Brown, Kevin, Reflections on Relativity, Lulu.com 2018 ' "Reflections on Relativity" is a comprehensive presentation of the classical, special, and general theories of relativity, including in-depth historical perspectives, showing how the relativity principle has repeatedly inspired advances in our understanding of the physical world.' 
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Hobson, M P, and G. P. Efstathiou, A. N. Lasenby, General Relativity: An Introduction for Physicists, Cambridge University Press 2006 Amazon Editorial Reviews Book Description 'After reviewing the basic concept of general relativity, this introduction discusses its mathematical background, including the necessary tools of tensor calculus and differential geometry. These tools are used to develop the topic of special relativity and to discuss electromagnetism in Minkowski spacetime. Gravitation as spacetime curvature is introduced and the field equations of general relativity derived. After applying the theory to a wide range of physical situations, the book concludes with a brief discussion of classical field theory and the derivation of general relativity from a variational principle.'  
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Lamb, Christina, Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, Scribner 2020 ' Lamb chronicles extraordinary tragedy and challenges in the lives of women in wartime. And none is more devastating than the increase of the use of rape as a weapon of war. Visiting warzones including the Congo, Rwanda, Nigeria, Bosnia, and Iraq, and spending time with the Rohingya fleeing Myanmar, she records the harrowing stories of survivors, from Yazidi girls kept as sex slaves by ISIS fighters and the beekeeper risking his life to rescue them; to the thousands of schoolgirls abducted across northern Nigeria by Boko Haram, to the Congolese gynecologist who stitches up more rape victims than anyone on earth. Told as a journey, and structured by country, Our Bodies, Their Battlefields gives these women voice.' 
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Peacock, John A, Cosmological Physics, Cambridge University Press 1999 Nature Book Review: ' The intermingling of observational detail and fundamental theory has made cosmology an exceptionally rich, exciting and controversial science. Students in the field — whether observers or particle theorists — are expected to be acquainted with matters ranging from the Supernova Ia distance scale, Big Bang nucleosynthesis theory, scale-free quantum fluctuations during inflation, the galaxy two-point correlation function, particle theory candidates for the dark matter, and the star formation history of the Universe. Several general science books, conference proceedings and specialized monographs have addressed these issues. Peacock's Cosmological Physics ambitiously fills the void for introducing students with a strong undergraduate background in physics to the entire world of current physical cosmology. The majestic sweep of his discussion of this vast terrain is awesome, and is bound to capture the imagination of most students.' Ray Carlberg, Nature 399:322 
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Streater, Raymond F, and Arthur S Wightman, PCT, Spin, Statistics and All That, Princeton University Press 2000 Amazon product description: 'PCT, Spin and Statistics, and All That is the classic summary of and introduction to the achievements of Axiomatic Quantum Field Theory. This theory gives precise mathematical responses to questions like: What is a quantized field? What are the physically indispensable attributes of a quantized field? Furthermore, Axiomatic Field Theory shows that a number of physically important predictions of quantum field theory are mathematical consequences of the axioms. Here Raymond Streater and Arthur Wightman treat only results that can be rigorously proved, and these are presented in an elegant style that makes them available to a broad range of physics and theoretical mathematics.' 
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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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Weinberg, Steven, Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity, Wiley 1972 Amazon customer review: 'The Best Exposition on General Relativity: 'Weinberg is a master. His style is efficent. His words not wasted. His insights are inspiring. Behind each statement dwells a reservoir of thought. His selection and organization of the material seems non-improvable. Completion of the book yields general relativity in a comprehensive manner. In addition to his methods, I am wholeheartedly biased towards his approach of basing general relativity on empiricism rather than geometry. Reading this book is almost synonomous with sitting at the feet of a master. The methods utilized are standard tensor analysis, which yields the best results and understanding of the physics in a first exposure. MTW, in contrast, uses different mathematical approaches and moreover does so in an inconsistent manner. Weinberg is the BEST book, existing today, on general relativity period.' A Customer 
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Algebra of physical space - Wikipedia, Algebra of physical space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, the algebra of physical space (APS) is the use of the Clifford or geometric algebra Cℓ3 of the three-dimensional Euclidean space as a model for (3+1)-dimensional space-time, representing a point in space-time via a paravector (3-dimensional vector plus a 1-dimensional scalar).' back

Apoorva Mandavili, Huge Study of Coronavirus Cases in India Offers Some Surprises for Scientists, ' An ambitious study of nearly 85,000 of those cases and nearly 600,000 of their contacts, published Wednesday in the journal Science, offers important insights not just for India, but for other low- and middle-income countries. Among the surprises: The median hospital stay before death from Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, was five days in India, compared with two weeks in the United States, possibly because of limited access to quality care. And the trend in increasing deaths with age seemed to drop off after age 65 — perhaps because Indians who live past that age tend to be relatively wealthy and have access to good health care.' back

Ayalon Eliach, Why should Jews Celebrate a Torah that Calls for Genocide and Homophobia?, 'Calls for genocide. Instructions for how to manage sex slaves captured in battle. Death penalty for homosexuals. When you read these words, what comes to mind? ISIS? Boko Haram? Al Shabaab? Keep thinking. Every year, Jews across the world gather weekly to read consecutive portions of the Torah, Judaism’s holiest text, which features the morally repugnant list above as well as many other offensive passages (genocide: Deuteronomy 20:16-17; sex slavery: Deuteronomy 21:10-13; death penalty for homosexuals: Leviticus 20:13).' back

Ben Doherty, Australia resists nuclear disarmament push because it relies on US deterrent, 'Prof Ramesh Thakur, director of the centre for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament at the Australian National University, said Australian diplomats had underestimated support for the humanitarian pledge. “What is really clear from these cables, but not explicitly stated, is that Australian officials have been very surprised, they have been taken aback, by the strength of support for the humanitarian consequences pledge, and they are scrambling to explain that. “Support for the humanitarian consequences pledge is making Australia’s position more difficult; it is galvanising public and political opinion, and Australia finds itself running against the domestic and international tide.”' back

Ben Grubb, 'What we have is a game changer': UNSW recearchers to reveal breakthrough in quantum computing, 'Researchers from the University of New South Wales will next week unveil what they say is a major advance in the road to building super-fast quantum computers. The advance, of which a patent has been sought to protect it, is considered by the UNSW researchers as a substantial step forward in the global race to make the first generation of quantum computers, and "likely clears the final hurdle in making them a reality", the UNSW researchers said.' back

Darius Sepheri, Avicenna: the Perdian plymth who haped modern science, medicine and philosopojy, ' Ibn Sina was an 11th century Persian philosopher, physician, pharmacologist, scientist and poet, who exerted a profound impact on philosophy and medicine in Europe and the Islamic world. He was known to the Latin West as Avicenna. Avicenna’s Canon of medicine, first translated from Arabic into Latin during the 12th century, was the most important medical reference book in the West until the 17th century, introducing technical medical terminology used for centuries afterwards. ' back

David Kirchhoffer and Natalia Lindner L'Huillier, What do Austalan Catholics think of church teaching on sex and family?, '. . . Second, there are those who think there needs to be doctrinal change, that is, a change to the church’s official teaching. . . . Here, the implications may be both doctrinal and pastoral – that is, practical. If there are real objections to the theological and philosophical arguments underpinning moral teachings, then it makes little sense to simply reiterate the teaching and demand obedience. . . . So, the kind of radical change to church doctrine that the second standpoint advocates seems unlikely. And yet, because the pastoral reforms of the third standpoint can bring implicit doctrinal tensions to the fore, they may also open a door to deeper discussions about doctrinal reform. And this is a conversation in which Australian Catholics seem to want to be heard.' back

Dee Swan, High Nini & Neal Treadwell, Never before published images of men in love between 1850 and 1950, ' Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell’s journey began in an antiques shop in Dallas when they discovered a photograph of two men, unmistakably in love. Nini and Treadwell saw themselves in the two men in the photograph and were filled with so many questions about who they were. Neither of them expected that this photograph would become the first of a 2,800-image collection and that they would publish their own book, “LOVING — A Photographic History of Men in Love 1850s-1950s.” ' back

Deep Purple, Child in Time 1970, ' Sweet child in time You'll see the line The line that's drawn between Good and bad See the blind man Shooting at the world Bullets flying Ohh taking toll If you've been bad Oh Lord I bet you have And you've not been hit Oh by flying lead You'd better close your eyes Ooohhhh bow your head Wait for the ricochet Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo Ooo, ooo ooo Ooo ooo ooo Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo Ooo, ooo ooo Ooo ooo ooo Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aahh, aahh aahh Aah I wanna hear you sing Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aahh, aahh aahh Aaahhhh Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aahh, aahh aahh Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aahh, aahh aahh Sweet child in time You'll see the line The line that's drawn between Good and bad See the blind man Shooting at the world Bullets flying Mmmm taking toll If you've been bad Lord I bet you have And you've not been hit Oh by flying lead You'd better close your eyes Ooohhhhhhh bow your head Wait for the ricochet Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo Ooo, ooo ooo Ooo ooo ooo Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo Ooo, ooo ooo Ooo ooo ooo Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aahh, aahh aahh Aah I gotta hear you sing Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aahh, aahh aahh Aah Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aahh, aahh aahh Aah Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh Aahh, aahh aahh Oh..God oh no..oh God no..oh..ah..no ah AAh..oh.. Aawaah..ohh' back

Elizabeth Hand, In her memoir 'M Train' Patti Smith opens up about her life and loves, 'This year marks the 40th anniversary of Patti Smith’s groundbreaking debut album, “Horses,” a sonic boom still sending aftershocks through music, literature and fashion. Her new memoir, “M Train,” is a Proustian reverie covering those four decades: a magical, mystical tour de force that begins in a tiny Greenwich Village cafe and ends as a dream requiem to the same place, encompassing an entire lost world in its 253 pages.' back

Gabriel Neher, Elizabeth I, the Spanish Armada and the art of painting politics, ' After what the Heritage Lottery Fund has described as one of the most successful funding campaigns ever, one of three versions of the 1590 “Armada portrait” has been acquired by the Art Fund for £10.3m. The painting, bought from Sir Francis Drake’s descendants, will be on public display from October this year in the Queen’s House, Greenwich, before undergoing conservation in 2017. Few images are as well known as the Armada painting, which shows Queen Elizabeth I basking in the aftermath of the greatest military success of her long reign, the defeat of a Spanish Armada.' back

Harrison Smith, Yuri Orlov, physicist who became a symbol of Soviet dissent, dies at 96, ' Yuri Orlov, a Russian-born physicist who designed particle accelerators, studied the foundations of quantum mechanics and — turning from theory to practice in his boldest experiment of all — created the Moscow Helsinki Group to expose human rights violations in the Soviet Union, died Sept. 27 at his home in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 96. His wife, Sidney Orlov, confirmed the death but did not give a precise cause.' back

Janice Joplin, Piece of My Heart, ' Oh, come on, come on, come on, come on! Didn't I make you feel like you were the only man -yeah! Didn't I give you nearly everything that a woman possibly can? Honey, you know I did! And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I've had enough, But I'm gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough. I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it, Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, baby! Oh, oh, break it! Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, have a! Have another little piece of my heart now, baby, You know you got it if it makes you feel good, Oh, yes indeed. You're out on the streets looking good, And baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it ain't right, Never, never, never, never, never, never hear me when I cry at night, Babe, I cry all the time! And each time I tell myself that I, well I can't stand the pain, But when you hold me in your arms, I'll sing it once again. I'll say come on, come on, come on, come on and take it! Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, baby. Oh, oh, break it! Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, Oh, oh, have a! Have another little piece of my heart now, baby, You know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good. I need you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it, Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, baby! Oh, oh, break it! Break another little bit of my heart, now darling, yeah, c'monnow. Oh, oh, have a Have another little piece of my heart now, baby. You know you got it -whoahhhhh!! Take it! Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, baby, Oh, oh, break it! Break another little bit of my heart, now darling, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh, oh, have a Have another little piece of my heart now, baby, hey, You know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good.' back

Jewel Topsfield, Australian journalist Frank Palmos: first witness to 1965 Indonesian massacre, 'Jakarta: Australian journalist Frank Palmos was one of the first foreigners in the world to witness the scale of the communist purge that started in Indonesia this month 50 years ago. In a chilling account in The Sun News-Pictorial, then Melbourne's largest newspaper, Dr Palmos put the number who died at "more than one million".' back

John von Neumann, The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, ' Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics by John von Neumann translated from the German by Robert T. Beyer (New Edition) edited by Nicholas A. Wheeler
Princeton UP Princeton & Oxford Preface: ' This book is the realization of my long-held intention to someday use the resources of TEX to produce a more easily read version of Robert T. Beyer’s authorized English translation (Princeton University Press, 1955) of John von Neumann’s classic Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik (Springer, 1932). This content downloaded from 129.127.145.240 on Sat, 30 May 2020 22:38:31 UTC
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Katy Lederer, Defunding climate change, 'Other than climate change itself, the big villain of the conference was global energy subsidies, which, according to the World Bank, are projected to amount to 5.3 trillion dollars, or six and a half per cent of global G.D.P., in 2015 alone. (At seven hundred billion dollars a year, the United States comes second only to China in total subsidies provided.) According to an analysis by the International Monetary Fund, such subsidies are typically regressive in nature, with the wealthiest twenty percent of the population receiving forty-three per cent of the benefit.' back

Leigh Carriage, On the 50th anniversary of her death, Janis Joplin still ignites, ' Janis Joplin died 50 years ago this Sunday, aged just 27, but her songs reach beyond time. Her enduring influence and popularity can be attributed to her raw, unadulterated, fearless performances. We respond to vocalists who can express emotions such as pain, angst and release. Joplin gave us all those in spades, delivered with a powerful, uninhibited raspy voice. Influenced by artists like Bessie Smith, Otis Redding, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin, she possessed a command of blues styling, phraseology and melody.' back

Lisa Morroew, The power of smell: Learning to feel through scent, ' When I was young, I often fell sick. I was allergic to cow’s milk since birth and then to almost anything I touched, ingested or smelled. Sunshine makes me sneeze, and I get headaches from even the most expensive of perfumes worn by people standing a considerable distance away. My sense of taste has been diminished along with the ability to recognise and name every flavour in the food on my plate. But despite, or perhaps because of, the damage, my sense of smell has been enhanced.' back

Mark Beeson, Corbyn's radical defence policies, 'When asked if he would, or indeed could, press the nuclear button, his suitably disarming response was a simple “no”. Revolutions in strategic thinking don’t get more economical. His views drew a fairly predictable barrage of criticism, including quite a bit of friendly fire. Not only is the British Labour Party uncomfortable with “radical” economic policies, it seems, but it doesn’t care much for the strategic sort either.'f back

Matthew G. Allen, A brutal war and riers poisoned with every rainfall: how one mine destroyed an island, ' This week, 156 people from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, an island in Papua New Guinea, petitioned the Australian government to investigate Rio Tinto over a copper mine that devastated their homeland. In 1988, disputes around the notorious Panguna mine sparked a lengthy civil war in Bougainville, leading to the deaths of up to 20,000 people. The war is long over and the mine has been closed for 30 years, but its brutal legacy continues.' back

Mental as anything, The nips are getting bigger, '
Started out, just drinkin' beer
I didn't know how or why
Or what I was doin' there
Just a couple more
Made me feel a little better
Believe me when I tell you
It was nothin' to do with the letter
I ran right out of beer
I took a look into the larder
No bones, nothin'
I'd better go and get somethin' harder
Back in a flash
I started on a dash of Jamaica rum
Me and Pat Malone
Drinking on our ow-ow-ow-own
Woh-hoh-oh, the nips are gettin' bigger
Woh-yeah, the nips are gettin' bigger
Wo-hoh-oh, the nips are gettin' bigger
Yeah-eah-eah, mmm they're gettin' bigger
Sometimes I wonder
What all these chemicals
Are doin' to my brain
Doesn't worry me enough
To stop me from doin' it agai-ai-ain
Wipin' out brain cells
By the millions but I don't care
It doesn't worry me
Even though
I ain't got a lot to spare-are-are
Woh-hoh-oh, the nips are gettin' bigger
Woh-yeah-eah, the nips are gettin' bigger
Wo-hoh-oh, the nips are gettin' bigger
Yeah-eah-eah, they're gettin' bigger

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Michael Javen Fortner, The Real Roots of the '70s Drug Laws, 'The draconian Rockefeller drug laws, for example, the model for much of our current drug policies, were promoted and supported by an African-American leadership trying to save black lives. During the 1960s, concentrated poverty began to foster a host of social problems like drug addiction and crime that degraded the social and civic health of black neighborhoods. After the Harlem riots of 1964 (which erupted following the shooting of a 15-year-old black male by a white cop), polls showed that many African-Americans in New York City still considered crime a top problem facing blacks in the city, while few worried about civil rights and police brutality.' back

Robert Delaney, How Donald Trump has taken America closer than ever to China, ' But if we’re looking for international cooperation on the occasion of the UN’s 75th anniversary, we can at least find evidence of this beneath the surface of strident strongman rhetoric.
After all, Xi’s government, which rejects the need for a separation of powers between party and government, is apparently the model Trump has been pursuing throughout his tenure.' back

Robert Mickens, Letter from Rome: With the Pope in Washington, 'The iron hand within Francis' velvet glove is well hidden by millennia of spin but he remains, nevertheless, the most absolute of absolute monarchs, as a quick look at Canon 333 of the Code states. He has done well to draw attention to poverty and environmental damage, but we must remember that he represents an organization that maintains that women are second class citizens, that chastity is better than sex, that modern methods of fertility control are evil, that we are morally defective origial sinners, that life Earth is just a temporary testing ground on the way to heaven (or hell), that death is not real, and that ancient fiction is to be prefered to scientific observation. At its core, for all its popularity, the Catholic Church is a rotten and dangerous amalgam of absolute monarchy and denial of reality. All the dictators on Earth owe a debt to Moses for his invention of the divine right of kings, taken up with such fervour by the Catholics who celebrate Jesus of Nazareth as the 'King of Kings' and the Pope as God's voice on Earth.' back

Summer Praetorius, Dawn of the Heliocene, ' In the cornucopia of chemical signatures that skyrocket in the mid 20th century, one rises to the top as the most promising global marker to define the boundary between the Holocene and Anthropocene: the radioactive spike associated with nuclear testing from 1945 to the early 1960s. Similar to the iridium layer at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary that marks the detonation of the 6-mile-wide asteroid, it is a signal that is both global and unambiguous in the events it represents. The chemical traces of nuclear testing can be found in ice sheets, lake bottoms, deep-sea sediments, and the bodies of living organisms, including our own.
And yet something else momentous happened in that same window of time. Something even more powerful than destruction. Humans reinvented a way to directly capture energy from the sun—previously the singular achievement of photosynthetic organisms. In 1950, in the suburbs of New Jersey, researchers at Bell Labs were busy making breakthroughs that paved the path for the first practical solar cells. In 1954, they unveiled the first silicon photovoltaics; the prototypes for solar cells widely in use today.' back

Tilman Ruff, If we can't stop an impoverished nation like North Korea making nuclear weapons, our tactics are clearly wrong, 'Australia refuses to support the position that nuclear weapons should never be used again under any circumstances. It is not among the 117 nations that have signed the Humanitarian Pledge, committing to cooperate “in efforts to stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons in light of their unacceptable humanitarian consequences”, and undertaking “to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”.' back

Tim Loh, Germany Has Its Own Dr. Fauci — and Actually Follows His Advice, ' As Germany cleared away spent fireworks and slept off its hangovers on New Year’s Day, Christian Drosten got a sobering wake-up call: A member of his team—he heads the virology department at Berlin’s Charité hospital—reported that a strange pneumonia was spreading in the Chinese city of Wuhan. . . . He alerted his staff to get ready for the possibility of a deadly pandemic. When Chinese researchers confirmed that the culprit was indeed a coronavirus and on Jan. 10—a Friday—published its genome sequence, the Charité scientists sprang into action. Working through the weekend, they pulled together samples of the SARS virus and other coronaviruses, aiming to make a test that could detect the new threat. Late on Saturday a team member tweeted, “Lab days are happy days! #Wuhan #Coronavirus.” ' back

Tony Kevin, Australia foreign policy needs a shake-up after two decades of sclerotic decline, 'The past 20 years under prime ministers Howard, Rudd, Gillard and Abbott were years of sclerosis and decline in Australia’s once creative and agile foreign policy. More and more, Australia became dullard US camp followers, as all the really important bilateral relationships and strategic choices moved into prime ministerial orbits of power, bounded by an increasingly fearful national security orthodoxy. All prime ministers since 1996 adopted a play-it-safe foreign policy of unquestioning strategic alignment with the US.' back