Axelrod (2006), Robert, The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books, Revised Edition 2006 'The Evolution of Cooperation provides valuable insights into the age-old question of whether unforced cooperation is ever possible. Widely praised and much-discussed, this classic book explores how cooperation can emerge in a world of self-seeking egoists-whether superpowers, businesses, or individuals-when there is no central authority to police their actions. The problem of cooperation is central to many different fields. Robert Axelrod recounts the famous computer tournaments in which the “cooperative” program Tit for Tat recorded its stunning victories, explains its application to a broad spectrum of subjects, and suggests how readers can both apply cooperative principles to their own lives and teach cooperative principles to others.' 
Amazon   back

Everett III (1973), 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.' 
Amazon   back

Petroski (2002), Henry, Success Through Failure: The Paradox of Design, Princeton University Press 2006 Amazon editorial review: 'Civil engineer and historian Petroski interprets the 1940 collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge as a cautionary tale for designers. That bridge failed because engineers made it by enlarging a previously successful idea. Wise designers, Petroski insists, must always contemplate the possibility of failure. Indeed, it is usually failure that spurs designers on toward improved blueprints. Failure-induced improvement may mean merely that lecturers can use a laser pointer in place of a yardstick, but it may also mean that physicians can turn to lifesaving diagnostic software far superior to fallible human protocols. The potential for failure manifests itself before the event to those designers blessed with prescience, but often improvements are only implemented in the wake of actual failures. From ancient Roman engineers dismayed at the failure of stone-arch bridges to twenty-first-century American architects stunned by the collapse of the Twin Towers, designers have frequently learned valuable principles through hard tutelage. Lucid and concise, this study invites nonspecialists to share in the challenge of trial-and-error engineering.' Bryce Christensen Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved  
Amazon   back

Rousseau (2002), Jean-Jacques, and Susan Dunn (Editor), Gita May, Robert N. Bellah, David Bromwich & Conor Cruise O'Brien, The Social Contract and The First and Second Discourses, Yale UP 2002 Jacket: 'Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas about society, culture and government are pivotal in the history of political thought. His works are as controversial as they are relevant today. This volume brings together three of Rousseau's most important political writings — The Social Contract and The First Discourse (Discourse on the Sciences and Arts and The Second Discourse (Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality) — and presents essays by major scholars that shed light on the dimensions and implications of these texts (Susan Dunn (Editor), Gita May, Robert N. Bellah, David Bromwich & Conor Cruise O'Brien).' 
Amazon   back

April Zhang, Superstition or fact? What Chinese zodiac predictions really tell us, ' The belief in universal flux underpins another belief that runs deep in Chinese history: we all have a chance at success. China’s feudal system collapsed more than 2,000 years ago with the abolishing of hereditary regional lords and masters, allowing commoners to become generals and state ministers. The only hereditary ruler left was the emperor – but even this could change. And nobodies could start new dynasties. The first such “nobody” founded the Han dynasty. His uprising upended a long tradition of rule by hereditary nobles.Thus, from very early on, meritocracy mattered in China. The belief that fate can be changed by effort is behind the traditional emphasis on education and hard work. This is reflected in Chinese zodiac predictions, which are, after all, full of advice on what to do.' back

Benediction (film) - Wikipedia, Benediction (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Benediction is a 2021 biographical romantic drama film written and directed by Terence Davies. It stars Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi as the war poet Siegfried Sassoon, along with Simon Russell Beale, Jeremy Irvine, Kate Phillips, Gemma Jones, and Ben Daniels. Benediction was Davies' final film before his death in October 2023.[6] The film was released in United Kingdom on 20 May 2022 by Vertigo Releasing and United States on 3 June 2022 by Roadside Attractions.
Synopsis The film follows the life of Siegfried Sassoon, a British poet and decorated World War I combat veteran who was sent to a psychiatric facility for his anti-war stance. He had love affairs with several men during the 1920s, married, had a son, and converted to Catholicism. back

Edward Armstrong, The Sahara Desert used to be a green savannah – new research explains why, ' Algeria’s Tassili N’Ajjer plateau is Africa’s largest national park. Among its vast sandstone formations is perhaps the world’s largest art museum. Over 15,000 etchings and paintings are exhibited there, some as much as 11,000 years old according to scientific dating techniques, representing a unique ethnological and climatological record of the region. Curiously, however, these images do not depict the arid, barren landscape that is present in the Tassili N'Ajjer today. Instead, they portray a vibrant savannah inhabited by elephants, giraffes, rhinos and hippos. This rock art is an important record of the past environmental conditions that prevailed in the Sahara, the world’s largest hot desert. These images depict a period approximately 6,000-11,000 years ago called the Green Sahara or North African Humid Period. . . .. This greening of the Sahara didn’t happen once. Using marine and lake sediments, scientists have identified over 230 of these greenings occurring about every 21,000 years over the past eight million years. These greening events provided vegetated corridors which influenced species’ distribution and evolution, including the out-of-Africa migrations of ancient humans. . . ... The third Milankovitch cycle is precession. This concerns Earth’s wobble on its axis, which varies on a 21,000 year timescale. The similarity between the precession cycle and the timing of the humid periods indicates that precession is their dominant driver. Precession influences seasonal contrasts, increasing them in one hemisphere and reducing them in another. During warmer Northern Hemisphere summers, a consequent increase in north African summer rainfall would have initiated a humid phase, resulting in the spread of vegetation across the region.' back

Feynman diagram - Wikipedia, Feynman diagram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In theoretical physics, Feynman diagrams are pictorial representations of the mathematical expressions describing the behavior of subatomic particles. The scheme is named after its inventor, American physicist Richard Feynman, and was first introduced in 1948. The interaction of sub-atomic particles can be complex and difficult to understand intuitively. Feynman diagrams give a simple visualization of what would otherwise be an arcane and abstract formula. As David Kaiser writes, "since the middle of the 20th century, theoretical physicists have increasingly turned to this tool to help them undertake critical calculations", and so "Feynman diagrams have revolutionized nearly every aspect of theoretical physics".' back

Frew, Aguiliar-Tigueros, Powell, Weinberger & Watts-Fawkes, If plants can pick fungi to help fight pests and diseases, it opens a door to greener farming and ecosystem recovery, ' Just beneath your feet, an ancient and silent alliance endures. This alliance between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi is one of the oldest biological partnerships on Earth. Going back almost half-a-billion years, this relationship paved the way for plants to make it onto land. These early plants, simple and without the complex root systems of plants today, forged an alliance with fungi. This alliance has been instrumental to the evolution of plant life and has helped shape our ecosystems. These fungi grow into roots where the plants supply them with the carbon (as sugar and fat) they need to survive. The fungi extend thin root-like threads called mycelia into the soil to make expansive networks that can access nutrients beyond the reach of plant roots. But these hidden microbes do more than just help plants get nutrients. Plants are constantly dealing with insect pests and diseases, and have done for a long time. To deal with this, they evolved sophisticated defences. AM fungi can dramatically enhance these defences. . . . Knowing how plants select fungal allies would pave the way for better-defended crops, reducing the need to apply synthetic pesticides. It would open up exciting possibilities for helping ecosystems recover and thrive. The possibility that plants can identify and select fungi based on the benefits they derive opens up exciting new frontiers in ecological research. As we explore these underground interactions, we inch closer to harnessing the potential of one of the Earth’s oldest symbioses. It is a reminder of the complex relationships that maintain life on the planet, connections that are as important today as they were 500 million years ago when the first plants reached for the sun above and the fungi below.' back

Josiah Willard Gibbs - Wikipedia, Josiah Willard Gibbs - Wikipedia, the free encycloepdai, ' Josiah Willard Gibbs (February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American scientist who made significant theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in transforming physical chemistry into a rigorous inductive science. Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics as consequences of the statistical properties of ensembles of the possible states of a physical system composed of many particles. . . .. According to Robert A. Millikan, in pure science, Gibbs "did for statistical mechanics and thermodynamics what Laplace did for celestial mechanics and Maxwell did for electrodynamics, namely, made his field a well-nigh finished theoretical structure".' back

Joy Haja, Opinion: Remembering the man made of words, ' The passing of an icon leaves an opening. Around it, we place symbols of our grief: flowers, songs, tributes and tears. There are always words, and his words were what placed N. Scott Momaday of the Kiowa Nation in a place of high esteem in American and world literature, in a place of honor by indigenous communities of this country. . . .. In his brilliant, ground-breaking novel “House Made of Dawn,” awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1969, Momaday found a way to move eloquently between oral storytelling forms and the written English novel form. The trajectory of the book moves from sunrise to sunrise, making a circle — a story structure recognizable in indigenous oral traditions, yet following traditional American literary shape and expectations of a novel. The title is drawn directly from the traditional literature of the Diné people. . . .. I leave these words as a tribute to a father, a grandfather, of contemporary Kiowa, Native, American and world literature and art, in gratitude for making a door that wasn’t there in the generations that preceded him. It took bravery, imagination, listening to what isn’t always heard and, most of all, a great love of the word and how it can and will remake us. back

Mansur Mirovalev, ‘God of war’: Russian Orthodox Church stands by Putin, but at what cost?, ' A masked, uniformed, gun-toting soldier has the letter Z, a Kremlin-approved symbol of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on his shoulder. Jesus Christ, frail and devoid of aggression, is portrayed right behind him. Both are depicted on the billboard that reads “Christ triumphed over hell, and Russia will too”. This image is part of an outdoor art exhibition in central Moscow that urges Russian men to enlist. Moscow Patriarch Kirill, head of the world’s largest Orthodox Christian Church whose clout transcends Russia’s borders to believers in former Soviet republics and diasporas, has defended the Kremlin’s “right” to start the war. Russia has “the right to stand on the side of light, on the side of God’s truth”, he said days after the invasion began in February 2022. The white-bearded 78-year-old known for his eloquence and business acumen promised eternal salvation to Russian servicemen fighting in Ukraine against “corrupting” Western values.' back

Norbert Wiener (1950), The Human Use of Human Beings, ' Norbert Wiener (1894- 1964), Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1919 onwards, wrote numerous books on mathematics and engineering. Having de veloped methods useful to the military during World War Two, he later refused to do such work during the Cold War, while proposing non-military models of cybernetics. back

Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem - Wikipedia, Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In the field of digital signal processing, the sampling theorem is a fundamental bridge between continuous-time signals (often called "analog signals") and discrete-time signals (often called "digital signals"). It establishes a sufficient condition for a sample rate that permits a discrete sequence of samples to capture all the information from a continuous-time signal of finite bandwidth.' back

Orlando (film) - Wikipedia, Orlando (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Orlando is a 1992 British period drama film loosely based on Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography, starring Tilda Swinton as Orlando, Billy Zane as Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, and Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth I. It was written and directed by Sally Potter, who also co-wrote the music for the film (with David Motion). Potter chose to film much of the Constantinople portion of the book in the isolated city of Khiva in Uzbekistan, and made use of the forest of carved columns in the city's 18th century Djuma Mosque. Critics praised the film, and particularly applauded its visual treatment of the settings of Woolf's novel.' back

Photosynthesis - Wikipedia, Photosynthesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms' activities. . . . Most plants, most algae, and cyanobacteria perform photosynthesis; such organisms are called photoautotrophs. Photosynthesis is largely responsible for producing and maintaining the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere, and supplies most of the energy necessary for life on Earth.' back

Principle of individuation - Wikipedia, Principle of individuation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The principle of individuation is a criterion that individuates or numerically distinguishes the members of the kind for which it is given, that is by which we can supposedly determine, regarding any kind of thing, when we have more than one of them or not. It is also known as a 'criterion of identity' or 'indiscernibility principle'. The history of the consideration of such a principle begins with Aristotle. It was much discussed by the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus (c. 1266–1308) with his "haecceity" and later, during Renaissance, by Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), Bonaventure Baron (1610–1696) and Leibniz (1646–1716). back

Ryan Raul Bañagale , George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is a story of jazz, race and the fraught notion of America’s melting pot, ' February 12, 1924, was a frigid day in New York City. But that didn’t stop an intrepid group of concertgoers from gathering in midtown Manhattan’s Aeolian Hall for “An Experiment in Modern Music.” The organizer, bandleader Paul Whiteman, wanted to show how jazz and classical music could come together. So he commissioned a new work by a 25-year-old Jewish-American upstart named George Gershwin. Gershwin’s contribution to the program, “Rhapsody in Blue,” would go on to exceed anyone’s wildest expectations, becoming one of the best-known works of the 20th century. Beyond the concert hall, it would appear in iconic films such as Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” and Disney’s “Fantasia 2000.” It was performed during the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and if you ever fly on United Airlines, you’ll hear it playing during the preflight safety videos. I’ve spent nearly two decades researching and writing about this piece. To me, “Rhapsody” isn’t some static composition stuck in the past; rather, it’s a continuously evolving piece of music whose meaning has changed over time. Programming “Rhapsody” for concerts today has become somewhat of a double-edged sword. A century after it premiered, it remains a crowd favorite – and almost always guarantees a sold-out show. But more and more scholars are starting to see the work as a whitewashed version of Harlem’s vibrant Black music scene. back

Scholasticism - Wikipedia, Scholasticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics ("scholastics," or "schoolmen") of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100 to 1700, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending dogma in an increasingly pluralistic context. It originated as an outgrowth of, and a departure from, Christian monastic schools at the earliest European universities. . . . .' back

Vita & Virginia - Wikipedia, Vita & Virginia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Vita & Virginia is a 2018 biographical romantic drama film directed by Chanya Button. The screenplay, written by Button and Eileen Atkins, is adapted from the 1992 play Vita & Virginia by Atkins. The film stars Gemma Arterton, Elizabeth Debicki, and Isabella Rossellini. Set in the 1920s, Vita & Virginia tells the story of the love affair between Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf.' back

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Magic Flute, SOLOISTS: Josef Köstlinger: Tamino (Prince, an ideal, square-jawed): Tenor Irma Urrila: Pamina (Princess, daughter of Sarastro and Queen of the night): Soprano Three Ladies: Britt-Marie Aruhn: Soprano; Birgitta Smiding: Mezzo-Soprano; Kirsten Vaupe: Soprano Håkan Hagegård: Papageno (a charming bird catcher): Baritone Birgit Nordin: Queen of the Night (Pamina's mother, a beautifully manipulative queen): Soprano Ragnar Ulfung: Monostatos (armor, guard): Tenor Ulrik Cold: Sarastro (Pamina's father, the sorcerer): Bass Elisabeth Erikson: Papagena: Soprano Priests: Sixten Fark, Arne Hendriksen, Sven-Erik Jacobsson, Ulf Johansson, Folke Jonsson Young boys : Ansgar Krook; Urban Malmberg: Erland von Heijne Orator : Erik Saedén back