", Science, 326, 5958, 4 December 2009, page 1356-1357. 'Seeds are plant spores—desiccated, dormant cells in which metabolism and growth have been drastically slowed, so that the organism can wait out adverse conditions. This is especially important for plants, which cannot run away from environmental threats. Instead of motility, they use dormancy to outlast adversarial conditions caused by pathogens or severe weather. Indeed, some seeds remain viable for hundreds of years. On page 1373 of this issue, Nishimura et al. (1) and four other groups (2–5) report the initial biochemical mechanisms that allow the complex cellular machinery of this multicellular eukaryote to live for so long in a dormant state.'. back

Blondel, Mundell & Masters, Three scientists on what we learned from the Arecibo radio telescope, ' Astronomers are mourning the loss of the world’s second largest radio telescope in Puerto Rico. The US National Science Foundation said the Arecibo telescope’s 900-tonne instrument platform fell onto a reflector dish some 450ft (137 metres) below – just weeks after it was announced that the telescope would be dismantled due to safety fears.' back

Composition of the human body - Wikipedia, Composition of the human body - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The composition of the human body can be looked at from the point of view of either mass composition, or atomic composition. To illustrate both views, the human body is ~70% water, and water is ~11% hydrogen by mass but ~67% hydrogen by atomic percent. Thus, most of the mass of the human body is oxygen, but most of the atoms in the human body are hydrogen atoms.' back

Craig Stirling, Fifty Years of Tax Cuts for Rich Didn't Trickle Down, Study Says, ' Tax cuts for rich people breed inequality without providing much of a boon to anyone else, according to a study of the advanced world that could add to the case for the wealthy to bear more of the cost of the coronavirus pandemic. The paper, by David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King’s College London, found that such measures over the last 50 years only really benefited the individuals who were directly affected, and did little to promote jobs or growth. “Policy makers shouldn’t worry that raising taxes on the rich to fund the financial costs of the pandemic will harm their economies,” Hope said in an interview.' back

Fiber bundle - Wikipedia, Fiber bundle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, and particularly topology, a fiber bundle (or, in British English, fibre bundle) is a space that is locally a product space, but globally may have a different topological structure. Specifically, the similarity between a space E and a product space B × F is defined using a continuous surjective map π: E → B that in small regions of E behaves just like a projection from corresponding regions of B × F to B. The map π, called the projection or submersion of the bundle, is regarded as part of the structure of the bundle. The space E is known as the total space of the fiber bundle, B as the base space, and F the fiber.' back

Heath Ashton, Ending four tax lurks would deliver $38 billion budget relief for Scott Morrison, budget office finds, 'The latest worsening of the budget deficit, to be revealed by Treasurer Scott Morrison on Tuesday, could be plugged by abolishing a handful of what the Greens claim are "unfair tax breaks". Research by the independent Parliament Budget Office, conducted for the party, found the government would be $38 billion better off over four years if four entrenched tax lurks, including negative gearing, capital gains tax discounts and public subsidies for fossil fuels, were abolished.' back

Nous - Wikipedia, Nous - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Nous . . . , sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a philosophical term for the faculty of the human mind which is described in classical philosophy as necessary for understanding what is true or real. The three commonly used philosophical terms are from Greek, νοῦς or νόος, and Latin intellectus and intelligentia respectively. To describe the activity of this faculty, apart from verbs based on "understanding", the word "intellection" is sometimes used in philosophical contexts, and the Greek words noēsis and noein are sometimes also used. This activity is understood in a similar way, at least in some contexts, to the modern concept intuition.' back

Isabelle Khurshudyan & Robyn Dickson, Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned by Russian state security team, report says, ' Bellingcat said the “voluminous” data implicates eight members of a clandestine group of Russia’s FSB, a successor to the Soviet-era KGB responsible for domestic intelligence. The unit specializes in working with chemical weapons, Bellingcat said. “I know who wanted to kill me,” Navalny said in a video message about Bellingcat’s joint investigation with Russia’s Insider website, Germany’s Der Spiegel news magazine and CNN. “I know where they live. I know where they work. I know their real names. I know their fake names. I have photographs of them.” ' back

John Hewson, Australia, the climate laggard, could lead the world: over to you, PM, ' Joe Biden’s new climate czar, John Kerry, said recently: "Every day we lose ground debating alternative facts. It’s not a 'he said/she said' – there’s truth, and then there’s Mr Trump." . . . Every day that goes by that we’re paralysed by the Luddite in the White House is a day in the future that our grandchildren will suffer. That’s not hyperbole — that’s science." ' back

Kirkland An, Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? College suspends professor who said yes., 'Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical school in Illinois, has placed a professor on administrative leave after she posted on Facebook that Muslims and Christians “worship the same God.” The official school statement Tuesday about associate professor of political science Larycia Hawkins’s suspension said Wheaton professors should “engage in and speak about public issues in ways that faithfully represent the College’s evangelical Statement of Faith.” / back

Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher - Wikiquote, 'Margaret Thatcher (13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) was the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979–1990).
'They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation"' back

Marty McCarthy, Invasive Species Council highlights conflict of interest in Queensland biosecurity system, calls for more indpendence, 'Currently, the state's Department of Agriculture manages pest and disease incursions and is responsible for the control and eradication of them. However, in a submission to the Biosecurity Capabilities Review, the Council said more money was spent controlling agricultural pests that posed a commercial risk at the expense of environmental ones. The Council's Andrew Cox said future pest and disease decisions needed to be made independently of the Department of Agriculture to remove any conflict of interest or favouritism.' back

Natasha Bertrand & Eric Wolff, Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught, ' The Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, have evidence that hackers accessed their networks as part of an extensive espionage operation that has affected at least half a dozen federal agencies, officials directly familiar with the matter said. . . . NNSA is responsible for managing the nation's nuclear weapons, and while it gets the least attention, it takes up the vast majority of DOE's budget. Similarly, the Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs conduct atomic research related to both civil nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The Office of Secure Transportation is tasked with moving enriched uranium and other materials critical for maintaining the nuclear stockpile. ' back

Nicene Creed - Wikipedia, Nicene Creed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Nicene Creed (Greek: Σύμβολον τῆς Νίκαιας, Latin: Symbolum Nicaenum) is the profession of faith or creed that is most widely used in Christian liturgy. It forms the mainstream definition of Christianity for most Christians. It is called Nicene because, in its original form, it was adopted in the city of Nicaea (present day Iznik in Turkey) by the first ecumenical council, which met there in the year 325. The Nicene Creed has been normative for the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Anglican Communion, and the great majority of Protestant denominations.' back

Nicholas Kristof, Take my quiz on religion, 'Donald Trump's proposal to bar Muslims from the United States may be a gift to Islamic State recruitment and a grotesque echo of the sentiment behind the Chinese Exclusion Act and the internment of Japanese-Americans. But, like those earlier spasms of exclusion, the Trump proposal has plenty of supporters. In one recent poll, more than three-quarters of Republicans said Islam was incompatible with life in the US, where there is a widespread perception that Islam is rooted in misogyny and violence, incorrigible because it is rooted in a holy text that is fundamentally different from others.' back

NYT Editors, Normalizing Carnage: Democracy vs the National Rifle Association, '. . . studies have shown that, here in America, states and municipalities with more gun restrictions have fewer gun-related deaths. . . . studies have also shown that people who live in households with guns are less safe overall than those who live in households without them. In short, the politics of gun control may be complicated, but the epidemiology is surprisingly simple: all other things being equal, more guns mean more bloodshed.. back

Phase space - Wikipedia, Phase space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics and physics, a phase space, introduced by Willard Gibbs in 1901, is a space in which all possible states of a system are represented, with each possible state of the system corresponding to one unique point in the phase space. For mechanical systems, the phase space usually consists of all possible values of position and momentum variables. . . .' back

Sarah Lipton, The Words That Killed Medieval Jews, 'Ferocious anti-Jewish rhetoric began to permeate sermons, plays and polemical texts. Jews were labeled demonic and greedy. In one diatribe, the head of the most influential monastery in Christendom thundered at the Jews: “Why are you not called brute animals? Why not beasts?” Images began to portray Jews as hooknosed caricatures of evil. The first records of large-scale anti-Jewish violence coincide with this rhetorical shift. Although the pope who preached the First Crusade had called only for an “armed pilgrimage” to retake Jerusalem from Muslims, the first victims of the Crusade were not the Turkish rulers of Jerusalem but Jewish residents of the German Rhineland.' back

Socrates - Wikipedia, Socrates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Socrates (. . . 470/469 – 399 BC) was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. . . . Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. . . . Plato's Socrates also made important and lasting contributions to the field of epistemology, and his ideologies and approach have proven a strong foundation for much Western philosophy that has followed.' back

Stephen Buranyi, Big Pharma Is Fooling Us, ' But a strange thing has happened in our celebration of this scientific triumph. While we remember those historic advances as the work of individual scientists or laboratories, the vaccines against Covid-19 are being written instead as a victory for pharmaceutical companies.' back

The Psalms, King James Version, Psalm 90;10, 'The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.' back

Turing machine - Wikipedia, Turing machine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, A Turing machine is a hypothetical device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite its simplicity, a Turing machine can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm, and is particularly useful in explaining the functions of a CPU inside a computer. The "machine" was invented in 1936 by Alan Turingwho called it an "a-machine" (automatic machine). The Turing machine is not intended as practical computing technology, but rather as a hypothetical device representing a computing machine. Turing machines help computer scientists understand the limits of mechanical computation.' back

Vatican Museums, Propaganda Fide, 'Propaganda Fide It is the Department (Congregation) of the Holy See founded in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV with the double aim of spreading Christianity in the areas where the Christian message had still not arrived and of defending the patrimony of faith in those places where heresy had caused the genuineness of the faith to be questioned. Propaganda Fide was therefore, basically, the Congregation whose task it was to organize all the missionary activity of the Church. Through a provision of John Paul II (in order to better define its tasks), since 1988 the original Propaganda Fide has been called the "Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples". Official Propaganda Fide website: http://www.fides.org/ita/index.html' back