Brown, Dan, Angels and Demons, Corgi Books 2003 From Publishers Weekly 'Pitting scientific terrorists against the cardinals of Vatican City, this well-plotted if over-the-top thriller is crammed with Vatican intrigue and high-tech drama. Robert Langdon, a Harvard specialist on religious symbolism, is called in by a Swiss research lab when Dr. Vetra, the scientist who discovered antimatter, is found murdered with the cryptic word "Illuminati" branded on his chest. These Iluminati were a group of Renaissance scientists, including Galileo, who met secretly in Rome to discuss new ideas in safety from papal threat; what the long-defunct association has to do with Dr. Vetra's death is far from clear. Vetra's daughter, Vittoria, makes a frightening discovery: a lethal amount of antimatter, sealed in a vacuum flask that will explode in six hours unless its batteries are recharged, is missing. Almost immediately, the Swiss Guard discover that the flask is hidden beneath Vatican City, where the conclave to elect a new pope has just begun. Vittoria and Langdon rush to recover the canister, but they aren't allowed into the Vatican until it is discovered that the four principal papal candidates are missing. The terrorists who are holding the cardinals call in regarding their pending murders, offering clues tied to ancient Illuminati meeting sites and runes. Meanwhile, it becomes clear that a sinister Vatican entity with messianic delusions is in league with the terrorists. Packing the novel with sinister figures worthy of a Medici, Brown (Digital Fortress) sets an explosive pace as Langdon and Vittoria race through a Michelin-perfect Rome to try to save the cardinals and find the antimatter before it explodes. Though its premises strain credulity, Brown's tale is laced with twists and shocks that keep the reader wired right up to the last revelation.' Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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Dirac (1983), P A M, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (4th ed), Oxford UP/Clarendon 1983 Jacket: '[this] is the standard work in the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, indispensible both to the advanced student and the mature research worker, who will always find it a fresh source of knowledge and stimulation.' (Nature)  
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Escher, Maurits Cornelius, and John E. Brigham (translator), The Graphic Work: Introduced and explained by the artist, Taco 1989 Introduction: '. . . then there came a moment when it seemed as though scales fell from my eyes. I discovered that technical mastery was no longer my sole aim, for I became gripped by another desire . . . Ideas came into my mind quite unrelated to graphic art, notions which so fascinated me that I longed to communicate them to other people. . . . The ideas that are basic to [my prints] often bear witness to my amazement and wonder at the laws of nature which operate in the world around us. . . . and here is yet another reason for my astonishment - no matter how objective or how impersonal the majority of my subjects appear to me, so far as I have been able to discover, few, if any, of my fellow-men seem to react in the same way to all that they see around them.' pp 5-6 
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Haupt, Robert, Last Boat to Astrakhan: A Russian Memoir 1990-1996, back

Hofstadter, Douglas R, Goedel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Basic/Harvester 1979 An illustrated essay on the philosophy of mathematics. Formal systems, recursion, self reference and meaning explored with a dazzling array of examples in music, dialogue, text and graphics. 
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Hughes, Patrick, and Gordon Brecht, Vicious Circles and Infinity: A Panoply of Paradoxes, Doubleday 1975  
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Nin, Anais, Incest: From a Journal of Love: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin 1932-1934, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 1992 Amazon editorial review: From Library Journal "This second volume of the unexpurgated version of Nin's diary spans the period from October 1932 to November 1934. It draws upon previously unpublished material from the period covered by the first volume of the diary as published in 1966. Incest follows Henry & June ( LJ 10/1/86), focusing not only on Nin's continued relationship with author Henry Miller but also on her physical and emotional attachments to four other men. Nin offers intimate details of disturbing events such as her intense incestuous affair with her father and her abortion during her sixth month of pregnancy. Her diary offers direct insight into a narcissistic, passionate, analytical, and complex mind, but the brief introduction does disappointingly little to explain the editorial process that created this version of Nin's diary, which differs dramatically in style and content from its expurgated counterpart. Nevertheless, this is an important supplement to the 1966 diary and is recommended for most literature collections.' - Ellen Finnie Duranceau, MIT Lib. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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Rovelli (2021), Carlo, and Erica Segre & Simon Carnell (translators), Helgoland, Allen Lane / Penguin 2021 ' In June 1925, twenty-three-year-old Werner Heisenberg, suffering from hay fever, retreated to a small, treeless island in the North Sea called Helgoland. It was there that he came up with one of the most transformative scientific concepts- quantum theory. Almost a century later, quantum physics has given us many startling ideas - ghost waves, distant objects that seem magically connected to each other, cats that are both dead and alive. At the same time, countless experiments have led to practical applications that shape our daily lives. Today our understanding of the world around us is based on this theory. And yet it is still profoundly mysterious. In this enchanting book, Carlo Rovelli, one of our most celebrated scientists, tells the extraordinary story of quantum physics and reveals its deep meaning- a world made of substances is replaced by a world made of relations, each particle responding to another in a never ending game of mirrors. 
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Snow, C P, The Masters, Pan Macmillan  
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Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine, Hermann et cie / MIT Press 1948 The classic founding text of cybernetics. 
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Salart, Daniel, et al, "Testing the speed of 'spooky action at a distance", Nature, 454, , 14 August 2008, page 861-864. 'Correlations are generally described by one of two mechanisms: either a first event influences a second one by sending information encoded in bosons or other physical carriers, or the correlated events have some common causes in their shared history. Quantum physics predicts an entirely different kind of cause for some correlations, named entanglement. This reveals itself in correlations that violate Bell inequalities (implying that they cannot be described by common causes) between space-like separated events (implying that they cannot be described by classical communication). Many Bell tests have been performed, and loopholes related to locality and detection have been closed in several independent experiments. It is still possible that a first event could influence a second, but the speed of this hypothetical influence (Einstein's 'spooky action at a distance') would need to be defined in some universal privileged reference frame and be greater than the speed of light. Here we put stringent experimental bounds on the speed of all such hypothetical influences. We performed a Bell test over more than 24 hours between two villages separated by 18 km and approximately east–west oriented, with the source located precisely in the middle. We continuously observed two-photon interferences well above the Bell inequality threshold. Taking advantage of the Earth's rotation, the configuration of our experiment allowed us to determine, for any hypothetically privileged frame, a lower bound for the speed of the influence. For example, if such a privileged reference frame exists and is such that the Earth's speed in this frame is less than 10^-3 times that of the speed of light, then the speed of the influence would have to exceed that of light by at least four orders of magnitude.. back

Toroczkai, Z, K F Bassler, "Jamming is limited in scale free systems", Nature, 428, 6984, 15 April 2004, page 716. 'A large number of complex networks is scale free - that is they follow a power law degree distribution. Here we propose that the emergence of scale-free networks is tied to the efficiency of transport and flow processing across these structures, In particular we show that for large networks on which flows are influenced or generated by gradients of a scalar distributed on the nodes, scale free structures will ensure efficient processing, whereas structures that are not scale free, such as random graphs, will become congested.'. back

Alia Chughtau, know their names: Black people killed by the polics in the US, ' Between 2014 and 2019, 1,653 Black people died at the hands of the US police. Here are just some of their stories.' back

Armageddon - Wikipedia, Armageddon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Armageddon is the site of an epic battle associated with the end time prophecies of the Abrahamic religions. back

Cornel West & Jeremy Tate, Opinion: Howard University’s removal of classics is a spiritual catastrophe, ' Sadly, in our culture’s conception, the crimes of the West have become so central that it’s hard to keep track of the best of the West. We must be vigilant and draw the distinction between Western civilization and philosophy on the one hand, and Western crimes on the other. The crimes spring from certain philosophies and certain aspects of the civilization, not all of them.' back

Donald E Knuth, Knuth: MMIX News, 'On this page I plan to post special announcements about developments related to MMIX, the RISC machine that is rapidly gaining so many aficionados.' back

End time - Wikipedia, End time - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The End Time, End Times, or End of Days are the eschatological writings in the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and in doomsday scenarios in various other non-Abrahamic religions. In Christianity, the End Times are often depicted as a time of tribulation that precedes the Second Coming of the Christian “saviour“ or a “hoped-for deliverer”, Jesus, the Christian Messiah, who will usher in the Kingdom of God and bring an end to suffering and evil. In Islam, Yawm al-Qiyāmah "the Day of Resurrection" or Yawm ad-Din "the Day of Judgement", Allah's final assessment of humanity, is preceded by the end of the world. In Judaism the term “End of Days” is taken from the Tanakh, Numbers 24:4, as a reference to the Messianic era and the Jewish belief in the coming of Mashiach. Various other religions also have eschatological beliefs associated with turning and redemption.' back

Eugene Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, 'The first point is that the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and that there is no rational explanation for it. Second, it is just this uncanny usefulness of mathematical concepts that raises the question of the uniqueness of our physical theories.' back

Hikmet Karcic, Oscar-nominated 'Quo Vadis, Aida?" Is This Year's Most Devastating, Urgent Contender, ' 'Quo Vadis, Aida?' is a harrowing account of the Srebrenica genocide, Serb brutality and UN betrayal – and it's a stark warning for a fragile Bosnia, its neighbors, and all of us today' back

Hypercomputation Research Network, Hypercomputation research network, Hypercomputation concerns the study of computation beyond that defined by the Turing machine, and is also known as super-Turing, non-standard or non-recursive computation. It is a multi-disciplinary research area with relevance across a wide variety of fields, including computer science, philosophy, physics, electronics, biology, and artifical intelligence. Jack Copeland has produced some excellent explanatory material which you may find useful: AlanTuring.Net Hypercomputation Page The confusion of Thesis M with the Church-Turing thesis back

John Lennon, Imagine Lyrics - LyricWiki, back

John von Neumann, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, ' Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics by John von Neumann translated from the German by Robert T. Beyer (New Edition) edited by Nicholas A. Wheeler. Princeton UP Princeton & Oxford. Preface: ' This book is the realization of my long-held intention to someday use the resources of TEX to produce a more easily read version of Robert T. Beyer’s authorized English translation (Princeton University Press, 1955) of John von Neumann’s classic Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik (Springer, 1932).'This content downloaded from 129.127.145.240 on Sat, 30 May 2020 22:38:31 UTC back

Patricia McCormick, The Girl in the Kent State Photo, ' That photo, of her kneeling over the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller, is one of the most important images of the 20th century. Taken by student photographer John Filo, it captures Mary Ann’s raw grief and disbelief at the realization that the nation’s soldiers had just fired at its own children. The Kent State Pietà, as it’s sometimes called, is one of those rare photos that fundamentally changed the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Like the image of the solitary protester standing in front of a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square. Or the photo of Kim Phuc, the naked Vietnamese girl fleeing the napalm that has just incinerated her home. Or the image of Aylan Kurdi’s tiny, 3-year-old body facedown in the sand, he and his mother and brother having drowned while fleeing Syria.' back

Paul Baumann, The Beauty of the Incomprehensible Karen Kilby on the limits of theology, ' The book’s concluding essay, “Beauty and Mystery in Mathematics and Theology,” is an eye-opener for anyone who thinks mathematics is solely about exacting calculations, measurement, manipulation, and control. Kilby explains that the field of “pure” mathematics does not describe the natural world, nor is it of practical use to the engineer or scientist. It is about “beauty.” In that sense—and in its exploration of the ungraspable concept of infinity—it is analogous to the work done by theologians, which also should be valued for its beauty. Like the God who reveals himself yet remains hidden, pure mathematics cannot deliver any final answers. “One of the most striking features of some of the best of pure mathematics—one thing which makes it beautiful—is the way in which it confronts us with that which exceeds our control, the way it opens up to us things which are beyond our ability to comprehend,” Kilby writes. Pure mathematics enables practitioners to describe with greater and greater clarity and beauty what is finally incalculable and unknowable about the nature of numbers and thus reality. I’ll take her word for it. A search for greater clarity, guided by humility and a sense of awe, is also how Kilby understands theology. It is a compelling vision, one that does not surrender either to an apophatic reticence or to a complacent orthodoxy.' back

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh - Wikipedia, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark;[1] 10 June 1921[fn 1] – 9 April 2021), was a member of the British royal family as the husband of Elizabeth II. Philip was born into the Greek and Danish royal families. He was born in Greece, but his family was exiled from the country when he was eighteen months old. After being educated in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, he joined the Royal Navy in 1939, aged 18. From July 1939, he began corresponding with the thirteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth, whom he had first met in 1934. During the Second World War he served with distinction in the Mediterranean and British Pacific fleets.' back

Russell Shorto, The woman Who Made van Gogh, ' In 1905, she arranged a major exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam’s premier modern-art showcase. She reckoned that it was time for a grand statement. The success she had had in promoting her brother-in-law’s art boosted her self-confidence. As more and more people in the field came to agree with her assessment of Vincent, she shed her youthful hesitancy. Rather than hand over the task of organizing the show, she insisted on doing everything herself. She rented the galleries, printed the posters, assembled names of important people to invite, even bought bow ties for the staff. Her son, Vincent, now 15, wrote out the invitations. The result was, and remains, the largest-ever van Gogh exhibition, with 484 works on display. back

Serial Communication - Wikipedia, Serial Communication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In telecommunication and data transmission, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits are sent as a whole, on a link with several parallel channels.' back