Casti, John L, Five Golden Rules: Great Theories of 20th-Century Mathematics - and Why They Matter, John Wiley and Sons 1996 Preface: '[this book] is intended to tell the general reader about mathematics by showcasing five of the finest achievements of the mathematician's art in this [20th] century.' p ix. Treats the Minimax theorem (game theory), the Brouwer Fixed-Point theorem (topology), Morse's theorem (singularity theory), the Halting theorem (theory of computation) and the Simplex method (optimisation theory). 
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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 
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Andrew Whitehouse, Its 25 years since we redefined autism - here's what we've learned, ' The frequency and intensity of autism behaviours – such as repetitive play with objects and repeated body movements like rocking and hand flapping – vary between mild and severe. And intellectual abilities can range from significant disability to a very high IQ. This variation is the so-called “autism spectrum”, which has also led to the worldwide movement of “neurodiversity”. This views neurological conditions such as autism as part of the natural spectrum of human diversity, and posits that this diversity should be respected rather than pathologised.' back

Aquinas, Summa, I, 14, 2, Does God understand himself?, ' Since therefore God has nothing in Him of potentiality, but is pure act, His intellect and its object are altogether the same; so that He neither is without the intelligible species, as is the case with our intellect when it understands potentially; nor does the intelligible species differ from the substance of the divine intellect, as it differs in our intellect when it understands actually; but the intelligible species itself is the divine intellect itself, and thus God understands Himself through Himself.' back

Bhavan Jaipragas, China, Gandhi or RSS? The reason India snubbed the RCEP trade pact, ' Until this week, few people would have used the word “intrigue” in the same sentence as the “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership”. After all, even something touted as “the world’s largest free-trade deal” starts to lose a bit of pizazz after 28 rounds and seven years of talks. Enter Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister and a man seen by supporters and detractors alike as the ultimate showman-politician. Instead, he invoked the country’s most edifying symbol – Mahatma Gandhi. Modi said neither “Gandhi’s Talisman” – the late independence leader’s exhortation that, when in doubt, decisions should be made with the interests of the weakest and poorest in mind – nor his own conscience allowed him to join the RCEP.' back

Cartan formalism (physics) - Wikipedia, Cartan formalism (physics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The vierbein or tetrad theory much used in theoretical physics is a special case of the application of Cartan connection in four-dimensional manifolds. It applies to metrics of any signature. (See metric tensor.) This section is an approach to tetrads, but written in general terms. In dimensions other than 4, words like triad, pentad, zweibein, fünfbein, elfbein etc. have been used. Vielbein covers all dimensions. (In German, vier stands for four and viel stands for many.)' back

Commonwealmagazine.org, An Introduction , 'We believe that THE COMMONWEAL will be SO fundamentally different to our contemporaries that in place of competition in an over-crowded field we shall occupy a position that hitherto has been left vacant. For the difference between THECOMMONWEAL and other weekly literary reviews designed for general circulation is that THECOMMONWEAL will be definitely Christian in its presentation of orthodox religious principles and their application to the subjects that fall within its purview: principles which until now have not been expressed in American journalism except through the medium of the official organs of the Catholic Church and of the various denominations. As a sure background THECOMMONWEAL will have the continuous, unbroken tradition and teachings of the historic Mother Church.' back

David Holmes, Groupthink perfected: how Australia is isolating itself over action on climate change, 'The announcement last week that no Australian government ministers would be attending the UN summit on climate change in Poland tomorrow is as embarrassing as it is serious. In a previous post I had suggested that Australia was in danger of turning into a neolithic backwater in the stance the Abbott government is taking on climate change.' back

Gaia hypothesis - Wikipedia, Gaia hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.. . . The hypothesis was formulated by the scientist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. While early versions of the hypothesis were criticized for being teleological and contradicting principles of natural selection, later refinements have resulted in ideas highlighted by the Gaia Hypothesis being used in subjects such as geophysiology, Earth system science, biogeochemistry, systems ecology, and climate science.' back

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust Parts I & II, ' A complete translation, with line numbers, full stage directions and illustrations by Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798 - 1863), courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery. . . . Goethe’s two-part dramatic work, Faust, based on a traditional theme, and finally completed in 1831, is an exploration of that restless intellectual and emotional urge which found its fullest expression in the European Romantic movement, to which Goethe was an early and major contributor. Part I of the work outlines a pact Faust makes with the devil, Mephistopheles, and encompasses the tragedy of Gretchen, whom Faust seduces. Part II, developed over a long period of Goethe’s later life, reflects Goethe’s own transition from a predominantly Romantic to a wider world-view and explores more extensive themes, including the values of the Classical past, as it moves towards the work’s resolution.' back

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , The Project Gutenberg EBook of Faust: Der Tragödie erster Teil, ' Dieses Buch wurde uns freundlicherweise vom "Gutenberg Projekt-DE" zur Verfuegung gestellt. Das Projekt ist unter der Internet-Adresse http://gutenberg.aol.de erreichbar. This book was generously provided by the German Gutenberg Projekt, which can be found at the web address http://gutenberg.aol.de/. back

John Hawkins, Climate change: why Sweden' central bank dumped Australian bonds, ' What’s happening? Suddenly, at the level of central banks, Australia is regarded as an investment risk. On Wednesday Martin Flodén, the deputy governor of Sweden’s central bank, announced that because Australia and Canada were “not known for good climate work”. As a result the bank had sold its holdings of bonds issued by the Canadian province of Alberta and by the Australian states of Queensland and Western Australia.' back

Katherine Johnson, Frozen in time, casts of indigenous Australians who performed in 'human zoos' are chilling, ' In a large storage room in the basement of the former Musée d'Histoires Naturelles in Lyon, France, stands a rare relic of the colonial era: a full-body plaster cast of an 18-year-old Badtjala man from K’gari (Fraser Island), Queensland. . . . The man from whom the cast was made, Bonangera (Benanyora, Bonny or Boni) stands naked and holds a boomerang over his head. The plaster has been painted a dark brown. His eyes have been coloured red. Rows of horizontal cicatrices, or tribal markings, are visible as scars on his chest. Also discovered in storage were casts of the man’s hands and feet.' back

Nick Bilton, Snapchat, How Quickly You have Grown, 'While some might have been shocked this week by the multi-billion dollar offers the start-up Snapchat turned down, I found something else entirely perplexing about the valuation of this little company: just how quickly it grew. When I first wrote about Snapchat in a column in May 2012, it was a largely unknown product and still being run by a few undergraduates at Stanford who had originally presented the app idea in a mechanical engineering class called “Design and Business Factors.” Over a year after I wrote the column, the company is now potentially worth more than $4 billion.' back

Simon & Garfunkel, Hello Darkness My Old Friend, 'Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence
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Terminator: Dark Fate - Wikipedia, Terminator: Dark Fate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Terminator: Dark Fate is a 2019 American science fiction action film directed by Tim Miller, with screenplay by David Goyer, Justin Rhodes, and Billy Ray, from a story by James Cameron, Charles H. Eglee, Josh Friedman, Goyer, and Rhodes. Cameron also produced the film, alongside David Ellison. It is the sixth installment in the Terminator franchise, and acts as a direct sequel to The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), while retconning other related works such as Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009), Terminator Genisys (2015), and the television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009) from the franchise's canon following the return of creative control to Cameron. . . . The film also became a box-office bomb, having grossed $234 million against an estimated production budget of $185–196 million. With a break-even point of $450–480 million, projected losses for the studios involved are estimated to reach $130 million.' back