Dauben (1990), Joseph Warren, Georg Cantor: His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite, Princeton University Press 1990 Jacket: 'One of the greatest revolutions in mathematics occurred when Georg Cantor (1843-1918) promulgated his theory of transfinite sets. . . . Set theory has been widely adopted in mathematics and philosophy, but the controversy surrounding it at the turn of the century remains of great interest. Cantor's own faith in his theory was partly theological. His religious beliefs led him to expect paradox in any concept of the infinite, and he always retained his belief in the utter veracity of transfinite set theory. Later in his life, he was troubled by attacks of severe depression. Dauben shows that these played an integral part in his understanding and defense of set theory.' 
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Gatlin (1972), Lila L, Information Theory and the Living System, Columbia University Press 1972 Chapter 1: 'Life may be defined operationally as an information processing system -- a structural hierarchy of functioning units -- that has acquired through evolution the ability to store and process the information necessary for its own accurate reproduction. The key word in the definition is information. This definition, like all definitions of life, is relative to the environment. My reference system is the natural environment we find on this planet. However, I do not think that life has ever been defined even operationally in terms of information. This entire book constitutes a first step toward such a definition.' 
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Hawking (1975), Steven W, and G F R Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge UP 1975 Preface: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity . . . leads to two remarkable predictions about the universe: first that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to our universe. Our discussion is principally aimed at developing these two results.' 
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Nicholls (2025), Jeffrey, Cognitive Cosmogenesis: A systematic integration of Physics and Theology, Austin Macauleyd his ideas quite cosmic. Three years later I discovered Bernard Lonergan, a Jesuit. Lonergan was a faithful Catholic who had set out to bring the the work of Aquinas into the twentieth century. Lonergan presented me with a new proof for the existence of God. I was not convinced. I read him a few more times and slowly became a heretic. I could no longer believe in the Catholic God. I said so, and after five years the Order let me go. Aquinas revolutionized theology by harmonizing it with the work of Aristotle, the best science available in the Middle Ages. Since the time of Galileo (1562 - 1642) modern science has travelled far beyond Aristotle. We now have comprehensive knowledge of the Universe. We can now see that it is big enough and beautiful enough to be considered divine. It seems obvious to me that it is time to introduce science to theology once again. Just three steps are required: First, we must assume that the Universe is divine. This makes God observable, amenable to modern science which is based on observation. Second, it follows, if this is the case, that physics and theology have the same subject and must therefore be consistent. The third step is to open up a new field of research, repeating Aristotle’s ancient journey from physics to theology. In this book I have tried to trace a quantum theoretical path from the unstoppable omnipotent emptiness of the initial singularity to the exquisite complexity of our world. My only guide is the logical constraint placed on omnipotence by consistency. 2025 ' More than 60 years ago my spiritual advisors (rightly or wrongly) diagnosed in me a divine call to the Roman Catholic priesthood. As soon as I turned 18 I entered the Dominican Order, I quickly fell on love with their leading theologian, Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1275) and read him voraciously. His Latin is so easy and his ideas quite cosmic. Three years later I discovered Bernard Lonergan, a Jesuit. Lonergan was a faithful Catholic who had set out to bring the the work of Aquinas into the twentieth century. Lonergan presented me with a new proof for the existence of God. I was not convinced. I read him a few more times and slowly became a heretic. I could no longer believe in the Catholic God. I said so, and after five years the Order let me go. Aquinas revolutionized theology by harmonizing it with the work of Aristotle, the best science available in the Middle Ages. Since the time of Galileo (1562 - 1642) modern science has travelled far beyond Aristotle. We now have comprehensive knowledge of the Universe. We can now see that it is big enough and beautiful enough to be considered divine. It seems obvious to me that it is time to introduce science to theology once again. Just three steps are required: First, we must assume that the Universe is divine. This makes God observable, amenable to modern science which is based on observation. Second, it follows, if this is the case, that physics and theology have the same subject and must therefore be consistent. The third step is to open up a new field of research, repeating Aristotle’s ancient journey from physics to theology. In this book I have tried to trace a quantum theoretical path from the unstoppable omnipotent emptiness of the initial singularity to the exquisite complexity of our world. My only guide is the logical constraint placed on omnipotence by consistency.  
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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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Streater (2000), Raymond F, and Arthur S Wightman, PCT, Spin, Statistics and All That, Princeton University Press 2000 Amazon product description: 'PCT, Spin and Statistics, and All That is the classic summary of and introduction to the achievements of Axiomatic Quantum Field Theory. This theory gives precise mathematical responses to questions like: What is a quantized field? What are the physically indispensable attributes of a quantized field? Furthermore, Axiomatic Field Theory shows that a number of physically important predictions of quantum field theory are mathematical consequences of the axioms. Here Raymond Streater and Arthur Wightman treat only results that can be rigorously proved, and these are presented in an elegant style that makes them available to a broad range of physics and theoretical mathematics.' 
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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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von Neumann (2018), John, and Nicholas A. Wheeler (editor), Robert T Beyer (translator), Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press 2018 ' Quantum mechanics was still in its infancy in 1932 when the young John von Neumann, who would go on to become one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century, published Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics--a revolutionary book that for the first time provided a rigorous mathematical framework for the new science. Robert Beyer's 1955 English translation, which von Neumann reviewed and approved, is cited more frequently today than ever before. But its many treasures and insights were too often obscured by the limitations of the way the text and equations were set on the page. In this new edition of this classic work, mathematical physicist Nicholas Wheeler has completely reset the book in TeX, making the text and equations far easier to read. He has also corrected a handful of typographic errors, revised some sentences for clarity and readability, provided an index for the first time, and added prefatory remarks drawn from the writings of Léon Van Hove and Freeman Dyson. The result brings new life to an essential work in theoretical physics and mathematics.' 
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Wilczek (2008), Frank, The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces, Basic Books 2008 ' In this excursion to the outer limits of particle physics, Wilczek explores what quarks and gluons, which compose protons and neutrons, reveal about the manifestation of mass and gravity. A corecipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, Wilczek knows what he’s writing about; the question is, will general science readers? Happily, they know what the strong interaction is (the forces that bind the nucleus), and in Wilczek, they have a jovial guide who adheres to trade publishing’s belief that a successful physics title will not include too many equations. Despite this injunction (against which he lightly protests), Wilczek delivers an approachable verbal picture of what quarks and gluons are doing inside a proton that gives rise to mass and, hence, gravity. Casting the light-speed lives of quarks against “the Grid,” Wilczek’s term for the vacuum that theoretically seethes with quantum activity, Wilczek exudes a contagious excitement for discovery. A near-obligatory acquisition for circulating physics collections.' --Gilbert Taylor  
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Abdelghany Sayed (20243_2_02) , Israel and the ICC: A legal scholar’s response to The Washington Post, ' The Post conceals that for decades, Israel has failed to hold to account its officials and members of its armed forces for crimes. These failures have been repeatedly documented by the UN and human rights organisations. The 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry, for example, addressed the “procedural, structural and substantive shortcomings, which continue to compromise Israel’s ability to adequately fulfil its duty to investigate”. Palestinian and Israeli NGOs have repeatedly scrutinised Israel’s tendency to whitewash its own crimes, and Amnesty International considered “an ICC investigation [to be] the only way” to uphold international law. These reports are in no way unknown or recent. Human Rights Watch, for example, has documented Israel’s failure to prosecute war crimes as far back as the 2014 war on Gaza, the second Intifada, the first Intifada and even the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, after which the Israeli government created the Kahan Commission to cover up then-Defence Minister Ariel Sharon’s responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The Post’s omission of these facts does not seem to be mere negligence. . . .. As a legal scholar, I have not come across any rigorously justified accusation against the court that it is biased against “elected leaders” of “democratic states”, as the Post suggests. US attacks on the ICC – starting with the 2002 Hague Invasion Act, which threatens US invasion of any state complying with an ICC arrest warrant for US citizens – have been crude expressions of US hegemony and unpolished thuggery. Israel itself has engaged in similar activities, as an investigation by +972 Magazine, the Local Call and The Guardian revealed in May. According to these publications, Israel ran a nine-year, state-orchestrated espionage and intimidation campaign against the ICC to shield its nationals from prosecution. In the end, even in its decision to proceed with prosecution in the Palestine file, the ICC is doing the bare minimum of what it should be. And it is not its “bias” – as The Washington Post argues – that compels it to act, but rather the Israeli conduct – its magnitude, degree of cruelty and unprecedented availability of conclusive evidence.' back

Alex Lo (2024_12_01), My Take | The West is reaping what it has sown in Ukraine and Palestine, ' For more than two years, we were told the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a challenge not only to Europe, but the West itself – and even a threat to the whole world by undermining fundamental political, security and moral principles. A victory for Moscow would be an existential threat to civilisation itself. This is, they said, a global problem. And so, if you don’t join us in our fight against evil, you are evil, too. Those “universal” messages warning against the new Hitler from Moscow were duly repeated, refined and amplified by the West’s leading media outlets. Now, though, those same holier-than-thou publications are running a very different message. There is a new party line from their paymasters. The new headlines read: “The least bad deal for Ukraine: How to make a success of peace talks with Vladimir Putin – The key is robust security guarantees for Ukrainians”; “Trump’s push for Ukraine peace finds growing acceptance in Europe”; “Zelensky: I’ll give up Ukrainian territory to Russia to achieve peace: President says for first time that his country could cede land temporarily in exchange for protection of a ‘Nato umbrella’ ”. To the last statement from the Ukrainian leader, the same British newspaper runs the following rhapsodic op-ed: “This is a political masterstroke by President Zelensky – Kyiv is signalling to Trump that it is willing to talk under the right conditions”. It may be worth pointing out that the same or even better peace settlement could have been obtained less than a month after war broke out in late February 2022 if only the United States and Britain didn’t scupper it. So many lives and suffering could have been spared. But no, both countries and their European allies thought the war could be an opportunity to collapse the Russian economy and oust Vladimir Putin. The economy actually expanded after the initial shocks from Western economic warfare, and Putin became even more powerful and popular at home.' back

Constant Méheut (2024_12_04), Stalin Silenced These Ukrainian Writers. The War Made Them Famous Again., ' In Ukraine, they are known as the “Executed Renaissance,” pioneering literary artists whose lives were snuffed out by Stalin’s brutal purges in the 1930s. Living together in an apartment building and embracing experimental art forms, these writers, poets and directors spearheaded a flourishing of Ukrainian culture and identity about a century ago. But that golden age was short-lived. The Soviet regime soon began to surveil, arrest and ultimately execute about half of the writers in an effort to stifle Ukrainian culture. For decades, their works were banned and their legacy nearly erased. Until now. In the face of Russia’s invasion, the story of the Executed Renaissance has been given new resonance as many Ukrainians seek to reclaim their cultural heritage. The lives of the writers are being told in a musical, a feature movie and a memoir. There is even a fashion line themed around them, with sweatshirts riddled with bullet holes to symbolize their killings. . . . But the story of the artists has particularly struck a chord with Ukrainians, because they have viewed it as a warning of what could happen if Ukraine loses the war: the silencing of their culture, once again. “What they seek in this story of the Executed Renaissance is the inspiration to keep fighting,” said Oleksandr Khomenko, the director of the musical. “They don’t want history to repeat itself". “These were truly gifted artists,” Ms. Pylypchuk said. “It was a pivotal period for Ukrainian culture.” But that all did not last. The Kremlin realized that promoting Ukrainian culture was driving Ukrainians away from the Soviet project rather than creating the kind of loyalty it had originally hoped for. Stalin complained about Mr. Khvyliovyi, who expressed his yearning for independence with a slogan that later became famous: “Away from Moscow!” In 1933, around the same time Moscow imposed a human-made famine on Ukraine known as the Holodomor, Stalin began a crackdown on Ukrainian culture. Slovo House, once a vibrant creative hub, became a deathtrap. The Soviet secret police began arresting the residents of Slovo House one by one. On May 13, 1933, Mr. Khvyliovyi gathered fellow writers in his apartment to discuss the situation. During the meeting, he went into his room and shot himself in the head. “Khvyliovyi did that to send a warning, to show what was coming,” said Taras Tomenko, the director of “Slovo House: Unfinished Novel,” a feature film about the artists’ residency that was one of the most-watched Ukrainian movies this year.' back

Hans A Bethe (1967_12_11), Energy Production in Stars, ' From time immemorial people must have been curious to know what keeps the sun shining. back

Jamie Pittock (2024_12_02), A $13 billion, 30-year flop: landmark study reveals stark failure to halt Murray-Darling River decline, ' Some A$13 billion in taxpayer dollars and 30 years of policy reform have failed to arrest the devastating decline in the health of Australia’s most important river system, the Murray-Darling Basin, new research shows. The four-year study released today involved 12 scientists from Australia’s leading universities, and draws on data from 1980 to 2023. It is the most comprehensive report card to date on government policies to protect the Murray-Darling. We found expensive and contentious reforms, including the once-vaunted Murray-Darling Basin Plan, have mostly failed to improve outcomes for people and nature along the river system. The result is deeply alarming for a natural asset so fundamental to Australia’s environmental, cultural and economic wellbeing. Here, we outline our findings, and present a plan to turn this situation around. . . . Historically, state governments have allowed too much water to be taken from the system, primarily to irrigate crops. This has caused extensive environmental damage such as toxic blue-green algae blooms, dramatic falls in bird and fish populations and undrinkable town water supplies, to name just a few. . . .. What’s more, colonisation dispossessed the nearly 50 Indigenous nations in the basin. They now collectively have rights over less than 0.2% of surface water in the river system. . . . When the basin plan was adopted, governments cut funding to the independent audit which monitored the river system’s environmental health. It was replaced with far less effective monitoring systems. . . .' For this study, we developed our own monitoring system. It involved 27 indicators of success across the themes of Indigenous, environmental and social wellbeing, economic performance and compliance with water laws. We used publicly available data spanning more than 40 years. . . .. Troublingly, we found that after more than a decade of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, 74% of success indicators were not met. This means there was either no improvement or worsening conditions. In particular, only two of 12 environmental indicators were met. . . . Urgent reform is needed to ensure Australian taxpayers get a return on their investment. We must ensure the Murray-Darling basin and the communities that rely on it can prosper in the decades ahead.' back

John T Psaropoulos (2024_12_02), Russia races ahead of NATO in weapons production for Ukraine war: SIPRI, ' New research shows that the revenues of Russia’s top defence contractors outpaced those of their United States and European counterparts last year, as they increased weapons production more effectively than their Western rivals. The figures, released today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its annual report on the world’s top 100 defence companies, raise questions about the West’s ability to supply Ukraine with the weapons it needs to defeat Russia’s invasion. While Russia’s leading defence firms enjoyed revenue growth of 40 percent, top US and European defence contractors’ revenues grew by 2.5 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, against a global average of 4.2 percent. Even though the nominal turnover of the top US and European defence contractors was larger by orders of magnitude – $317bn and $133bn respectively to Russia’s $25.5bn – SIPRI’s findings show that Russia has weaponised its economy more effectively in a time of war to meet supply challenges at the front. . . .. According to Joseph Fitsanakis, professor of intelligence and security studies at Coastal Carolina University, “Russian military production is currently outpacing that of the US and all of NATO member states combined. This may be hard to believe, but Russia is obligated to do it if it is going to outpace the support given to Ukraine. “Such gargantuan spending has essentially created a war economy, which has prevented the onset of a major economic recession,” Fitsanakis told Al Jazeera. ... The defence industrial base lies at the heart of Europe’s ability to help Ukraine, and the EU has made efforts to reinvigorate it. In June 2023, to deliver on a promise to provide Ukraine with a million artillery shells within a year, the EU passed the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP), pumping 500 million euros ($526m) into the production of artillery shells and explosives in the EU. The EU has also passed a separate act incentivising member states to buy critical defence articles such as ammunition and missiles jointly from EU suppliers. But the EU stumbled early this year, when its internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, failed to convince members to float a 100- billion-euro bond to supercharge investments in European defence industries.' back

Jordan Baker (2023_12_03), The abortion speech, the student walkout – and the Catholic civil war, ' High-profile conservative Catholic lawyers have warned the Australian Catholic University it faces losing its religious designation if it fails to defend the faith as church leaders split with university bosses in the fallout from an anti-abortion speech on campus. The warning follows a furious, six-page letter to ACU from Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher, who raised concerns about the ambivalence of the university’s commitment to its Catholic identity. The nine lawyers, including former NSW Coalition attorney general Greg Smith and former state Coalition finance minister Damien Tudehope, wrote to the ACU’s Senate on Tuesday saying their review of church law had made recommendations for the preservation of “the future Catholic identity of ACU” One was for an independent investigation – potentially from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education – into university leadership. The other was for Australian bishops to reconsider allowing the ACU to use the title Catholic in its name. “The Catholic community in Australia cannot ignore the ongoing crisis that decisions taken by the senior executive of ACU have caused for its Catholic identity,” the letter, written by members of the influential Catholic lawyers’ group, the St Thomas More Society, said. Simmering tensions over how an institution funded by taxpayers but overseen by the church should handle conflicts between church ideology and secular beliefs boiled over in October after a speech by former trade union heavyweight Joe de Bruyn at an ACU graduation in Melbourne. . . .. The ACU is overseen by a board of bishops but its per-student funding comes from government. It must compete against secular universities for a dwindling number of domestic students in a world in which fewer young people than ever subscribe to church teaching.' back

Mary Sirridge (1999), "Quam videndo intus dicimus": Seeing and Saying in De Trinitate XV, ' What is being asserted is that thought has the same form as seeing or speaking respectively, i.e., that it works essentially like seeing or speaking, that thought is a formal and functional isomorph of seeing or speaking.' back

Misha Gessen (2024_12_06), The Supreme Court Just Showed Us What Contempt for Expertise Looks Like, ' Shortly before allowing reporters into the main chamber of the Supreme Court for oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, a court employee asked us all if we needed to use a bathroom. The men’s room was right next door, the staff member said, and the women’s room down the hall. “Where should nonbinary people go?” one of the reporters asked. An uncomfortable back-and-forth followed. The staff person seemed not to understand the question. In the end, there was no answer. It just didn’t seem to compute. The exchange was more than casually relevant to the case the court heard that day. At issue in United States v. Skrmetti is a Tennessee law that bans treatments such as the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors. The Biden administration is arguing, among other things, that trans people constitute a “quasi-suspect class” — in layperson’s terms, a group of people who have been subjected to systematic discrimination. . . .. Tennessee passed its law, known as S.B.1, in March 2023. The American Civil Liberties Union and other rights groups sued on behalf of three Tennessee adolescents — two trans boys and one trans girl — and their families and one doctor. The kids had been benefiting from gender-affirming care; each had reportedly gained confidence, overcome distress and become much happier. Then the state banned their treatment. . . .. The ease with which legislators overrule doctors, and the relatively small amount of attention this overreach received during the Supreme Court hearing, are symptoms of our times. Just in the last few years, more than half the states have passed legislation that limits access to gender-affirming care. Many of the laws are at least as restrictive as S.B.1 — despite the medical profession’s opposition to total bans. Defying medical consensus is becoming something of a national pastime. Childhood vaccination rates continue their precipitous decline. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., vaccine skeptic and raw-milk proponent, is our secretary of health and human services designee.' back

Natasha Hurley-Walker (2024_12_02), Astronomers have pinpointed the origin of mysterious repeating radio bursts from space, ' Slowly repeating bursts of intense radio waves from space have puzzled astronomers since they were discovered in 2022. In new research, we have for the first time tracked one of these pulsating signals back to its source: a common kind of lightweight star called a red dwarf, likely in a binary orbit with a white dwarf, the core of another star that exploded long ago. A slowly pulsing mystery In 2022, our team made an amazing discovery: periodic radio pulsations that repeated every 18 minutes, emanating from space. The pulses outshone everything nearby, flashed brilliantly for three months, then disappeared. We know some repeating radio signals come from a kind of neutron star called a radio pulsar, which spins rapidly (typically once a second or faster), beaming out radio waves like a lighthouse. The trouble is, our current theories say a pulsar spinning only once every 18 minutes should not produce radio waves. . . . So how do a red dwarf and a white dwarf generate a radio signal? The red dwarf probably produces a stellar wind of charged particles, just like our Sun does. When the wind hits the white dwarf’s magnetic field, it would be accelerated, producing radio waves. This could be similar to how the Sun’s stellar wind interacts with Earth’s magnetic field to produce beautiful aurora, and also low-frequency radio waves.' back

No Other Land - Wikipedia, No Other Land - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' No Other Land is a 2024 documentary film directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor in their directorial debut. The film was made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four activists as an act of resistance on the path to justice during the ongoing conflict in the region. A co-production between Palestine and Norway, the film was selected for the Panorama section at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 16 February 2024, winning the Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary Film, and the Berlinale Documentary Film Award. Premise: A young Palestinian activist named Basel Adra has been resisting the forced displacement of his people by Israel's military in Masafer Yatta, a region in the West Bank, since he was a child. He records the gradual destruction of his homeland, where Israeli soldiers are tearing down homes and evicting their inhabitants. He befriends Yuval, an Israeli journalist who helps him in his struggle. They form an unexpected bond, but their friendship is challenged by the huge gap between their living conditions: Basel faces constant oppression and violence, while Yuval enjoys freedom and security.' back

Øystein Linnebo, Platonism in the Philosophy of Mathematics, 'Platonism about mathematics (or mathematical platonism) is the metaphysical view that there are abstract mathematical objects whose existence is independent of us and our language, thought, and practices. Just as electrons and planets exist independently of us, so do numbers and sets. And just as statements about electrons and planets are made true or false by the objects with which they are concerned and these objects' perfectly objective properties, so are statements about numbers and sets. Mathematical truths are therefore discovered, not invented.' back

Paul Adams (2024_12_06), Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. Now it's asking why, ' Under heavy grey skies and a thin coating of snow, hulking grey and green Cold War relics recall Ukraine’s Soviet past. Missiles, launchers and transporters stand as monuments to an era when Ukraine played a key role in the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons programme - its ultimate line of defence. Under the partially raised concrete and steel lid of a silo, a vast intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) peeks out. But the missile is a replica, cracked and mouldy. For almost 30 years, the silo has been full of rubble. The whole sprawling base, near the central Ukrainian city of Pervomais’k, has long since turned into a museum. As a newly independent Ukraine emerged from under Moscow’s shadow in the early 1990s, Kyiv turned its back on nuclear weapons. But nearly three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, and with no clear agreement among allies on how to guarantee Ukraine’s security when the war ends, many now feel that was a mistake. Thirty years ago, on 5 December 1994, at a ceremony in Budapest, Ukraine joined Belarus and Kazakhstan in giving up their nuclear arsenals in return for security guarantees from the United States, the UK, France, China and Russia. Strictly speaking, the missiles belonged to the Soviet Union, not to its newly independent former republics. But a third of the USSR’s nuclear stockpile was located on Ukrainian soil, and handing over the weapons was a regarded as a significant moment, worthy of international recognition. “The pledges on security assurances that [we] have given these three nations…underscore our commitment to the independence, the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of these states,” then US President Bill Clinton said in Budapest. . . .. Getting rid of the largest ICBMs, Oleksandr says, clearly made sense. In the mid-1990s, America was no longer the enemy. But Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal included a variety of tactical weapons, with ranges between 100 and 1,000km. “As it turned out, the enemy was much closer,” Oleksandr says. “We could have kept a few dozen tactical warheads. That would have guaranteed security for our country".' back

Rolf Landauer (1999), Information is a Physical Entity, 'Abstract: This paper, associated with a broader conference talk on the fundamental physical limits of information handling, emphasizes the aspects still least appreciated. Information is not an abstract entity but exists only through a physical representation, thus tying it to all the restrictions and possibilities of our real physical universe. The mathematician's vision of an unlimited sequence of totally reliable operations is unlikely to be implementable in this real universe. Speculative remarks about the possible impact of that on the ultimate nature of the laws of physics are included.' back

Sender et al (2023_10_23), The total mass, number, and distribution of immune cells in the human body, ' Abstract The immune system is a complex network of cells with critical functions in health and disease. However, a comprehensive census of the cells comprising the immune system is lacking. Here, we estimated the abundance of the primary immune cell types throughout all tissues in the human body. We conducted a literature survey and integrated data from multiplexed imaging and methylome-based deconvolution. We also considered cellular mass to determine the distribution of immune cells in terms of both number and total mass. Our results indicate that the immune system of a reference 73 kg man consists of 1.8 × 10^12 cells (95% CI 1.5–2.3 × 10^12), weighing 1.2 kg (95% CI 0.8–1.9). Lymphocytes constitute 40% of the total number of immune cells and 15% of the mass and are mainly located in the lymph nodes and spleen. Neutrophils account for similar proportions of both the number and total mass of immune cells, with most neutrophils residing in the bone marrow. Macrophages, present in most tissues, account for 10% of immune cells but contribute nearly 50% of the total cellular mass due to their large size. The quantification of immune cells within the human body presented here can serve to understand the immune function better and facilitate quantitative modeling of this vital system.' back

Whitehead and Russell (1910), Principia Mathematica, Jacket: 'Principia Mathematica was first published in 1910-1913; this is the fifth impression of the second edition of 1925-7. The Principia has long been recognized as one of the intellectual landmarks of the century. It was the first book to show clearly the close relationship between mathematics and formal logic. Starting with a minimal number of axioms, Whitehead and Russell display the structure of both kinds of thought. No other book has had such an influence on the subsequent history of mathematical philosophy .' back