Auyang (1995), 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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Feynman (1988), Richard, QED: The Strange Story of Light and Matter, Princeton UP 1988 Jacket: 'Quantum electrodynamics - or QED for short - is the 'strange theory' that explains how light and electrons interact. Thanks to Richard Feynmann and his colleagues, it is also one of the rare parts of physics that is known for sure, a theory that has stood the test of time. . . . In this beautifully lucid set of lectures he provides a definitive introduction to QED.' 
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Nielsen (2016), Michael A., and Isaac L Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press 2016 Review: A rigorous, comprehensive text on quantum information is timely. The study of quantum information and computation represents a particularly direct route to understanding quantum mechanics. Unlike the traditional route to quantum mechanics via Schroedinger's equation and the hydrogen atom, the study of quantum information requires no calculus, merely a knowledge of complex numbers and matrix multiplication. In addition, quantum information processing gives direct access to the traditionally advanced topics of measurement of quantum systems and decoherence.' Seth Lloyd, Department of Quantum Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Nature 6876: vol 416 page 19, 7 March 2002. 
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Omnes (2002), Roland, and Arturo Sangalli (translator), Quantum Philosophy: Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Science, Princeton University Press 2002 From Booklist 'Einstein and Aristotle meet and shake hands in this illuminating exposition of the unexpected return of common sense to modern science. A companion volume to Omnes' earlier Understanding Quantum Mechanics (1999), this book recounts—with mercifully little mathematical detail—how this century's pioneering researchers severed the ties that for millennia had anchored science within the bounds of clear and intuitive perceptions of the world. As an abstruse mathematical formalism replaced the visual imagination, scientists jettisoned normal understandings of cause and effect, of coherence and continuity, setting science adrift from philosophical conceptions going back as far as Democritus. But when theorists recently began to weigh the "consistent histories" of various quantum events, the furthest frontiers of science became strangely familiar, as rigorous logic revalidated much of classical physics and many of the perceptions of common sense. With a contagious sense of wonder, Omnes invites his readers, who need no expertise beyond an active curiosity, to share in the exhilarating denouement of humanity's 2,500-year quest to fathom the natural order. And in a tantalizing conclusion, he beckons readers toward the mystery that still shrouds the origins of formulas that physicists love for their beauty even before testing them for their truth. An essential acquisition for public library science collections.' Bryce Christensen 
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Piketty (2020), Thomas, Capital and Ideology, Harvard University Press 2020 ' Our economy, Piketty observes, is not a natural fact. Markets, profits, and capital are all historical constructs that depend on choices. Piketty explores the material and ideological interactions of conflicting social groups that have given us slavery, serfdom, colonialism, communism, and hypercapitalism, shaping the lives of billions. He concludes that the great driver of human progress over the centuries has been the struggle for equality and education and not, as often argued, the assertion of property rights or the pursuit of stability. The new era of extreme inequality that has derailed that progress since the 1980s, he shows, is partly a reaction against communism, but it is also the fruit of ignorance, intellectual specialization, and our drift toward the dead-end politics of identity. Once we understand this, we can begin to envision a more balanced approach to economics and politics. Piketty argues for a new "participatory" socialism, a system founded on an ideology of equality, social property, education, and the sharing of knowledge and power. Capital and Ideology is destined to be one of the indispensable books of our time, a work that will not only help us understand the world, but that will change it. 
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Rovelli (2017), Carlo, and Simon Carnell & Erica Sere (Translators), Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, Allen Lane Penguin 2017 ' Be prepared for your intellectual foundations to be vaporized . . . Carlo Rovelli will melt your synapses with this exploration of physical reality and what the universe is formed of at the very deepest level . . . Quantum gravity is so new that there aren't many popular books about it. You couldn't be in better hands than Rovelli, a world expert.' Tara Shears, The Times Higher Edcation 
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Veltman (1994), 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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Al Jazeera, Palestinians in Gaza can go to ‘tent cities’: Former Israeli minister, ' Former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has told Al Jazeera that people in Gaza should evacuate their residences and relocate to the Sinai Desert in Egypt, where temporary tent cities could be established for them, amid the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas. The interview has been shared widely on social media, with Ayalon receiving widespread criticism for his comments, which many said were a call for “ethnic cleansing”. . . .. On October 9, Israel announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, including the stoppage of fuel and gas deliveries, two days after fighters from Hamas carried out deadly attacks inside Israel. The decision to cut basic supplies to Gaza, which has already been under an Israeli siege for 16 years, was condemned by the United Nations, which said it was an act of “collective punishment” and prohibited under international law. . . .. In the first seven days of the war, approximately one million residents of Gaza have been forced to leave their homes, as reported by the United Nations agency assisting Palestinian refugees. Humanitarian organisations have described the conditions in the besieged coastal enclave as “dire” or “catastrophic”. Israeli air attacks have claimed the lives of more than 2,329 Palestinians, with 724 of them being children. Meanwhile, more than 1,300 Israelis, including 286 soldiers, have been killed.' back

Anant Gupta & Gerry Shih, India uses widespread internet blackouts to mask domestic turmoil, ' CHURACHANDPUR, India — During times of civil unrest and political turmoil, authorities around the world frequently cut access to the internet to control their populations and throttle the flow of information. The militaries in Sudan and Myanmar pulled the plug when they carried out armed coups in 2021. Iran flipped the switch when protesters flooded the streets following the death a year ago of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody. But the country that most frequently deploys the tactic is not an authoritarian state such as Russia or China, digital rights groups say. It is India. Between 2016 and this May, India accounted for more than half of all the shutdowns recorded worldwide by an international coalition of more than 300 digital rights groups led by Access Now, a nonprofit. On more than 680 occasions during that period, state and local officials in India issued legal orders requiring the country’s handful of telecommunication companies to suspend mobile data transmission from cell towers and freeze wired broadband connections. . . . In a report last year about the global use of blackouts, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that the practice infringes on basic rights of expression and may do more harm than good during times of upheaval. “The inability to access tools to document and rapidly report abuses seems to contribute to further violence, including atrocities,” the U.N. agency said. “Some shutdowns may even be implemented with the deliberate intent of covering up human rights violations.” Since May, when ethnic bloodshed erupted in Manipur state, in northeast India, the state government controlled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has enforced a draconian internet ban affecting the state’s 3 million people — one of the longest recorded shutdowns in the world — as violence between two ethnic groups spread from village to village, leaving more than 200 dead. In three visits to the remote, lushly forested state bordering Myanmar, Washington Post journalists saw how severing the internet — considered a modern necessity, almost a basic right by many — upended daily lives and livelihoods practically overnight. Countless workers found themselves out on the street, and hospitals, with online payment systems suspended, struggled to keep operating. Moreover, the internet shutdown shaped the Manipur conflict in profound ways. It allowed the BJP state government — and the state’s ethnic Meitei majority who control it — to dominate the public narrative about the turmoil. It impeded efforts by dissenters among the Kuki ethnic minority to spread their message and disseminate photo and video evidence of human rights abuses. And it effectively kept the roiling conflict, a stark challenge to the BJP’s leadership, behind a veil of invisibility.' back

Barry C. Barish (2002), The Science and Detection of Gravitational Waves, ' Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves as a consequence of the general theory of relativity. In his theory, changes in the shape of concentrations of mass (or energy) warp space-time, cause distortions that propagate through the Universe at the speed of light. However, no direct detection of such waves has yet been made. A new generation of detectors promises sensitivities that will be capable of detection from a variety of catastrophic events, such as the gravitational collapse of stars or the coalescence of compact binary systems.' back

Dennis Muller, How did the media perform on the Voice referendum? Let’s talk about truth-telling and impartiality, ' The rules by which politics are conducted have changed dramatically, especially since the rise of Trumpism. Yet the professional mass media continue to cover politics in ways that are no longer fit for purpose. This has created distortions in the way the public discourse unfolds – distortions that have been on full display during the Voice referendum debate. It presents a complex challenge to journalists and editors about how to simultaneously meet their obligations to truth-telling and impartiality, because there is now an unresolved tension between these two professional standards. Truth-telling requires that lies and misrepresentations are either not published or refuted; impartiality requires that voices on all sides of a debate be heard, especially if they are the voices of people in positions of influence. What happens, then, when influential voices on one side of a debate engage in obvious falsehoods? Take two examples from the Voice debate: Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s allegation that the Australian Electoral Commission had rigged the referendum outcome by accepting ticks but not crosses as indicative of voting intention, and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s claim that colonialisation has had a positive impact on First Nations Australians.' back

Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, Never in Oxfam’s history have we seen a humanitarian crisis like the one in Gaza, ' Much hope is being pinned on the opening of the Rafah crossing to allow aid into Gaza from Egypt. But 20 truckloads isn’t going to come close to addressing the humanitarian catastrophe we’re seeing unfold in this besieged strip of land. Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and other world leaders need to be calling for an immediate ceasefire and for unfettered, safe access for humanitarians to provide relief and repair essential services. Oxfam has been providing humanitarian relief for people caught up in war for decades. We do this in Somalia, Yemen and Syria, and we have been doing this in Palestine for decades. But what is happening in Gaza today is unprecedented. Elsewhere, my brave colleagues would be running relief services; in Gaza today they are running for their lives. Elsewhere, we would be in constant touch with them; in Gaza today their phones are running out of battery because electricity has been cut off. Elsewhere, we would share our location data with combatants to keep staff and civilians safe; in Gaza today, no one is safe. The humanitarian rulebook has been thrown out, and polite pleas from politicians to “minimise civilian fatalities” are naive at best, and at worst seem blind to the unimaginable horrors already taking place in Gaza. We do not know for sure who bombed the al-Ahli Arab hospital, but the loss of at least 500 lives is either evidence that a heinous war crime has been committed through deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, or it is proof that in a place as densely populated as Gaza it is utterly impossible to minimise loss of civilian life. As this descends into claims and counterclaims for responsibility, we can agree on one thing: it was not the fault of the vulnerable people and brave medical staff who were killed. The situation when it comes to water is potentially even more deadly. More than 2 million people, half of them children, are being denied one of life’s essentials; they are forced to drink dirty water or go without. Without working toilets and with waste accumulating in the streets, Gaza risks becoming a breeding ground for cholera and other deadly diseases.' back

Gemma Conroy, This is the largest map of the human brain ever made, ' Researchers have created the largest atlas of human brain cells so far, revealing more than 3,000 cell types — many of which are new to science. The work, published in a package of 21 papers today in Science, Science Advances and Science Translational Medicine, will aid the study of diseases, cognition and what makes us human, among other things, say the authors. The enormous cell atlas offers a detailed snapshot of the most complex known organ. “It’s highly significant,” says Anthony Hannan, a neuroscientist at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia. Researchers have previously mapped the human brain using techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, but this is the first atlas of the whole human brain at the single-cell level, showing its intricate molecular interactions, adds Hannan. “These types of atlases really are laying the groundwork for a much better understanding of the human brain." . . ... Kimberly Siletti, a neuroscientist now at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, and her team laid the cornerstone for the atlas by sequencing the RNA of more than 3 million individual cells from 106 locations covering the entire human brain, using tissue samples from three deceased male donors1. They also included one motor cortex dissection from a female donor that had been used in previous studies. Their analysis documented 461 broad categories of brain cell that included more than 3,000 subtypes. “I was surprised at how many different cell types there were,” says Siletti.' back

Georgina Mcllister, Gaza has been blockaded for 16 years – here’s what a ‘complete siege’ and invasion could mean for vital supplies, ' After 56 years of occupation and a 16-year blockade, the Gaza Strip (Gaza) is now subjected to what Israel’s defence minister described as a “complete siege”. Water, food, energy and fuel supplies have been severed as further retaliation for Hamas’s attacks. Gaza’s estimated 2.3 million citizens are used to struggle. And as a political ecologist researching food sovereignty in Gaza City and Khan Yunis, a city in southern Gaza, with local specialists, I’ve seen how the food system has already been stretched to breaking point. . . .. Email Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Print After 56 years of occupation and a 16-year blockade, the Gaza Strip (Gaza) is now subjected to what Israel’s defence minister described as a “complete siege”. Water, food, energy and fuel supplies have been severed as further retaliation for Hamas’s attacks. Gaza’s estimated 2.3 million citizens are used to struggle. And as a political ecologist researching food sovereignty in Gaza City and Khan Yunis, a city in southern Gaza, with local specialists, I’ve seen how the food system has already been stretched to breaking point. Gaza’s single power station has now ceased to function, as the current dark night skies – save for explosions – bear witness. Without fuel or electricity, farmers will be unable to pump water to irrigate crops, or to process and safely store food. Before the latest hostilities, 70% of Gaza’s households were already classified as “food insecure”, unable to afford their daily requirements. Two-thirds of people are refugees, reliant on UN aid. As a captive market, most of what is imported comes from Israel. Food and farming have long been complicated by repeated airstrikes, occupation and blockade. In good years, Gaza remains self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables, much produced in polytunnels and greenhouses. . . .. In 2008, strikes on Gaza’s largest sewage treatment plant resulted in 100,000 cubic metres of sewage being released into homes and farmland. Further strikes in 2018 resulted in discharges of raw waste into the Mediterranean threatening the fish stocks Palestinians depend upon. Just a few weeks ago, Gaza had eight wastewater pumping stations for sewage treatment, requiring 55,000 litres of fuel a month. An official I know at the mayor’s office tells me two of these were destroyed on the first day of Israel’s airstrikes. Without fuel to operate the ones that remain, a repeat of 2008 is already unfolding, with grave implications for ecosystem and human health. . . .. With each war, Gaza’s dependence on Israeli imports of water, energy, fuel, food and agricultural inputs only increases. Meanwhile, Israel’s economy has become intricately bound to its illegal occupation of Palestine, to the tune of exports worth US$4.16 billion in 2021, creating a perverse mutual dependence.' back

Halteres - Wikipedia, Halteres - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Halteres (from Ancient Greek: ἁλτῆρες, hand-held weights to give an impetus in leaping) are a pair of small club-shaped organs on the body of two orders of flying insects that provide information about body rotations during flight. Insects of the large order Diptera (flies) have halteres which evolved from a pair of ancestral hindwings, while males of the much smaller order Strepsiptera (stylops) have halteres which evolved from a pair of ancestral forewings.' back

Joel Benenson, Biden Has a Critical Advantage for 2024. He Should Make It Known., ' So what will it take for Mr. Biden to win? From both wins and losses, I’ve learned that there are three things every candidate needs to remember: Campaigns are about big things, not small things. Campaigns are about the future, not the past. And campaigns are about the voters’ lives, not the candidate’s.' back

John C. Eccles (1958), Innovation in Science: The Physiology of Imagination, ' Our task here is to see how far our present ideas on the working of the brain can be related to the experiences of mind. The way to the imagination, the highest level of mental experience, lies through the lower levels of sensory experience, imagery, hallucination and memory, and that is the path we shall traverse. All that we shall learn must itself, of course, be the product of perceiving, reasoning and imagining by our brains! back

Jonathan Freedland, Warning: Benjamin Netanyahu is walking right into Hamas’s trap, ' You cannot think straight when you’re in pain. That’s truer still when the pain is combined with fury at those who caused it. . . .. That was the message Joe Biden brought when he travelled to Israel this week. Drawing on his own experience of multiple bereavements, he consoled Israelis grieving for the more than 1,400 civilians killed by Hamas in the 7 October massacre and those waiting for word on the 203 hostages, including young children and the elderly, still held in Gaza. In what has become his signature style, Biden shared in their pain. But he also drew on his memory of how US leaders reacted to America’s collective trauma in September 2001, and here he offered something closer to a warning. “I caution you, while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11 we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.” He did need to spell out that, in its fury at al-Qaida, the US did not simply hunt down that one network, but invaded the country that harboured it, Afghanistan, and one that had nothing to do with it, Iraq – both with devastating, lasting consequences. After 9/11, the US declared a global “war on terror” that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, brought al-Qaida into places where it did not previously exist – Iraq among them – and birthed a new and even darker terror, in the form of Islamic State.' back

Mohamad Bazzi, Biden’s Israel trip reflects a deeply flawed and hypocritical foreign policy, ' Joe Biden flew to Israel on Wednesday to prove how deeply he and the US political establishment support Israel, even as it intensifies its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, demands the forced displacement of more than 1 million Palestinians, and prepares for a ground invasion of the territory. Biden could have paired his expressions of grief over the brutal attacks by Hamas on 7 October, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis, with pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza and an effort to prevent the fighting from spreading to other parts of the Middle East. Instead, Biden ended up doubling down on his administration’s unwavering support for Israel and its leaders. As Biden met with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and survivors of the Hamas attacks, the US ambassador to the United Nations vetoed a security council resolution calling on Israel to pause the fighting and allow humanitarian corridors into the besieged Gaza Strip. The resolution criticized the “heinous terrorist crimes by Hamas” but that wasn’t enough for US officials who insisted that the text was unacceptable because it failed to mention Israel’s right to self-defense. Biden also went out of his way to support Israel’s claim that it was not responsible for a devastating explosion at al-Ahli Arab hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday night, which killed 471 Palestinians and wounded hundreds. . . . .. “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” Biden told Netanyahu as they met with a group of journalists in a Tel Aviv hotel. While Biden tried to hedge his language, he didn’t explain that his own intelligence officials were still working to collect and analyze evidence.That Biden and his administration did not see this tragedy as an opening to pressure Israel for a ceasefire – or even to accept a watered-down UN resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause” – shows a deeply flawed and hypocritical US foreign policy. To prove that he is a great friend to Israel ahead of his re-election campaign in 2024, Biden is risking a wider war in the region – one that could draw in Hezbollah, whose fighters are already skirmishing with Israeli troops along Lebanon’s southern border; Palestinians in the West Bank; and possibly even Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah.' back

Nathan French, Hamas was unpopular in Gaza before it attacked Israel – surveys showed Gazans cared more about fighting poverty than armed resistance, ' Israeli President Isaac Herzog, meanwhile, suggested that all Gazans bore collective responsibility for Hamas. As a result, he concluded, Israel would act to preserve its own self-interest against Gaza and its people. The Biden administration, careful not to condemn the Israeli bombardment, has sought a broader approach toward the escalation. In an interview and on social media, U.S. President Joseph Biden observed that “the overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas’ appalling attacks, and [instead] are suffering as a result of them.” Such suffering, Biden noted, required the eventual lifting of the “complete siege” implemented by Israel against Gaza. In each example, politicians used their assumptions about Gazans to support their policies. But the people in Gaza experience these policies far differently. . . .. Though 2023 polling indicated that a majority of Gazans were opposed to breaking the ceasefire with Israel, Hamas moved forward with its October attacks against their popular will. The sense of desperation felt by El Qatta, and millions of other Gazans, risks becoming instrumentalized by Hamas. As Matthew Leavitt, a scholar and researcher of Hamas writes, Hamas sees politics, charity, political violence and terrorism as complementary and legitimate tools to pursue its policy goals. As Khaldoun Barghouti, a Ramallah-based Palestinian researcher, notes, the ongoing bombardment by Israel has softened Gazan frustration with Hamas – at least in the short term. Such attacks “turned blame to Hamas (over the attacks in Israel) into more anger toward Israel".' back

Ofir Winter, Hamas-Israeli conflict: what’s at stake for Egypt, ' Moina Spooner, from The Conversation Africa, asked Ofir Winter, who studies Egyptian politics and the Arab-Israeli conflict, to provide insights into what the new war means for Egypt and the role it plays. What’s been the relationship between Egypt and Israel and Palestine in the past? Egypt performs a balancing act in managing relations between Israel and Palestine. Egypt openly expresses its commitment to the Palestinian cause. This is because Palestine’s quest for self-determination is a central Arab and Islamic cause. Also, due to geographical proximity, any escalation in Gaza will have a direct impact on Egypt’s national interests. This position is reflected in its reaction to the outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas. Following the deadly killings and kidnappings of innocent Israeli civilians by Hamas earlier this month, Egyptian members of parliament and state-owned media, have portrayed Israel as the aggressor and Hamas as the victim. In accordance with past actions, Egypt can be expected to take several steps to demonstrate its solidarity with the Palestinians. These include; the provision of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, evacuation of some wounded to Egyptian hospitals, and increased role in mediation efforts for a ceasefire. These steps make Egypt a key actor in the conflict and would help strengthen its regional and international standing. However, Egypt also doesn’t want to alienate Israel. Ultimately, they have a mutual interest: they do not want to see the resurgence of political Islam in the region. This is linked to Egypt’s own experience of Islamist organisations.' back

Stephen McCarty, BBC’s Planet Earth III producers on working with ‘astonishing’ David Attenborough, and filming animals in a changing world, ' Planet Earth III, which also visits coasts, deserts, oceans, grasslands and man-made environments, most of them remote, in 43 countries, was five years in the making. On board throughout was the pre-eminent human star of the show: presenter David Attenborough. . . . “He is an astonishing man to work with,” adds fellow producer Fredi Devas. “He brings unbelievable integrity to the programme. He’s 97, so sharp, incredibly witty and really funny to be around. “His knowledge of the natural world is so impressive. It seems like every animal, any story, he knows about it already and knows the scientists we’re working with. “And he brings that authority – meaning when we deliver scripts to David and work through them, they must be fully fact-checked and watertight because we want him to be happy with what we’re doing.' back

Thomas L Friedman, Why a Gaza Invasion and ‘Once and for All’ Thinking Are Wrong for Israel, ' All these Islamist/jihadist movements — the Taliban, Hamas, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis — have deep cultural, social, religious and political roots in their societies. And they have access to endless supplies of humiliated young men, many of whom have never been in a job, power or a romantic relationship: a lethal combination that makes them easy to mobilize for mayhem. And that’s why, to this day, none of these movements have been eliminated once and for all. They can, though, be isolated, diminished, delegitimized and decapitated — as America has done with ISIS and Al Qaeda. But that requires patience, precision, lots of allies and alternatives that have legitimacy within the societies from which these young men emerge. . . . My bottom line? Just ask this question: If Israel announced today that it was forgoing, for now, a full-blown invasion of Gaza, who would be happy, and who would be relieved, and who would be upset? Iran would be totally frustrated, Hezbollah would be disappointed, Hamas would feel devastated — its whole war plan came to naught — and Vladimir Putin would be crushed, because Israel would not be burning up ammunition and weapons the U.S. needs to be sending to Ukraine. The settlers in the West Bank would be enraged. Meanwhile, the parents of every Israeli soldier and every Israeli held hostage would be relieved, every Palestinian in Gaza caught in the crossfire would be relieved, and every friend and ally Israel has in the world — starting with one Joseph R. Biden — would be relieved. I rest my case.' back

Thomas Piketty, Justin Pemberton, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, ' A visual adaptation of the eponymous economic treatise by Thomas Piketty, sold over 3 million copies worldwide, which deciphers the distribution of wealth and the increase in inequality since the 19th century. back

Topher L. McDougal, Gaza depends on UN and other global aid groups for food, medicine and basic services – Israel-Hamas war means nothing is getting in, ' International aid groups are warning that they cannot deliver food and other basic services to people in the Gaza Strip and that a “dire” humanitarian crisis is set to worsen. International aid groups provide food and other means of support to about 63% of people in Gaza. Israel stopped allowing deliveries of food, fuel and other supplies to Gaza’s 2.3 million residents on Oct. 10, 2023, and is reportedly preparing for a ground invasion. . . . .. Meanwhile, since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 8, more than 1,500 Gazans have been killed and more than 5,300 injured, while Hamas attacks have killed more than 1,300 people in Israel and injured about 3,200 others. International aid groups and European Union officials have called for a humanitarian corridor to be set up in Gaza – meaning a protected path specifically for civilians, aid workers and necessary basic items to pass through safely back and forth from Gaza to Israel and Egypt. So far, there are no clear plans for such a protected pathway.' back

W. F. McGrew et al, Atomic clock performance enabling geodesy below the centimetre level, ' The passage of time is tracked by counting oscillations of a frequency reference, such as Earth’s revolutions or swings of a pendulum. By referencing atomic transitions, frequency (and thus time) can be measured more precisely than any other physical quantity, with the current generation of optical atomic clocks reporting fractional performance below the 10⁻¹⁷ level. However, the theory of relativity prescribes that the passage of time is not absolute, but is affected by an observer’s reference frame. Consequently, clock measurements exhibit sensitivity to relative velocity, acceleration and gravity potential. Here we demonstrate local optical clock measurements that surpass the current ability to account for the gravitational distortion of space-time across the surface of Earth. In two independent ytterbium optical lattice clocks, we demonstrate unprecedented values of three fundamental benchmarks of clock performance. In units of the clock frequency, we report systematic uncertainty of 1.4 × 10⁻¹⁸, measurement instability of 3.2 × 10⁻¹⁹ and reproducibility characterized by ten blinded frequency comparisons, yielding a frequency difference of [−7 ± (5)stat ± (8)sys] × 10⁻¹⁹, where ‘stat’ and ‘sys’ indicate statistical and systematic uncertainty, respectively. Although sensitivity to differences in gravity potential could degrade the performance of the clocks as terrestrial standards of time, this same sensitivity can be used as a very sensitive probe of geopotential. Near the surface of Earth, clock comparisons at the 1 × 10⁻¹⁸ level provide a resolution of one centimetre along the direction of gravity, so the performance of these clocks should enable geodesy beyond the state-of-the-art level. These optical clocks could further be used to explore geophysical phenomena, detect gravitational waves, test general relativity and search for dark matter.' back