natural theology > notes

Related sites

Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty

You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.

Ashby, W Ross, An Introduction to Cybernetics, Methuen 1964 'This book is intended to provide [an introduction to cybernetics]. It starts from common-place and well understood concepts, and proceeds step by step to show how these concepts can be made exact, and how they can be developed until they lead into such subjects as feedback, stability, regulation, ultrastability, information, coding, noise and other cybernetic topics'
Amazon back

Carroll, Lewis, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, 256 pages Publisher: Oxford University Press 2011 Book description: 'If you love a good story, then look no further. Oxford Children's Classics bring together the most unforgettable stories ever told. They're books to treasure and return to again and again. Join Alice as she heads down the rabbit-hole and into Wonderland, a world of mad tea parties and disappearing cats. Then continue as she journeys through the looking-glass to a place of strange logic and magical chess pieces. Alice never knows what will happen next . . . and neither will you!'
Amazon back

Feynman, Richard P, and Robert B Leighton, Matthew Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (volume 3) : Quantum Mechanics, Addison Wesley 1970 Foreword: 'This set of lectures tries to elucidate from the beginning those features of quantum mechanics which are the most basic and the most general. ... In each instance the ideas are introduced together with a detailed discussion of some specific examples - to try to make the physical ideas as real as possible.' Matthew Sands
Amazon back

Fleming, Ian, You Only Live Twice, Fine Communications; First Edition edition 1997 'When Ernt Stavro Blofield blasted into eternity the girl whom James Bond had married only hours before, the heart, the zest for life, went out of Bond. Incredibly, from being a top agent in the Secret Service, he had gone to pieces, was even on the verge of becoming a security risk. M. is persuaded to fgve him one last chance—an impossible mission far removed from his iuual duties—and Bond leaves for Japan, There, coming under the orders of the formidable "Tiger" Tanaka, Head of the Japanese Secret Service, the Koan-chosa-Kyoku, he is indeed subjected to the shock treatment his condition demanded. Shock treatment? The reader will also be subjected to its full measure in this, perhaps the most bizarre and doom-fraught of all James Bond's adventures.'
Amazon back

Greenberg, Karen R, and Joshua L Dratel, Anthony Lewis, The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Graib, Cambridge University Press 2005 Book Description: 'The Torture Papers document the so-called 'torture memos' and reports which US government officials wrote to prepare the way for, and to document, coercive interrogation and torture in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. These documents present for the first time a compilation of materials that prior to publication have existed only piecemeal in the public domain. The Bush Administration, concerned about the legality of harsh interrogation techniques, understood the need to establish a legally viable argument to justify such procedures. The memos and reports document the systematic attempt of the US Government to prepare the way for torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices, forbidden under international law, with the express intent of evading legal punishment in the aftermath of any discovery of these practices and policies.'
Amazon back

Kuhn, Thomas S, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, U of Chicago Press 1996 Introduction: 'a new theory, however special its range of application, is seldom just an increment to what is already known. Its assimilation requires the reconstruction of prior theory and the re-evaluation of prior fact, an intrinsically revolutionary process that is seldom completed by a single man, and never overnight.' [p 7]
Amazon back

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 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.
Amazon back

Souder, William, On Farther Shore: The Life and Legaxy of Rachel Carson, Crown 2012 'Published on the fiftieth anniversary of her seminal book, Silent Spring, here is an indelible new portrait of Rachel Carson, founder of the environmental movement She loved the ocean and wrote three books about its mysteries, including the international bestseller The Sea Around Us. But it was with her fourth book, Silent Spring, that this unassuming biologist transformed our relationship with the natural world. Rachel Carson began work on Silent Spring in the late 1950s, when a dizzying array of synthetic pesticides had come into use. Leading this chemical onslaught was the insecticide DDT, whose inventor had won a Nobel Prize for its discovery. Effective against crop pests as well as insects that transmitted human diseases such as typhus and malaria, DDT had at first appeared safe. But as its use expanded, alarming reports surfaced of collateral damage to fish, birds, and other wildlife. Silent Spring was a chilling indictment of DDT and its effects, which were lasting, widespread, and lethal. Published in 1962, Silent Spring shocked the public and forced the government to take action-despite a withering attack on Carson from the chemicals industry. The book awakened the world to the heedless contamination of the environment and eventually led to the establishment of the EPA and to the banning of DDT and a host of related pesticides. By drawing frightening parallels between dangerous chemicals and the then-pervasive fallout from nuclear testing, Carson opened a fault line between the gentle ideal of conservation and the more urgent new concept of environmentalism. Elegantly written and meticulously researched, On a Farther Shore reveals a shy yet passionate woman more at home in the natural world than in the literary one that embraced her. William Souder also writes sensitively of Carson's romantic friendship with Dorothy Freeman, and of her death from cancer in 1964. This extraordinary new biography captures the essence of one of the great reformers of the twentieth century. '
Amazon back

West, Morris L, Shoes of the Fisherman, 1988256 pages Amazon customer review: '. . . What makes this book and its attendant film so remarkable is that it was released a full decade before the election of another pope from the communist block. In the 1960s it was considered very shocking to consider a non-Italian pope, much less one coming from behind the Iron Curtain. This of course had the prophetic ring when Karol (not Kiril) from Poland became pope. Another prophetic instance is in the ecclesiastical trial of the radical theologian -- during his defense, this theologian even uses the words that later theologians would use, who were silenced by the Roman order, and who finally had to leave the church to remain true to their convictions in some instances. . . . ' Fr Kurt Messick
Amazon back

Papers

Holton, Gerald, "How the Jefferson Physical Laboratory came to be", Physics Today, 37, 12, December 1984, page 32. 'The first building in America dedicated to physics opened its doors 100 years ago: “furnished in the plainest possible manner, but provided with everything which intelligent forethought could plan.”'. back

Links

Aquinas 20 Summa I, 3, 7: Whether God is altogether simple? 'I answer that, The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways. First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His "suppositum"; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple. . . . ' back

Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - Wikipedia Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'The Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican (abbreviated to ACDF for Archivio Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei), commonly referred to as the Archive of the Inquisition (or more fully the Archive of the Inquisition and Index), contains the Catholic Church's documents dealing with doctrinal and theological issues related to church teaching. It also contains information on political trials that were carried out when the papacy had temporal power over the Papal States.' back

Born rule - Wikipedia Born rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'The Born rule (also called the Born law, Born's rule, or Born's law) is a law of quantum mechanics which gives the probability that a measurement on a quantum system will yield a given result. It is named after its originator, the physicist Max Born. The Born rule is one of the key principles of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. There have been many attempts to derive the Born rule from the other assumptions of quantum mechanics, with inconclusive results. . . . The Born rule states that if an observable corresponding to a Hermitian operator A with discrete spectrum is measured in a system with normalized wave function (see Bra-ket notation), then the measured result will be one of the eigenvalues λ of A, and the probability of measuring a given eigenvalue λi will equal <psi,|P_i|psi> where P_iis the projection onto the eigenspace of A corresponding to λ_i'. back

Decree against Communism - Wikipedia Decree against Communism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'The Decree against Communism is a 1949 Catholic Church document (by Pope Pius XII) which excommunicates all Catholics collaborating in communist organizations. The document resulted in one of the largest formal excommunications in the history of the Catholic Church (it could include more than several million Catholics).' back

Glyph - Wikipedia Glyph - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'A glyph . . . is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. For example, in most languages written in any variety of the Latin alphabet the dot on a lower-case "i" is not a glyph because it does not convey any distinction, and an i in which the dot has been accidentally omitted is still likely to be read as an "i". In Turkish however, it is a glyph, because that language has two distinct versions of the letter "i", with and without a dot.' back

Habeas Corpus Act 1679 - Wikipedia Habeas Corpus Act 1679 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'The Habeas Corpus Act 1679 is an Act of the Parliament of England (31 Cha. 2 c. 2)[2] passed during the reign of King Charles II by what became known as the Habeas Corpus Parliament to define and strengthen the ancient prerogative writ of habeas corpus, a procedural device to force the courts to examine the lawfulness of a prisoner's detention.' back

Homer - Wikipedia Homer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'In the Western classical tradition, Homer (. . . Ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος [hómɛːros], Hómēros) is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest of ancient Greek epic poets. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature. When he lived is unknown. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before his own time, which would place him at around 850 BC, while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th century BC. Modern researchers appear to place Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC.' back

Justin Romberg Nyquist Theorem The Connections Project, Rice University: 'The fundamental theorem of DSP [digital signal processing]' back

Normal distribution - Wikipedia Normal distribution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Normal distributions are extremely important in statistics, and are often used in the natural and social sciences for real-valued random variables whose distributions are not known.[1][2] One reason for their popularity is the central limit theorem, which states that, under mild conditions, the mean of a large number of random variables independently drawn from the same distribution is distributed approximately normally, irrespective of the form of the original distribution.' back

P versus NP problem - Wikipedia P versus NP problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'An answer to the P = NP question would determine whether problems that can be verified in polynomial time, like the subset-sum problem, can also be solved in polynomial time. If it turned out that P ≠ NP, it would mean that there are problems in NP (such as NP-complete problems) that are harder to compute than to verify: they could not be solved in polynomial time, but the answer could be verified in polynomial time.' back

Parmenides - Wikipedia Parmenides - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Parmenides of Elea (early 5th century BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, his only known work is a poem which has survived only in fragmentary form. In it, Parmenides describes two views of reality. In the Way of Truth, he explained how reality is one; change is impossible; and existence is timeless, uniform, and unchanging. In the Way of Opinion, he explained the world of appearances, which is false and deceitful. These thoughts strongly influenced Plato, and through him, the whole of western philosophy.' back

Pauli exclusion principle - Wikipedia Pauli exclusion principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'The Pauli exclusion principle is the quantum mechanical principle that no two identical fermions (particles with half-integer spin) may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. A more rigorous statement is that the total wave function for two identical fermions is anti-symmetric with respect to exchange of the particles. The principle was formulated by Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1925.' back

Planck constant - Wikipedia Planck constant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'The Planck constant (denoted h), also called Planck's constant, is a physical constant reflecting the sizes of energy quanta in quantum mechanics. It is named after Max Planck, one of the founders of quantum theory, who discovered it in 1900. . . . Planck discovered that physical action could not take on any indiscriminate value. Instead, the action must be some multiple of a very small quantity (later to be named the "quantum of action" and now called Planck's constant).' back

Trial by ordeal - Wikipedia Trial by ordeal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Trial by ordeal is a judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by subjecting him to an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience. Classically, the test is one of life or death and the proof of innocence is survival. In some cases, the accused is considered innocent if he escapes injury or if his injuries heal. .. . Priestly cooperation in trials by fire and water was forbidden by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 and replaced by compurgation, later by inquisition.[1] Trials by ordeal became rarer over the Late Middle Ages, often replaced by confessions extracted under torture, but the practice was discontinued only in the 16th century.' back

Notes

Sunday 17 March 2002

Monday 18 March 2002

Tuesday 19 March 2002

Wednesday 20 March 2002

Thursday 21 March 2002

Friday 22 March 2002

Saturday 23 March 2002

Further reading

Books

Papers

Links