Greene (1999), Brian, The Elegant Universe: superstrings, hidden dimensions and the quest for the ultimate theory, W W Norton and Company 1999 Jacket: 'Brian Greene has come forth with a beautifully crafted account of string theory - a theory that appears to be a most promising way station to an ultimate theory of everything. His book gives a clear, simple, yet masterful account that makes a complex theory very accessible to nonscientists but is also a delightful read for the professional.' David M Lee 
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Veltman (1994), 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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Andrew Nachemson, Defiance in Myanmar even as executions prompt fears for detained, ' Far from backing down, the military has defended the executions, saying the men “deserved many death sentences”. Plainclothes mobs gathered to throw stones at the homes of the executed activists’ parents. The military has also refused to return the bodies or tell the families when exactly they were killed, hindering Buddhist religious ceremonies for the dead. “This shows the extreme cruelty of their nature and is an extreme human rights violation also for the families,” said Thazin Nyunt Aung, adding that it may be a tactic to make other opponents of the military government even more afraid. “It’s in fact not a judicial execution, it’s just murder. The military wants everyone who fights against them to be dead, and they only want power and wealth in their own hands".' back

Bill Birtles, Nancy Pelosi's looming Taiwan trip is a high-risk, high-reward gambit that could cement her legacy and rile China, ' If US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushes ahead with a visit to Taipei this week, it will create the greatest test of Chinese and American resolve over Taiwan in more than three decades, putting immense pressure on the world's two most powerful men. . . . While she's made no public mention of Taiwan, a quick stopover is widely expected to happen. Arguably the most influential woman in US politics, Pelosi is organising the trip to presumably meet her host, the most powerful woman in the Chinese-speaking world, Taiwan's leader Tsai Ing-wen. From the perspective of Taiwan's government, the trip is a much-needed show of support from Washington in the face of increasing Chinese diplomatic and military pressure on the self-ruled island. But it's inadvertently revealed the divisions at the top of America's government over the handling of China's most sensitive issue. US President Joe Biden, who is Pelosi's commander-in-chief and party leader, is not even willing to publicly back his Democratic colleague's visit.' back

Ferdouse Asefi, Afghanistan a year after the Taliban occupation: An ongoing war on human rights, ' Now with the passage of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, U.S. humanitarian aid delivered to Afghanistan via Defense Department resources has ended. The greatest humanitarian crisis in the world will continue to worsen as long the Taliban are in power. An absence of war is not the same as peace when Afghans are continuously stripped of their human rights. The Taliban must not be whitewashed — they are patriarchal terrorists. Resistance forces continue to fight this illegitimate regime that is not in any way representative of Afghans — but the rest of the world needs to step up.' back

Miller, Katz, Paris & Bhatia, Vast New Study Shows a Key to Reducing Poverty: More Friendships Between Rich and Poor, ' Over the last four decades, the financial circumstances into which children have been born have increasingly determined where they have ended up as adults. But an expansive new study, based on billions of social media connections, has uncovered a powerful exception to that pattern that helps explain why certain places offer a path out of poverty. For poor children, living in an area where people have more friendships that cut across class lines significantly increases how much they earn in adulthood, the new research found. The study, published Monday in Nature, analyzed the Facebook friendships of 72 million people, amounting to 84 percent of U.S. adults aged 25 to 44.' back

Poetry of Sappho - Wikipedia, Poetry of Sappho - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Sappho was an ancient Greek lyric poet from the island of Lesbos. She wrote around 10,000 lines of poetry, only a small fraction of which survives today. Only one poem is known to be complete; in some cases as little as a single word survives. Modern editions of Sappho's poetry are the product of centuries of scholarship, first compiling quotations from surviving ancient works, and from the late 19th century rediscovering her works preserved on fragments of ancient papyri and parchment.' back

Special unitary group - Wikipedia, Special unitary group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, the special unitary group of degree n, denoted SU(n), is the group of n×n unitary matrices with determinant 1. The group operation is that of matrix multiplication. The special unitary group is a subgroup of the unitary group U(n), consisting of all n×n unitary matrices, which is itself a subgroup of the general linear group GL(n, C). The SU(n) groups find wide application in the standard model of physics, especially SU(2) in the electroweak interaction and SU(3) in QCD.' back

The Economist: Briefing, Vladimir Putin is in thrall to a distinctive brand of Russian fascism, ' Russian fascism has deep roots, going all the way back to the early 20th century. Fascist ideas flourished among White émigrés after the Bolshevik revolution and they were partly re-imported to the Soviet Union by Stalin after the war. He feared that a victory over fascism, won with America and Britain, would empower and liberate his own people. So he turned Soviet success into the triumph of totalitarianism and Russian imperial nationalism. He re-branded war allies as enemies and fascists hellbent on destroying the Soviet Union and depriving it of its glory.' back