Notes

[Notebook: Transfinite field theory DB 56]

[Sunday 9 May 2004 - Saturday 15 May 2004]

Sunday 9 May 2004

[page 76]

Monday 10 May 2004

The peacekeeping function of the free market is this: that anybody who feels he is on a bad deal can withdraw his value (at a profit or loss) and invest in a better deal. This has brought peace among the barons (no small achievement), but still leaves a big gap between the barons and the serfs [who are often not free to move].

Tuesday 11 May 2004

A Zee Quantum Field Theory. Zee.

Zee page 3: 'Quantum field theory arose out of our need to describe the ephemeral nature of life.' It fits perfectly to the network model where the most general characterization is a statistical model of the making and breaking of links between the nodes [eg electron changing energy levels] A 'measurement' is the same as 'a communication'. A correlation is established.

We define communication events by two variables, an ordered set that carries some information, and a relative frequency which tells us how often this particular connection is made and between whom. Thus the fundamental particle zoo communicate, correlate and transform one another.

'It is in the peculiar confluence of special relativity and quantum mechanics that a new set of phenomena arises: particles can be be born, and particles can die. It is this matter of birth, life and death that requires the development of a new subject in physics, that of quantum field theory.'

. . .

Wednesday 12 May 2004

Thursday 13 May 2004

Friday 14 May 2004

Saturday 15 May 2004

Related sites

Concordat Watch

Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty

---

Copyright:

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

---

Further reading

Books

Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)

Brandt, Siegmund, and Hans Dieter Dahmen, The Picture Book of Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag 1995 Jacket: 'This book is an introduction to the basic concepts and phenomena of quantum mechanics. Computer-generated illustrations are used extensively throughout the text, helping to establish the relation between quantum mechanics on one side and classical physics ... on the other side. Even more by studying the pictures in parallel with the text, readers develop an intuition for notoriously abstract quantum phenomena ...'  Amazon   back

Churchill, Winston S, Arms and the Covenant: Speeches on Foreign Affairs andNational Defence, George G. Harrap And Co. Ltd 1938 ' The precursor to Churchill's great war speeches. A collection of speeches spanning the years 1928 to 1938 criticizing British foreign policy and warning prophetically of the coming danger. Churchill bibliographer Frederick Woods called this book "probably the most crucial volume of speeches that he ever published."' Churchill Book Collector  Amazon   back

Cummins, Denise Dellarosa, and Colin Allen (editors), The Evolution of Mind, Oxford University Press 1998 Introduction: 'This book is an interdisciplinary endeavour, a collection of essays by ethologists, psychologists, anthropologists and philosophers united in the common goal of explaining cognition. . . . the chief challenge is to make evolutionary psychology into an experimental science. Several of the chapters in this volume describe experimental techniques and results consistent with this aim; our hope and intention is that they lead by example in the development of evolutionary psychology from the realm of speculation to that of established research program'  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

Gatlin, 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 towar dsuch a definition.'  Amazon   back

Horgan, John, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age, Little Brown and Co 1996 Amazon Editorial Review From Publishers Weekly 'Scientific American columnist Horgan here interviews an impressive array of scientists and philosophers, who seem sharply divided over the prospects and possibilities of science. Among the pessimists, molecular biologist Gunther Stent suggests that science is reaching a point of incremental, diminishing returns as it comes up against the limits of knowledge; philosopher Thomas Kuhn sees science as a nonrational process that does not converge with truth; Vienna-born thinker Paul Feyerabend objects to science's pretensions to certainty and its potential to stamp out the diversity of human thought and culture. More optimistic are particle physicist Edward Witten, pioneer of superstring theory (which posits a Universe of 10 dimensions); robotics engineer Hans Moravec, who envisions superintelligent creative robots; and physicist Roger Penrose, who theorizes that quantum effects percolating through the brain underlie consciousness. Other interviewees are Francis Crick, Noam Chomsky, David Bohm, Karl Popper, Murray Gell-Mann, Sheldon Glashow, Ilya Prigogine and Clifford Geertz. Despite the dominant doomsaying tone, this colloquium leaves much room for optimism.' Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.  Amazon   back

Knightley, Phillip, Phiulby: KGB Master Spy, 304 pages Publisher: Pan Books (November 10, 1989) ISBN-10: 0330307533 ISBN-13: 978-0330307536 1989 Back Cover: 'The name Kim Philby has become synonymous with the most amazing exploits in the history of espionage. Agent, double agent, traitor, enigma. Few knew the real man behind the impenetrable facade that for years fooled British Intelligence, the CIA and the FBI. After Philby defected to Russio in 1968 he maintained a code of silence for 25 years - until a few weeks before his death. Then, in an unprecedented move, he invited journalist Phillip Knightley to his Moscow apartment, and in six days of conversation he bared his sour as never before. He told of his childhood, the influence of his extraordinary father and the events that lead him inexorably to turn traitor. For the first time, Philby - KGB Masterspy tells the full story -- before and after defection. Through his views on everything from loyalty and patriotism to pop muic and Margaret Thatcher, revelation after revelation combine to build a unique picture of the most notorious spy of the 20th Century, a tale that rivals the best spy fiction.   Amazon   back

Liddell, and Scott, A Lexicon: Abridged from Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon, Clarendon Press 1963 Advertisement: 'The Abridgement of Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon is intended chiefly for use in Schools. It has been reduced to its present compass by the omission I. Of passages cited as authorities .. II. Of discussions upon the Derivation of words; III. Of words used only by authors not read in Schools ... '  Amazon   back

Lonergan, Bernard J F, Insight : A Study of Human Understanding (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan : Volume 3), University of Toronto Press 1992 '... Bernard Lonergan's masterwork. Its aim is nothing less than insight into insight itself, an understanding of understanding'  Amazon   back

Misner, Charles W, and Kip S Thorne, John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation, Freeman 1973 Jacket: 'Einstein's description of gravitation as curvature of spacetime led directly to that greatest of all predictions of his theory, that the Universe itself is dynamic. Physics still has far to go to come to terms with this amazing fact and what it means for man and his relation to the Universe. John Archibald Wheeler. ... this is a book on Einstein's theory of gravity (general relativity).'  Amazon   back

Orwell, George, Homage to Catalonia, Mariner Books 1980 Amazon.com Review '"I wonder what is the appropriate first action when you come from a country at war and set foot on peaceful soil. Mine was to rush to the tobacco-kiosk and buy as many cigars and cigarettes as I could stuff into my pockets." Most war correspondents observe wars and then tell stories about the battles, the soldiers and the civilians. George Orwell--novelist, journalist, sometime socialist--actually traded his press pass for a uniform and fought against Franco's Fascists in the Spanish Civil War during 1936 and 1937. He put his politics and his formidable conscience to the toughest tests during those days in the trenches in the Catalan section of Spain. Then, after nearly getting killed, he went back to England and wrote a gripping account of his experiences, as well as a complex analysis of the political machinations that led to the defeat of the socialist Republicans and the victory of the Fascists.'  Amazon   back

Polya, George, and Gordon Latta, Complex Variables, John Wiley & Sons Inc 1974 Preface: 'After having lectured for several decades on complex variables to prospective engineers and physicists, I have definite and, I hope, not unrealistic ideas about their requirements and preferences. . . . I hope that this book is useful not only to future engineers and physicists, but also to future mathematicians. Mathematical concepts and facts gain in vividness and clarity if they are well connected with the world around us and with general ideas, and if we obtain them by our own work through successive stages instead of in one lump.'  Amazon   back

von Neumann, John, and Robert T Beyer (translator), Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press 1983 Jacket: '. . . a revolutionary book that caused a sea change in theoretical physics. . . . JvN begins by presenting the theory of Hermitean operators and Hilbert spaces. These provide the framework for transformation theory, which JvN regards as the definitive form of quantum mechanics. . . . Regarded as a tour de force at the time of its publication, this book is still indispensible for those interested in the fundamental issues of quantum mechanics.'  Amazon   back

Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine, MIT Press 1996 The classic founding text of cybernetics.  Amazon   back

Zee, Anthony, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell, Princeton University Press 2003 Amazon book description: 'An esteemed researcher and acclaimed popular author takes up the challenge of providing a clear, relatively brief, and fully up-to-date introduction to one of the most vital but notoriously difficult subjects in theoretical physics. A quantum field theory text for the twenty-first century, this book makes the essential tool of modern theoretical physics available to any student who has completed a course on quantum mechanics and is eager to go on. Quantum field theory was invented to deal simultaneously with special relativity and quantum mechanics, the two greatest discoveries of early twentieth-century physics, but it has become increasingly important to many areas of physics. These days, physicists turn to quantum field theory to describe a multitude of phenomena. Stressing critical ideas and insights, Zee uses numerous examples to lead students to a true conceptual understanding of quantum field theory--what it means and what it can do. He covers an unusually diverse range of topics, including various contemporary developments,while guiding readers through thoughtfully designed problems. In contrast to previous texts, Zee incorporates gravity from the outset and discusses the innovative use of quantum field theory in modern condensed matter theory. Without a solid understanding of quantum field theory, no student can claim to have mastered contemporary theoretical physics. Offering a remarkably accessible conceptual introduction, this text will be widely welcomed and used.   Amazon   back

Papers

Shannon, Claude E, "Communication in the Presence of Noise", Proceedings of the IEEE, 86, 2, February 1998, page 447-457. Reprint of Shannon, Claude E. "Communication in the Presence of Noise." Proceedings of the IEEE, 37 (January 1949) : 10-21. 'A method is developed for representing any communication system geometrically. Messages and the corresponding signals are points in two function spaces, and the modulation process is a mapping of one space into the other. Using this representation, a number of results in communication theory are deduced concerning expansion and compression of bandwidth and the threshold effect. Formulas are found for the maximum rate of transmission of binary digits over a system when the signal is perturbed by various types of noise. Some of the properties of "ideal" systems which transmit this maximum rate are discussed. The equivalent number of binary digits per second of certain information sources is calculated.' . back

Links

Alfred Tarski - Wikipedia Alfred Tarski - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Alfred Tarski (January 14, 1901, Warsaw, Russian-ruled Poland – October 26, 1983, Berkeley, California) was a Polish logician and mathematician. . . . His biographers Anita and Solomon Feferman state that, "Along with his contemporary, Kurt Gödel, he changed the face of logic in the twentieth century, especially through his work on the concept of truth and the theory of models."' back

Brouwer fixed point theorem - Wikipedia Brouwer fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Brouwer's fixed point theorem is a fixed point theorem in topology, named after Luitzen Brouwer. It states that for any continuous function f with certain properties there is a point x0 such that f(x0) = x0. The simplest form of Brouwer's theorem is for continuous functions f from a disk D to itself. A more general form is for continuous functions from a convex compact subset K of Euclidean space to itself.' back

Cauchy-Riemann equations - Wikipedia Cauchy-Riemann equations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'In mathematics, the Cauchy–Riemann differential equations in complex analysis, named after Augustin Cauchy and Bernhard Riemann, consist of a system of two partial differential equations that provides a necessary and sufficient condition for a differentiable function to be holomorphic in an open set. This system of equations first appeared in the work of Jean le Rond d'Alembert (d'Alembert 1752). Later, Leonhard Euler connected this system to the analytic functions (Euler 1777). Cauchy (1814) then used these equations to construct his theory of functions. Riemann's dissertation (Riemann 1851) on the theory of functions appeared in 1851.' back

Dominican Order - Wikipedia Dominican Order - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'The Order of Preachers (Latin: Ordo Praedicatorum), after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III (1216-27) on 22 December 1216 in France. Membership in the Order includes friars,[1] congregations of active sisters, and lay persons affiliated with the order (formerly known as tertiaries, now Lay or Secular Dominicans).' back

Felix Klein - Wikipedia Felix Klein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Felix Christian Klein (25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician, known for his work in group theory, function theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory. His 1872 Erlangen Program, classifying geometries by their underlying symmetry groups, was a hugely influential synthesis of much of the mathematics of the day.' back

Holy See Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples - Index '1. Con la Bolla Inscrutabili Divinae, (22 giugno 1622) emanata da Papa Gregorio XV, ebbe inizio il periodo costitutivo della Congregazione, con il nome de Propaganda Fide, cui fecero seguito altri documenti pontifici fondamentali: Romanum decet (con la medesima data), Cum inter multiplices (14 dicembre 1622), Cum nuper (13 giugno 1623), ed infine Immortalis Dei (1° agosto 1627).' back

John Palmer Parmenides (Standord Encyclopedia of Philosophy) First published Fri Feb 8, 2008 'Parmenides of Elea, active in the earlier part of the 5th c. BCE., authored a difficult metaphysical poem that has earned him a reputation as early Greek philosophy's most profound and challenging thinker. His philosophical stance has typically been understood as at once extremely paradoxical and yet crucial for the broader development of Greek natural philosophy and metaphysics. He has been seen as a metaphysical monist (of one stripe or another) who so challenged the naïve cosmological theories of his predecessors that his major successors among the Presocratics were all driven to develop more sophisticated physical theories in response to his arguments.' back

MS-DOS - Wikipedia MS-DOS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'MS-DOS (pronounced . . . em-es-dos; short for MicroSoft Disk Operating System) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers, which was purchased by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for personal computers during the 1980s up to mid 1990s.' back