Creutz, Michael , Quarks Gluons and Lattices, Cambridge UP 1983 Jacket: 'This book introduces the lattice approach to quantum field theory. The spectacular successes of this technique include compelling evidence that exchange of gauge gluons can confine the quarks within subnuclear matter. . . . The treatment begins with the lattice definition of the path integral method and ends on Monte Carlo simulation methods.' 
Amazon   back

Huang, Kerson, Fundamental Forces of Nature: the Story of Gauge Fields, World Scientific 2007 ' The story of gauge fields, from Maxwell's 1860 theory of electromagnetism to the 1954 theory of Yang and Mills that underlies the Standard Model of elementary particle theory. In the course of the narration, the author introduces people and events in experimental and theoretical physics that contribute to ideas that have shaped our conception of the physical world.' [Book jacket] 
Amazon   back

Kuhn, Thomas S, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity 1894-1912, University of Chicago Press 1987 Jacket: '[This book] traces the emergence of discontinuous physics during the early years of this century. Breaking with historiographic tradition, Kuhn maintains that, though clearly due to Max Planck, the concept of discontinuous energy change does not originate in his work. Instead it was introduced by physicists trying to understand the success of his brilliant new theory of black-body radiation.' 
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

McGregor, Richard, The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, Harper 2010 Amazon editorial review: From Publishers Weekly 'McGregor, a journalist at the Financial Times, begins his revelatory and scrupulously reported book with a provocative comparison between China's Communist Party and the Vatican for their shared cultures of secrecy, pervasive influence, and impenetrability. The author pulls back the curtain on the Party to consider its influence over the industrial economy, military, and local governments. McGregor describes a system operating on a Leninist blueprint and deeply at odds with Western standards of management and transparency. Corruption and the tension between decentralization and national control are recurring themes--and are highlighted in the Party™s handling of the disturbing Sanlu case, in which thousands of babies were poisoned by contaminated milk powder. McGregor makes a clear and convincing case that the 1989 backlash against the Party, inexorable globalization, and technological innovations in communication have made it incumbent on the Party to evolve, and this smart, authoritative book provides valuable insight into how it has--and has not--met the challenge. ' Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
Amazon   back

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.' 
Amazon   back

Newman, John Henry, The Idea of a University, Aeterna Press 2015 ' IN addressing myself, Gentlemen, to the consideration of a question which has excited so much interest, and elicited so much discussion at the present day, as that of University Education, I feel some explanation is due from me for supposing, after such high ability and wide experience have been brought to bear upon it, that any field remains for the additional labours either of a disputant or of an inquirer. If, nevertheless, I still venture to ask permission to continue the discussion, already so protracted, it is because the subject of Liberal Education, and of the principles on which it must be conducted, has ever had a hold upon my own mind; and because I have lived the greater part of my life in a place which has all that time been occupied in a series of controversies both domestic and with strangers, and of measures, experimental or definitive, bearing upon it.' 
Amazon   back

t' Hooft (editor), Gerardus, 50 Years of Yang-Mills Theory, World Scientific Publishing Company 2005 Amazon Product Description ' On the 50th anniversary of Yang-Mills theory, this invaluable volume looks back at the developments and achievements in elementary particle physics that ensued from that beautiful idea. During the last five decades, Yang-Mills theory, which is undeniably the most important cornerstone of theoretical physics, has expanded widely. It has been investigated from many perspectives, and many new and unexpected features have been uncovered from this theory. In recent decades, apart from high energy physics, the theory has been actively applied in other branches of physics, such as statistical physics, condensed matter physics, nonlinear systems, etc. This makes the theory an indispensable topic for all who are involved in physics. An international team of experts, each of whom has left his mark on the developments of this remarkable theory, contribute essays or more detailed technical accounts to this volume. These articles highlight the new discoveries from the respective authors' perspectives. The distinguished contributors are: S Adler, P van Baal, F A Bais, C Becchi, M Creutz, A DeRujula, B S DeWitt, F Englert, L D Faddeev, P Hasenfratz, R Jackiw, P van Nieuwenhuizen, A Polyakov, R Stora, S Weinberg, F Wilczek, E Witten, C N Yang. Included in each article are introductory and explanatory remarks by the editor, G 't Hooft, who is himself a major player in the development of Yang-Mills theory.' 
Amazon   back

Veltman, Martinus, Diagrammatica: The Path to the Feynman Rules, Cambridge University Press 1994 Jacket: 'This book provides an easily accessible introduction to quantum field theory via Feynman rules and calculations in particle physics. The aim is to make clear what the physical foundations of present-day field theory are, to clarify the physical content of Feynman rules, and to outline their domain of applicability. ... The book includes valuable appendices that review some essential mathematics, including complex spaces, matrices, the CBH equation, traces and dimensional regularization. ...' 
Amazon   back

von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, and David Luke (translator), Faust (part 1), Oxford University Press ' This new translation, in rhymed verse, of Goethe's Faust--one of the greatest dramatic and poetic masterpieces of European literature--preserves the essence of Goethe's meaning without resorting either to an overly literal, archaic translation or to an overly modern idiom. It remains the nearest "equivalent" rendering of the German ever achieved. The legend of Faust grew up in the sixteenth century, a time of transition between medieval and modern culture in Germany. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) adopted the story of the wandering conjuror who accepts Mephistopheles's offer of a pact, selling his soul for the devil's greater knowledge; over a period of 60 years he produced one of the greatest dramatic and poetic masterpieces of European literature. David Luke's recent translation, specially commissioned for the Oxford World's Classics series, has all the virtues of previous classic translations of Faust, and none of their shortcomings. Cast in rhymed verse, following the original, it preserves the essence of Goethe's meaning without sacrifice to archaism or over-modern idiom. ' 
Amazon   back

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

Adam Brumm, Indonesian cave paintings show the dawn of imaginative art and human spiritual belief, ' Our team has discovered a cave painting in Indonesia that is at least 44,000 years old and which may cast new light on the beginnings of modern religious culture. This ancient painting from the island of Sulawesi consists of a scene portraying part-human, part-animal figures hunting wild pigs and small buffalo-like animals with spears or ropes. As we report today in Nature, our dating study shows this is the world’s oldest known representational artwork (as the images depicted are figurative in nature). The depiction of the part-human, part-animal hunters may also be the earliest evidence of our capacity to conceive of things that do not exist in the natural world. This ability is a cornerstone of religious thought and experience with origins long shrouded in mystery.' back

Alan Chan (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Laozi (2018), ' Confucianism, Daoism (Taoism), and Buddhism generally name the three main currents of Chinese thought, although it should be obvious that like any “ism,” they are abstractions—what they name are not monolithic but multifaceted traditions with fuzzy boundaries. In the case of “Daoism,” it designates both a philosophical tradition and an organized religion, which in modern Chinese are identified separately as daojia and daojiao, respectively. Philosophical Daoism traces its origins to Laozi, an extraordinary thinker who flourished during the sixth century B.C.E., according to Chinese sources. According to some modern scholars, however, Laozi is entirely legendary; there was never a historical Laozi. In religious Daoism, Laozi is revered as a supreme deity. The name “Laozi” is best taken to mean “Old (lao) Master (zi),” and Laozi the ancient philosopher is said to have written a short book, which has come to be called simply the Laozi, after its putative author, a common practice in early China.' back

Born rule - Wikipedia, Born rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Born rule (also called the Born law, Born's rule, or Born's law) is a law of quantum mechanics which gives the probability that a measurement on a quantum system will yield a given result. It is named after its originator, the physicist Max Born. The Born rule is one of the key principles of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. There have been many attempts to derive the Born rule from the other assumptions of quantum mechanics, with inconclusive results. . . . The Born rule states that if an observable corresponding to a Hermitian operator A with discrete spectrum is measured in a system with normalized wave function (see bra-ket notation), then the measured result will be one of the eigenvalues λ of A, and the probability of measuring a given eigenvalue λ_i will equal <ψ|P_i|ψ> where P_i is the projection onto the eigenspace of A corresponding to λ_i'. back

Bureau International des Poids et Mesures - BIPM, SI Brochure, ' We are pleased to present the 9th edition of the SI Brochure (2019), which defines and presents the Système International d'Unités, the SI (known in English as the International System of Units).' back

Charles Dunst, Israel's Shameful Role in Myanmar's Genocidal Campaign Against the Rohinga, ' The international community’s laconic approach and deprioritization of protecting a victimized minority let Europe’s Jews die during the Holocaust; Israel’s similar equanimity gave Myanmar the tools and space to carry out atrocities against the Rohingya. It is a sad subversion of the post-World War II "Never again!" rallying cry. Israel, founded in the embers of the Jewish people’s genocide, failed to live up to that ideal. With human rights groups now warning of potential genocide in India, another Israeli ally, Jerusalem must conduct some soul-searching and adjust its calculations to never again replicate Israel’s grave Myanmar errors. Never again should the Jewish State enable any country, particularly one of its allies, to carry out a genocide.' back

Chuck Berry - Wikipedia, Chuck Berry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive. Writing lyrics that focused on teen life and consumerism, and developing a music style that included guitar solos and showmanship, Berry was a major influence on subsequent rock music.' back

Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems - Wikipedia, Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Conference and Workshop on Neural Information Processing Systems (abbreviated as NeurIPS and formerly NIPS) is a machine learning and computational neuroscience conference held every December. The conference is currently a double-track meeting (single-track until 2015) that includes invited talks as well as oral and poster presentations of refereed papers, followed by parallel-track workshops that up to 2013 were held at ski resorts.' back

Eric Keys, Chrus De Gruyter, Graham Currie, The problem with transport models is political abuse, not their use in planning, ' Transport models are often singled out as a barrier to providing more sustainable and equitable transport services. However, abandoning transport models would most likely weaken planning, not enhance it. But getting the best out of such modelling requires transparency to overcome the increasing problem of its misuse to justify predetermined political decisions.. back

Feynman, Leighton & Sands FLP III:01, Chapter 1: Quantum Behaviour, 'The gradual accumulation of information about atomic and small-scale behavior during the first quarter of the 20th century, which gave some indications about how small things do behave, produced an increasing confusion which was finally resolved in 1926 and 1927 by Schrödinger, Heisenberg, and Born. They finally obtained a consistent description of the behavior of matter on a small scale. We take up the main features of that description in this chapter.' back

Francis X. Rocca, Vatican Uses Donations for the Poor to Plug its Budget Deficit, ' VATICAN CITY—Every year, Catholics around the world donate tens of millions of dollars to the pope. Bishops exhort the faithful to support the weak and suffering through the pope’s main charitable appeal, called Peter’s Pence. What the church doesn’t advertise is that most of that collection, worth more than €50 million ($55 million) annually, goes toward plugging the hole in the Vatican’s own administrative budget, while as little as 10% is spent on charitable works, according to people familiar with the funds.' back

Frozen II - Wikipedia, Frozen II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Frozen II, also known as Frozen 2, is a 2019 American 3D computer-animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. The 58th animated film produced by the studio, it is the sequel to the 2013 film Frozen and features the return of directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, producer Peter Del Vecho, songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, and composer Christophe Beck.' back

Greg Sargent, The massive triumph of the rich illustrated by stunning new data, ' The declining progressivity of the tax code is the subject of “The Triumph of Injustice,” a great new book by Zucman and fellow Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez. It charts the slow strangulation of that progressivity at the top. As they demonstrate, the effective tax rate (federal, state, local and other taxes) paid by top earners has steadily declined since the 1950s and 1960s, when the tax code really was quite progressive, to a point where the highest income groups pay barely more, percentage wise, than the bottom. Indeed, in 2018, the top 400 earners for the first time paid a lower effective overall tax rate than working-class Americans. There are many reasons for this radical decline in progressivity, including domestic and international tax avoidance, the whittling away of the estate and corporate taxes, and the repeated downsizing of top marginal rates.' back

Heavenly Questions - Wikipedia, Heavenly Questions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Heavenly Questions or Questions to Heaven (traditional Chinese: 天問; simplified Chinese: 天问; pinyin: Tiānwèn) is a piece contained in the Classical Chinese poetry collection of Chu Ci, which is noted both in terms of poetry and as a source for information on the ancient culture of China, especially the area of the ancient state of Chu. Of all the poems attributed to Qu Yuan, "Tianwen" contains more myths than any of the other pieces which may be attributed to him; however, due to the formal structure of "Tianwen" as a series of questions, information regarding the myths alluded to appear more as a series of allusive fragments than as cohesively narrated stories.' back

Janet Fife-Yeomans, Hush fund: Catholic Church paid $43 million to keep abuse secret, 'THE Catholic Church has admitted paying at least $43 million in hush money to victims of its paedophile priests, as the church's barrister outraged victims yesterday by quoting from the Bible. In some cases, victims were not even allowed to tell their husbands, wives or children about the secret settlements negotiated through the church's controversial Towards Healing process.' back

John Paul II, Fides et Ratio: On the relationship between faith and reason , para 2: 'The Church is no stranger to this journey of discovery, nor could she ever be. From the moment when, through the Paschal Mystery, she received the gift of the ultimate truth about human life, the Church has made her pilgrim way along the paths of the world to proclaim that Jesus Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6).' back

Jonah M. Kessel and Hiroko Tabuchi, Its Vast, Invisible Climate Menace. We Made It Visible, 'To the naked eye, there is nothing out of the ordinary at the DCP Pegasus gas processing plant in West Texas, one of the thousands of installations in the vast Permian Basin that have transformed America into the largest oil and gas producer in the world. But a highly specialized camera sees what the human eye cannot: a major release of methane, the main component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas that is helping to warm the planet at an alarming rate. back

Juan Yin et al, Bounding the speed of 'spooky action at a distance', 'In the well-known EPR paper, Einstein et al. called the nonlocal correlation in quantum entanglement as `spooky action at a distance'. If the spooky action does exist, what is its speed? All previous experiments along this direction have locality loopholes and thus can be explained without having to invoke any `spooky action' at all. Here, we strictly closed the locality loopholes by observing a 12-hour continuous violation of Bell inequality and concluded that the lower bound speed of `spooky action' was four orders of magnitude of the speed of light if the Earth's speed in any inertial reference frame was less than 10^(-3) times of the speed of light.' back

Kenneth G Wilson, The Renormalisation Group and Critical Phenomena, Nobel Prize Lecture, 8 December 1982: This paper has three parts. The first part is a simplified presentation of the basic ideas of the renormalization group and the e expansion applied to critical phenomena, following roughly a summary exposition given in 1972. The second part is an account of the history (as I remember it) of work leading up to the papers in I971-1972 on the renormalization group. Finally, some of the developments since 1971 will be summarized, and an assessment for the future given.' back

Lamb shift - Wikipedia, Lamb shift - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, the Lamb shift, named after Willis Lamb (1913–2008), is a difference in energy between two energy levels ²S_½ and ²P_½ (in term symbol notation) of the hydrogen atom which was not predicted by the Dirac equation, according to which these states should have the same energy. Interaction between vacuum energy fluctuations and the hydrogen electron in these different orbitals is the cause of the Lamb Shift, as was shown subsequent to its discovery.' back

Lawrence Lessig, This Impeachment is Different—and More Dangerous, ' In a study published last month, the research institute PRRI found that 55% of “Republicans for whom Fox News is their primary news source say there is nothing Trump could do to lose their approval, compared to only 29% of Republicans who do not cite Fox News as their primary news source.” That 26-point difference is driven not just by politics, but in part by the media source. This means that as the story of impeachment develops, it will be understood differently across the network-based tribes of America. The correlation among conservatives and liberals alike that drove Nixon from the White House won’t be visible in 2020—because it won’t be there. Regardless of what happens, on one side, it will be justice delivered. On the other, justice denied.' back

Martin Cohn & Frederic Leroy, The dark side of plant-based food - it's more about money than you would think, ' Many of today’s food debates can also be usefully reinterpreted when seen as part of a wider economic picture. For example, recent years have seen the co-option of the vegetarian movement in a political programme that can have the effect of perversely disadvantaging small-scale, traditional farming in favour of large-scale industrial farming. This is part of a wider trend away from small and mid-size producers towards industrial-scale farming and a global food market in which food is manufactured from cheap ingredients bought in a global bulk commodities market that is subject to fierce competition.' back

Particle Data Group. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Particle Adventure, The Particle Data Group of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory presents an award winning interactive tour of quarks, neutrinos, antimatter, extra dimensions, dark matter, accelerators and particle detectors. back

Paul III - Council of Trent, Decree Concerning Original Sin, '1. If anyone does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he transgressed the commandment of God in paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted, and through the offense of that prevarication incurred the wrath and indignation of God, and thus death with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam through that offense of prevarication was changed in body and soul for the worse, let him be anathema.' back

Ross Gittins, Revealed: why the government's forecasts are always off , ' Just to warm you up for the mid-year budget update on Monday, let me ask you: why do you think Treasury and the Reserve Bank have gone for a least the past eight years forecasting more growth in the economy than ever transpired? Kieran Davies, a respected economist from National Australia Bank, has been checking. He says their mistake has been failing to allow for the decline in our “potential” growth rate since the global financial crisis in 2008. . . . Davies’ examination of the Reserve’s forecasting record found that, since the financial crisis, it had persistently overestimated growth in real gross domestic product in the year ahead, and had nearly always overestimated growth over the next two years. Why? Because it failed to take account of the decline in the potential growth rate since the crisis. It’s a safe bet the Reserve has stuck with 2.75 per cent. But Davies says the Reserve’s own econometric model of the economy, MARTIN, finds that potential growth has declined from 3.1 per cent in 2000 to 2.7 per cent in 2010 and 2.4 per cent in 2019.' back

Stephen Blaha, A Quantum Computer Foundation for the Standard Model and Super String Theories, 'ABSTRACT 1. SuperString Theory can naturally be based on a Quantum Computer foundation. This provides a totally new view of SuperString Theory. 2. The Standard Model of elementary particles can be viewed as defining a Quantum Computer Grammar and language. 3. A Quantum Computer can be represented in part as a second-quantized Fermi field. 4. A Quantum Computer in a certain limit naturally forms a Superspace upon which Supersymmetry rotations can be defined – a Continuum Quantum Computer. 5. A representation of Quantum Computers exists that is similar to Turing Machines - a Quantum Turing Machine. As part of this development we define various types of Quantum Grammars. 6. High level Quantum Computer languages are described for the first time. New linguistic views of the most fundamental theories of Physics, the Standard Model and SuperString Theory are described. In these new linguistic representations particles become literally symbols or letters, and particle interactions become grammar rules. This view is NOT the same as the often-expressed view that Mathematics is the language of Physics. The linguistic representation is a specific new mathematical construct. We show how to create a SuperString Quantum Computer that naturally provides a framework for SuperStrings in general and heterotic SuperStrings in particular. There are also a number of new developments relating to Quantum Computers and Quantum Turing Machines that are of interest to Computer Science. The elementary particle language defines a new form of reality in the sense that the elementary particles become states within a Quantum Computer. The workings and contents of the universe are reduced to computer computation. Speculations about the purposes and goals of the elementary particle language are presented based on the goals and features of languages like C++ and Java.' back

The Scarlet Letter - Wikipedia, The Scarlet Letter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is a work of historical fiction by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. Set in Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne who conceives a daughter through an affair and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. The book explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.' back

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae - Home, ' Because the doctor of Catholic truth ought not only to teach the proficient, but also to instruct beginners (according to the Apostle: As unto little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat—1 Corinthians 3:1-2), we purpose in this book to treat of whatever belongs to the Christian religion, in such a way as may tend to the instruction of beginners. We have considered that students in this doctrine have not seldom been hampered by what they have found written by other authors, partly on account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments, partly also because those things that are needful for them to know are not taught according to the order of the subject matter, but according as the plan of the book might require, or the occasion of the argument offer, partly, too, because frequent repetition brought weariness and confusion to the minds of readers. Endeavouring to avoid these and other like faults, we shall try, by God's help, to set forth whatever is included in this sacred doctrine as briefly and clearly as the matter itself may allow.' back

Vicki Lowik & Annabel Taylor, Evangelical churches believe men should control women. That's why they breed domestic violence, ' For three decades, Jane’s husband abused her under the guise of this notion of authority. He isolated her, denied her money and the use of a car. He yelled at her, kicked and punched her, told her she was mad and threatened to kill her. Jane is a case study participant in my research, and she told me that when she went to her church leaders for support, they asked her what she was doing wrong. When she attempted to escape the abuse after the first decade of marriage, they told her to continue attending church with her husband.' back

William P.Barr, Remarks to the Law School and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, ' As Catholics, we are committed to the Judeo-Christian values that have made this country great. . . . We understand that only by transforming ourselves can we transform the world beyond ourselves. . . . Beyond this, we must place greater emphasis on the moral education of our children. . . . If ever there was a need for a resurgence of Catholic education – and more generally religiously-affiliated schools – it is today. I think we should do all we can to promote and support authentic Catholic education at all levels. . . . We must be vigilant to resist efforts by the forces of secularization to drive religious viewpoints from the public square and to impinge upon the free exercise of our faith. I can assure you that, as long as I am Attorney General, the Department of Justice will be at the forefront of this effort, ready to fight for the most cherished of our liberties: the freedom to live according to our faith. back

Willis E. Lamb Jr., Fine Structure of the Hydrogen Atom, ' A qualitative picture of the level shift was given by Welton in 1948. The fluctuating zero-point electric field of the quantized vacuum acts on an electron bound in a hydrogen atom. As a result, the electron is caused to move about its unperturbed position in a rapid and highly erratic manner. The point electron effectively becomes a sphere of a radius almost 10^-12 cm. Such an electron in a hydrogen atom is not so strongly attracted to the nucleus at short distances as would be a point electron. States of zero orbital angular momentum like 2²S₀ are therefore raised in energy relative to other states like 2²P in which the electron has a smaller probability of being found near the nucleus.' back

Wojciech Hubert Zurek, Quantum origin of quantum jumps: breaking of unitary symmetry induced by information transfer and the transition from quantum to classical, 'Submitted on 17 Mar 2007 (v1), last revised 18 Mar 2008 (this version, v3)) "Measurements transfer information about a system to the apparatus, and then further on -- to observers and (often inadvertently) to the environment. I show that even imperfect copying essential in such situations restricts possible unperturbed outcomes to an orthogonal subset of all possible states of the system, thus breaking the unitary symmetry of its Hilbert space implied by the quantum superposition principle. Preferred outcome states emerge as a result. They provide framework for the ``wavepacket collapse'', designating terminal points of quantum jumps, and defining the measured observable by specifying its eigenstates. In quantum Darwinism, they are the progenitors of multiple copies spread throughout the environment -- the fittest quantum states that not only survive decoherence, but subvert it into carrying information about them -- into becoming a witness.' back

Wu wei - Wikipedia, Wu wei - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Wu wei (Chinese: 無爲; pinyin: wú wéi) is a concept literally meaning "inexertion", "inaction", or "effortless action". Wu wei emerged in the Spring and Autumn period, and from Confucianism, to become an important concept in Chinese statecraft and Taoism, and was most commonly used to refer to an ideal form of government, including the behavior of the emperor. Describing a state of unconflicting personal harmony, free-flowing spontaneity and savoir-faire, it generally also more properly denotes a state of spirit or mind, and in Confucianism accords with conventional morality.' back

Yellow badge - Wikipedia, Yellow badge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Yellow badges (or yellow patches), also referred to as Jewish badges (German: Judenstern, lit. Jew's star), are badges that Jews were ordered to wear in public during certain periods by the ruling Christians and Muslims, especially in Nazi Germany. The badges served to mark the wearer as a religious or ethnic outsider, and often served as a badge of shame. back