Brillouin, Leon, Science and Information Theory, Academic 1962 Introduction: 'A new territory was conquered for the sciences when the theory of information was recently developed. . . . Physics enters the picture when we discover a remarkable likeness between information and entropy. . . . The efficiency of an experiment can be defined as the ratio of information obtained to the associated increase in entropy. This efficiency is always smaller than unity, according to the generalised Carnot principle. . . . ' 
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Everett III, Hugh, and Bryce S Dewitt, Neill Graham (editors), The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press 1973 Jacket: 'A novel interpretation of quantum mechanics, first proposed in brief form by Hugh Everett in 1957, forms the nucleus around which this book has developed. The volume contains Dr Everett's short paper from 1957, "'Relative State' formulation of quantum mechanics" and a far longer exposition of his interpretation entitled "The Theory of the Universal Wave Function" never before published. In addition other papers by Wheeler, DeWitt, Graham, Cooper and van Vechten provide further discussion of the same theme. Together they constitute virtually the entire world output of scholarly commentary on the Everett interpretation.' 
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Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev's Cold War, W W Norton 2006 Jacket: 'Drawing on Alexandr Fursenko as Timothy Naftali's unrivaled access ro Politburo and Soviet intelligence materials, this acclaimed study provides a gripping gistory of the crisis years of the cold war. The authors bring to life head-to-head confrontations between the mercurial Soviet premier Nikita Kreshchev and President Eisenhower and Kennedy, offering new insights into the Cuban missile crisis and startling narratives for Suez, Iraq, Berlin and Southeast Asia.' 
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Miles, Jack, God: A Biography, Vintage Books 1996 Jacket: 'Jack Miles's remarkable work examines the hero of the Old Testament . . . from his first appearance as Creator to his last as Ancient of Days. . . . We see God torn by conflicting urges. To his own sorrow, he is by turns destructive and creative, vain and modest, subtle and naive, ruthless and tender, lawful and lawless, powerful yet powerless, omniscient and blind.' 
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Pais, Abraham, 'Subtle is the Lord...': The Science and Life of Albert Einstein, Oxford UP 1982 Jacket: In this . . . major work Abraham Pais, himself an eminent physicist who worked alongside Einstein in the post-war years, traces the development of Einstein's entire ouvre. . . . Running through the book is a completely non-scientific biography . . . including many letters which appear in English for the first time, as well as other information not published before.' 
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Peacock, John A, Cosmological Physics, Cambridge University Press 1999 Nature Book Review: ' The intermingling of observational detail and fundamental theory has made cosmology an exceptionally rich, exciting and controversial science. Students in the field — whether observers or particle theorists — are expected to be acquainted with matters ranging from the Supernova Ia distance scale, Big Bang nucleosynthesis theory, scale-free quantum fluctuations during inflation, the galaxy two-point correlation function, particle theory candidates for the dark matter, and the star formation history of the Universe. Several general science books, conference proceedings and specialized monographs have addressed these issues. Peacock's Cosmological Physics ambitiously fills the void for introducing students with a strong undergraduate background in physics to the entire world of current physical cosmology. The majestic sweep of his discussion of this vast terrain is awesome, and is bound to capture the imagination of most students.' Ray Carlberg, Nature 399:322 
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Rossano, Matt, Supernatural Selection: How Religion Evolved, Oxford University Press, USA 2010 From Publishers Weekly
' The existence of God has been part of human discussion for centuries. Believers point to evidence of design and rationality as convincing proofs of divine presence. Rossano, head of the psychology department at Southeastern Louisiana University, looks instead to notions borrowed from anthropology and sociology to construct a purely nonreligious view of the evolution of religion. Favoring science over sentiment, he takes great comfort in the idea that pieces of our evolutionary puzzle are now falling into place. He suggests that religion, which he describes as an evolutionary adaptation, arises from intergroup competition and is the result of the inevitable struggles that occur when groups compete for the same prizes (in this case, adherents to their message). To true believers, this is a grim assessment of the religious notions that underlie their lives. Casual readers will find this book tough going and, in some instances, overly technical. But with patience, most will find food for thought.' Copyright © Reed Business Information 
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Tyerman, Christopher, The World of the Crusades, Yale UP 2019 ' Throughout the Middle Ages crusading was justified by religious ideology, but the resulting military campaigns were fueled by concrete objectives: land, resources, power, reputation. Crusaders amassed possessions of all sorts, from castles to reliquaries. Campaigns required material funds and equipment, while conquests produced bureaucracies, taxation, economic exploitation, and commercial regulation. Wealth sustained the Crusades while material objects, from weaponry and military technology to carpentry and shipping, conditioned them. This lavishly illustrated volume considers the material trappings of crusading wars and the objects that memorialized them, in architecture, sculpture, jewelry, painting, and manuscripts. Christopher Tyerman's incorporation of the physical and visual remains of crusading enriches our understanding of how the crusaders themselves articulated their mission, how they viewed their place in the world, and how they related to the cultures they derived from and preyed upon..' 
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Weinberg, Steven, The Quantum Theory of Fields Volume I: Foundations, Cambridge University Press 1995 Jacket: 'After a brief historical outline, the book begins anew with the principles about which we are most certain, relativity and quantum mechanics, and then the properties of particles that follow from these principles. Quantum field theory then emerges from this as a natural consequence. The classic calculations of quantum electrodynamics are presented in a thoroughly modern way, showing the use of path integrals and dimensional regularization. The account of renormalization theory reflects the changes in our view of quantum field theory since the advent of effective field theories. The book's scope extends beyond quantum elelctrodynamics to elementary partricle physics and nuclear physics. It contains much original material, and is peppered with examples and insights drawn from the author's experience as a leader of elementary particle research. Problems are included at the end of each chapter. ' 
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Bostwick, Aaron, et al, "Observation of Plasmarons in Quasi-Freestanding Doped Graphene", Science, 328, 5991, 21 May 2010, page 999 - 1002. 'A hallmark of graphene is its unusual conical band structure that leads to a zero-energy band gap at a single Dirac crossing point. By measuring the spectral function of charge carriers in quasi-freestanding graphene with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we showed that at finite doping, this well-known linear Dirac spectrum does not provide a full description of the charge-carrying excitations. We observed composite "plasmaron" particles, which are bound states of charge carriers with plasmons, the density oscillations of the graphene electron gas. The Dirac crossing point is resolved into three crossings: the first between pure charge bands, the second between pure plasmaron bands, and the third a ring-shaped crossing between charge and plasmaron bands.'. back

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

Krauss, Lawrence M, Scott Dodelson, Stephan Myer, "Primordial Gravitational Waves and Cosmology", Science, 328, 5992, 21 May 2010, page 989 - 992. 'The observation of primordial gravitational waves could provide a new and unique window on the earliest moments in the history of the universe and on possible new physics at energies many orders of magnitude beyond those accessible at particle accelerators. Such waves might be detectable soon, in current or planned satellite experiments that will probe for characteristic imprints in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background, or later with direct space-based interferometers. A positive detection could provide definitive evidence for inflation in the early universe and would constrain new physics from the grand unification scale to the Planck scale.'. back

Minbiao, Ji, Michael Odelius, K J Gaffney, "Large Angular Jump Mechanism Observed for Hydrogen Bonds Exchange in Aqueous Perchlorate Solution", Science, 328, 5991, 21 May 2010, page 1003 - 1005. 'The mechanism for hydrogen bond (H-bond) switching in solution has remained subject to debate despite extensive experimental and theoretical studies. We have applied polarization-selective multidimensional vibrational spectroscopy to investigate the H-bond exchange mechanism in aqueous NaClO4 solution. The results show that a water molecule shifts its donated H-bonds between water and perchlorate acceptors by means of large, prompt angular rotation. Using a jump-exchange kinetic model, we extracted an average jump angle of 49 ± 4°, in qualitative agreement with the jump angle observed in molecular dynamics simulations of the same aqueous NaClO4 solution.'. back

Schneps, Matthew H, Alex Griswold, Nancy Finkelstein, Michele McLeod, Daniel P Schrag, "Using Video to Build Learning Contexts Online", Science, 328, 5982, 29 April 2010, page 1119 - 1120. 'An online course takes a systematic approach to teaching Environmental Science.'. back

Stefankiewicz, Artur R, Jeremy K M Sanders, "Harmony of the Delf-Assembled Spheres", Science, 328, 5992, 28 May 2010, page 1115-1116. 'Slight changes in the shape of organic molecules can dramatically alter the size of hollow spheres that form spontaneously upon addition of palladium ions.'. back

Sun, Qing-Fu, et al, "Self Assembled M₂₄L₄₈ Polyhedra and Their Sharp Structural Switch upon Subtle Ligand Variation.", Science, 328, 5982, 29 April 2010, page 1144 - 1147. 'Self-assembly is a powerful technique for the bottom-up construction of discrete, well-defined nanoscale structures. Large multicomponent systems (with more than 50 components) offer mechanistic insights into biological assembly but present daunting synthetic challenges. Here we report the self-assembly of giant M₂₄L₄₈ coordination spheres from 24 palladium ions (M) and 48 curved bridging ligands (L). The structure of this multicomponent system is highly sensitive to the geometry of the bent ligands. Even a slight change in the ligand bend angle critically switches the final structure observed across the entire ensemble of building blocks between M₂₄L₄₈ and M12L24 coordination spheres. The amplification of this small initial difference into an incommensurable difference in the resultant structures is a key mark of emergent behavior.'. back

Actus et potentia - Wikipedia, Actus et potentia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The terms actus and potentia were used by the scholastics to translate Aristotle's use of the terms energeia or entelecheia, and dynamis. There is no single word in English that would be an exact rendering of either. Act, action, actuality, perfection, and determination express the various meanings of actus; potency, potentiality, power, and capacity, those of potentia.' back

Albert Einstein - Wikipedia, Albert Einstein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was an ethnically Jewish German-born theoretical physicist. He is best known for his theories of special relativity and general relativity. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect."' back

Albigensian Crusade - Wikipedia, Albigensian Crusade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'When Innocent III's diplomatic attempts to roll back Catharism met with little success and after the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered (allegedly by an agent serving the Cathar count of Toulouse), Innocent III declared a crusade against Languedoc, offering the lands of the schismatics to any French nobleman willing to take up arms. The violence led to France's acquisition of lands with closer cultural and linguistic ties to Catalonia (see Occitan). An estimated 200,000 to 1,000,000 people were massacred during the crusade.' back

Alice Clement, Remembering Tilly Edinger, the pioneering ‘brainy’ woman who fled Nazi Germany and founded palaeoneurology, ' Tilly Edinger (1897–1967), a vertebrate palaeontologist from Frankfurt, Germany, founded palaeoneurology in 1921 by combining her unique training in geology and neurology. She was the first person to apply a deep time perspective to brain evolution, and consider endocasts from throughout the geological record as more than mere curiosities. But perhaps what is particularly remarkable is that Edinger pioneered this whole new field of research while living under an increasingly restrictive Nazi Germany, from where she was eventually forced into exile.' back

Annenburg Media, The Habitable Planet: A Systems Approach to Environmental Science, 'Course Overview The Habitable Planet is a multimedia course for high school teachers and adult learners interested in studying environmental science. The Web site provides access to course content and activities developed by leading scientists and researchers in the field.' back

Curvature form - Wikipedia, Curvature form - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In differential geometry, the curvature form describes curvature of a connection on a principal bundle. It can be considered as an alternative to or generalization of curvature tensor in Riemannian geometry.' back

David Fickling, How the Legacy of a Civil Rights Hero Was Dismantled in Australia, ' It took Australia two centuries to recognize that its first colonists didn’t arrive in a depopulated landscape. The aftershocks of that realization are still being felt. This week marks 29 years since one of the most important cases in Australia’s legal history. Mabo v. Queensland (No. 2), brought by a group of Indigenous activists led by Eddie Mabo to secure their rights to Mer Island in the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, rewrote the legal basis of land ownership in the country.' back

David Haworth, Friday essay: a rare bird — how Europeans got the black swan so wrong, ' Black swans never established large populations in the wild after being brought to Europe. It’s speculated this is because black animals were considered bad omens, in league with witches and devils, and often driven away or killed. Beliefs like these reflect the ancient assumption, found everywhere from the Dead Sea Scrolls to Star Wars, that darkness and the colour black represent evil and corruption, and that light and the colour white represent goodness and purity. Frantz Fanon once argued that “the colonial world is a Manichean world”, in which light and dark, white and black, and good and evil are starkly divided. These divisions have been deeply implicated in the histories of colonialism and racism — often with devastating consequences.' back

David Hilbert - Wikipedia, David Hilbert - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'David Hilbert (January 23, 1862 – February 14, 1943) was a German mathematician, recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He invented or developed a broad range of fundamental ideas, in invariant theory, the axiomatization of geometry, and with the notion of Hilbert space, one of the foundations of functional analysis. Hilbert adopted and warmly defended Georg Cantor's set theory and transfinite numbers. A famous example of his leadership in mathematics is his 1900 presentation of a collection of problems that set the course for much of the mathematical research of the 20th century. Hilbert and his students supplied significant portions of the mathematical infrastructure required for quantum mechanics and general relativity. He is also known as one of the founders of proof theory, mathematical logic and the distinction between mathematics and metamathematics.' back

David Von Drehle, Opinion: The SBC has bad, sexist theology. Of course bad culture follows., ' More than two years after the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News produced a devastating look at sexual abuse in the SBC [Southern Baptist Convention], the denomination has not taken the steps necessary to address the problem. Can that really surprise anyone? Men who believe that no woman’s voice should be heard in the pulpit, and that no woman should be trusted with authority, can hardly be expected to listen when women speak the truth about men in positions of power. Thus, bad theology begets bad policy, and bad policy begets moral decay.' 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

Kathleen Parker, Opinion: Russell Moore delivers an unflinching indictment of the Southern Baptist Convention, ' One SBC figure said to Moore in 2017: “We know we can’t take you down. All our wives and kids are with you. This is psychological warfare, to make you think twice before you do or say something.” Exposed within that threat is a nugget of unintentional insight: Women and young people are living a different reality than the overwhelmingly White and male SBC leadership, which also could be read as the Republican Party. A Venn diagram of both organizations would show not so much overlap as a near-perfect circle.' back

Klein-Gordon equation - Wikipedia, Klein-Gordon equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'It is the equation of motion of a quantum scalar or pseudoscalar field, a field whose quanta are spinless particles. It cannot be straightforwardly interpreted as a Schrödinger equation for a quantum state, because it is second order in time and because it does not admit a positive definite conserved probability density. Still, with the appropriate interpretation, it does describe the quantum amplitude for finding a point particle in various places, the relativistic wavefunction, but the particle propagates both forwards and backwards in time. Any solution to the Dirac equation is automatically a solution to the Klein–Gordon equation, but the converse is not true.' back

Minkowski space - Wikipedia, Minkowski space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In mathematical physics, Minkowski space or Minkowski spacetime is a combination of Euclidean space and time into a four-dimensional manifold where the spacetime interval between any two events is independent of the inertial frame of reference in which they are recorded. Although initially developed by mathematician Hermann Minkowski for Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, the mathematical structure of Minkowski spacetime was shown to be an immediate consequence of the postulates of special relativity.' back

Nina Khrushcheva, The case of Khrushchev’s shoe , ' New York: “Khrushchev? The one who banged a shoe?” Not again, I thought, as I was asked for the thousandth time whether I had seen pictures of the UN shoe incident. I hadn’t, in fact, and didn’t want to. For all these years, I have been slightly embarrassed by my grandfather’s uncivilised behaviour exposed the world over. Indeed, my whole family was, so we never talked about it. For the thousandth time, I make an apologetic smile and try to switch to another topic. The person insists, however. “Why haven’t you?” Indeed, why? After he was dismissed as premier in 1964, Khrushchev’s name was not officially mentioned for 20 years. As far as the authorities were concerned, the incident had never happened, and neither had Khrushchev.' back

Rick Sarre, Why have media outlets been fined more than $1 million for their Pell reporting?, ' There are many ways the law restricts media freedom in Australia, including laws regarding defamation. But contempt of court, seen here by the media’s breaching of a suppression order, is one of the more controversial mechanisms. It is, however, a limitation the courts impose regularly, and take very seriously.' back

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae > First Part, ' Because the doctor of Catholic truth ought not only to teach the proficient, but also to instruct beginners (according to the Apostle: As unto little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat—1 Corinthians 3:1-2), we purpose in this book to treat of whatever belongs to the Christian religion, in such a way as may tend to the instruction of beginners. We have considered that students in this doctrine have not seldom been hampered by what they have found written by other authors, partly on account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments, partly also because those things that are needful for them to know are not taught according to the order of the subject matter, but according as the plan of the book might require, or the occasion of the argument offer, partly, too, because frequent repetition brought weariness and confusion to the minds of readers.
Endeavouring to avoid these and other like faults, we shall try, by God's help, to set forth whatever is included in this sacred doctrine as briefly and clearly as the matter itself may allow.' back

Wang Xiangwei, China should allow a Covid-19 leak theory probe at Wuhan lab – if US does the same at Fort Detrick, ' If Beijing plays defensive it risks feeding Washington’s narrative that China has something to hide. Far better to go on the offensive. It is natural for the world to demand a definitive answer as to the origins of the coronavirus. For that, a hard look at not only China, but the US and the rest of the world, is needed.' back