Notes
Sunday 6 March 2022 - Saturday 12 March 2022
[Notebook: DB 88: Salvation]
[page 1]
Sunday 6 March 2022
Am I an imposter? Was I when I went into the Dominicans? Why did I do it? As a safe haven? To please the people around me? For fear of hell? This, in retrospect, seems the most likely. My biggest loss on leaving was losing the promise of heaven. My first response was to write The Portrait of an Abstract Man a science fiction idea that there is sufficient entropy in a neutron star to store all our spirits in an executable form forever. Far fetched but consoling, but now the target is heaven on Earth whose fundamental prerequisite is the establishment of peace.
The idea here, first thought of in the 60s and first published on 2BOB Radio, is that there is an infinity of spiritual space in which we can all be ourselves while respecting the finite nature of the physical resources for life, Green Theology. Insofar as this is a hopeless dream, like the dream of Christian heaven, I am an imposter, preaching false hope, but I can see it could be real if we could control the delusions of dictators like Trump, Putin and Stalin who are artefacts of the fact, noted by Aquinas in his discussion of beatitude, that there is no upper limit on desire. We have evolved to deal with poverty, not wealth. I write to reassure myself with a feeling that I will eventually make my point. Jeffrey Nicholls (1967); How Universal is the universe>, Jeffrey Nicholls (1987): A theory of peace, Jeffrey Nicholls (2016): Essay 16: Green theology: a path to heaven, Aquinas, Summa, I, II, 3, 8: Is human blessedness the vision of the essence of God?
Jammer / Space / Einstein page xvi: ' The concept of space was enriched and completed by Galileo and Newton, in that space must be introduced as the independent cause of the inertial behaviour of bodies if one wishes to give the classical principle of inertia (and therewith the classical law of motion) an exact meaning. To
[page 22]
have realized this fully and clearly is in my opinion one of Newton's greatest achievements.' Max Jammer (1994): Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics
The fact that quantum and classical computations are invisible does not mean that they are not real, and they are in fact the logical reality of fields. Jeffrey Nicholls (2022): Cognitive cosmology page 15: Quantum amplitudes and logical processes are invisible
Jammer page xvi: ' . . . space is not only introduced as an independent thing apart from material objects, but is also assigned an absolute role in the whole causal structure of the theory. This role is absolute in the sense that space (as an inertial system) acts on all material objects, while these do not in turn exert any reaction on space.'
page xvii: 'The victory over the concept of absolute space or over that of the inertial system became possible only because of the concept of material object was gradually replaced as the fundamental concept of physics with that of field.' Which is a mathematical layer built on space as its domain. It does not replace space [and it continues to take space as a domain indifferent to the field functions built upon it].
page 5; Reichenbach: ' "Time is . . . logically prior to space." ' and complex, ie periodical.
page 110: 'But it was the religious element, originating as we saw in Jewish Cabalistic and Neoplatonic thought, that gained ascendancy over Newton in his later years. So a comparison of the first and later editions of the Principia shows that the identification of absolute space with God, or with one of his attributes, came into the foreground of his thought only toward the end of his life, that is at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
page 116: 'To demonstrate the existence of true motion and absolute space — such is the programme of the Principia. All Newton's achievements and discoveries in the realm of physics are in his view subordinate to the conception of absolute space
Every action, like taking a right turn at a busy intersection in heavy traffic [is] subject to constraints. We may think of a sentence as a action and every word in the sentence both increases the entropy of the space of meaning in which the sentence lies and adds constraint to the position of the meaning in that space
Relations are of course real, based on actual communication which in Minkowski space is achieved by the exchange of [real] particles (messages) [information is physical]. Information is a Physical Entity
[page 23]
Jammer page 128: Willey: ' "Nature was rescued from Satan and restored to God." '
Jonathan Edwards: ' "the greatest metaphysician America has yet produced." ' Jonathan Edwards (theologian) - Wikipedia
page 154: 'Riemann then assumed for a line element in a manifold of n dimensions with general coordinates x1 . . . xn the formula
ds2 = gμν dxμ dxν
μ and ν being summed over x1 . . . xn. This differential expressing ds is usually called today the metric form or fundamental form of the space under consideration and the gμν, owing to the invariance of ds are the components of a covariant tensor of the second rank, the so-called fundamental tensor. A continuous n dimensional manifold is called a Riemannian space if there is given a fundamental tensor [my emphasis (for me)].
page 155; 'Modern mathematics has shown that a logically consistent theory of a non-Riemannian space (that is non-metrical space) can be advanced in which the notion of distance is never encountered [Gaussian?].
page 158: ' Riemann assumed the validity of the Pythagorean theorem in the infinitely small.'
Weyl: ' "The principle of gaining knowledge of the external world from the behaviour of its infinitesimal parts is the mainspring of the theory of knowledge in infinitesimal physics as in Riemann's geometry,' The only problem seems to be that the infinitesimal physics exists, at most, in gravitation, where there is no information [since all the local details of gravitation are contained in the local distribution of energy].
page 161: Riemann: ' "The basis of the metrical determination must be sought outside the manifold in the binding forces that act upon it".'
Einstein: The metrical structure determined by the Einstein tensor Rμν is related at every point in the space-time continuum to the mass energy tensor Tμν by the field equations Rμν = −½ gμνR =
−kTμν.
page 162: For Riemann, matter was the causa efficiens of spatial structure [or we might simply say the spatial structure].
page 174; Einstein: ' "If we think of the field being removed, there is no space which remains, since space does not have a material existence." ' [Here] we say it is a consequence of quantum mechanics, which has an independent existence via the quantum of action [which is physical information].
[page 24]
Jammer page 179: Uberweg: ' " The casual interpretation of physical processes demands three-dimensionality" ' [since unimpeded causal communication between any two points requires 3D].
page 184: ' . . . in 1911 Brouwer established that Euclidean spaces of different dimensionality are non-homeomorphic, ie cannot be mapped on each other in a continuous one-to-one correspondence. An entropy thing.
page 185: Weyl 1922 page 284: [discussion of derivation of electromagnetism from properties of 3 + 1 metrical space] Hermann Weyl (1985): Space Time Matter
page 186: Grassman: ' " The concept of space can in no way be produced by thought, but always stands over against it as a given thing. He who tries to maintain the opposite must undertake the task of deducing the necessity of the three dimensions of space from the pure laws of thought [? communication?] a task whose slution presents itself as impossible." '
page 187: Cognitive cosmology: transfinite network, a manifold of discrete actions whose entropy begins at 0.
page 189: Niels Bohr: ' [ . . . in his discussion of electron transitions between stationary states within an atom NB already called such processes] " transcending the frame of space and time." '
My annotation: 'Gauss and the conformal crystal [?]'
page 191: 'A null geodesic forms a closed curve, that is light rays return to their starting point [which may be how energy is stored inside massive particles, eg proton, Wilczek] Robertson-Walker Metric. Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metric - Wikipedia, Frank Wilczek (2008): The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces, pp 207 sqq.
page 195: De Sitter showed ' that the ad hoc modified field equations admit of a space-time structure as a solution even in the absence of matter.' de Sitter space - Wikipedia
page xvii Einstein; ' "That which constitutes the spatial chracter of reality is then simply the four dimensionality of the field." ' Which opens the way for distinct communicating particles which enables the world to increae its entropy, following Cantor (see Jammer page 198)
page 198: ' . . . in other words, because matter cannot be understood apart from knowledge of spacetime then matter as the source of the field will become . . . part of the field. . . . As the concluding words of his Foreword to the present book seem to imply, Einstein's view during the later years of his life was more in favour of this conception.
Monday 7 March 2022
[page 25]
Jammer page 201: 'The relationship between symmetry properties and conservation laws, at least from the mathematical point of view, had already been fully explained on the basis of Lie's theory of continuous groups in 1918 by Emmy Noether. Dwight Neuenschwander (2011): Emmy Noether's Wonderful Theorem
page 206: ' . . . since all our present laws of physics admit at least formally extensions to spaces of an arbitrary number of dimensions, it may be suggested that there exists some far reaching principle which in conjunction with these laws implies the empirical particularity of n = 3 spatial dimensions.
page 216; Einstein (1953) ' "There is no space without field." '
228: Weyl: ' [. . . a theorem that Hermann Weyl had proved in 1921, namely that] the affine and metric structures of spacetime can be derived on the basis of the propagation of light and the motion of freely falling bodies.' Lochlainn O'Raifeartaigh (1972): General relativity: papers in honour of J. L. Synge
page 233: Leibniz & Newton: 'parts of time and space do not possess any principle of individuation apart from their order and positions.
page 239: Penrose: ' the two basic space-time manifolds of modern physics, the real four dimensional space-time continuum of relativity and the fictitious infinite dimensional complex Hilbert space continuum of quantum mechanics are unrelated to eachother.'
So start with the angular momentum common to both - spin space
Wheeler pregeometry - Planck length
page 243: 3 + 1 Merman: ' " It is not so much the properties of quantum mechanics and of space that determine this dimension. Rather, consistency requires such properties. The dimension of space is thus a consistency condition." ' As is the whole of physics.
page 244; Kaluza-Klein theories Kaluza–Klein theory - Wikipedia
page 245: 'As is well known, the invention of the Higgs symmetry-breaking mechanisms in the early sixties, allowing particles associated with Yang-Mills gauge theories to have mass, led to the revival of the unification program that culminated in the remarkably successful Glashow-Salam-Weinberg unified theory of the weak and electromagnetic interactions. Higgs mechanism - Wikipedia, Electroweak interaction - Wikipedia, Yang-Mills theory - Wikipedia
page 247: String oscillation corresponds to a particle via a Turing machine.
[page 26]
My theological business seems to be slowly evolving from a wild goose chase to a job which can be approached systematically and completed in coherent stages. This may be while I am feeling relaxed about my work but upset by Putin's religious war against Ukraine which is based on the narrow vision that power comes from above from a violent god who is an exploitative warlord. My theoretical story is intended to be the answer to this evil, but it is not yet ready for deployment. Long ago I dreamt of the theological equivalent of a nuclear weapon which would be so powerful as to make war obsolete, since any war waged with nuclear weapons will be a total loss for both sides, unlike the limited losses associated with conventional weapons.
Tuesday 8 March 2022
The natural habitat of the Lagrangian function is the Hilbert layer of the universe where we have only energy which is the rate of change of phase we call time and the action function at the heart of the Langrangian approach is a function of events within a certain time. Since it is [a symmetry] embedded in the beginning it is universal. The distinction between quantum mechanics and gravitation is somehow implied in the notion that we seem a stationary maximum in Einstein space and a stationary minimum in quantum space.
Critical point: where something happens / nothing happens. Curie temperature / critical point of water / steam, critical opalescence. Critical opalescence - Wikipedia
The relationship between energy and quantum of action is mediated by frequency whose maximum value (we say) is ℵ0, so we can say that the maximum energy per quantum is ℵ0 which would be the energy of the universe. As we see from Cantor arithmetic (notes 2022, February 27) which is very flexible, the only criteria of orthogonality are exponent and logarithm.
I have been having cold feet about the theology project and wondering if I have ventured too far away from reality. The obvious answer is 'so what?' If I do not succeed, maybe someone else will and I am convinced, first that the universe is divine, and second, given that this is the case, physics and theology can be united. My starting points for this are my understanding of the Catholic theological tradition of the nature of God as synthesized by Thomas Aquinas and such facts about the universe as have been collected so far by all the sciences ranging from physics through biology and psychology to ecology
[page 27]
and politics. Of course both the theology and the science I am using are my own understanding of these disciplines, which is the best I can do. I post the work I am doing on the internet and it may one day reach good enough quality to be published in other media. Meanwhile, I continue as quickly and soundly as I am able. Face failure and press on, enjoying the chase.
Wednesday 9 March 2022
cc16_transfinity. We are discussing cognitive cosmology in a cognitive way using the minds we have acquired through evolution in this universe so it seems reasonable that we are not so unique as to be the only cognitive entities in the universe so that we might imagine that the processes of cognition and the processes that created the universe have something in common. Looking at our brains, we see only normal biological mechanisms and the special feature is the way that they are organized as a compelx network [like almost every other structure in our bodies]. We might therefore think about how we would make an intelligent mind with a suitably complex computer network designed with the plasticity of the human brain in mind. The key here, as in my first essay, is universality, an idea that takes us back to Aristotle's argument for the immateriality of the intelligent mind, unrestricted by [what he understood to be] the constricting and individualizing effect of matter on form. Perhaps taking this line we can make the whole point of cognitive cosmology in a few thousand words.
If the initial singularity can create a Hilbert space of vectors similar to the initial singularity we might imagine that each of these basis vectors or rays, endowed with the same powers as its source, may be able to create a Hilbert space and this process proceed recursively without end, something that we could model with a transfinite Cantor-Hilbert network.
Poirot, echoing Beethoven and Einstein: 'And I may say that although I have now arrived at what I believe to be the true solution to the case, I have no material proof of it. I know it is so because it must be so because in no other way cn every single fact fit into its ordered and recognized place. Agatha Christie: Murder in Mesopotamia, chapter XXVII., String Quartet No 16 (Beethoven) - Wikipedia
Now over my little panic caused by the suffering of my friends in Ukraine and coupled fall in the market. Now back to steady and enthusiastic work regardless of outcome. Process is the thing, the quantum of action as an observable reality.
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We might guess that the inertial symmetry of a massive body moving in inertial space is a consequence of the fact that there us no spatial coupling between Hilbert and Minkowski so that the quantum realization of an observable particle has no particular position in Minkowski space.
Thursday 10 March 2022
Prudence: consciousness, proprioception, controlling the system that makes our existence possible. We expect this to begin at the beginning [since higher layers of the system have the increased entropy necessary to control the lower layers] and so we expect the consistency of spacetime to feed back to the quantum layer to maintain its existence, and so on up the layered hierarchy. Where this fails, extinction follows It seems that we can have strong evidence that creation operators outweigh annihilation operators and we might se in this a clue to the prevalence of matter over antimatter due to some random selection very early in the piece.
From a theoretical point of view the difference between a particle and an antiparticle is the direction of time (Wheeler, Feynman). From a practical point of view this means that the time order in which two or more steps in some process are executed [is changed].
Les Murray Murray (2022): Continuous Creation
Playing music is a clear example of the relationship between Minkowski, the real of the physical inputs from the instruments, which include the bodies of the players, and the music, which is written in superpositions of frequencies written in Hilbert space, every new sound the consequence of an observable event on a string, keyboard, air column or something else that initiates a superposition of vectors in the Hilbert realm. Icehouse, Roche Estate. The interface between the physical instruments and the physical sounds is to be found in the mind of the musician. A cognitive coupling between Hilbert and Minkowski which is clear in our complex world and which we must be able to see right back at the beginning. Retrospection. Icehouse (2017): 40 Years Live Roche Estate
Friday 11 March 2022
A though crossed my mind driving at 5.30 am. Can I hold it until I get home? Time is of the essence, it is periodic and therefore complex. Aristotle did well to call it the number of motion with respect to before and after This is a symmetry that stretches from quantum mechanics to everyday
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life and is consistent with the first layer of the world described by energy, phase and quantum mechanics, the immediate consequences of action. Perhaps it need a new page in cognitive cosmology after action. Aristotle: time: Physics, IV, xi (219b2)
Green, Poetics. Action is autotelic. Greene (2012) (Editor in Chief): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry & Poetics
Action is relativistically invariant because it is a feature of quantum mechanics which exists prior to space and relativity.
Saturday 12 March 2022
Needham vol II p 37; Tao and cognitive cosmology: Tao = act. Joseph Needham (1956); Science and Civilisation in China (Volume 2) History of Scientific Thought
' Heracleitus was a contemporary of Confucius but while, as we have seen, Lao Tzu's date is later, there is no doubt that the general ideas of Taoist thought existed at the beginning of the −5th century or even before. The sage is to imitate the Tao, which works unseen but does not dominate.'
page 46: Tao and action are uncreated
page 49: Uncertainty enables systems to get to places which are inaccessible to deterministic systems.
page 63: Ataraxy Ataraxia - Wikipedia
page 68: 'wu wei' = refraining from action contrary to nature.
page 164: 'In any case, Confucianism and Taoism still form the background of the Chinese mind and for a long time will continue to do so.' (1956)
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Further readingBooks
Christie, Agatha, Murder in Mesopotamia, Pan / Collins 1981 Foreword by Giles Reilly M.D.' The events chronicled in this narrative took place some four years ago. Circumstances have rented it necessary, in my opinion, that a straightforward account of them should be given to the public. There have been the wildest and most ridiculous rumours suggesting that important evidence was suppressed other nonsense of that kind. These misconceptions have appeared more especially in the American Press.'
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Greene (2012), Roland, and Cushman, Cavanagh, Ramanzi & Rouzer (editors), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry & Poetics, Princeton UP 2012 ' Poetics, the theoretical and practical study of poetry is among the oldest disciplines in the West, one of those founded by Aristotle along with ethics, logic and political science. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is the comprehensive guide to this rich field. . . . The Encyclopedia includes five kinds of entries: terms and concepts; genres and forms; periods, schools and movements; the poetries of nations, regions and languages; and poetry in relation to other cultural forms, disciplines and social practices such as linguistics, religion and science.'
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Jammer (1994), Max, Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics, Dover 1994 Jacket: 'Although the concept of space is of fundamental importance in both physics and philosophy, until the publication of this book, the idea of space had never been treated in terms of its historical development. ... Following an introductory chapter on the concept of space in antiguity, subsequent chapters consider Judeaeo-Christian ideas about space, the emancipation of the space concept from Aristotelianism, Newton's concept of absolute space and the concept of space from the 18th century to the present. ... It is essential reading for philosphers, physicists and mathematicians, but even the nonprofessional reader will find it accessible, for the author has kept the technical language and mathematical details to a minimum.'
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Murray (2022), Les, Continuous Creation, Black Inc 2022 Jacket: Les Murray left a trove of last poems. These are pieces he was working on up to his death, as well a new work discoverd among his scrapbooks and file.
Various, intriguing and moving, this is a wonderful final collection from Australia's greatest poet – including a title poem that calls up the spirit of continuous creation, 'out of all that vanishes and all that outlasts us'.
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Needham (1956), Joseph, Science and Civilisation in China (Volume 2) History of Scientific Thought, Cambridge UP 1956 ' Introduction . . . We shall begin with the Ju Chia (Confucians) giving them pride of place on account of their dominance over all later Chinese thought, although their contribution to science was almost wholly negative. From them the transition is easy to their motal enemies, the Tao Chia (Taoists), whose speculations about, and insights into, Nature fully equalled pre-Aristotelian Greek thought, and lie at the basis of all Chinese science. It will be necessary to emphasize an aspect of this antagonism usually overlooked, namely, the political, for while the Confucians accepted feudal society, Taoism was strongly opposed to it.'
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Needham (1959), Joseph, Science and Civilisation in China (Volume 3) Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth, Cambridge UP 1959 'Author's Note: With this volume we reach the ore of the work as a whole, and leave behind all the tunnels and adits, all preliminary explanation and interpreting. The purpose of this volume is to elucidate the contributions of traditional Chinese civilization to mathematics and to the sciences of the heavens and the earth—astronomy and meteorology above, geography and geology below.'
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Neuenschwander (2011), Dwight E, Emmy Noether's Wonderful Theorem, Johns Hopkins University Press 2011 Jacket: A beautiful piece of mathematics, Noether's theorem touches on every aspect of physics. Emmy Noether proved her theorem in 1915 and published it in 1918. This profound concept demonstrates the connection between conservation laws and symmetries. For instance, the theorem shows that a system invariant under translations of time, space or rotation will obey the laws of conservation of energy, linear momentum or angular momentum respectively. This exciting result offers a rich unifying principle for all of physics.'
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O'Raifeartaigh (1972), Lochlainn, General relativity: papers in honour of J. L. Synge , Clarendon Press 1972 [J. Ehlers, F. A. Pirani, and A. Schild, The geometry of free fall and light propagation. In: General Relativity. Papers honour of J. L. Synge, editor: L. O’Raifertaigh (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp 63–82]
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Weyl (1985), Hermann, and Henry L. Brose (translator), Space Time Matter , Dover 1985 Amazon customer review: ' The birth of gauge theory by its author: This book bewitched several generations of physicists and students. Hermann Weyl was one of the very great mathematicians of this century. He was also a great physicist and an artist with ideas and words. In this book you will find, at a deep level, the philosophy, mathematics and physics of space-time. It appeared soon after Einstein's famous paper on General Relativity, and is, in fact, a magnificent exposition of it, or, rather, of a tentative generalization of it. The mathematical part is of the highest class, striving to put geometry to the forefront. Actually, the book introduced a far-reaching generalization of the theory of connections, with respect to the Levi-Civita theory. It was not a generalization for itself, but motivated by the dream (Einstein's) of including gravitation and electromagnetism in the same (geometrical) theory. The result was gauge theory, which, slightly modified and applied to quantum mechanics resulted in the theory which dominates present particle physics. Weyl's unified theory was proved wrong by Einstein, and his criticism alone, accepted by Weyl and included in the book, would justify the reading. Though wrong, Weyl's theory is so beautiful that Paul Dirac stated that nature could not afford neglecting such perfection, and that the theory was probably only misplaced. Prophetic words! . . . ' Henrique Fleming
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Wilczek (2008), Frank, The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces, Basic Books 2008 ' In this excursion to the outer limits of particle physics, Wilczek explores what quarks and gluons, which compose protons and neutrons, reveal about the manifestation of mass and gravity. A corecipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, Wilczek knows what he’s writing about; the question is, will general science readers? Happily, they know what the strong interaction is (the forces that bind the nucleus), and in Wilczek, they have a jovial guide who adheres to trade publishing’s belief that a successful physics title will not include too many equations. Despite this injunction (against which he lightly protests), Wilczek delivers an approachable verbal picture of what quarks and gluons are doing inside a proton that gives rise to mass and, hence, gravity. Casting the light-speed lives of quarks against “the Grid,” Wilczek’s term for the vacuum that theoretically seethes with quantum activity, Wilczek exudes a contagious excitement for discovery. A near-obligatory acquisition for circulating physics collections.' --Gilbert Taylor
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Papers
Pirani, F. A. E. , "Building space time from light rays and free particles", Symposia Mathematica, 12, , 1973, page 67-83. ' In 1973 Jurgen Ehlers, Felix Pirani and Alfred Schild succeeded in deriving the conformal, projective and metric structure of space-time solely from the phenomena of light propagation and feee fall, thereby demoting the status of measurement of spatial lengths and temporal intervals to that of derived operations.'
[J. Ehlers, F. A. Pirani, and A. Schild, The geometry of free fall and light propagation. In: General Relativity. Papers honour of J. L. Synge, editor: L. O’Raifertaigh (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp 63–82]. back |
Links
Addazi, Marciano & Pasechnik, Time-crystal ground state and production of gravitational waves from QCD phase transition , ' We propose a novel mechanism for the production of gravitational waves in the early Universe that originates from the relaxation processes induced by the QCD phase transition. While the energy density of the quark-gluon mean-field is monotonously decaying in real time, its pressure undergoes a series of violent oscillations at the characteristic QCD time scales that generate a primordial multi-peaked gravitational waves signal in the radio frequencies' domain. The signal is an echo of the QCD phase transition that is accessible by planned measurements at the FAST and SKA telescopes.' back |
Al Jazeera, Photos: Russian bombing destroys hospital in Ukraine’s Mariupol, ' ]
Published On 9 Mar 20229 Mar 2022
A Russian air strike has devastated a children’s hospital with a maternity ward in the besieged port city of Mariupol and wounded at least 17 people, Ukrainian officials said, amid growing warnings from the West that Moscow’s invasion is about to take a more brutal and indiscriminate turn. . . .
“Today Russia committed a huge crime,” said Volodymir Nikulin, a top regional police official, standing in the wreckage. “It is a war crime without any justification.” ' back |
Andrei Soldatov & Irina Borogan, The Man Behind Putin’s Military: How Sergey Shoygu Paved the Way for Russia’s Ukraine Assault, ' In the weeks leading up to Russia’s invasion, many analysts doubted that Putin would actually launch such a large-scale war of choice. But the militarization of Russian society and the remaking of the military under Shoygu provided Putin with an overwhelming temptation, one that could not be slowed by intelligence misgivings or diplomatic considerations. And now that the assault is violently under way, the full implications of the Kremlin’s new military strategy are becoming clear. Not only is the campaign being shaped by an army that has openly embraced war—the bigger, the better. It is also being led by Shoygu, a man who has so far experienced only successes and who lacks the proper military training to understand that a battlefield victory, no matter how impressive, can sometimes lead to an even larger political defeat.' back |
Andrew E. Kramer, Russian Prisoners and Ukrainian Soldiers Describe Two Sides of the Conflict, ' Lt. Dmitry Kovalensky, who had fought in a Russian tank unit and spoke at the behest of his Ukrainian captors, said he recently came under fire from an armed drone and shoulder-launched anti-tank missiles on a road near Sumy, in northeastern Ukraine. “The whole column burned,” he said. . . .
Lieutenant Kovalensky said he was appealing to the Russian people to rise up and overthrow President Vladimir V. Putin because the Russian leadership had deceived the army’s officers about the aims of the war and had used the guise of a military exercise to prepare for an invasion.' back |
Andrew Sheng, War in Ukraine: the inconvenient truth about why peace must prevail, back |
Andrew Vonasch & Michael-John Turp, How protesters demanding ‘freedom’ from COVID restrictions ignore the way liberty really works
, ' Isaiah Berlin was rightly concerned about the potential slippery slope towards totalitarian control inherent in appeals to positive freedom, as witnessed in the USSR where severe restrictions on speech, movement, assembly, literary expression and much else were imposed in the name of “freedom” (namely the freedom to be a good Soviet).
But slippery slopes can be resisted and the risk here seems slight. For COVID policies that restrict negative liberty to enhance overall freedom, they must be necessary to promote positive liberty, responsive to the evidence, and proportional to the threat.' back |
Aquinas, Summa, I, II, 3, 8, Is human blessedness the vision of the essence of God?, ' I answer that, Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence. To make this clear, two points must be observed. First, that man is not perfectly happy, so long as something remains for him to desire and seek: secondly, that the perfection of any power is determined by the nature of its object. . . . Consequently, for perfect happiness the intellect needs to reach the very Essence of the First Cause. And thus it will have its perfection through union with God as with that object, in which alone man's happiness consists ' back |
Aristotle: time, Physics, IV, xi (219b2), 'Further, how can there be any 'before' and 'after' without the existence of time? Or how can there be any time without the existence of motion? If, then, time is the number of motion or itself a kind of motion, it follows that, if there is always time, motion must also be eternal.' back |
Ataraxia - Wikipedia, Ataraxia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Ataraxia (ἀταραξία, literally, "unperturbedness", generally translated as "imperturbability", "equanimity", or "tranquillity") is a Greek term first used in Ancient Greek philosophy by Pyrrho and subsequently Epicurus and the Stoics for a lucid state of robust equanimity characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry. In non-philosophical usage, the term was used to describe the ideal mental state for soldiers entering battle.
Achieving ataraxia is a common goal for Pyrrhonism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism, but the role and value of ataraxia within each philosophy varies depending their philosophical theories. The mental disturbances that prevent one from achieving ataraxia vary among the philosophies, and each philosophy has a different understanding as to how to achieve ataraxia.' back |
Critical opalescence - Wikipedia, Critical opalescence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Critical opalescence is a phenomenon which arises in the region of a continuous, or second-order, phase transition. . . . The phenomenon is most commonly demonstrated in binary fluid mixtures, such as methanol and cyclohexane. As the critical point is approached, the sizes of the gas and liquid region begin to fluctuate over increasingly large length scales (the correlation length of the liquid diverges). As the density fluctuations become of a size comparable to the wavelength of light, the light is scattered and causes the normally transparent liquid to appear cloudy.' back |
de Sitter space - Wikipedia, de Sitter space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The main application of de Sitter space is its use in general relativity, where it serves as one of the simplest mathematical models of the universe consistent with the observed accelerating expansion of the universe. More specifically, de Sitter space is the maximally symmetric vacuum solution of Einstein's field equations with a positive cosmological constant ΛΛ (corresponding to a positive vacuum energy density and negative pressure). There is cosmological evidence that the universe itself is asymptotically de Sitter, i.e. it will evolve like the de Sitter universe in the far-future when dark energy dominates.' back |
Electroweak interaction - Wikipedia, Electroweak interaction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In particle physics, the electroweak interaction or electroweak force is the unified description of two of the four known fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism and the weak interaction. Although these two forces appear very different at everyday low energies, the theory models them as two different aspects of the same force. Above the unification energy, on the order of 246 GeV,[a] they would merge into a single force.' back |
Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metric - Wikipedia, Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metric - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) metric is an exact solution of Einstein's field equations of general relativity; it describes a simply connected, homogeneous, isotropic expanding or contracting universe.' back |
Haidong Wang et. al.: COVID-19 Excess Mortality Collaborators, Estimating excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic analysis of COVID-19-related mortality, 2020–21, ' Mortality statistics are fundamental to public health decision making. Mortality varies by time and location, and its measurement is affected by well known biases that have been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aims to estimate excess mortality from the COVID-19 pandemic in 191 countries and territories, and 252 subnational units for selected countries, from Jan 1, 2020, to Dec 31, 2021. . . . Although reported COVID-19 deaths between Jan 1, 2020, and Dec 31, 2021, totalled 5·94 million worldwide, we estimate that 18·2 million (95% uncertainty interval 17·1–19·6) people died worldwide because of the COVID-19 pandemic (as measured by excess mortality) over that period.' back |
Higgs mechanism - Wikipedia, Higgs mechanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons. Without the Higgs mechanism, or some other effect like it, all bosons (a type of fundamental particle) would be massless, but measurements show that the W+, W−, and Z bosons actually have relatively large masses of around 80 GeV/c2. The Higgs field resolves this conundrum.' back |
Hugh Breakey, Sex, lies and Hegel: did the intimate lives of philosophers shape their ideas?, ' How did the intimate lives of major philosophers shape their ideas? Did their closest relationships with families, spouses, life partners and secret lovers influence their philosophies?
These are the questions Warren Ward sets out to answer in his new book, Lovers of Philosophy: How the Intimate Lives of Seven Philosophers Shaped Modern Thought.
A psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Ward brings to his task both expertise and a passionate interest in his subjects.' back |
Icehouse (2017), 40 Years Live Roche Estate , 0:01:00 - Icehouse
0:05:36 - Mr Big
0:09:20 - Hey Little Girl
0:14:55 - Crazy
0:21:00 - No Promises
0:27:24 - Electric Blue
0:32:00 - Touch The Fire
0:37:30 - Fatman
0:41:34 - Don't Believe Anymore
0:51:05 - The Kingdom
0:54:50 - Man Of Colours
1:00:40 - Miss Divine
1:05:20 - Great Southern Land
1:12:15 - Get It On
1:18:50 - We Can Get Together
1:23:20 - Can't Help Myself
1:29:30 - Nothing Too Serious
1:33:10 - Bonus - Street Cafe - Credits back |
Jeffrey Nicholls (1967), How universal is the universe?, ' 61 The future is beyond our comprehension, but we can get an idea of it and speed its coming by studying what we already have. Contemplating the size and wonder of the universe as it stands in the light of its openness to the future must surely be a powerful incentive to men to love God. We have come a long way since the little world of St Thomas. Ours is open to all things, even participating in god. This is what I mean by universal. ' back |
Jeffrey Nicholls (1987), A theory of Peace, ' The argument: I began to think about peace in a very practical way during the Viet Nam war. I was the right age to be called up. I was exempted because I was a clergyman, but despite the terrors that war held for me, I think I would have gone. It was my first whiff of the force of patriotism. To my amazement, it was strong enough to make even me face death.
In the Church, I became embroiled in a deeper war. Not a war between goodies and baddies, but the war between good and evil that lies at the heart of all human consciousness. Existence is a struggle. We need all the help we can get. Religion is part of that help.' back |
Jeffrey Nicholls (2016), Essay 16: Green theology: a path to heaven (2016), ' We proceed here on the assumption that the Universe is divine. From this we conclude that the observable Universe is God's body. We assume that the Universe executes all the functions traditionally attributed to God: creator, sustainer and judge. Since we, too are agents of God, our actions are part of God's action. The premise of green theology is that life is, to a large degree, what we make it. Ancient religions promise heaven and hell in an afterlife. In reality we die. We experience heaven and hell in this life. The role of green theology is to guide us toward the experience of heaven and away from hell.' back |
Jeffrey Nicholls (2022), Cognitive cosmology page 15: Quantum amplitudes and logical processes are invisible, ' Invisibility can arise from three sources: limited resolution; the need to act to be seen; and symmetry. When we measure the diagonal of a unit square with a relatively precise instrument like a micrometer, we might see that it is 1.4142 units, an approximation to √2. With a ruler graduated in units, on the other hand the best we could say that the length is somewhere between 1 and 2. What we can and cannot see depends on the instrument we use. back |
Jonathan Edwards (theologian) - Wikipedia, Jonathan Edwards (theologian) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was an American revivalist preacher, philosopher and Congregationalist theologian. Edwards is widely regarded as one of America's most important and original philosophical theologians. Edwards' theological work is broad in scope, but rooted in the pedobaptist Puritan heritage as exemplified in the Westminster and Savoy Confessions of Faith. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical fittingness, and how central The Enlightenment was to his mindset.' back |
Kaluza–Klein theory - Wikipedia, Kaluza–Klein theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In physics, Kaluza–Klein theory (KK theory) is a classical unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism built around the idea of a fifth dimension beyond the common 4D of space and time and considered an important precursor to string theory. Gunnar Nordström had an earlier, similar idea. But in that case, a fifth component was added to the electromagnetic vector potential, representing the Newtonian gravitational potential, and writing the Maxwell equations in five dimensions.' back |
Mikhail Zygar, How Vladimir Putin Lost Interest in the Present, ' In “All the Kremlin’s Men” I described the phenomenon of the “collective Putin” — the way his entourage always tried to eagerly anticipate what the president would want. These cronies would tell Mr. Putin exactly what he wanted to hear. The “collective Putin” still exists: The whole world saw it on the eve of the invasion when he summoned top officials, one by one, and asked them their views on the coming war. All of them understood their task and submissively tried to describe the president’s thoughts in their own words.' back |
Paul X. McCarthy & Colin Griffith, How we communicate, what we value – even who we are: 8 surprising things data science has revealed about us over the past decade, ' Big data analysis has long supported major feats in physics and astronomy. But more recently we’ve seen it underpin breakthroughs in the social sciences and humanities.
Since the landmark paper Computational Social Science was published in 2009, a new generation of data analytics tools has given researchers insight into fundamental questions about how we communicate, who we are and what we value.
For instance, by analysing the relative frequency of certain words in historical texts, researchers can identify important changes in our use of language over time.' back |
Rolf Landauer (1999), 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 |
Stephen Roach, Ukraine crisis: why China’s Xi Jinping will do the unthinkable and defuse the Russia threat, ' Xi now faces a critical decision. He has the greatest leverage of any world leader to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. To do that, he needs to send a strong message to Putin that Russia’s brutal invasion crosses China’s own principled red line on territorial sovereignty. That means he will need to register a strong objection to Putin’s efforts to rewrite post-Cold-War history and resurrect imperial Russia.
To negotiate an end to the devastating conflict that Putin unleashed, Xi will need to put his February 4 partnership commitment back on the table as a decisive bargaining chip. Russia’s prospects are bleak, at best; without China, it has none at all. China holds the trump card in the ultimate survival of Putin’s Russia.' back |
String Quartet No 16 (Beethoven) - Wikipedia, String Quartet No 16 (Beethoven) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135, by Ludwig van Beethoven was written in October 1826[1] and was the last major work he completed. . . . The work is on a smaller scale than the other late quartets. Under the introductory slow chords in the last movement Beethoven wrote in the manuscript "Muß es sein?" (Must it be?) to which he responds, with the faster main theme of the movement, "Es muß sein!" (It must be!). The whole movement is headed "Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß" (The Difficult Decision).' [https://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/b/7/8/b78d58cc95ed30ee/beethoven_op135no16_borromeo.mp3?c_id=4524821&cs_id=4524821&expiration=1644324613&hwt=86664105eb7286ff652ff74d44831982] back |
Tim Costello, Vladimir Putin: a miracle defender of Christianity or the most evil man?, ' Kyiv must be taken, in his mind, to preserve the Christian battle. And there may be many Christians in the west who agree with some of his sentiments.
A miracle defender of Christianity or the most evil man? Well, it is Ukrainian Christians among others whom he is now slaughtering indiscriminately and he has little understanding of Jesus, who said “blessed are the peacemakers”.
No, this is a power vision threaded through with nationalistic Christian theology. And evil is the right word when a leader uses religion to justify in God’s name invasion, violence and annihilation.' back |
Valerie Morekevicius, How do Russia’s reasons for war stack up? An expert on ‘just war’ explains , ' . . .
1. Legitimate authority: Had the war been declared by a responsible sovereign?
2. Just cause: Traditionally, two motives were considered just: self-defense and righting wrongs.
3. Proportionality: All wars cause harm, but a justifiable use of force cannot cause more harm than the good it hopes to promote.
4. Likelihood of success: There must be a real chance that the use of force can actually accomplish the war’s stated aims.
5. Last resort: The principle of “last resort” demands that all other reasonable means of resolving the conflict must be exhausted before going to war.
6. Right intent: Finally, the principle of right intent asserts that the attackers’ stated cause must be the actual motivating cause.'
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W. E. B Du Bois (1925), Worlds of Color, ' But these cultures have little in common, either today or yesterday, and are being pounded together artificially and not attracting each other naturally. And yet quickened India, the South and West African Congresses, the Pan-African movement, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in America, together with rising China and risen Japan—all these at no distant day may come to common consciousness of aim and be able to give to the labor parties of the world a message that they will understand.' back |
Yang-Mills theory - Wikipedia, Yang-Mills theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Yang–Mills theory is a gauge theory based on the SU(N) group, or more generally any compact, reductive Lie algebra. Yang–Mills theory seeks to describe the behavior of elementary particles using these non-Abelian Lie groups and is at the core of the unification of the electromagnetic force and weak forces (i.e. U(1) × SU(2)) as well as quantum chromodynamics, the theory of the strong force (based on SU(3)). Thus it forms the basis of our understanding of the Standard Model of particle physics.' back |
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