vol VII: Notes

2015

Notes

[Sunday 16 August 2015 - Saturday 22 August 2015]

[Notebook: DB 79: Galileo Wins]

Sunday 16 August 2015

Monday 17 August 2015

[page 41]

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Time and anxiety. Will we arrive in time? When will it happen, etc. We measure distance using time. A gamut of emotions.

Wednesday 19 August 2015

A completed action becomes part of history and forever static. Is this how we see it, simply as a unit, the unit of entropy?

CREATION — ETERNITY — ANNIHILATION (recycling the energy trappen in the action / eternity / fixed point.

Quanta of action are the primordial fixed points (atoms) in the Universe.

Although classical Newtonian dynamics

[page 42]

attributed no direction to time until we come to statistical physics, and physicists use time reversal in modelling anti-particles, our common experience is that time moves inevitably forward, leaving the past behind and moving into the future. An action (ie a completed transformation) marks the boundary between past and future. An action done remains done until undone by some agent. Time is in a way the agent of quantum mechanics, because it is continually in motion the passage of time coupled with the motion changes things.

So time is the Universal system clock. Time is measured as a count of action, and there is no measure of action. It is the ubiquitous, primordial undifferentiated unit.

My strength is in my faith that I can do it because I feel that the world started off very simple and then added layer after layer of complexity, rather like the periodic table.

I have long had the feeling that the quantum of action is so primordial that it has no measure. Its essence is in fact its existence. From the most abstract point of view it is simply an event or state which can be counted and nothing more until higher layers give different meanings to different acts. Aquinas 17: Are essence and existence the same in God?

Thursday 20 August 2015

Quanta of action have no size and so they are all of the same size. What differs is their meaning and effect, so there is one quantum which represents my whole life. [can we say every quantum of action is a personality of God?]

Our understanding of act / event leads us to see an

[page 43]

act as simply a dimensionless unity, cardinal 1, absolutely simple. In physics, however, we give it the dimensions ML²T^-1. Since this suggests that this dimension equates to 1, so we can see that this results if T = ML², giving us ML²M^-1L^-2 = 1.

We are beginning with act, then energy/time. the first dualism. Then we introduce distance via the fermion, subtraction rather than addition in interfering states [but first we require orthogonality via spacelike separation, which in turn requires some space-time and the velocity of light. We can see spacelike separation in terms of time: there is not time to get there.].

Why are there so many quanta of action? are they all the same size as God, the fundamental symmetry [can we say every quantum of action is a personality of God?]. What I am learning to do is to reinterpret the classical scholastic model of reality with a more modern version which is consistent with physics as we know it [potency = continuity, action = discreteness / insight, (Lonergan)]. Scholasticism - Wikipedia, Lonergan: Insight

The conservation of energy points to a single source of all energy.

Friday 21 August 2015

Insight: quanta of information emerging from the continuum [invisible process].

Looking for the route from mysticism a la the pseudoAreopagite [to] modern science. We have a network model with visible modes and invisible divine process (God). So the observable world is God's skin. God's interface with the world which is dense in the world [we red god on a screen of space-time / momentum-energy]. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite - Wikipedia

I failed the transition to adulthood and went and hid in a monastery instead. I don't think I really fitted in with the Order though. The mandate of the Dominicans is to push Roman Catholic as hard as possible. To achieve this, its recruits are schooled in

[page 44]

the details of Catholic theology and motivated with the promise of a beatific vision at the end of their labours. I was not then or now motivated by propaganda, I was driven by a desire to dissect the world and work out how it works. Fortunately the Catholic cosmology is completely incredible fiction, so it was easy for me to reject it but then I had to grow up and go out on my own. I think it is going to pay off, make me rich and famous and set theology on a new path, and sometimes I think that this will never happen but I am sitting pretty and have the resources to go on with the job even if it does not pay. But the story has now become convincing enough to me that I believe I can offer it as fair trade for money, so trying to provide alternative presentations which will attract attention to natural theology and religion. Dominican Order - Wikipedia

What I want is a logical narrative that has no breaks in it. This must be a conserved loop. At its most abstract it is the conserved flow of action as countable but indistinguishable quanta, flowing like molecules of an incompressible [fluid] through a leak proof but transfinitely ramifying pipe system.

The Band The Band

Aristotle's ladder was built on the axiom 'no potency can actualize itself' so that the system became essentially top down, from the first mover down to completely passive prime matter. The natural world works in a similar way, from God to complexity, but the complexity is part of God, the fixed points in the divine dynamics. Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Hylomorphism - Wikipedia

[page 45]

Action is a fixed point in a process, but the point and the process are identical a symmetry which is broken by the differentiation of the world, so we have spaces with more than one point, beginning with energy which verifies that p = p by the computation p → not-p → p. We may think of act as nop [no operation] because there is nothing to do. Energy as the not function, and then on up through quantum descriptions of more complex logical functions until we come to the universe as a whole described by the logical structure of the transfinite network.

All this is to say that act is concrete. A space of one point has no potential because it cannot change. There is nowhere for the point to go [eg a valid proof determines its conclusion].

Energy is easy, simply the rotation of a complex number of modulus 1 moving from real 1 to -i to -1 to i to 1. Or is this too complex, and we begin with 1, i, 1, but what does this mean? So we have here 1D, time [time / energy is incorporated in all subsequent layers of the network as the rate of change of complex amplitude].

The next step is 1D space, 1D time, ie a memory capable of storing a unit of information, ie to remain immobile through the passage of time, unlike the rotating vector representing energy.

A band, considered as a point, is a superposition of sound frequencies ranging from the highest note to the reciprocal of the length of a song. Quantum mechanics can describe this, it is purely time based. Superposition principle - Wikipedia, Fourier analysis - Wikipedia

We can introduce memory without introducing distance, but as soon as we want two independent memories we need distance [or this is what distance is]. A time sequence can only have one value at each time, whereas the establishment of space allows the existence of two independent time series which may be superposed to create eternity, timelessness. Eternity - Wikipedia

[page 46]

Why are there so many fundamental particles? Each one is represented by a real vector of properties, mass, spin etc. Elementary particle - Wikipedia

Does God consciously create the world? Freely? Do fixed point theorems or Cantors theorem demand creation? Insight is creation, the 'collapse of a cerebral wave function', or the halting at a fixed point of the invisible / continuous mental process.

I have learnt over my years as a carpenter and labourer to slow down and work without tension. Now as I make the transition to constructing written structures, I can use my trade experience as a guide to ease off and take my time writing in order to do the best I can.

fishing in neurospace — waiting for a tempting idea to float by.

Saturday 22 August 2015

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!)

Aristotle, and (translated by P H Wickstead and F M Cornford), Physics books I-IV, Harvard University Press, William Heinemann 1980 Introduction: 'The title "Physics" is misleading. .. "Lectures on Nature" the alternative title found in editions of the Greek text, is more enlightening. ... The realm of Nature, for Aristotle, includes all things that move and change ... . Thus the ultimate "matter" which, according to Aristotle, underlies all the elementary substances must be studied, in its changes at least, by the Natural Philosopher. And so must the eternal heavenly spheres of the Aristotelean philosophy, insofar as they themselves move of are the cause of motion in the sublunary world.'  Amazon   back

Christie, Agatha, Passenger to Frankfurt, Amereon 1983 Amazon Customer Review: 'Agatha Christie wrote several novels that deal with international organizations trying to take over the world. While I prefer her works set in the cozy country estates with families full of suspects, this is an enjoyable foray into this type of her work. Tones of neo-Nazism, drug trafficking, international finance, and a scientific discovery that could change the world are some of the elements that make up this story. The characters are interesting: Sir Stafford Nye, an unambitious member of the British diplomatic corps caught up in this caper; his great-aunt Matilda, an aristocratic lady reminiscent of Miss Marple in that she has a remarkable memory of things that happened long ago; a young girl with three identities who fears for her life, and a young man rumored to be the son of Adolph Hitler are among the characters that come to life in this novel.' Antoinette, Hoover, Alabama.  Amazon   back

Cohen, Paul J, Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis, Benjamin/Cummings 1966-1980 Preface: 'The notes that follow are based on a course given at Harvard University, Spring 1965. The main objective was to give the proof of the independence of the continuum hypothesis [from the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms for set theory with the axiom of choice included]. To keep the course as self contained as possible we included background materials in logic and axiomatic set theory as well as an account of Gödel's proof of the consistency of the continuum hypothesis. . . .'   Amazon   back

Diamond, Jared, The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee: How our Animal Heritage Affects the Way we Live, Vintage 1992 Jacket: 'More than 98 percent of human genes are shared with two species of chimpanzee. The 'third' chimpanzee is man. Jared Diamond surveys out life-cycle, culture, sexuality and destructive urges both towards ourselves and the planet to explore the ways in which we are uniquely human yet still influenced by our animal origins.'  Amazon   back

Feynman, Richard P, and Albert P Hibbs, Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals, McGraw Hill 1965 Preface: 'The fundamental physical and mathematical concepts which underlie the path integral approach were first developed by R P Feynman in the course of his graduate studies at Princeton, ... . These early inquiries were involved with the problem of the infinte self-energy of the electron. In working on that problem, a "least action" principle was discovered [which] could deal succesfully with the infinity arising in the application of classical electrodynamics.' As described in this book. Feynam, inspired by Dirac, went on the develop this insight into a fruitful source of solutions to many quantum mechanical problems.   Amazon   back

Feynman, Richard, QED: The Strange Story of Light and Matter, Princeton UP 1988 Jacket: 'Quantum electrodynamics - or QED for short - is the 'strange theory' that explains how light and electrons interact. Thanks to Richard Feynmann and his colleagues, it is also one of the rare parts of physics that is known for sure, a theory that has stood the test of time. . . . In this beautifully lucid set of lectures he provides a definitive introduction to QED.'  Amazon   back

Galilei, Galileo, and Stillman Drake (translator), Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo: Including the Starry Messenger (1610 Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina), Doubleday Anchor 1957 Amazon: 'Although the introductory sections are a bit dated, this book contains some of the best translations available of Galileo's works in English. It includes a broad range of his theories (both those we recognize as "correct" and those in which he was "in error"). Both types indicate his creativity. The reproductions of his sketches of the moons of Jupiter (in "The Starry Messenger") are accurate enough to match to modern computer programs which show the positions of the moons for any date in history. The appendix with a chronological summary of Galileo's life is very useful in placing the readings in context.' A Reader.  Amazon   back

Khinchin, A I, Mathematical Foundations of Information Theory (translated by P A Silvermann and M D Friedman), Dover 1957 Jacket: 'The first comprehensive introduction to information theory, this book places the work begun by Shannon and continued by McMillan, Feinstein and Khinchin on a rigorous mathematical basis. For the first time, mathematicians, statisticians, physicists, cyberneticists and communications engineers are offered a lucid, comprehensive introduction to this rapidly growing field.'  Amazon   back

Locke, John, Two treatises on Government and a Letter Concerning Tolerationb, Digireads.com 2005 Amazon Product Description 'John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" are considered to be some of the most important works of western philosophy ever written. In the first treatise Locke disputes the divine right of monarchial rule principle that is put forth in the book "Patriarcha" by Sir Robert Filmer. In the second treatise Locke sets forth the basic principles of natural law that lay the foundation for basic human rights and the government of man. Also contained within this volume is the shorter work, "A Letter Concerning Toleration." '  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

Newton, Isaac, and Julia Budenz, I. Bernard Cohen, Anne Whitman (Translators), The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, University of California Press 1999 This completely new translation, the first in 270 years, is based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms. . . . The illuminating Guide to the Principia by I. Bernard Cohen, along with his and Anne Whitman's translation, will make this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students.  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

Tawney, Richard Henry, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: A Historical Study, Pelican 1998 Chapter 1: '[The subject of these lectures] is historical. It is the attitude of religious thought in England toward social organisation and economic issues in the period immediately preceding the Reformation and the two centuries which follow it.'   Amazon   back

Links

Actus et potentia - Wikipedia, Actus et potentia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The terms actus and potentia were used by the scholastics to translate Aristotle's use of the terms energeia or entelecheia, and dynamis. There is no single word in English that would be an exact rendering of either. Act, action, actuality, perfection, and determination express the various meanings of actus; potency, potentiality, power, and capacity, those of potentia.' back

Aquinas 17, Summa I 3 4: Whether essence and existence are the same in God?, 'I answer that, God is not only His own essence, as shown in the preceding article, but also His own existence. This may be shown in several ways. First, whatever a thing has besides its essence must be caused either by the constituent principles of that essence (like a property that necessarily accompanies the species--as the faculty of laughing is proper to a man--and is caused by the constituent principles of the species), or by some exterior agent--as heat is caused in water by fire. Therefore, if the existence of a thing differs from its essence, this existence must be caused either by some exterior agent or by its essential principles. Now it is impossible for a thing's existence to be caused by its essential constituent principles, for nothing can be the sufficient cause of its own existence, if its existence is caused. Therefore that thing, whose existence differs from its essence, must have its existence caused by another. But this cannot be true of God; because we call God the first efficient cause. Therefore it is impossible that in God His existence should differ from His essence.' back

Calculus - Wikipedia, Calculus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Calculus (Latin, calculus, a small stone used for counting) is a discipline in mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. This subject constitutes a major part of modern university education. It has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus, which are related by the fundamental theorem of calculus. Calculus is the study of change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape and algebra is the study of equations.' back

Craig Wiliams and Emily Johnston Flies, How a new test is revolutionising what we know about viruses in our midst, 'But how do you get a mosquito to give a saliva sample? Easy. Just coat the card in honey and the mosquito will happily spit while getting a sugar fix. Only mosquitoes with virus in their saliva (rather than in their gut) are detected, thus identifying only the most dangerous (infectious-disease-carrying) mosquitoes. Thousands of mosquitoes can spit on a single card, meaning much less time and money spent in the lab. And there’s no need for expensive shipments of live mosquitoes. What’s more, the cards can be shipped without refrigeration, making surveillance in remote areas far more effective.' back

Dedekind cut - Wikipedia, Dedekind cut - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Whenever, then, we have to do with a cut produced by no rational number, we create a new, an irrational number, which we regard as completely defined by this cut ... . From now on, therefore, to every definite cut there corresponds a definite rational or irrational number .... —Richard Dedekind, Continuity and Irrational Numbers, Section IV Dedekind used the ambiguous word cut (Schnitt) in the geometric sense. That is, it is an intersection of a line with another line that crosses it. It is not a gap. When one line crosses another in geometry, it is said to cut that line. In this case, one of the lines is the number line. Both lines have one point in common. At that one point on the number line, if there is no rational number, the mathematician posits or arbitrarily places an irrational number. This results in the positioning of a real number at every point on the continuum.' back

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

Eleanor Robertson, Leunig's anti-vaccination stance reveals the fantasy world he lives in, 'Leunig is copping flak for publishing another anti-vaccination cartoon. This time, he compares the Victorian government’s No Jab, No Play policy to fascism. Leaving aside the legitimate debates about whether punishing anti-vaxxers is the best way to get children inoculated, his use of “fascist” to describe health policy he disagrees with is utterly in keeping with the style he’s developed over the past 40 years.' back

Elementary particle - Wikipedia, Elementary particle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'IIn particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a particle whose substructure is unknown, thus it is unknown whether it is composed of other particles. Known elementary particles include the fundamental fermions (quarks, leptons, antiquarks, and antileptons), which generally are "matter particles" and "antimatter particles", as well as the fundamental bosons (gauge bosons and Higgs boson), which generally are "force particles" that mediate interactions among fermions. A particle containing two or more elementary particles is a composite particle.' back

Eliza Berlage, New calculation suggests China's greenhoue emission have been overestimated, 'New estimates show that for more than a decade China’s greenhouse gas emissions have been overestimated by international agencies, while the country’s energy consumption has been underestimated. The research, published today in Nature, shows that from 2000 to 2013 China produced 2.9 gigatonnes less carbon than previous estimates of its culmulative emissions, meaning that its true emissions may have been around 14% lower than calculated.' back

Eternity - Wikipedia, Eternity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Eternity in common parlance is either an infinite or an indeterminately long period of time. However, in classical philosophy, eternity is held to be that which exists outside of time with sempiternity being the concept that corresponds to the colloquial definition. Eternity, or everlasting, is an important concept in many religions, where the immortality of God or the gods is said to endure eternally. Some, such as Aristotle, would say the same about the natural cosmos in regard to both past and future eternal duration, and like the eternal Platonic Forms, immutability was considered essential.' back

Fourier analysis - Wikipedia, Fourier analysis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Fourier analysis, named after Joseph Fourier's introduction of the Fourier series, is the decomposition of a function in terms of a sum of sinusoidal basis functions (vs. their frequencies) that can be recombined to obtain the original function. That process of recombining the sinusoidal basis functions is also called Fourier synthesis (in which case Fourier analysis refers specifically to the decomposition process).' back

Hylomorphism - Wikipedia, Hylomorphism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Hylomorphism (Greek ὑλο- hylo-, "wood, matter" + -morphism < Greek μορφή, morphē, "form") is a philosophical theory developed by Aristotle, which analyzes substance into matter and form. Substances are conceived of as compounds of form and matter.' back

Laocoön and His Sons - Wikipedia, Laocoön and His Sons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group, is a monumental sculpture in marble now in the Vatican Museums, Rome. The statue is attributed by the Roman author Pliny the Elder to three sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus. It shows the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being strangled by sea serpents.' back

Law of large numbers - Wikipedia, Law of large numbers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The law of large numbers (LLN) is a theorem in probability that describes the long-term stability of the mean of a random variable. Given a random variable with a finite expected value, if its values are repeatedly sampled, as the number of these observations increases, the sample mean will tend to approach and stay close to the expected value (the average for the population).' back

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Quantum Information Science and Technology Ropadmapping Project, 'The overall purpose of this roadmap is to help facilitate the progress of quantum computation research towards the quantum computer science era. It is a living document that will be updated at least annually.' back

Matter wave - Wikipedia, Matter wave - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum mechanics, a matter wave or de Broglie wave (pronounced /dəˈbrɔɪ/) is the wave (wave-particle duality) of matter. The de Broglie relations show that the wavelength is inversely proportional to the momentum of a particle and that the frequency is directly proportional to the particle's kinetic energy. The wavelength of matter is also called de Broglie wavelength. The theory was advanced by Louis de Broglie in 1924 in his PhD thesis[1]; he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1929 for this work, which made him the first person to receive a Nobel Prize on a PhD thesis.' back

Momentum - Wikipedia, Momentum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In classical mechanics, momentum (pl. momenta; SI unit kg·m/s, or, equivalently, N·s) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object (p=mv). For more accurate measures of momentum, see the section "modern definitions of momentum" on this page.' back

Nussaibah Younis, How Isis establihed a bureacracy of rape, 'One year on from the summit to end sexual violence in conflict, convened by Angelina Jolie and William Hague in London, the self-proclaimed Islamic State has developed a complex bureaucracy of sex slavery that makes a mockery of the summit’s goal to bring about an end to the use of rape and sexual violence in war.' back

Organon- Wikipedia, Organon- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Organon (Greek: όργανον meaning instrument, tool, organ) is the standard collection of Aristotle's six works on logic. The name Organon was given by Aristotle's followers, the Peripatetics. They are as follows: Categories On Interpretation Prior Analytics Posterior Analytics Topics Sophistical Refutations' back

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite - Wikipedia, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Greek: Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀρεοπαγίτης), also known as Pseudo-Denys, was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century (writing before 532), probably Syrian, the author of the set of works commonly referred to as the Corpus Areopagiticum or Corpus Dionysiacum. The author pseudonymously identifies himself in the corpus as "Dionysios", portraying himself as the figure of Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian convert of St. Paul mentioned in Acts 17:34.[1] This false attribution resulted in the work being given great authority in subsequent theological writing in both East and West, with its influence only decreasing in the West with the fifteenth century demonstration of its later dating.' back

Quantum computer - Wikipedia, Quantum computer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A quantum computer is a device for computation that makes direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. The basic principle behind quantum computation is that quantum properties can be used to represent data and perform operations on these data.' back

Quantum information - Wikipedia, Quantum information - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum mechanics, quantum information is physical information that is held in the "state" of a quantum system. The most popular unit of quantum information is the qubit, a two-level quantum system. However, unlike classical digital states (which are discrete), a two-state quantum system can actually be in a superposition of the two states at any given time.' back

Ribosome - Wikipedia, Ribosome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The ribosome functions in the expression of the genetic code from nucleic acid into protein, in a process called translation. Ribosomes do this by catalyzing the assembly of individual amino acids into polypeptide chains; this involves binding a messenger RNA and then using this as a template to join together the correct sequence of amino acids. This reaction uses adapters called transfer RNA molecules, which read the sequence of the messenger RNA and are attached to the amino acids.' back

Scholasticism - Wikipedia, Scholasticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics ("scholastics," or "schoolmen") of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100 to 1700, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending dogma in an increasingly pluralistic context. It originated as an outgrowth of, and a departure from, Christian monastic schools at the earliest European universities. . . . .' back

Sharon Lerner, The Teflon Toxin: The Case Against Dupont, 'Tennant told him that DuPont had bought land from his family that was adjacent to his farm, for what the company had assured him would be a non-hazardous landfill, according to a letter Bilott later filed with the Environmental Protection Agency. Soon, a stream his cows drank from started to run smelly and black, with a layer of foam floating on the surface. Within a few years, hundreds of Tennant’s cattle had died. Bilott had no way of knowing at the time that what seemed like a straightforward case would lead to one of the most significant class-action lawsuits in the history of environmental law. ' back

Stephen Marche, The Closing of the Canadian Mind, 'Mr. Harper’s campaign for re-election has so far been utterly consistent with the personality trait that has defined his tenure as prime minister: his peculiar hatred for sharing information. Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education. But the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government.' back

Superposition principle - Wikipedia, Superposition principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics and systems theory, the superposition principle, also known as superposition property, states that, for all linear systems, the net response at a given place and time caused by two or more stimuli is the sum of the responses which would have been caused by each stimulus individually.' back

The Band, The Band, 31 December 1983 Complete Concert, back

Tom Westland, Is Joe Hockey going to bust some monopolies? His IP referral gives us hope, 'Corporate rent seeking is the great Australian pastime. It’s certainly one of our most dynamic growth industries. As we saw with the carbon and mining taxes – the necessary Senate votes were supplied by a party named after a man who stood to gain millions of dollars from the repeal – companies are getting very good at twisting public policy for their own pelf. The Abbott government exists largely because of this rent-seeking machine. But by referring Australia’s intellectual property arrangements today to an inquiry by the Productivity Commission, Joe Hockey has given us a little hope that he might go to town on some monopolies that have long been cosseted by governments.' back

Traditional Music, Traditional Children's Songs & Nursery Rhymes Dry Bones (or Skeleton Bones), 'Oh those bones,oh those bones, oh those skeleton bones.' back

Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The unmoved mover (ού κινούμενον κινεῖ oú kinoúmenon kineῖ) is a philosophical concept described by Aristotle as a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the "unmoved mover" is not moved by any prior action. In Book 12 (Greek "Λ") of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: itself contemplating. He equates this concept also with the Active Intellect. This Aristotelian concept had its roots in cosmological speculations of the earliest Greek "Pre-Socratic" philosophers and became highly influential and widely drawn upon in medieval philosophy and theology. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, elaborated on the Unmoved Mover in the quinque viae.' back

Yin and yang - Wikipedia, Yin and yang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin yang . . . is used to describe how seemingly disjunct or opposing forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, giving rise to each other in turn. According to the philosophy, yin and yang are complementary opposites within a greater whole. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, which constantly interact, never existing in absolute stasis. back