natural theology

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Notes

Sunday 29 November 2020 - Saturday 5 December 2020

[Notebook: DB 85 Science]

[page 264]

Sunday 29 November 2020

We have already noted in a few places the remarkably improbable results obtained for the cosmological constant by some calculations based on quantum field theory and the notion that the vacuum is a region of intense activity arising from an interpretation of the quantum "uncertainty" which seems to be not so much a dynamical principe as a natural limitation on the resolution of events in the universe. Another region where physicists appear to enter the realm of fantasy is the notion of Planck units and the Planck scale, first proposed by Planck himself. The traditional Planck units apply the numeric value 1 to 4 universal constants, the velocity of light c, the gravitational constant G, the reduced Planck constant

[page 297]

ℏ, and the Boltzmann constant kB. The corresponding Planck scale is the Planck length 1.5 x 10-35 metre, mass 2.2 x 10-8 kg, time 5.4 x 10-44 sec, temperature 1.4 x 1032 kelvin and charge 1.8 x 1o-18 Coulomb. Planck units - Wikipedia

We have no real idea of the actual value of these units [so the choice of 1 is just as arbitrary as any other number]. I have been proceeding on the assumption that we can identify the traditional god with the initial singularity predicted by general relativity and that both these entities are absolutely simple and therefore imply no particular values of the universal constants. The idea, then, is that the universe expands by increasing the number of quanta of action and the existence of such numbers implies the existence of a space-time structure which enables the distinction of quanta of action by their relationships to one another. The evolution of these relationships is understood to account for the large number of particles, the fundamental constants that arise from these relationships and the properties of the fundamental particles that appeared in the early universe [and still appear in physics experiments] and have since formed the foundations of all subsequent evolution of particles, planets, stars, plants, animals and so on.

In line with Einstein's faith in thermodynamics, the only feature of specific interest to the theory of peace proposed here is the increase in entropy which we associate with the increase in space enabling room for people to live independently without killing one another.

Monday 30 November 2020

The entropy approach to peace via a more comprehensive concept of space and resources, particularly the opening toward the Sun which gives

[page 298]

us an unlimited amount of space as measured by entropy.

Tuesday 1 December 2020
Wednesday 2 December 2020

Pleasure and pain are ultimately matters of information, and from a quantum mechanical point of view the maximum density of information that the universe can carry is immense, measured roughly by one bit of information per quantum of action. As Aquinas points out, the ultimate pleasure of human existence is the vision of god. Since we have identified god and the universe this is equivalent to all our experience of life. Aquinas felt that the vision of god is pure pleasure, but on the present hypothesis this is not necessarily so since we experience pain as well as pleasure. Although people like Aquinas who understood from their reading of Genesis that pain is punishment for sin, the modern understanding of pain revealed by cybernetics is that pain is a signal that something is wrong and needs correction. The point here is that very little in the way of material resources are required to provide heavenly pleasures [and hellish pains] and so by careful management we can produce pleasant and peaceful lives for ourselves with a minimum expenditure of resources thus opening immense scope for lightening our footprint on Earth.

A Hilbert space is a space of states of motion. Motion implies duality. You cannot move unless you go from a to b. In the first case motion is logical, moved by the operator not. We initially interpret the quantum of action as a potential, and

[page 299]

then we imagine the emergence of positive definite energy in a harmonic oscillator like a pendulum moving from potential to kinetic and back, what we see as a wave motion. Potential is eternal, so the initial singularity lasts forever as the eternal foundation of the universe.

To be eternal is to travel at the velocity of light, so the eternal phase of the quantum of action is stillness, the dynamic phase is motion, and like eternity, motion is a state which we interpret as acting in a circle like a complex number. This story of the initial state of god and the universe is a free creation of the human mind. The interesting question is does it explain anything, like a large body of data, eternity and time, for instance [creation / existence / annihilation / existence / . . .]. Are there any better stories? Does putting it into mathematics add anything of interest? Perhaps quantity of energy, that is a count of cycles from eternity to eternity, from stasis via motion to stasis. A clue: when action emerges into space-time it has the dimensions of angular momentum, it is a spin, one turn from eternity to eternity.

We weren't there at the beginning, so we have to guess what was going on. Our layered hypothesis, however, suggests that as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, that is the initial process of the universe is always there [with us] as the foundation of all subsequent processes, and the first process, the not-action is eternity as suggested by millennia of philosophers and theologians [eg Buddhist sages, meditators, no-minds], so we will go along with it.

Thursday 3 December 2020

[page 300]

Friday 4 December 2020

One would so like to devise a simple answer to a big problem that would yield authenticity, self esteem and possibly even income, but there are three difficulties. The first is to develop a product, the second is to make it into a marketable package and the third is to propagate it. One cannot expect miracles, so all things being equal, the only way forward is to keep searching and capturing the steps forward as they manifest themselves, always remaining aware that complete success is elusive and one must enjoy each move in the spirit that energy is eternal delight. My work is a mess, but I feel that it contains some gems, and I must patiently refine it and refine it again until the story I am working towards comes into clear focus, my little contribution [to moving Earth closer to Heaven].

Saturday 5 December 2020

I have to live with my pigheaded self wondering why I seem to find it very difficult to swim in the mainstream of all sorts of realms running from share trading to theology and physics. Nevertheless I cannot be other and feel that I am slowly worming my way to a consistent picture of my reality along a long and rather zig-zag trail of smaller adventures and insights. I spend a lot of time worrying about my book on scientific theology and see it as rather disjointed but I am confident in its general direction and see it as a foundation for endless revision until it finally settles into a crystalline whole. Scientific Theology

The velocity of light is a property of space-time that derives

[page 301]

directly from quantum mechanics and contact.

Have I reached a point of hopelessness where there is nothing I can do to improve my lot? No. Just press on and you will come out the other side after a period of confusion which is always the state while you are in motion between two points as we see in quantum mechanics, a time division multiplexed superposition of possibilities which eventually resolves into a new state [it is time division multiplexed because we can consciously concentrate on only one thing at a time despite the complexity of our minds].

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Further reading

Books

Berndt, Ronald M, Love Songs of Arnhem Land, 1978 Jacket: Love Songs of Arnhem Land is a contribution towards an increasing interest within and outside Australia in understanding Australian Aboriginal Culture. . . . The song-poetry itself is hauntingly beautiful. Its traditional imagery creates a special and unique atmosphere. Men and women are agents in a divine plan in which they play a crucial role, working in harmony with the forces of nature symbolized by the mythic beings. . . . ' 
Amazon
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Chaitin, Gregory J, Algorithmic Information Theory, Cambridge UP 1987 Foreword: 'The crucial fact here is that there exist symbolic objects (i.e., texts) which are "algorithmically inexplicable", i.e., cannot be specified by any text shorter than themselves. Since texts of this sort have the properties associated with random sequences of classical probability theory, the theory of describability developed . . . in the present work yields a very interesting new view of the notion of randomness.' J T Schwartz 
Amazon
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Christie, Agatha, Crooked House, St. Martin's Minotaur 2002 Amazon Editorial Reviews Book Description 'In the sprawling, half-timbered mansion in the affluent suburb of Swinly Dean, Aristide Leonides lies dead from barbiturate poisoning. An accident? Not likely. In fact, suspicion has already fallen on his luscious widow, a cunning beauty fifty years his junior, set to inherit a sizeable fortune, and rumored to be carrying on with a strapping young tutor comfortably ensconced in the family estate. But criminologist Charles Hayward is casting his own doubts on the innocence of the entire Leonides brood. He knows them intimately. And he's certain that in a crooked house such as Three Gables, no one's on the level... ' 
Amazon
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Graves, Robert, Claudius the God and his Wife Messalina, Vintage:Vintage international 1989 'Picking up where the extraordinarily interesting I, Claudius ends, Claudius the God tells the tale of Claudius' 13-year reign as Emperor of Rome. Naturally, it ends when Claudius is murdered--believe me, it's not giving anything away to say this; the surprise is when someone doesn't get poisoned. While Claudius spends most of his time before becoming emperor tending to his books and his writings and trying to stay out of the general line of corruption and killings, his life on the throne puts him into the center of the political maelstrom.' 
Amazon
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Jech, Thomas, Set Theory, Springer 1997 Jacket: 'This book covers major areas of modern set theory: cardinal arithmetic, constructible sets, forcing and Boolean-valued models, large cardinals and descriptive set theory. . . . It can be used as a textbook for a graduate course in set theory and can serve as a reference book.' 
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Khinchin, Aleksandr Yakovlevich, Mathematical Foundations of Information Theory (translated by P A Silvermann and M D Friedman), Dover 1957 Jacket: 'The first comprehensive introduction to information theory, this book places the work begun by Shannon and continued by McMillan, Feinstein and Khinchin on a rigorous mathematical basis. For the first time, mathematicians, statisticians, physicists, cyberneticists and communications engineers are offered a lucid, comprehensive introduction to this rapidly growing field.' 
Amazon
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Latifa, My Forbidden face: Growing Up Under the Taliban: A Young Woman's Story, Miramax 2003 Amazon review From Booklist 'Latifa was only 16 when the Taliban overran Kabul, changing her life dramatically. On the morning of September 26, 1996--the day the Taliban took Kabul--Latifa, her sister, Soraya, and their father drove to Aryana Square and saw the body of the murdered former president, Najibullah. The Taliban began issuing edicts, forbidding women to leave their houses without a close male relative to escort them; forcing them to wear chadris, which cover their entire bodies; and refusing to allow them to work. Latifa, Soraya, and their mother suffered greatly, falling into depression. Their mother, a doctor, continued to see patients secretly, and Latifa eventually started an underground school for girls, an action that put both her and her students at great risk. Latifa and her parents left Afghanistan to be interviewed by the French magazine Elle, but when they tried to return, they discovered that the Taliban had declared them enemies of the state. A moving firsthand account with a real sense of immediacy.' Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. 
Amazon
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Searle, Ronald, and Geoffry Willans, How to be Topp, PUFFIN BOOKS: New Impression edition 1970 A mischievously humourous look at a dysfunctional British private school seen through the eyes of Nigel Molesworth, "the grilla of 3b". 
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Sigmund, Karl, Games of Life: Explorations in Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour, Oxford UP 1993 Jacket: 'This book takes us on a tour through the games and computer simulations that are helping us to understand the ecology, evolution and behaviour of real life - from cat and mouse to cellular automata, from the battle of the sexes to artificial life, from poker to prisoner's dilemma.' 
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Whitehead, Alfred North, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge, Dover 1919-1982 Preface: 'We now know many alternative sets of axioms from which geometry can be deduced by the strictest deductive reasoning, But these investigations concern geometry as an abstract science deduced from hypothetical premisses. In this enquiry, we are concerned with geometry as a physical science. How is space rooted in experience?' 
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Papers

Gibson, J Murray, "Viewing the Seeds of Crystallization", Science, 326, 5955, 13 Novermber 2009, page 942-943. 'All materials search for the lowest accessible energy state. As temperature is increased in disordered materials, atoms diffuse and explore different chemical and structural configurations. Crystalline phases may be favored, but a very small crystal is unstable, so there is a "nucleation barrier" to overcome; only after reaching a critical size can the nucleus grow. Although we understand the thermodynamics of the nucleation process [e.g., (1)], observation of the actual atomic-scale complexity during nucleation has remained elusive, despite its importance to the properties of materials. Taking nucleation out of the "black box" is one of the grand challenges to "materials by design" that is seen as the future solution to major societal problems such as sustainable energy (2). On page 980 of this issue, Lee et al. (3) use fluctuation electron microscopy to image subcritical nuclei in a solid material, observing metastable structural states that facilitate later nucleation in amorphous films. Their study is applied to a technologically important case of "phase-change memory" and therefore may facilitate efforts to design faster higher-density nonvolatile memory.'. back

Lee, Bong-Sub, et al, "Observation of the Role of Subcritical Nuclei in the Crystallization of a Glassy Solid", Science, 326, 5955, 13 Novermber 2009, page . 'Phase transformation generally begins with nucleation, in which a small aggregate of atoms organizes into a different structural symmetry. The thermodynamic driving forces and kinetic rates have been predicted by classical nucleation theory, but observation of nanometer-scale nuclei has not been possible, except on exposed surfaces. We used a statistical technique called fluctuation transmission electron microscopy to detect nuclei embedded in a glassy solid, and we used a laser pump-probe technique to determine the role of these nuclei in crystallization. This study provides a convincing proof of the time- and temperature-dependent development of nuclei, information that will play a critical role in the development of advanced materials for phase-change memories.'. back

Stott, Rebecca, Hannah Morrish, "Newton in Three Dimension", Science, 326, 5955, 13 Novermber 2009, page 937. Let Newton Be! by Craig Baxter; directed by Patrick Morris Menagerie Theatre Company, University of Cambridge, UK. October 2009. Commissioned by the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge.. back

Walsh, Matthew R, et al, "Microsecond Simulations of Spontaneous Methane Hydrate Nucleation and Growth", Science, 326, 5956, 20 November 2009, page 1095-1098. 'Despite the industrial implications and worldwide abundance of gas hydrates, the formation mechanism of these compounds remains poorly understood. We report direct molecular dynamics simulations of the spontaneous nucleation and growth of methane hydrate. The multiple-microsecond trajectories offer detailed insight into the process of hydrate nucleation. Cooperative organization is observed to lead to methane adsorption onto planar faces of water and the fluctuating formation and dissociation of early hydrate cages. The early cages are mostly face-sharing partial small cages, favoring structure II; however, larger cages subsequently appear as a result of steric constraints and thermodynamic preference for the structure I phase. The resulting structure after nucleation and growth is a combination of the two dominant types of hydrate crystals (structure I and structure II), which are linked by uncommon 512 cages that facilitate structure coexistence without an energetically unfavorable interface'. back

Links

Adam Scodelario, Miley Cyrus - Bangers World Tour (Full Concert), Jeremy Rodrigues I' saw her on tour (February 24th) & let me just say it was an amazing experience. She was talking to us asking us questions & even gave a speech about gay marriage it really made me feel like she actually wanted to be there not just perform & go. I would definitely see her again.' back

Alfred North Whitehead - Wikipedia, Alfred North Whitehead - Wikipedia, 'Alfred North Whitehead, OM (February 15, 1861 – December 30, 1947) was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education. He co-authored the epochal Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell.' back

Ayn Rand - Wikipedia, Ayn Rand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."[105] She considered Objectivism a systematic philosophy and laid out positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy and aesthetics.' back

Dalya Albergr, 'Sistine Chapel of the ancients' rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest, ' “One of the most fascinating things was seeing ice age megafauna because that’s a marker of time. I don’t think people realise that the Amazon has shifted in the way it looks. It hasn’t always been this rainforest. When you look at a horse or mastodon in these paintings, of course they weren’t going to live in a forest. They’re too big. Not only are they giving clues about when they were painted by some of the earliest people – that in itself is just mind-boggling – but they are also giving clues about what this very spot might have looked like: more savannah-like.” ' back

David Smith, Blair and Bush went to war in Iraq despite South Africa's WMD assurances, 'Tony Blair went to war in Iraq despite a report by South African experts with unique knowledge of the country that showed it did not possess weapons of mass destruction, according to a book published on Sunday. God, Spies and Lies, by South African journalist John Matisonn, describes how then president Thabo Mbeki tried in vain to convince both Blair and President George W Bush that toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003 would be a terrible mistake.' back

David Stavrou, China's 'XXX Files"' '25 Thousand People Disappear Each year, Their Organs Are Harvested, ' China experts and activists claim that the repression of minorities in Xinjiang has escalated in recent years, with thousands of Uighur Muslims in ‘reeducation camps’ being murdered and their organs harvested for wealthy Chinese and foreign patients. The Chinese deny all such allegations.' back

Fixhepc, fixhepc.com, 'Affordable treatment for Hepatitis C is now available via parallel importation of Sofosbuvir, Ledipasvir and Daclatasvir. These medications have received regulatory approval worldwide and are assisting patients across the globe now. To read more about patients taking them please visit our forums. If you want to be part of the REDEMPTION eTrials follow this link. Every day 2 more Australians die of hepatitis C. These deaths are largely preventable. Here is a link to an article you should read. A simple solution Although the asking price in Australia is $1000 a tablet, these medications are available overseas for far less. For example in Egypt, China and India Sofosbuvir is available for under $10 a tablet. It is legal for a patient to import a 12 week supply of medication into Australia for their own use. It is also legal in many other countries such as NZ, UK, Singapore, and USA.' back

Gordon Brown, A powerful antidote to the Islamic State, 'In Beirut — the troubled capital of a country with one of the worst histories of sectarian violence in the world — a unique experiment is underway. Born out of a National Charter for Education on Living Together in Lebanon — which leaders of all major religions have signed — a common school curriculum on shared values is being taught in primary and secondary schools to Shiite, Sunni and Christian pupils. The curriculum focuses on “the promotion of coexistence” by embracing “inclusive citizenship” and “religious diversity” and aims to ensure what the instigators call “liberation from the risks of . . . sectarianism.”' back

Guy Rolnik, The Secret You're Not Being Told About Isis, 'There is little discussion about the contribution of Western money – especially American money – to the growth of this terrorism. That anecdote about the Pentagon and Gitmo and the generals may help us understand why that is. The industry of war, terrorism and peace is one of the largest in the world. It starts with America’s vast spending on security, the military, weapons and all its espionage agencies – $1 trillion a year. Then there are the hundreds of thousands of people, from lobbyists and journalists to aid organizations.' back

Harmonic Oscillator - Wikipedia, Harmonic Oscillator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In classical mechanics, a harmonic oscillator is a system that, when displaced from its equilibrium position, experiences a restoring force, F, proportional to the displacement, x: F = kx, where k is a positive constant. If F is the only force acting on the system, the system is called a simple harmonic oscillator, and it undergoes simple harmonic motion: sinusoidal oscillations about the equilibrium point, with a constant amplitude and a constant frequency (which does not depend on the amplitude).' back

Harriet Sherqood ad alon Mwesigwa, Pope Francis passes u chance to condemn Uganda's anti-gays, 'The Christian martyrs were burned alive in the 1880s on the orders of Mwanga II, King of Buganda, who was alarmed about the growing influence of Christianity. According to historians, their fate was sealed by their rebuff of the king’s homosexual advances. Homophobia is rife in present-day Uganda. A law signed last year by Museveni compelled citizens to report suspected homosexual activity to the police, triggering increased levels of prejudice, violence and discrimination against the gay community. The law was later annulled but is expected to be reintroduced.' back

Herman J. Mankiewicz - Wikipedia, Herman J. Mankiewicz - Wikipedia, the fee encyclopedia, ' Herman Jacob Mankiewicz (November 7, 1897 – March 5, 1953) was an American screenwriter of German-Jewish descent, who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). Earlier, he was the Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the drama critic for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott said that Herman Mankiewicz was the "funniest man in New York".Both Mankiewicz and Welles received Academy Awards for their screenplay.' back

Jim Tankersley, This might be the most controversial theory for what's behind the rise of ISIS, 'A year after his 700-page opus "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" stormed to the top of America's best-seller lists, Thomas Piketty is out with a new argument about income inequality. It may prove more controversial than his book, which continues to generate debate in political and economic circles. The new argument, which Piketty spelled out recently in the French newspaper Le Monde, is this: Inequality is a major driver of Middle Eastern terrorism, including the Islamic State attacks on Paris earlier this month — and Western nations have themselves largely to blame for that inequality.' back

John Eccles (neurophysiologist) - Wikipedia, John Eccles (neurophysiologist) - Wikipedia. the free encyclopedia, 'Sir John Carew Eccles, AC FRS FRACP FRSNZ FAAS (27 January 1903 – 2 May 1997) was an Australian neurophysiologist who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse. He shared the prize with Andrew Huxley and Alan Lloyd Hodgkin. back

Marek Strzelecki & Dorota Bartyzel, Where Your Sexuslity Can Make You Enemy of the State, ' Once a model European Union country diligently integrating with its western allies, Poland stands out even among eastern members like Hungary that have also been rebelling against Brussels and Berlin, most recently over the bloc’s coronavirus relief plan. The last few years have seen Poland turn into one the continent’s most socially regressive states. Backed by the nation’s omnipotent Catholic Church, the ruling Law & Justice party has targeted abortion and demonized Muslim refugees. But it’s the LGBTQ community that has been subject to the most inflammatory attacks, depicted as an “ideology” backed by the EU that needs to be eradicated.' back

Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball, back

Natasha Singer and Mike Isaac, Mark Zuckerberg's Philanthropy Uses L.L.C. for More Control, '“If I was Zuckerberg or one of his friends, and I was giving away multiple billions of dollars, I don’t know what’s going to be important hundreds of years from now,” said Scott A. Bishop, director of financial planning at STA Wealth Management. “In the long run, an L.L.C. is best for that type of flexibility.”' back

Noether's theorem - Wikipedia, Noether's theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Noether's (first) theorem states that any differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system has a corresponding conservation law. The theorem was proved by German mathematician Emmy Noether in 1915 and published in 1918. The action of a physical system is the integral over time of a Lagrangian function (which may or may not be an integral over space of a Lagrangian density function), from which the system's behavior can be determined by the principle of least action.' back

Orson Welles - Wikipedia, Orson Welles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, writer and producer who is remembered for his innovative work in radio, theatre and film. He is considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. . . . In 1938, his radio anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air gave Welles the platform to find international fame as the director and narrator of a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds, which caused widespread panic because many listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was in fact occurring. Although some contemporary sources say these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to notoriety.' back

Pink Floyd, Live Concert footage, Dark Side of the Moon, 'Full album of live concert footage with song order same as original album. This is a representation of a Pink Floyd album in it's entirety for educational purposes, utilizing live performances. The songs are in the order as found on the original vinyl album which is historically significant. This video is protected under the laws of "fair use" and adheres to the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video.' back

Planck units - Wikipedia, Planck units - Wikipedia, the free encycloedia, ' In particle physics and physical cosmology, Planck units are a set of units of measurement defined exclusively in terms of five universal physical constants, in such a manner that these five physical constants take on the numerical value of 1 when expressed in terms of these units. Originally proposed in 1899 by German physicist Max Planck, these units are also known as natural units because the origin of their definition comes only from properties of nature and not from any human construct. Planck units are only one system of several systems of natural units, but Planck units are not based on properties of any prototype object or particle (that would be arbitrarily chosen), but rather on only the properties of free space.' back

Post-coital tristesse - Wikipedia, Post-coital tristesse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Sexual intercourse can sometimes lead to a feeling of melancholy called PCT, or post-coital tristesse (from Latin post-coital, and French tristesse, literally — “sadness”). This is more common in men than in women. Many PCT sufferers may also exhibit strong feelings of anxiety, anywhere from five minutes, to two hours after coitus.' back

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

Rosanna Xia, Scientists solve mystery of mass coho salmon deaths. The kille? A chemical from car tires, ' Researchers then soaked tire bits in room temperature water for about 24 hours. As many as 1,500 to 2,800 chemicals would leach out and, using high-resolution mass spectrometry, the team methodically identified and analyzed these compounds. . . . “We knew that the chemical that we thought was toxic had 18 carbons, 22 hydrogens, two nitrogens and two oxygens. And we kept trying to figure out what it was,” said Zhenyu Tian, the study’s lead author and a research scientist at the Center for Urban Waters at University of Washington Tacoma. “Then one day in December, it was just like bing! in my mind. The killer chemical might not be a chemical directly added to the tire, but something related.” The smoking gun turned out to be related to a chemical called 6PPD, which is essentially a preservative to keep car tires from breaking down too quickly. When 6PPD hits the road and reacts with ozone gas, the chemical transforms into multiple new chemicals, including a compound known as 6PPD-quinone.' back

St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, Faraday Institute for Science and Religion,, 'The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion is an interdisciplinary research enterprise based at St Edmund's College, Cambridge. In addition to academic research, the Institute engages in the public understanding of science and religion by means of Courses, Lectures, Seminars and the Media.' back

Stephen Chen, China claims quantum computing lead with Jiuzhang photon test, creating machine 'one trillion times faster' that next best supercomputer, ' Chinese physicists say they have built a quantum computer one trillion times faster than the most powerful supercomputer, with potential for some real-life applications. The researchers said that using a process called “Gaussian boson sampling”, their Jiuzhang prototype quantum computer took a little over three minutes to complete a task that the world’s fastest conventional machine would not be able to complete in 600 million years.' back

SWTPC - Wikipedia, SWTPC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The U.S. company SWTPC started in 1964 as DEMCO (Daniel E. Meyer Company). It was incorporated in 1967 as Southwest Technical Products Corporation of San Antonio, Texas . . . When microprocessors (CPU chips) became available, SWTPC became one of the first suppliers of microcomputers to the general public, focusing on designs using the Motorola 6800 and, later, the 6809 CPUs. Many of these products were available in kit form as well. SWTPC also designed and supplied computer terminals, chassis, processor cards, memory cards, motherboards, I/O cards, disk drive systems, and tape storage systems' back

SWTPC - Wikipedia, SWTPC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The U.S. company SWTPC started in 1964 as DEMCO (Daniel E. Meyer Company). It was incorporated in 1967 as Southwest Technical Products Corporation of San Antonio, Texas. They produced a wide variety of electronics kits, and later complete computer systems.' back

Taliban - Wikipedia, Taliban - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Taliban (Pashto: طالبان ṭālibān, meaning "students"), also Taleban, is a radical Sunni Islamist movement that governed Afghanistan from 1996 until late 2001, when all of its members were removed from power by NATO forces during Operation Enduring Freedom. It has regrouped since 2004 and revived as a strong insurgency movement governing at the local level and fighting a guerrilla war against the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The movement is made up of members belonging to different ethnic Pashtun tribes,[5] along with a number of volunteers from nearby Islamic countries such as Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Arabs, Punjabis and others. They operate in Afghanistan and the Frontier Tribal Areas of Pakistan, mainly around the Durand Line border.' back

Thomas Piketty, Le tout-securitaire ne suffira pas, 'C’est une évidence   : le terrorisme se nourrit de la poudrière inégalitaire moyen-orientale, que nous avons largement contribuée à créer. Daech, «  Etat islamique en Irak et au Levant  », est directement issu de la décomposition du régime irakien, et plus généralement de l’effondrement du système de frontières établi dans la région en 1920.' back

Tom Arup and Peter Hannam, Paris UN Climate Conference 2015: Australia rejects fossil fuel pledge, 'The International Energy Agency this month noted that fossil fuel subsidies continue to outpace those for renewable energy by a factor of more than four-to-one. In 2014, those subsidies totalled $US490 billion ($695 billion) compared with $US112 billion for clean energy sources in the power sector.' back

Vasudevan Sridharan, Russia bombs Turkish aid agency's bakery in Syria's Idlib province, 'Russia is believed to have bombed a bakery run by a Turkish humanitarian aid agency in Syria's Idlib province. The bakery operated by Istanbul-based Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) is frequented by nearly 45,000 people every day.' back

Wiliam Zheng, China-ES animosity frustrates Beijing's 'Fox Hunt' for oversas fugitives, ' China and the United States had a standing Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, said Professor Wang Jiangyu, director of the Centre for Chinese and Comparative Law at City University in Hong Kong. But it largely depended on good relations between both sides to work, he said. “When the Sino-US relations were normal, such cooperation had been carried out quite effectively before 2018,” he said. “But now, there is no such goodwill to carry out such soft international obligations, given the unprecedented tension.” back

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