Notes
[Notebook Turkey, DB 55]
[Sunday 13 January 2002 - Saturday 20 January 2002]
[page 30]
Sunday 13 January 2002
Monday 14 January 2002
Tuesday 15 January 2002
Wednesday 16 January 2002
Thursday 17 January 2002
Friday 18 January 2002
Saturday 19 January 2002
Governments
gain wealth and power by taxation. The spoils of power are first
plunder and second the power to tax, gaining more wealth. A
government risks losing its power, however, if it taxes too hard and
then fails to return sufficient services for its tax income. One of
the benefits of government is the symmetry that makes communication
and coherence possible in a nation.
Fritjof Capra The Tao of Physics. Capra.
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Related sites
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Further reading
Books
Click on the "Amazon" link to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)
Capra, Fritjof, The Tao of Physics: An exploration of the parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism, Shambala 1991 'First published in 1975, The Tao of Physics rode the wave of fascination in exotic East Asian philosophies. Decades later, it still stands up to scrutiny, explicating not only Eastern philosophies but also how modern physics forces us into conceptions that have remarkable parallels. Covering over 3,000 years of widely divergent traditions across Asia, Capra can't help but blur lines in his generalizations. But the big picture is enough to see the value in them of experiential knowledge, the limits of objectivity, the absence of foundational matter, the interrelation of all things and events, and the fact that process is primary, not things. Capra finds the same notions in modern physics. Those approaching Eastern thought from a background of Western science will find reliable introductions here to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism and learn how commonalities among these systems of thought can offer a sort of philosophical underpinning for modern science. And those approaching modern physics from a background in Eastern mysticism will find precise yet comprehensible descriptions of a Western science that may reinvigorate a hope in the positive potential of scientific knowledge. Whatever your background, The Tao of Physics is a brilliant essay on the meeting of East and West, and on the invaluable possibilities that such a union promises.' Brian Bruya
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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, "'Relativge 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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Feynman, Richard, Feynman Lectures on Gravitation, Westview Press 2002 Amazon Editorial Reviews
Book Description
'The Feynman Lectures on Gravitation are based on notes prepared during a course on gravitational physics that Richard Feynman taught at Caltech during the 1962-63 academic year. For several years prior to these lectures, Feynman thought long and hard about the fundamental problems in gravitational physics, yet he published very little. These lectures represent a useful record of his viewpoints and some of his insights into gravity and its application to cosmology, superstars, wormholes, and gravitational waves at that particular time. The lectures also contain a number of fascinating digressions and asides on the foundations of physics and other issues. Characteristically, Feynman took an untraditional non-geometric approach to gravitation and general relativity based on the underlying quantum aspects of gravity. Hence, these lectures contain a unique pedagogical account of the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity as the inevitable result of the demand for a self-consistent theory of a massless spin-2 field (the graviton) coupled to the energy-momentum tensor of matter. This approach also demonstrates the intimate and fundamental connection between gauge invariance and the principle of equivalence.'
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Gellert, Walter, and et al (eds), The VNR Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics , Van Nostrand Reinhold 1994 Preface: '... there is a wide demand for a survey of the results of mathematics ... Our task was to describe mathematical interrelations as briefly and precisely as possible. ... Colours are used extensively to help the reader. ... Ample examples help to make general statements understandable. ... A systematic subdivision of the material, many brief section headings, and tables are meant to provide the reader with quick and reliable orientation. The detailed index to the book gives easy access to specific questions. ...' The Editors and Publishers
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Hallett, Michael, Cantorian set theory and limitation of size, Oxford UP 1984 Jacket: 'This book will be of use to a wide audience, from beginning students of set theory (who can gain from it a sense of how the subject reached its present form), to mathematical set theorists (who will find an expert guide to the early literature), and for anyone concerned with the philosophy of mathematics (who will be interested by the extensive and perceptive discussion of the set concept).' Daniel Isaacson.
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Nielsen, Michael A, and Isaac L Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press 2000 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 Schrödinger '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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Stone, Irving, Lust for Life, Plume 1984 Amazon book desciption: 'LUST FOR LIFE is a fictionalized biography of the Dutch painter, Vincent Van Gogh and is based primarily on Van Gogh's three volumes of letters to his brother, Theo. Van Gogh was a violent, clumsy and passionate man who was driven to the extremity of exhaustion by his fervor to get life -- the essence of it -- into paint. Irving Stone treats the artist with great compassion and gives us a portrait that is sympathetic but fair.'
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Links
| Ergodic hypothesis - Wikipedia Ergodic hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'In physics and thermodynamics, the ergodic hypothesis says that, over long periods of time, the time spent by a particle in some region of the phase space of microstates with the same energy is proportional to the volume of this region, i.e., that all accessible microstates are equally probable over a long period of time.' back |
| Interpretation of quantum mechanics - Wikipedia Interpretation of quantum mechanics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'An interpretation of quantum mechanics is a statement which attempts to explain how quantum mechanics informs our understanding of nature. Although quantum mechanics has received thorough experimental testing, many of these experiments are open to different interpretations. There exist a number of contending schools of thought, differing over whether quantum mechanics can be understood to be deterministic, which elements of quantum mechanics can be considered "real", and other matters.' back |
| Lagrangian - Wikipedia Lagrangian - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'The Lagrangian, L, of a dynamical system is a function that summarizes the dynamics of the system. It is named after Joseph Louis Lagrange. The concept of a Lagrangian was originally introduced in a reformulation of classical mechanics known as Lagrangian mechanics. In classical mechanics, the Lagrangian is defined as the kinetic energy, T, of the system minus its potential energy, V. In symbols, L = T - V.
.
Under conditions that are given in Lagrangian mechanics, if the Lagrangian of a system is known, then the equations of motion of the system may be obtained by a direct substitution of the expression for the Lagrangian into the Euler-Lagrange equation, a particular family of partial differential equations back |
| No cloning theorem - Wikipedia No cloning theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'The no cloning theorem is a result of quantum mechanics which forbids the creation of identical copies of an arbitrary unknown quantum state. It was stated by Wootters, Zurek, and Dieks in 1982, and has profound implications in quantum computing and related fields.' back |
| Phase space - Wikipedia Phase space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'In mathematics and physics, a phase space, introduced by Willard Gibbs in 1901, is a space in which all possible states of a system are represented, with each possible state of the system corresponding to one unique point in the phase space. For mechanical systems, the phase space usually consists of all possible values of position and momentum variables. , , , back |
| Qubit - Wikipedia Qubit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'A quantum bit, or qubit . . . is a unit of quantum information. That information is described by a state vector in a two-level quantum mechanical system which is formally equivalent to a two-dimensional vector space over the complex numbers.
Benjamin Schumacher discovered a way of interpreting quantum states as information. He came up with a way of compressing the information in a state, and storing the information on a smaller number of states. This is now known as Schumacher compression. In the acknowledgments of his paper (Phys. Rev. A 51, 2738), Schumacher states that the term qubit was invented in jest, during his conversations with Bill Wootters.' back |
| Shangri-La - Wikipedia Shangri-La - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, "Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia—a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient. The story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in Tibetan Buddhist tradition' back |
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