"natural theology > notes > 2017

vol VII: Notes

2017

Notes

Sunday 4 June 2017 - Saturday 10 June 2017

[Notebook: DB 81: Scientific theology]

[page 40]

Sunday 4 June 2017

To maintain control we have to keep everything computable, ie executable with a high level of certainty [in the time frame available]. So we see the level of certainty increasing in the layered structure of the Universe from purely random in the initial singularity through increasing levels of certainty where first order computations come closer a closer to measured reality until we come to computer chips which only fail once in 10¹⁸ operations (?). Soft error - Wikipedia

[page 41]

Ruby Hamad: power tripping through guilt by implication. Ruby Hamad: Muslims shouldn't feel obliged to apologize for terrorist attacks

Many people live in fear of being accused of something and this fear is induced by an indoctrination that convinces people that they are sinners and thus guilty and open to indictment at any time.

Create uncertainty to 'engineer' random change. This may be necessary in the complex history of human groups, and we have tried to build it in through elections. At present we are seeing extreme polarization as the opposing parties try to distance themselves from one another, losing sight of the fact that they are both working for the same nation. Applebaum, WP. Ann Applebaum

I am frequently a stupid dreamer hoping things will work out in the end, which they mostly do. I am beginning to feel that I am in a position to make my dream come true. What I have always wanted is a theoretical weapon powerful enough to defeat nuclear weapons, and every now and then I feel that I am getting close. Nuclear weapons release too much energy to do any good, as do those societies high on fossil fuel that overreach themselves and descend into violent chaos, their structure broken by the political equvalent of a nuclear weapon, destroying all the structure upon which life depends. Diamond: Collapse

Andrew MitrovicaFree ourseles from war injstice, poverty and misery. How? This is what I hope natural theology will tell us. Mitrovica Andrew Mitrovica

Monday 5 June 2017

Special relativity Lorentz covariant because tranformation leaves physical expressions unchanged in form, laws of electrodynamics unchanged by Lorentz transformation. Lorentz transformation - Wikipedia

[page 42]

Big transformation: caterpillar to butterfly. Metamorphosis - Wikipedia

Einstein in Norton page 13: 'The general laws of nature are to be expressed by equation that hold god for all systems of coordinates, that is are covariant with respect to any substitutions whatever (generally covriant). John D Norton: General covariance and the foundations of general relativity: eight decades of dispute

Norton page 15: Einstein 1920: 'There can be no space nor any point of space without the gravitational potentials; for these confer on space its metrical qualties, without which it cannot be imagined at all.'

page 28: 'All physical observations consist in the determination of purely topological relations ('coincidences') between objects and spatio-temporal perception.'

'If we accept the point coincidence argument, then any theory can be given a formulation of arbitary covariance [n distinct objects can be used as reference bodies for themselves in n! ways].

page 30: Einstein 1933: 'Our experience justifies us in believing that nature is the realization of the simplest conceivable mathematical ideas . . . the creative principle resides in mathematics.'

Norton '6.2 Relativity principles as symmetry principles' (page 41)

'We shall see that they eventually stabilize on the view that a relativity principle expresses a symmetry of the spacetime structure.

Kretschmann: special relativity: Lorentz group; general relativity: single member identity group (Norton page 41 = 831).

page 61: 'A spacetime theory coordinates a physically possible spacetime with a number manifold . . . Einstein (1916 §3) needed to

[page 43]

proceed very cautiously in explaining how the general covariance of his theory had stripped coordinates opf the direct relationship to the results of measurements by rod and clock . . . He associated the Riemann quadratic differential form with the spacetime.

Lawrence SummersTrump is Thatcherite: there is no such thing as society, or the community of nations. Lawrence Summers: After 75 year of progress, was last week a hinge in history?

Tuesday 6 June 2017

Freedom, degrees of, symmetry. Chongyi Feng. Mum's 98th birthday. Academic Chongyi Geng: profits, freedom and China's 'soft power' in Australia

At my age the desire to reproduce moves from making babies to making texts, embodied ideas.

Catholicism is a psychological prison, far too small to embrace divine reality.

The network theory answers my ancient question about the software universe. What does it run on? The answer given here is that the Universe runs on (or in) God.

Write hypothetically, but as if you believe it.

Orwell: "In Front of Your Nose" - people can indeed talk nonsense for a very long time without paying an obvious price. But "sooner of later a false belief bumps up against a solid reality, usually on a battlefield." George Orwell

Wednesday 7 June 2017

Scientific theology is an ode to joy. It transfers the magnificent

[page 44]

beauty and power of God from an invisible heaven to everyday life. Heaven and hell are no longer arbitrary impositions by a ruling power but are to a fair degree under our control. Life is what we make it.

Mencken: 'the men the American people admire the most are the most daring liars.' Henry Louis Mencken

Gradually settling on the structure mooted in scientific-theoogy_TS of actus purus (vacuum) followed by quantum mechanics in the time domain alone, yielding the principle of conservation of energy to general relativity. The developmment of the network beyond two non interfering sources in one dimension to three in two dimension (talking about space here) to three dimensions which allows unlimited orthogonal (non-interfering) connectivity. Here the implementation of conservtion of energy in 4D space-time yields (inevitably?) the general theory. Then we turn to particle phyiscs, the binding of quantum mechanics to relativity, caused once again by the expansion of the network and the differentiation of energy and momentum, potential and kinetic energy, conservative field and whatever - photons, electric charge and QED. This is enough physics. From now on everything is particles and bonding, building layer after layer of complexity.

Thursday 8 June 2017

The ideas developed in scientific_theology_TS seem to be greatly improving the book version. Up to chapter 4 scientific_world.

Sun?

Writing is beginning to feel like real work. Just begin in the morning and finish in the evening. Payment, if anything, will

[page 47]

come later. I am still being supported by Australian taxpayers and I am very keen to pay them back to close of circle of borrowing and repayment which has enabled me to tunnel through the potential barrier to human symmetry represented by ancient autocratic theologies. So we think that quantum mehanical tunnelling is scale invariant, an eample of insight, a new decoding of the data.

What I would like to be able to say is that after half a century of work I have cooked up a book which will give a death blow to the ancient Catholic Church, revealing the truly catholic nature of theology. What will Theological Studies think?

Writing (and speech) seeking a form of words to express an idea.

General relativity: how does energy conservation shape four space.

Janssen page 5: Inertio-gravitational field. Janssen page 5: The Einstein-Besso Manuscript

Inertio gravitational motion - relative acceleration of inertial frames which nevertheless remain inertial.

Friday 9 June 2017

I love my lust. As my sexuality fades, my desire to create a new picture of the world grows and my pleasure comes when I find a form of words which seems to capture the feeling I am trying to exress: that the Universe is divine and there are peaceful paths through it, the geodesics followed by inertial frames that are avoiding black holes.

Gravitation: a forceless force, rather like love or friendship [we only feel it when it is opposed, like when standing on Earth supported by electromagnetism].

[page 48]

Sometimes I feel that I am gettng a grip on the plan. Just formatted scientific_theology for the web but I will not expose is until a decision comes from Theological studies. Love the 4D net connectivity thing and now wondering why there are ten entries in the metric matrix and imagine that it has something to do with the orthgonal dimensions [of space-time] communicating with one another [rotating]. Can we begin with the time/energy dimension [the 0,0 position of the matrix] which communicates with itself because once it was the only dimension in existence. So another read of Misner, Thorne and Wheeler [MTW] after a long break so as to see how I see it now.

Frames cannot remain completely inertial and communicate, so geodesic deviation is in a sense non-communication, the level at which no message passes or a null message, energy without modulation. Modulation is a relative thing, depending on the standards we are using to measure. Two identically modulated signals may cancel thir modulation and interact as a continuum, ie am unlodulated 'string'.

Gravitation has always been on my mind practically as a builder and theoretically as one on the deepest manifestations of the divinity, the forceless force of bliss, the generalized geodesic which would fit nicely with the Thomistic vision of the vision of God. Although he made the mistake, according to legend, of seeing reality as straw. Thomas Aquinas

MTW page 6: Characterize a point by what happens their [ie contact, exchange of message].

But what about before anything happens in the early times, when there are no particles? Or are the happenings what makes the structure, where what happens is a dialogue between two sources and we see this as a link in a network [particles effectively communicate only when they are join by a null geodesic]. What we see are the messages we get from the world. Spacetime and events are two sides of the one entity, emergence of a duality, ie by bifurcation. Boson, fermion, space-time, spinor etc. Spinor - Wikipedia

[page 49]

Differential manifold is like a network in that what matters is smooth connection, not the distance. MTW page 8: 'One demands smoothness (differentiability) but with no thought of mensuration'.

My hypothetical article of faith is that the Universe is divine. Att the exploratory details are explorations of the consequences of this idea.

Once something becomes computable, ie navigable, one can hold a course and get there and this holds at all levels, so that we can define such a generalized geodesic in transfinite space, learning from the develoment of differential geometry that it is an abstract formalism that holds at any level of complexity ie dimensionality. Gravity is the lowest dimension.

So we invent the transfinite manifold by analogy to gaussian coordinates providing a space for the interaction of particles of unlimited complexity, such as me, multidimensional event written on the space-time interface.

MTW page 13; 'The [classical] field has everywhere a clear cut value and goes about its deterministic dynamic evolution willy-nilly and continuously, infinitesimal test particles or no infinitesimal test partciles. Similarly with the geometry of space [maybe]'

Saturday 10 June 2017

God tesst those he loves the most. Coco Chanel and Igor Stavinsky. Which works because one who deviates from the mainstream is likely to draw adverse attention.

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

Please click here to buy a copy of this book and support this project

Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica (translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province), Tabor Publishing 1981 'Brother Thomas raised new problems in his teaching, invented a new method, used new systems of proof. To hear him teach a new doctrine, with new arguments, one could not doubt that God, by the irradiation of this new light and by the novelty of this inspiration, gave him the power to teach, by the spoken and written word, new opinions and new knowledge.' (William of Tocco, T's first biographer)
Amazon back

Beale, R, and T Jackson, Neural Computing: An Introduction, Adam Hilger 1991 Jacket: '. . . starts from basics and goes on to cover all the most important approaches to the subject. . . . The capabilities, advantages and disadvantages of each model are discussed as are possible applications of each. The relationship of the models developed to the brain and its functions are also explored.'
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Chimo, Lila Says, Fourth Estate 1998
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Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Viking Adult 2004 'As suggested by its title, this book is about societal collapses - past, present and future - and the factors that cause human societies to fail. ... [Diamond's] primary mission is to determine the ecological, political and cultural conditions that lead to collapse and to contrast these with the conditions that favour success. ... Collapse is based on a series of detailed case studies. ... Diamond then provides a fuller exploration of the many rich parallels between these historic cases and select modern societies. ... What emerges most clearly from [his] analysis is the central role played by environmetnal decay in undermining human societies. ... In the end, [his] painstaking toil in the deep mines of history rewards him with sufficient nuggets of hope that he emerges 'cautiously optimistic' about the human prospect. ... The most important lesson to be drawn from Collapse is that resilient societies are nimble ones, capable of long term planning and of abandoning deeply entrenched but ultimately destructive core values and beliefs. This, in turn, requires a well informed public, inspired leadership and the political will to go against the established order of things. ... ' William Rees, Nature 433:15, 6 January 2005.
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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'
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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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Petroski, Henry, Success Through Failure: The Paradox of Design, Princeton University Press 2006 Amazon editorial review: 'Civil engineer and historian Petroski interprets the 1940 collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge as a cautionary tale for designers. That bridge failed because engineers made it by enlarging a previously successful idea. Wise designers, Petroski insists, must always contemplate the possibility of failure. Indeed, it is usually failure that spurs designers on toward improved blueprints. Failure-induced improvement may mean merely that lecturers can use a laser pointer in place of a yardstick, but it may also mean that physicians can turn to lifesaving diagnostic software far superior to fallible human protocols. The potential for failure manifests itself before the event to those designers blessed with prescience, but often improvements are only implemented in the wake of actual failures. From ancient Roman engineers dismayed at the failure of stone-arch bridges to twenty-first-century American architects stunned by the collapse of the Twin Towers, designers have frequently learned valuable principles through hard tutelage. Lucid and concise, this study invites nonspecialists to share in the challenge of trial-and-error engineering.' Bryce Christensen Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Snow, C P, In Their Wisdom, House of Stratus 2000 'Economic storm clouds gather as bad political weather is forecast for the nation. Three elderly peers look on from the sidelines of the House of Lords and wonder if it will mean the end of a certain way of life. Against this background is set a court struggle over a disputed will that escalates into an almighty battle.'
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Weinberg, Steven, The Quantum Theory of Fields Volume I: Foundations, Cambridge University Press 1995 Jacket: 'After a brief historical outline, the book begins anew with the principles about which we are most certain, relativity and quantum mechanics, and then the properties of particles that follow from these principles. Quantum field theory then emerges from this as a natural consequence. The classic calculations of quantum electrodynamics are presented in a thoroughly modern way, showing the use of path integrals and dimensional regularization. The account of renormalization theory reflects the changes in our view of quantum field theory since the advent of effective field theories. The book's scope extends beyond quantum elelctrodynamics to elementary partricle physics and nuclear physics. It contains much original material, and is peppered with examples and insights drawn from the author's experience as a leader of elementary particle research. Problems are included at the end of each chapter. '
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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.
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Papers

Landauer, Rolf, "Information is a physical entity", Physica A, 263, 1, 1 February 1999, page 63-7. 'This paper, associated with a broader conference talk on the fundamental physical limits of information handling, emphasizes the aspects still least appreciated. Information is not an abstract entity but exists only through a physical representation, thus tying it to all the restrictions and possibilities of our real physical universe. The mathematician's vision of an unlimited sequence of totally reliable operations is unlikely to be implementable in this real universe. Speculative remarks about the possible impact of that, on the ultimate nature of the laws of physics are included.'. back

MacLean, R Craig, Ivana Gudeli, "Resource competition and social conflict in experimental poplation of yeast", Nature, 441, 7092, 25 May 2006, page 498-501. 'Understanding the conditions that promote the maintenance of cooperation is a classic problem in evolutionary biology. The essence of this dilemma is captured by the 'tragedy of the commons': how can a group of individuals that exploit resources in a cooperative manner resist invasion by 'cheaters' who selfishly use common resources to maximize their individual reproduction at the expense of the group, 8? Here, we investigate this conflict through experimental competitions between isogenic cheater and cooperator strains of yeast with alternative pathways of glucose metabolism, and by using mathematical models of microbial biochemistry. We show that both coexistence and competitive exclusion are possible outcomes of this conflict, depending on the spatial and temporal structure of the environment. Both of these outcomes are driven by trade-offs between the rate and efficiency of conversion of resources into offspring that are mediated by metabolic intermediates.'. back

Links

Andrew Mitrovica, Corbyn was right in 2003, and he is right again today, 'His voice rising in plaintive anger, Corbyn said the war would "set off a spiral of conflict, of hate, of misery, of desperation that will fuel the wars, the conflict, the terrorism, the depression, and the misery of future generations ... the way to free us from the scourge of war is to free ourselves from the scourge of injustice, of poverty, and of misery".' back

Ann Applebaum, Theresa May won't get a landslide. Beyond that, the British election is hard to predict, 'Sooner or later the British were bound to ask who created all of this uncertainty, and sooner or later the blame was bound to fall on the Conservative Party, whose leaders launched the referendum and who have run the country since it happened.' back

Chongyi Feng, Academic Chongyi Geng: profits, freedom and China's 'soft power' in Australia, 'In March this year, University of Technology Sydney associate professor Chongyi Feng was detained by Chinese officials, unable to board his flight home to Sydney. He was held and interrogated for ten days before being allowed to return to Australia. Here, the expert in intellectual and political development in China recounts his personal experience and outlines how Chinese “soft power” is exercised in Australia.' back

Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton, How G.O.P. Leaders Ca,e t View Climate Change as Fake Scoience, 'Until 2010, some Republicans ran ads in House and Senate races showing their support for green energy. “After that, it disappeared from Republican ads,” said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity. “Part of that was the polling, and part of it was the visceral example of what happened to their colleagues who had done that.” What happened was clear. Republicans who asserted support for climate change legislation or the seriousness of the climate threat saw their money dry up or, worse, a primary challenger arise.' back

Damian Carrington, 'Spectacular' drop in renewable energy costs leads to record global boost, 'Renewable energy capacity around the world was boosted by a record amount in 2016 and delivered at a markedly lower cost, according to new global data – although the total financial investment in renewables actually fell. The greater “bang-for-buck” resulted from plummeting prices for solar and wind power and led to new power deals in countries including Denmark, Egypt, India, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates all being priced well below fossil fuel or nuclear options.' back

Daniel Benjamin, Is Trump Fighting Terrorism?, 'What is new and deeply worrisome so far is Trump’s rebalancing of our relationships in the Middle East and hyper-militarization of the fight against terror. His actions will heighten sectarian tensions in the Middle East and only strengthen the forces driving radicalization and violence across the region.' back

Gareth Hutchins, Household's share of national economic pie nears 50-year low., 'Bureau of Statistics data show labour’s share of gross domestic product has fallen to 51.5%, down from 54.2% in the third quarter of last year. At the same time, the profit share of GDP has risen from 24.5% to a five-year high of 27.5%. Paul Dales from Capital Economics said Australian households had not seen “one cent” of the extra income generated by recent soaring commodity prices because “it’s all gone into the pocket of business”.' back

George Orwell, In Front of Your Nose, There is no use in multiplying examples. The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.' back

Hamish McRae, The US is on track to carbon cut emissions faster that expected - nd its nothing to do with the Paris agreement, 'When politics and technology clash, bet on technology. That is the best guide to what will happen following the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement to cut carbon emissions. Whatever view you take of President Trump’s action – I happen to think it is an unforced error – the advance of technology will ensure that the US does indeed cut emissions even faster than it has promised to do under the accord.' back

Henry Louis Mencken, Quotations and quotes, 'H L Mencken ( Henry Louis Mencken ) and George Jean Nathan, his co-editor at The Smart Set, were well known for the numerous short epigrams that were a fixture of that magazine. The sayings were so popular they were featured in movie theaters as trailers before the main feature started. He remains ever quoteable. Here is a selection of delightful and wise quotations and quotes attributable to Mencken.' back

Ian Sample, Oldest Homo sapiens bones ever found shake foundations of human story, 'Archaeologists unearthed the bones of at least five people at Jebel Irhoud, a former barite mine 100km west of Marrakesh, in excavations that lasted years. They knew the remains were old, but were stunned when dating tests revealed that a tooth and stone tools found with the bones were about 300,000 years old.' back

Ismail Numan Telci, Qatar-Gulf rift: Can Riyad be triumphant?, 'First of all, they are threatened by Qatar's commitment to supporting democratic demands of the Arab people since the start of the Arab Spring in Tunisia in 2010. . . . The second reason behind Abu Dhabi and Riyadh's enmity against Qatar is Doha's support for the Muslim Brotherhood. . . . The third reason behind the crisis is the tendency of the Doha government to follow a foreign policy independent of other Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia.' back

Jennifer Rubin, With his London tweets, Trump embarasses himself - and America - Once again, 'The police acted with lightning-fast precision, killing the three assailants within eight minutes of the emergency call. And, God Bless him, a man returned to the bar where he experienced Saturday’s horror — to pay his bill and tip. Civilization is not going to be driven out of Britain by three or three hundred killers. Meanwhile — and it pains me to write this — our president acted like a clod, a heartless and dull-witted thug in sending out a series of tweets.' back

John D Norton, General covariance and the foundations of general relativity: eight decades of dispute, 'Abstract Einstein offered the principle of general covariance as the fundamental physical principle of his general theory of relativity, and as responsible for extending the principle of relativity to accelerated motion. This view was disputed almost immediately with the counter-claim that the principle was no relativity principle and was physically vacuous. The disagree- ment persists today. This article reviews the development of Einstein's thought on general covariance, its relation to the foundations of general relativity and the evolution of the continuing debate over his viewpoint.' back

John Quiggin, Asset recycling may look new and exciting. But it is the last gasp of a failed model., 'The core problem with the “recycling” idea is that income-generating assets were sold to finance new investments that did not generate income. Rather like selling your house to buy an expensive car, this is a trick that can only be done once, and leaves governments with increased net debt.' back

Lawrence Summers, After 75 year of progress, was last week a hinge in history?, 'We may have our first post-rational president. Trump has rejected the view of modern science on global climate change, embraced economic forecasts and trade theories outside the range of reputable opinion, and relied on the idea of alternative facts rather than evidence-based truth.' back

Leigh Boucher, Only Heaven Knows brings 1940s queer Sydney roaring back to life, 'Only Heaven Knows, a musical about a young Melbourne man who discovers the queer delights of homosexual desire, unexpected intimacies and gender transgressions in Sydney’s Kings Cross in the 1940s, has been revived in its thirtieth anniversary year at the Hayes Theatre in Elizabeth Bay.' back

Lenny Bernstein, Millions of dollars' worth of research in limbo at NIH, 'The leadership at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, where Meltzer worked, has banned the use of data collected over 25 years from more than 1,000 volunteers in the lab of neurologist Allen R. Braun, citing “serious and widespread” record-keeping errors, all of them clerical matters related to forms used for matters such as screening volunteers or logging physical exams.' back

Lorentz transformation - Wikipedia, Lorentz transformation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, the Lorentz transformation or Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformation describes how, according to the theory of special relativity, two observers' varying measurements of space and time can be converted into each other's frames of reference. It is named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz. It reflects the surprising fact that observers moving at different velocities may measure different distances, elapsed times, and even different orderings of events.' back

Metamorphosis - Wikipedia, Metamorphosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation.' back

Michael Jetter and David Stadelman, Looking at terror attacks 'per capita' should make us rethink beliefs about levels of risk and Muslims, 'On an average day, terrorists kill 21 people worldwide. On that same average day, natural or technological disasters kill 2,200 people – or more than 100 times as many.' back

Michel Janssen, The Einstein-Besso Manuscript: A Glimpse Behind the Curtain of the Wizard, 'The aim of most of the calculations in the Einstein-Besso manuscript is to see whether an early version of the general theory of relativity, which Einstein had published in June 1913, can account for a tiny discrepancy between the observed motion of Mercury and the motion predicted on the basis of Newton’s theory of gravity. ' back

REN21, REN21 promotes renewable energy, 'REN21 is the global renewable energy policy network that connects a wide range of key actors. REN21’s goal is to facilitate knowledge exchange, policy development and joint action towards a rapid global transition to renewable energy. Its activities are managed by a lean Secretariat, based at UNEP in Paris, France. REN21 facilitates the collection of comprehensive and timely information on renewable energy. This information reflects diverse viewpoints for both private and public sector actors, servicing to dispel myths about renewable energy and to catalyse policy change.' back

Renaud Joannes-Boyau, New Moroccan fossils suggest humans lived and evolved across Africa 100,000 years earlier than we thought, 'The earliest known existence of modern humans, or Homo sapiens, was previously dated to be around 200,000 years ago. It’s a view supported by genetic analysis and dated Homo sapiens fossils (Omo Kibish, estimated age 195,000 years, and Herto, estimated age 160,000 years), both found in modern-day Ethiopia, East Africa. But new research, published today in two Nature papers, offers a fresh perspective. The latest studies suggest that Homo sapiens spread across the entire African continent more than 100,000 years earlier than previously thought.' back

Ruby Hamad, Muslims shouldn't feel obliged to apologize for terrorist attacks, 'What is more saddening is witnessing Muslims succumbing to this peculiar notion that terrorism only really counts when it hits Western shores. This means not only must Muslims "prove" they don't approve of this violence, they are also expected to mourn the loss of Western life above all others. But what has made the past week or so truly unbearable is that all this was happening as innocent Muslim and other Arab civilians in Syria and Iraq were being bombed by one US-led strike after another.' back

Soft error - Wikipedia, Soft error - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In electronics and computing, a soft error is a type of error where a signal or datum is wrong. Errors may be caused by a defect, usually understood either to be a mistake in design or construction, or a broken component. A soft error is also a signal or datum which is wrong, but is not assumed to imply such a mistake or breakage. After observing a soft error, there is no implication that the system is any less reliable than before. . . . In a computer's memory system, a soft error changes an instruction in a program or a data value. Soft errors typically can be remedied by cold booting the computer. ' back

Spinor - Wikipedia, Dirac spinor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In geometry and physics, spinors are elements of a (complex) vector space that can be associated with Euclidean space. Like geometric vectors and more general tensors, spinors transform linearly when the Euclidean space is subjected to a slight (infinitesimal) rotation. When a sequence of such small rotations is composed (integrated) to form an overall final rotation, however, the resulting spinor transformation depends on which sequence of small rotations was used, unlike for vectors and tensors.' back

Thomas Aquinas, My writing seems like straw to me, 'All that I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me.' Remarks on being requested to resume writing, after a mystical experience while saying mass on or around 6 December 1273, as quoted in A Taste of Water : Christianity through Taoist-Buddhist Eyes (1990) by Chwen Jiuan Agnes Lee and Thomas G. Hand back