Chaitin, Gregory J, Information, Randomness & Incompleteness: Papers on Algorithmic Information Theory, World Scientific 1987 Jacket: 'Algorithmic information theory is a branch of computational complexity theory concerned with the size of computer programs rather than with their running time. . . . The theory combines features of probability theory, information theory, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, and recursive function or computability theory. ... [A] major application of algorithmic information theory has been the dramatic new light it throws on Goedel's famous incompleteness theorem and on the limitations of the axiomatic method. . . .' 
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Hawking, Steven W, and G F R Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge UP 1975 Preface: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity . . . leads to two remarkable predictions about the universe: first that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to our universe. Our discussion is principally aimed at developing these two results.' 
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Malouf, David, An Imaginary Life, Vintage 1996 Amazon: From the Inside Flap 'In the first century A.D., Publius Ovidius Naso, the most urbane and irreverent poet of imperial Rome, was banished to a remote village on the edge of the Black Sea. From these sparse facts, Malouf has fashioned an audacious and supremely moving novel. Marooned on the edge of the known world, exiled from his native tongue, Ovid depends on the kindness of barbarians who impale their dead and converse with the spirit world.Then he becomes the guardian of a still more savage creature, a feral child who has grown up among deer. What ensues is a luminous encounter between civilization and nature, as enacted by a poet who once cataloged the treacheries of love and a boy who slowly learns how to give it.' 
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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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Paton, Alan, Cry the Beloved Country, Scribner 2003 Amazon editorial review: 'In search of missing family members, Zulu priest Stephen Kumalo leaves his South African village to traverse the deep and perplexing city of Johannesburg in the 1940s. With his sister turned prostitute, his brother turned labor protestor and his son, Absalom, arrested for the murder of a white man, Kumalo must grapple with how to bring his family back from the brink of destruction as the racial tension throughout Johannesburg hampers his attempts to protect his family.' 
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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. ...' 
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Zhang, Yimu, and Ziyi Zhang, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau, and Dandan Song, House of flying Daggers, Sony Pictures 2005 Amazon Editorial Reviews 'No one uses color like Chinese director Zhang Yimou--movies like Raise the Red Lantern or Hero, though different in tone and subject matter, are drenched in rich, luscious shades of red, blue, yellow, and green. House of Flying Daggers is no exception; if they weren't choreographed with such vigorous imagination, the spectacular action sequences would seem little more than an excuse for vivid hues rippling across the screen. Government officers Leo and Jin (Asian superstars Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro) set out to destroy an underground rebellion called the House of Flying Daggers (named for their weapon of choice, a curved blade that swoops through the air like a boomerang). Their only chance to find the rebels is a blind women named Mei (Ziyi Zhang, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) who has some lethal kung fu moves of her own. In the guise of an aspiring rebel, Jin escorts Mei through gorgeous forests and fields that become bloody battlegrounds as soldiers try to kill them both. While arrows and spears of bamboo fly through the air, Mei, Jin, and Leo turn against each other in surprising ways, driven by passion and honor. Zhang's previous action/art film, Hero, sometimes sacrificed momentum for sheer visual beauty; House of Flying Daggers finds a more muscular balance of aesthetic splendor and dazzling swordplay.' --Bret Fetzer 
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Goedel, Kurt, "On formally undecidable problems of Principia Mathematica and related systems I", in Solomon Fefferman et al (eds), Kurt Goedel: Collected Works Volume 1 Publications 1929-1936, , New York, OUP, 1986, page 145-195. back

A. Bogomolny, Pythagorean Theorem and its many proofs, 'The theorem is of fundamental importance in Euclidean Geometry where it serves as a basis for the definition of distance between two points. It's so basic and well known that, I believe, anyone who took geometry classes in high school couldn't fail to remember it long after other math notions got thoroughly forgotten. Below is a collection of 111 approaches to proving the theorem. Many of the proofs are accompanied by interactive Java illustrations.' back

Agence France Presse, Chinese vlogger dies after being set on fire by ex husband, ' The case of a rural live-streamer who died after being set alight by her ex-husband has triggered outrage over domestic violence on Chinese social media. The 30-year-old woman, named Lamu, died on Wednesday after efforts to save her life failed, according to a statement from police in Jinchuan county, in the remote northwest of Sichuan province. Lamu had more than 885,000 followers on Douyin – the Chinese version of TikTok – and regularly posted videos of her daily life foraging in the mountains, cooking and lipsyncing to songs dressed in traditional Tibetan clothing.' back

Algorithmic information theory - Wikipedia, Algorithmic information theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Algorithmic information theory is a subfield of information theory and computer science that concerns itself with the relationship between computation and information. According to Gregory Chaitin, it is "the result of putting Shannon's information theory and Turing's computability theory into a cocktail shaker and shaking vigorously."' back

Amra Sabic-El-Rayess, Today's America reminds me of 1990s Bosnia and Herzegovina, ' The other day a shocking photo came across my Twitter feed. It showed a masked young man proudly holding his AK-47 while wearing a “chetnik” – Serb nationalist – insignia. Serb forces wore the same insignia while eradicating Bosniaks during the genocide in the 1990s. I cringed not only because I was one of those Bosnian Muslims, but because this time, the young man was not from my past but from the present. He was not a bearded Serb soldier in 1990s Bosnia and Herzegovina, but an American man standing in front of a manicured lawn on a United States street in 2020. He was not wearing a soldier’s uniform, but a cheap Hawaiian shirt.' back

Aquinas 20, Summa I, 3, 7: Whether God is altogether simple? , 'I answer that, The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways. First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His "suppositum"; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple. . . . ' back

Aristotelian physics - Wikipedia, Aristotelian physics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The celestial spheres are composed of the special element aether, eternal and unchanging, the sole capability of which is a uniform circular motion at a given rate (relative to the diurnal motion of the outermost sphere of fixed stars). The concentric, aetherial, cheek-by-jowl "crystal spheres" that carry the Sun, Moon and stars move eternally with unchanging circular motion. Spheres are embedded within spheres to account for the "wandering stars" (i.e. the planets, which, in comparison with the Sun, Moon and stars, appear to move erratically).' back

Bejamin Bourke, Nobel Prize in chemistry awardedfor work on natural DNA repair, 'The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2015 has been awarded jointly to Sweden’s Tomas Lindahl, USA’s Paul Modrich and Turkish-born Aziz Sancar for their discoveries in the field of natural DNA repair. Natural DNA repair is necessary for our survival. Every day, damage occurs to our DNA, whether from external factors such as UV light, smoking, radiation or carcinogens or from the natural mistakes that happen continuously in replication of such large amount of code. If these mistakes were not repaired the DNA would decay into chaos – a word not usually a good sign for successful biology.' back

Bernard d'Espagnat, The Quantum Theory and Reality, 'The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment'
Bernard d'Espagnat, "Quantum theory and reality", Scientific American 241, (November 1979): 5, 128. back

Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance BNEF, 'Bloomberg New Energy Finance provides unique analysis, tools and data for decision makers driving change in the energy system. With unrivalled depth and breadth, we help clients stay on top of developments across the energy spectrum from our comprehensive web-based platform. BNEF has 200 staff based in London, New York, Beijing, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Munich, New Delhi, San Francisco, São Paulo, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Washington D.C., and Zurich.' back

Bloomberg, Death of Iran's most revered singer Mohammad Reza Shajarian, draws thousands to the streets, ' When hardliner Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was awarded a second term, allegations of vote fraud sparked protests and the worst clashes with security forces since 1979. After Ahmadinejad labelled the protesters “dirt and trash”, Shajarian spoke out. “In that case, I am the voice of this dirt and trash,” he said at a concert overseas in 2010. The rebuke changed his life. Despite retaining a huge following, Shajarian was unable to perform again at home and was often attacked in the hardline media closely aligned to the country’s military and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.' back

Camille Nelson, Friday essay: The Female Eunuch at 50: Germaine Greer's fearless feminist masterpiece, ' Greer urged women to think beyond the stereotype patriarchal society had created for them, which limited their capacity to act. She likened the situation of the 1970s woman to that of a bird “made for captivity”. “The cage door had been opened but the canary had refused to fly out,” Greer wrote. “The conclusion was that the cage door ought never to have been opened because canaries are made for captivity; the suggestion of an alternative had only confused and saddened them.” Women, she wrote, needed to “discover that they have a will”.' back

Catherine Pepinster, How Pope Francis's encyclical could shake up US e;ection, ' In this weekend’s document he makes it clear that populism and nationalism – of the kind Trump typifies – are damaging, warning that “a concept of popular and national unity influenced by various ideologies is creating new forms of selfishness and a loss of the social sense under the guise of defending national interests”. With Catholics making up such a large proportion of voters, about 20%, both Democratic and Republican campaigners are keen to appeal to them.' back

Charles Sanders Peirce - Wikipedia, Charles Sanders Peirce - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Charles Sanders Peirce (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". He was educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for 30 years. Today he is appreciated largely for his contributions to logic, mathematics, philosophy, scientific methodology, and semiotics, and for his founding of pragmatism. back

Clive Hamilton, Tree spiking = Beheading ergo Environmentalism = Terrorism, 'Moral equivalence is among the standard logical fallacies identified by philosophers. “It seeks to draw comparisons”, goes a definition, “between different, often unrelated things, to make a point that one is just as bad as the other”. For lecturers in logic seeking a perfect case study, one has just been published by the federal government in its booklet Preventing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation in Australia.' back

Contemporary Physics Education Project, Chart: The Standard Model of Fundamental Particles and Interactions, 'The Contemporary Physics Education Project is a non-profit organization of teachers, educators, and physicists located around the world. CPEP materials present the current understanding of the fundamental nature of matter and energy, incorporating the major research findings of recent years. During the last twenty years, CPEP has distributed almost half a million copies of its charts and other products.' back

Dexter Filkins, A Historian Explains What Civilization Owes to War, Review: Margaret MacMillan: War: How Conflict Shaped Us:
So recounts Margaret MacMillan, the Canadian historian, in “War: How Conflict Shaped Us,” her richly eclectic discussion of how culture and society have been molded by warfare throughout history. As the above anecdotes suggest, MacMillan argues that war — fighting and killing — is so intimately bound up with what it means to be human that viewing it as an aberration misses the point; it’s in our bones. “War is waged by men; not beasts, or by gods,” MacMillan writes, quoting Frederic Manning, a poet and novelist of World War I. “To call it a crime against mankind is to miss at least half its significance.” ' back

Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, Can the Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?, A PDF of the classic paper. 'In a complete theory there is an element corresponding to each element of reality. A sufficient condition for the reality of a physical quantity is the possibility of predicting it with certainty, without disturbing the system. In quantum mechanics in the case of two physical quantities described by non-commuting operators, the knowledge of one precludes the knowledge of the other. Then either (1) the description of reality given by the wave function in quantum mechanics is not complete or (2) these two quantities cannot have simultaneous reality. Consideration of the problem of making predictions concerning a system on the basis of measurements made on another system that had previously interacted with it leads to the result that if (1) is false then (2) is also false, One is thus led to conclude that the description of reality given by the wave function is not complete.' back

Electron - Wikipedia, Electron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The electron is a fundamental subatomic particle that carries a negative electric charge. It is a spin ½ lepton that participates in electromagnetic interactions, and its mass is approximately 1 / 1836 of that of the proton. Together with atomic nuclei, which consist of protons and neutrons, electrons make up atoms. Their interaction with adjacent nuclei is the main cause of chemical bonding.' back

Elementary particle - Wikipedia, Elementary particle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a particle not known to have substructure; that is, it is not known to be made up of smaller particles. If an elementary particle truly has no substructure, then it is one of the basic building blocks of the universe from which all other particles are made.' back

Francis X. Rocca, Pope F rancis Says Coid-19 Pandemic Shows Limits to Market Economics, ' The pope emphasizes that, according to the Catholic Church’s traditional social teaching, the right to private property is subordinate to the “universal destination of created goods,” a principle he says extends beyond national borders. “Each country also belongs to the foreigner, inasmuch as a territory’s goods must not be denied to a needy person coming from elsewhere,” he writes.' back

Gaurav Khanna, 2020 Nobel Prize in physics awarded for work on black holes – an astrophysicist explains the trailblazinf discoveries, ' Sir Roger Penrose won half the prize for his seminal work in 1965 which proved, using a series of mathematical arguments, that under very general conditions, collapsing matter would trigger the formation of a black hole. . . . The remaining half of the prize was shared between astronomers Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez, who each lead a team that discovered the presence of a supermassive black hole, 4 million times more massive than the Sun, at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.' back

Joey Watson & Keri Phillips, Unrepresentative swill or vital for democracy. Australia's upper houses, ' For as long as there have been upper houses — legislative councils and the Senate — in Australia's state and federal parliaments, there has been some resentment towards them. Former prime minister Paul Keating famously called the members of the Senate "unrepresentative swill", while Tony Abbott described them as "feral". "[The Upper House] can be extraordinarily frustrating if you're a government," says constitutional law professor Anne Twomey.' back

Johan Liberg, Closing down FOI: a case study in sneaky government, 'In a 2.0 FOI system disclosure is meant to be the default position, in line with best international practice. But as research, mine and others, has showed, changing the law is the easy part. Making it work in practice is the challenge. . . . This is why the Abbott government’s blatant undermining of federal FOI was so tragic and frustrating. The information access momentum that had been building since 2007 came to a grinding halt under the Abbott government.' back

Julian Borger, Angelique Chrisafis & Chris Stephen, Tunisian national dialogue quartet wins 2015 Nobel peace prize, 'Tunisia was suffering some of the same symptoms as Egypt: a high-handed Islamist-led government that was ignoring the views of the secular opposition in writing up a new constitution, street clashes, high-profile assassinations and the appearance of Salafist extremists on the fringes. The quartet – made up of the union federation UGTT, the employers’ institute, the Tunisian human rights league and the order of lawyers – brokered talks between the different forces and got them to agree a roadmap that included compromises on the constitution, a technocratic caretaker government and an independent election commission.' back

Kevin Crowley & Akshat Rathi, Exxon's Plan for Surging Carbon Emission Revealed in eakd Documents, ' The drive to expand both fossil-fuel production and planet-warming pollution comes at a time when some of Exxon’s rivals, such as BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, are moving to curb oil and zero-out emissions. Exxon’s own assessment of its $210 billion investment strategy shows yearly emissions rising 17% by 2025, according to the internal documents.' back

Kill Bill: Volume 1 - Wikipedia, Kill Bill: Volume 1- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Kill Bill: Volume 1 is a 2003 American martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who swears revenge on a team of assassins (Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and Vivica A. Fox) and their leader, Bill (David Carradine), after they try to kill her and her unborn child. Her journey takes her to Tokyo, where she battles the yakuza. Tarantino conceived Kill Bill as an homage to grindhouse cinema, including martial arts films, samurai cinema, blaxploitation films, and spaghetti Westerns.' back

Kurt Gödel I, On formally undecidable propositions of Principia Mathematica and related systems, I, The classic paper, part I. back

Lawrence K. Altman, Scientists Win Nobel Prize in Medicinefor Parasite-Fighting Therapies, 'William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura won for developing a new drug, Avermectin, which has radically lowered the incidence of river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, or elephantiasis. They shared the prize with Youyou Tu, who discovered Artemisinin, a drug that has significantly reduced death rates from malaria. “These two discoveries have provided humankind with powerful new means to combat these debilitating diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people annually,” the committee said in a statement. “The consequences in terms of improved human health and reduced suffering are immeasurable.” back

Mark Beeson, Is an effective United Nations still the only hope, 'Before dismissing this prospect as a fantasy, it is worth considering the current alternatives. If the new found realism in Australian foreign policy means siding with Bashar al-Assad while simultaneously bombing the country over which he claims authority, even the most unlikely ideas begin to seem attractive. They could even be plausible. They could hardly be worse.' back

Mark Srednicki, Quantum Field Theory, 'Quantum field theory is the basic mathematical language that is used to describe and analyze the physics of elementary particles. T he goal of this book is to provide a concise, step-by-step introduction to t his subject, one that covers all the key concepts that are needed to understan d the Standard Model of elementary particles, and some of its proposed exte nsions.' back

Mark Townsend, Nations using child soldiers are invited to British arms fair, 'New figures reveal that of the 23 countries listed by the UN for grave violations against children or where child soldiers are used, the UK sold military equipment to 19 during the past five years. They also reveal that between June 2010 and March 2015 the government approved military licences worth more than £735m to countries blacklisted by the UN committee responsible for protecting the rights of the child.' back

Mathematical proof - Wikipedia, Mathematical proof - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, a proof is an inferential argument for a mathematical statement. In the argument, other previously established statements, such as theorems, can be used. In principle, a proof can be traced back to self-evident or assumed statements, known as axioms, along with accepted rules of inference.' back

Matthew Rimmer, The TPP deal protects old companies at the expense of the new, The group [MSF] warned: The big losers in the TPP are patients and treatment providers in developing countries. Although the text has improved over the initial demands, the TPP will still go down in history as the worst trade agreement for access to medicines in developing countries, which will be forced to change their laws to incorporate abusive intellectual property protections for pharmaceutical companies. . . . Overall, the TPP represents a radical shift in the role of intellectual property across the Pacific Rim. Under the agreement, intellectual property will be transformed into a means of protecting the investments of multinational companies in culture, advertising, and medicine. The public interest in access to knowledge, public health and technology transfer has been given short shrift under the plan.' back

Medea Benjamin, The Doctors Without Borders bombng is a symptom of foreign occupation, 'The bombing should also be a moment to reflect on the 14 years of US intervention. This intervention has cost the lives of 2,350 US servicemen, plus the lives of thousands of Afghans and servicemen from our Nato partners. It has cost US taxpayers over a trillion dollars, money that could have made an enormous difference funding vital domestic needs. And what do we have to show for it? Despite 14 years of US involvement at an estimated cost of $33,000 for every man, women and child in Afghanistan (or $14m per hour since 9/11, according to one study), Afghanistan remains mired in poverty, corruption and political strife. Despite the massive amount of effort spent on women’s empowerment, Afghanistan remains a deeply misogynist culture where only 17% of women can read and write.' back

Michael Gillings, Bad times for good bacteria: how modern life has damaged our internal ecosystems, 'Collectively, these changes mean that our microbial ecosystems have become degraded, much like natural ecosystems globally. The microbiota are less functional and resilient than they should be. And it turns out they have essential roles in developing our immune systems, and in regulating metabolism. So it shouldn’t be surprising that altered microbiota are now being associated with many diseases of the modern world.
These diseases include obesity, allergic reactions, chronic inflammatory conditions and autoimmune disorders. More recently, it’s also been suggested that psychological conditions, such as depression and anxiety, are linked to the bacteria that live inside us.' back

Mungo McCallum, Its time for Australia to just leave the Middle East, 'For Australia to deny that there is nothing more to be gained and a great deal to be lost in the ongoing confrontation is clearly deluded. Abbott's position was always more metaphysical than rational; to him the fight was not about strategic objectives, it was a personal crusade, perhaps even a prelude to Armageddon. Turnbull has the potential to bring us back to reality - to focus, as he and his colleagues are always saying, about outcomes. And that being the case, it is time to cut our losses, and tell Washington that we have tried, but enough is enough. It is time to take a deep breath, bite the bullet and grit our teeth. It is time to get the hell out.' back

Muon - Wikipedia, Muon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The muon (/ˈmjuːɒn/; from the Greek letter mu (μ) used to represent it) is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with electric charge of −1 e and a spin of 1⁄2, but with a much greater mass (105.7 MeV/c2). It is classified as a lepton, together with the electron (mass 0.511 MeV/c2), the tau (mass 1776.82 MeV/c2), and the three neutrinos (electron neutrino ν_e, muon neutrino ν_μ and tau neutrino ν_τ). back

Myocyte - Wikipedia, Myocyte - Wikipedia,the free encyclopedia, ' A myocyte (also known as a muscle cell) is the type of cell found in some types of muscle tissue. Myocytes develop from myoblasts to form muscles in a process known as myogenesis. There are two specialized forms of myocytes with distinct properties: cardiac, and smooth muscle cells. On the other hand, skeletal muscles are formed by morphological units referred to as muscle fibers. Cardiomyocytes are the cells that form the chambers of the heart, and have a single central nucleus. Skeletal muscle fibers help support and move the body and are called syncytia – multinucleated structures formed by fusion of individual myoblasts during embryonic development.' back

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, The oceans are becoming too hot for coral, and sooner than we expected, 'Over a million species are thought to live in and around coral reefs, while an estimated 500 million people derive food, livelihoods and other benefits from coral reefs throughout the tropics.' back

P versus NP problem - Wikipedia, P versus NP problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in computer science. It asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified (technically, verified in polynomial time) can also be solved quickly (again, in polynomial time). The underlying issues were first discussed in the 1950s, in letters from John Forbes Nash Jr. to the National Security Agency, and from Kurt Gödel to John von Neumann. The precise statement of the P versus NP problem was introduced in 1971 by Stephen Cook in his seminal paper "The complexity of theorem proving procedures" and is considered by many to be the most important open problem in the field.' back

Painted Skin: The Resurrection - Wikipedia, Painted Skin: The Resurrection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Painted Skin: The Resurrection is a 2012 Chinese fantasy action film directed by Wu Ershan, starring Zhao Wei, Chen Kun, Zhou Xun, Yang Mi, Feng Shaofeng, Kris Phillips and Chen Tingjia. The film reunites most of the original cast of the 2008 film Painted Skin.' back

Paul Krugman, Enemies of the Sun, ' The cost of wind power has dropped sharply – 30 percent in just the past five years, according to the International Energy Agency. And solar panels are becoming cheaper and more efficient at a startling rate, reminiscent of the progress in microchips that underlies the information technology revolution. As a result, renewables account for essentially all recent growth in electricity generation capacity in advanced countries.' back

Permutation group - Wikipedia, Permutation group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, a permutation group is a group G whose elements are permutations of a given set M and whose group operation is the composition of permutations in G (which are thought of as bijective functions from the set M to itself). The group of all permutations of a set M is the symmetric group of M, often written as Sym(M). The term permutation group thus means a subgroup of the symmetric group. If M = {1,2,...,n} then, Sym(M), the symmetric group on n letters is usually denoted by S_n. The way in which the elements of a permutation group permute the elements of the set is called its group action. Group actions have applications in the study of symmetries, combinatorics and many other branches of mathematics, physics and chemistry.' back

Peter Boxall, Svetlana Alexievich exposes the deep contradictions of the literature Nobel, 'Nobel specified in his will that all five prizes were to be awarded to those who, in a given year, “have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind”. The prize for literature, he goes on, is to be awarded to “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”. . . . But in awarding the prize to writers who give us such naked and powerful accounts of the privations of human beings, the academy might appear to be in breach of that second stipulation: that recipients should travel in an “ideal direction”.' back

Peter Robinson, Oh no, we forgot about China - the flaw at the centre of the TPP, '. . . the economic gains from trade trade don’t come from exporting more, or from preferential market access. They have nothing to do with mutual concessions. Rather the gains from trade are derived from being able to import at lower prices. This means that costs of trade barriers are incurred by consumers in the country that imposes the trade barriers. Consequently the benefits of free trade can be mostly gained by removing one’s own trade barriers.' back

Piyush K. Jain, Nobel Prize for chemistry honours exquisitely preceise gene-editing technique CRISPR – a gene engineer explains how it works, ' This newfound ability is called gene editing, the tool is called CRISPR [Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats], and it’s being used worldwide to engineer plants and livestock and treat disease in people. For these reasons the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier, director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Germany, and Jennifer Doudna, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, for discovering and transforming CRISPR into a gene-editing technology. It’s the first time two women have shared a Nobel prize.' back

Piyush K. Jain, Rapid home-based coronavirus testd are coming together in research labs — we're working on analyzing spit using advanced CRISPR gene editing techniques, ' A desperately needed tool to curb the COVID-19 pandemic is an inexpensive home-based rapid testing kit that can detect the coronavirus without needing to go to the hospital. The Food and Drug Administration has approved a few home sample collection kits but a number of researchers, including myself, are using the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR to make home tests. If they work, these tests could be very accurate and give people an answer in about an hour. back

Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, ' 5. Issues of human fraternity and social friendship have always been a concern of mine. In recent years, I have spoken of them repeatedly and in different settings. In this Encyclical, I have sought to bring together many of those statements and to situate them in a broader context of reflection. In the preparation of Laudato Si’, I had a source of inspiration in my brother Bartholomew, the Orthodox Patriarch, who has spoken forcefully of our need to care for creation. In this case, I have felt particularly encouraged by the Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, with whom I met in Abu Dhabi, where we declared that “God has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and has called them to live together as brothers and sisters”.[5] This was no mere diplomatic gesture, but a reflection born of dialogue and common commitment. The present Encyclical takes up and develops some of the great themes raised in the Document that we both signed. I have also incorporated, along with my own thoughts, a number of letters, documents and considerations that I have received from many individuals and groups throughout the world.' back

Quantum harmonic oscillator - Wikipedia, Quantum harmonic oscillator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The quantum harmonic oscillator is the quantum-mechanical analog of the classical harmonic oscillator. Because an arbitrary potential can usually be approximated as a harmonic potential at the vicinity of a stable equilibrium point, it is one of the most important model systems in quantum mechanics. Furthermore, it is one of the few quantum-mechanical systems for which an exact, analytical solution is known.' back

Rachel Feltman, Nobel Prize in physics goes to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald for work on neutrinos, 'The Nobel Prize in physics was awarded on Tuesday to Takaaki Kajita of the University of Tokyo and Arthur B. McDomanl of Queen's Universityin Canada. Kajita and McDonald are honoured for their contribution to observstions on the oscillations of neutrinos, whch show that neutrinos -- previously thought to be massless -- indeed have mass.' back

Rosie Scammell, Pope under presssure on LGBT rights as Vatican summit on the family opens, 'Church teaching currently defines same-sex relationships as “intrinsically disordered” and demands gay people live a life of chastity, but opponents argue this fails to address the reality in which the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics are living. Mary McAleese, former president of Ireland, which earlier this year legalised same-sex marriage, said on Saturday it was the church’s teaching itself which was intrinsically disordered. “The gravitational pull of tradition is used as a vehicle for refusing to face the growing reality, accepted by many people in this world, that the church’s teaching on homosexuality is simply wrong,” she said to rapturous applause at a meeting of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics in Rome.' back

Russell Blackford, Should there be a Nobel Prize for philosophy, 'Philosophy is the reason-based, intellectually rigorous, investigation of deep questions that have always caused puzzlement and anxiety: Is there a god or an afterlife? Do we possess free will? What is a good life for a human being? What is the nature of a just society? Philosophy challenges obfuscation and orthodoxies, and extends into examining the foundations of inquiry itself. . . . All too often, that debate is dominated by tribalism, dogma and emotional manipulation. We live, as has often been said, in an age of propaganda. With its emphasis on reason and clarity, the study of philosophy provides an indispensable counterweight to this. In particular, it offers valuable training for leaders of the future.' back

Ryan Wilkinson & Celine Boehm, Physics duo wins the Nobel Prize for solving longstanding neutrino puzzle, 'However, when detectors became sensitive enough to observe neutrinos created in nuclear reactions in the Sun, scientists faced a big problem. They had calculated the amount of neutrinos from the Sun that should be hitting the Earth, but observed only a third of this number in their experiments. A further Nobel Prize was presented to Ray Davis in 2002 for this discovery. The mystery of these missing neutrinos was coined the “solar neutrino problem” and remained a puzzle for forty years, until the collaborations led by Kajita and McDonald made their exciting discovery.' back

Sarah Kaplan, Bringing the chill of the cosmos to a warming planet, ' Working with colleagues, he has developed a thin, mirror-like film engineered to maximize radiative cooling on a molecular level. The film sends heat into space while absorbing almost no radiation, lowering the temperature of objects by more than 10 degrees, even in the midday sun. It can help cool pipes and panels — like a booster rocket for refrigerators and cooling systems. Incorporated into buildings, it may even replace air conditioning. And it requires no electricity, no special fuel — just a clear day and a view of the sky.' back

Sydney Opera House - Wikipedia, Sydney Opera House - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre at Sydney Harbour in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the 20th century's most famous and distinctive buildings.[3] Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, but completed by an Australian architectural team headed up by Peter Hall, the building was formally opened on 20 October 1973[4] after a gestation beginning with Utzon's 1957 selection as winner of an international design competition.' back

Synapse - Wikipedia, Synapse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In the nervous system, a synapse is a structure that permits a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another cell (neural or otherwise). Santiago Ramón y Cajal proposed that neurons are not continuous throughout the body, yet still communicate with each other, an idea known as the neuron doctrine The word "synapse" (from Greek synapsis "conjunction," from synaptein "to clasp," from syn- "together" and haptein "to fasten") was introduced in 1897 by English physiologist Michael Foster at the suggestion of English classical scholar Arthur Woollgar Verrall.' back

Tan, Thurbon, Matthews & Kim, China just stunned the world with its step-up on climate action – and the imlictions for Australia may be huge, ' China’s President Xi Jinping surprised the global community recently by committing his country to net-zero emissions by 2060. Prior to this announcement, the prospect of becoming “carbon neutral” barely rated a mention in China’s national policies. China currently accounts for about 28% of global carbon emissions – double the US contribution and three times the European Union’s. Meeting the pledge will demand a deep transition of not just China’s energy system, but its entire economy.' back

Tom Randall, Solar and Wind Just Passed Another Big Turning Point, 'For the first time, widespread adoption of renewables is effectively lowering the capacity factor for fossil fuels. That's because once a solar or wind project is built, the marginal cost of the electricity it produces is pretty much zero—free electricity—while coal and gas plants require more fuel for every new watt produced. If you're a power company with a choice, you choose the free stuff every time. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle. As more renewables are installed, coal and natural gas plants are used less. As coal and gas are used less, the cost of using them to generate electricity goes up. As the cost of coal and gas power rises, more renewables will be installed.' back

University of Tennessee, Astronmy 161: The Solar System: Johannes Kepler, 'Unlike Brahe, Kepler believed firmly in the Copernican system. In retrospect, the reason that the orbit of Mars was particularly difficult was that Copernicus had correctly placed the Sun at the center of the Solar System, but had erred in assuming the orbits of the planets to be circles. Thus, in the Copernican theory epicycles were still required to explain the details of planetary motion. It fell to Kepler to provide the final piece of the puzzle: after a long struggle, in which he tried mightily to avoid his eventual conclusion, Kepler was forced finally to the realization that the orbits of the planets were not the circles demanded by Aristotle and assumed implicitly by Copernicus, but were instead the "flattened circles" that geometers call ellipses (See adjacent figure; the planetary orbits are only slightly elliptical and are not as flattened as in this example.)' back

Variational principle - Wikipedia, Variational principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A variational principle is a scientific principle used within the calculus of variations, which develops general methods for finding functions which minimize or maximize the value of quantities that depend upon those functions. For example, to answer this question: "What is the shape of a chain suspended at both ends?" we can use the variational principle that the shape must minimize the gravitational potential energy.' back

Wave function collapse - Wikipedia, Wave function collapse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum mechanics, wave function collapse is said to occur when a wave function—initially in a superposition of several eigenstates—appears to reduce to a single eigenstate (by "observation"). It is the essence of measurement in quantum mechanics and connects the wave function with classical observables like position and momentum. Collapse is one of two processes by which quantum systems evolve in time; the other is continuous evolution via the Schrödinger equation.' back