Brillouin, Leon, Science and Information Theory, Academic 1962 Introduction: 'A new territory was conquered for the sciences when the theory of information was recently developed. . . . Physics enters the picture when we discover a remarkable likeness between information and entropy. . . . The efficiency of an experiment can be defined as the ratio of information obtained to the associated increase in entropy. This efficiency is always smaller than unity, according to the generalised Carnot principle. . . . ' 
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Einstein, Albert, and Robert W Lawson (translator) Roger Penrose (Introduction), Robert Geroch (Commentary), David C Cassidy (Historical Essay), Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Pi Press 2005 Preface: 'The present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics. ... The author has spared himself no pains in his endeavour to present the main ideas in the simplest and most intelligible form, and on the whole, in the sequence and connection in which they actually originated.' page 3  
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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. . . . ' 
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Neuenschwander, Dwight E, Emmy Noether's Wonderful Theorem, Johns Hopkins University Press 2011 Jacket: A beautiful piece of mathematics, Noether's therem touches on every aspect of physics. Emmy Noether proved her theorem in 1915 and published it in 1918. This profound concept demonstrates the connection between conservation laws and symmetries. For instance, the theorem shows that a system invariant under translations of time, space or rotation will obey the laws of conservation of energy, linear momentum or angular momentum respectively. This exciting result offers a rich unifying principle for all of physics.' 
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Pais, Abraham, 'Subtle is the Lord...': The Science and Life of Albert Einstein, Oxford UP 1982 Jacket: In this . . . major work Abraham Pais, himself an eminent physicist who worked alongside Einstein in the post-war years, traces the development of Einstein's entire ouvre. . . . Running through the book is a completely non-scientific biography . . . including many letters which appear in English for the first time, as well as other information not published before.' 
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Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, The Phenomenon of Man, Harper Perennial 1975 'Marks the most significant achievement in synthetic thinking since that of Aquinas.' -- Bernard Towers, Blackfriars 
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Barlow, H B, "Intelligence, guesswork, language", Nature, 304, 5923, 21 July 1983, page 207-209. 'A satisfactory definition of intelligence has never been found, and as a result it means different things to different people. What it is may remain too complex for succinct definition, but the theory and practice of information handling have clarified what it does for us; it enables us to guess better, and the discovery of unexpected orderliness is the chief means of doing this.'. back

Chaitin, Gregory J, "Randomness and Mathematical Proof", Scientific American, 232, 5, May 1975, page 47-52. 'Although randomness can be precisely defined and can even be measured, a given number cannot be proved random. This enigma establishes a limit in what is possible in mathematics'. back

Amy Goodman, From Hiroshima to Fukushima: Japan's atomic tragedies, 'In 1945, the US suppressed reports of its A-bombs. In 2011, Japan censors Fukushima's radiation. When will we learn?' back

Aquinas 165, Summa I, 28, 1: Are there real relations in God?, 'Reply to Objection 4. Relations which result from the mental operation alone in the objects understood are logical relations only, inasmuch as reason observes them as existing between two objects perceived by the mind. Those relations, however, which follow the operation of the intellect, and which exist between the word intellectually proceeding and the source whence it proceeds, are not logical relations only, but are real relations; inasmuch as the intellect and the reason are real things, and are really related to that which proceeds from them intelligibly; as a corporeal thing is related to that which proceeds from it corporeally. Thus paternity and filiation are real relations in God.' back

Aquinas 168, Whether in God there are only four real relations -- paternity, filiation, spiration and procession. , ' . . . a real relation in God can be based only on action. Such relations are not based on the actions of God according to any extrinsic procession, forasmuch as the relations of God to creatures are not real in Him (13, 7). Hence, it follows that real relations in God can be understood only in regard to those actions according to which there are internal, and not external, processions in God. These processions are two only, as above explained (27, 5), one derived from the action of the intellect, the procession of the Word; and the other from the action of the will, the procession of love. In respect of each of these processions two opposite relations arise; one of which is the relation of the person proceeding from the principle; the other is the relation of the principle Himself. . . . ' back

Aquinas, Summa, I, 29, 1, The definition of "person", 'Objection 1. It would seem that the definition of person given by Boethius (De Duab. Nat.) is insufficient--that is, "a person is an individual substance of a rational nature." For nothing singular can be subject to definition. But "person" signifies something singular. Therefore person is improperly defined. back

Emmy Noether - Wikipedia, Emmy Noether - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Amalie Emmy Noether, . . . (23 March 1882 – 14 April 1935) was a German mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Described by Albert Einstein and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, she revolutionized the theories of rings, fields, and algebras. In physics, Noether's theorem explains the fundamental connection between symmetry and conservation laws.' back

European Association for Theoretical Computer Science, Gödel Prize 2007, 'The theory of Computer Science was developed to formalize methods for computation and the problems they can solve. The class P consists of the problems solvable by conventional computers in time polynomial in the input size. Another class of problems called NP requires one to find a solution of a problem where it is feasible to quickly verify that the solution is correct. Many NP problems have no known efficient solution even though they have major practical applications.' back

James Massola, Tony Abbott reopens racial discriminaion debate and laments 'hyper-partisan' politics, 'Tony Abbott says his government should have pursued less ambitious reform of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, in comments that will re-open debate in the conservative wing of the Liberal Party about changing the Act and potentially create a new headache for Malcolm Turnbull.' back

Jonathan Freedland, Donald Trump's achilles heel is that he is truly un-American, 'What Trump had done was violate a core American ideal: the notion – not always honoured, admittedly – that no matter where your family came from, if you were born in the US or had come there and subscribed to its founding principles, then you were as American as a direct descendant of those who landed on Plymouth Rock. This was what set the US apart, the belief that national identity did not reside in blood or soil, but in loyalty to the nation’s constitution and its bill of rights.' back

Mach's principle - Wikipedia, Mach's principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In theoretical physics, particularly in discussions of gravitation theories, Mach's principle (or Mach's conjecture) is the name given by Einstein to an imprecise hypothesis often credited to the physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. The idea is that the local motion of a rotating reference frame is determined by the large scale distribution of matter, as exemplified by this anecdote: You are standing in a field looking at the stars. Your arms are resting freely at your side, and you see that the distant stars are not moving. Now start spinning. The stars are whirling around you and your arms are pulled away from your body. Why should your arms be pulled away when the stars are whirling? Why should they be dangling freely when the stars don't move?' back

Marcel Jackson, Millennium Prize; P vs NP, 'Roughly speaking, P (standing for “polynomial time”), corresponds to the collection of computational problems that have an efficient solution. It’s only an abstract formulation of “efficient”, but it works fairly well in practice. The class NP corresponds to the problems for which, when the answer is “yes”, there is an efficient demonstration that the answer is yes (the “N” stands for “nondeterministic”, but the description taken here is more intuitive). P versus NP simply asks if these two classes of computational problems are the same. It’s just the “deciding versus demonstrating” issue in Turing’s original Halting Problem, but with the added condition of efficiency.' back

Michael Murray, Alan Carey and Peter Bouwknegt, Millennium Prize: The Yang-Mills Existence and Mass-Gap Problem, 'The case of interest in the Millennium Problem “Yang-Mills theory and Mass-Gap” is Yang-Mills gauge theory, a non-abelian theory which we expect to describe quarks and the strong force that binds the nucleus and powers the sun. Here we encounter a contradiction between the classical and quantum theories. The classical theory predicts massless particles and long-range forces. The quantum theory has to match the real world with short-range forces and massive particles. Physicists expect various mathematical properties such as the “mass gap” and “asymptotic freedom” to explain the non-existence of massless particles in observations of the strong interactions. back

Noosphere - Wikipedia, Noosphere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The noosphere . . . is the sphere of human thought.The word derives from the Greek νοῦς (nous "mind") and σφαῖρα (sphaira "sphere"), in lexical analogy to "atmosphere" and "biosphere". It was introduced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in 1922 in his Cosmogenesis.' back

Thomas L Friedman, Donald Trump's Ambiguous Wink Wink to 'Second Amendment People', 'His right-wing opponents just kept delegitimizing him as a “traitor” and “a Nazi” for wanting to make peace with the Palestinians and give back part of the Land of Israel. Of course, all is fair in politics, right? And they had God on their side, right? They weren’t actually telling anyone to assassinate Rabin. That would be horrible. . . . And that’s what the Jewish extremist Yigal Amir did to Rabin. Why not? He thought he had permission from a whole segment of Israel’s political class. back