Ashby, W Ross, An Introduction to Cybernetics, Methuen 1956, 1964 'This book is intended to provide [an introduction to cybernetics]. It starts from common-place and well understood concepts, and proceeds step by step to show how these concepts can be made exact, and how they can be developed until they lead into such subjects as feedback, stability, regulation, ultrastability, information, coding, noise and other cybernetic topics.' 
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Feynman, Richard P, and Steven Weinberg, Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics: The 1986 Dirac Memorial Lectures, Cambridge University Press 1999 Jacket: Perhaps the two most important conceptual breakthroughs in twentieth century physics are relativity and quantum mechanics. Developing a theory that combines the two seamlessly is a difficult and ongoing challenge. This accessible book contains intriguing explorations of this theme by the distinguished physicists Richard Feynman and Steven Weinberg. Richard Feynman's contribution examines the nature of antiparticles, and in particular the relationship between quantum spin and statistics. In his essay, Steven Weinberg speculates on how Einstein's theory of gravitarion might be reconciled with quantum theory and the final laws of physics.' 
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Jauch, Jozef Maria, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Addison-Wesley Pub Co 1977 Preface: 'This book is an advanced text on elementary quantum mechanics. By 'elementary' I designate here the subject matter of non-relativistic quantum mechanics for the simplest physical systems. With the word 'advanced' I refer to the use of modern mathematical tools and the careful study of difficult questions concerning the physical interpretation of quantum mechanics. These questions of interpretation have been a source of difficulties from the beginning of the theory in the late twenties to the present day. ' 
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John, and Alexander Jones (editor), in The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 Introduction to Saint John: '[This] gospel has a complex literary form: it is akin to the earliest Christian preaching, and yet at the same time it gives the final results of a quest ... for a deeper and more rewarding apprehension of the mystery of Jesus. Each of the evangelists has his own approach to Christ's person and mission. For St John, he is the Word made flesh, come to give life to men, 1:14,and this, the mystery of the Incarnation, dominates the whole of John's thought.' p 140.  
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Lawrence, David Herbert, and David Farmer (editor) Lindeth Vasey (editor) Amit Chaudari (Introduction), Women in Love, Penguin Classics 2007 Amazon Editorial Review From Library Journal "The published editions of Women in Love , probably Lawrence's greatest novel, have always been remarkably corrupt due to a lengthy, complex process of revision and transcription, a threatened libel suit, and numerous unauthorized bowdlerizations. The editors of this new Cambridge Edition have labored scrupulously to produce an authoritative text. What emerges, if not dramatically different, is fresher and more immediate. The introduction provides a valuable history of the novel's composition, revision, publication, and reception, and though the elaborate textual apparatus is strictly for advanced students of bibliography, the notes are splendid. Lawrence's 1919 Foreword and two early discarded chapters are also included. The recovery of a modern classic.' Keith Cushman, Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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Nielsen, Michael A, and Isaac L Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press 2000 Review: A rigorous, comprehensive text on quantum information is timely. The study of quantum information and computation represents a particularly direct route to understanding quantum mechanics. Unlike the traditional route to quantum mechanics via Schroedinger's equation and the hydrogen atom, the study of quantum information requires no calculus, merely a knowledge of complex numbers and matrix multiplication. In addition, quantum information processing gives direct access to the traditionally advanced topics of measurement of quantum systems and decoherence.' Seth Lloyd, Department of Quantum Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Nature 6876: vol 416 page 19, 7 March 2002. 
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Streater, Raymond F, and Arthur S Wightman, PCT, Spin, Statistics and All That, Princeton University Press 2000 Amazon product description: 'PCT, Spin and Statistics, and All That is the classic summary of and introduction to the achievements of Axiomatic Quantum Field Theory. This theory gives precise mathematical responses to questions like: What is a quantized field? What are the physically indispensable attributes of a quantized field? Furthermore, Axiomatic Field Theory shows that a number of physically important predictions of quantum field theory are mathematical consequences of the axioms. Here Raymond Streater and Arthur Wightman treat only results that can be rigorously proved, and these are presented in an elegant style that makes them available to a broad range of physics and theoretical mathematics.' 
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't Hooft, Gerardus, 50 Years of Yang Mills Theory, World Scientific 2005 ' On the 50th anniversary of Yang-Mills theory, this invaluable volume looks back at the developments and achievements in elementary particle physics that ensued from that beautiful idea.During the last five decades, Yang-Mills theory, which is undeniably the most important cornerstone of theoretical physics, has expanded widely. It has been investigated from many perspectives, and many new and unexpected features have been uncovered from this theory. In recent decades, apart from high energy physics, the theory has been actively applied in other branches of physics, such as statistical physics, condensed matter physics, nonlinear systems, etc. This makes the theory an indispensable topic for all who are involved in physics.An international team of experts, each of whom has left his mark on the developments of this remarkable theory, contribute essays or more detailed technical accounts to this volume. These articles highlight the new discoveries from the respective authors' perspectives. The distinguished contributors are: S Adler, F A Bais, C Becchi, M Creutz, A De Rujula, B S DeWitt, F Englert, L D Faddeev, P Hasenfratz, R Jackiw, A Polyakov, V N Popov, R Stora, P van Baal, P van Nieuwenhuizen, S Weinberg, F Wilczek, E Witten, C N Yang. Included in each article are introductory and explanatory remarks by the editor, G 't Hooft, who is himself a major player in the development of Yang-Mills theory. 
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Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, The Phenomenon of Man, Collins 1965 Sir Julian Huxley, Introduction: 'We, mankind, contain the possibilities of the earth's immense future, and can realise more and more of them on condition that we increase our knowledge and our love. That, it seems to me, is the distillation of the Phenomenon of Man.'  
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Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, The Divine Milieu, Harper Perennial Modern Classics 2001 ' "The volume includes a scholarly and most helpful Foreword by Jesuit scholar Thomas M. King, who outlines the life of Teilhard de Chardin and helps the reader to understand the context in which The Divine Milieu was written. He writes of a Jesuit priest whose work did not sit easily with the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the early twentieth century. He portrays a man in some spiritual turmoil, living through events of great magnitude, who is seeking to make sense of all that is around him and of his own reaction to those events. The Divine Milieu was not written for those who were comfortable in their Catholic faith, but for the doubters and waverers – those for whom classical expressions of religious faith had long lost their meaning. I commend this volume.” —Rev. Adrian Burdon, Religion and Theology' 
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Teilhard de Chardin (2001), Pierre, The Divine Milieu, Harper Perennial Modern Classics 2001 ' "The volume includes a scholarly and most helpful Foreword by Jesuit scholar Thomas M. King, who outlines the life of Teilhard de Chardin and helps the reader to understand the context in which The Divine Milieu was written. He writes of a Jesuit priest whose work did not sit easily with the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the early twentieth century. He portrays a man in some spiritual turmoil, living through events of great magnitude, who is seeking to make sense of all that is around him and of his own reaction to those events. The Divine Milieu was not written for those who were comfortable in their Catholic faith, but for the doubters and waverers – those for whom classical expressions of religious faith had long lost their meaning. I commend this volume.” —Rev. Adrian Burdon, Religion and Theology' 
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Wilczek, 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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Alexandra Macmillan & Jono Drew, Climate explained: how the climate impact of beef compares with plant-based alternatives, ' Building on international research mainly carried out in the Northern Hemisphere, we recently completed a full assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with different foods and dietary patterns in New Zealand. . . . For example, we found 1 kilogram of beef purchased at the supermarket produces 14 times the emissions of whole, protein-rich plant foods like lentils, beans and chickpeas. Even the most emissions-intensive plant foods, such as rice, are still more than four times more climate-friendly than beef.' back

Amy Saltzman, My Mom, the Political Power Broker, ' With no encouragement from her parents or society, my mother quietly made something of herself. She didn’t receive the overt rewards of a paycheck and professional status, but her invisible work helped build the foundation for the increasingly visible power today’s women enjoy. I was born at the tail end of the baby boom and benefited from a women’s liberation movement that sent the message that my sex wasn’t an obstacle to whatever I chose to do with my life. My mom never got anything close to that kind of message, but her refusal to accept the parameters of the life she was supposed to lead allowed her to help change history. Though like many of her era she found it hard to actually say the words “I love you,” she gave me a powerful example of how to live a life of purpose and commitment. It was her way, I have learned, of showing love.' back

Autobiography - Wikipedia, Autobiography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' An autobiography (from the Greek, αὐτός-autos self + βίος-bios life + γράφειν-graphein to write) is a self-written account of the life of oneself. . . . Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. . . .While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. ' back

Darryl Fears, Kizzmekia Corbett spent her whole life preparong for this moment. Can she create the vaccine to end a pandemic?, ' On Feb. 27, Corbett posted a tweet that lamented the lack of diversity on President Trump’s coronavirus task force: “The task force is largely people (white men) he appointed to their positions as director of blah blah institute. They are indebted to serve him NOT the people.” . . . That triggered a response from Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who read several of Corbett’s tweets aloud on his show and questioned her “commitment to scientific inquiry and rational thought.” He accused Corbett of “spouting lunatic conspiracy theories.” ' back

Dimensional analysis - Wikipedia, Dimensional analysis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In engineering and science, dimensional analysis is the analysis of the relationships between different physical quantities by identifying their fundamental dimensions (such as length, mass, time, and electric charge) . . . Any physically meaningful equation (and any inequality and inequation) must have the same dimensions on the left and right sides. Checking this is a common application of performing dimensional analysis. Dimensional analysis is also routinely used as a check on the plausibility of derived equations and computations. It is generally used to categorize types of physical quantities and units based on their relationship to or dependence on other units.' back

Edward Fishman, The World Order Is Dead. Here's How to Build a New One for a Post-Coronavirus Era, ' It would be foolish to expect President Donald Trump, who is one of the reasons that today’s international order isn’t working, to spearhead planning for a new one. We might have to wait for a more internationally minded president to form the institutions of the new order. But Trump’s presence doesn’t mean that valuable progress can’t happen in the meantime. . . . ' back

Formalism - Wikipedia, Formalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Formalism may refer to: Formal (disambiguation) Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary Formalism (linguistics) Scientific formalism Formalism (philosophy), that there is no transcendent meaning to a discipline other than the literal content created by a practitioner' back

Frank Wilczek, Nobel Lecture: Asymptotic Freedom: from Paradox to Paradigm, ' Frank Wilczek held his Nobel Lecture December 8, 2004, at Aula Magna, Stockholm University. He was presented by Professor Sune Svanberg, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics. Summary: The idea that Quarks that are born free are confined and can’t be pulled apart was once considered a paradox. The emerging theory for strong interactions, Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD) predicts the existence of gluons, which together with quarks can be seen indirectly as jets from hard scattering reactions between particles. Quantum Chromo Dynamics predicts that the forces between quarks are feeble for small separations but are powerful far away, which explains confinement. Many experiments have confirmed this property of the strong interaction. '. back

Geodesic - Wikipedia, Geodesic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, particularly differential geometry, a geodesic . . . is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line" to "curved spaces". In the presence of a Riemannian metric, geodesics are defined to be (locally) the shortest path between points in the space. In the presence of an affine connection, geodesics are defined to be curves whose tangent vectors remain parallel if they are transported along it. The term "geodesic" comes from geodesy, the science of measuring the size and shape of Earth; in the original sense, a geodesic was the shortest route between two points on the Earth's surface, namely, a segment of a great circle. . . . Geodesics are of particular importance in general relativity, as they describe the motion of inertial test particles.' back

James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 'We’re going through!” The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. “We can’t make it, sir. It’s spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me.” “I’m not asking you, Lieutenant Berg,” said the Commander. “Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8,500! We’re going through!” The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” he shouted. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” repeated Lieutenant Berg. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” shouted the Commander. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. “The Old Man’ll get us through,” they said to one another. “The Old Man ain’t afraid of Hell!” . . .' back

Jeffrey Nicholls, Prolegomenon to Scientific Theology, ' This thesis is an attempt to carry speculative theology beyond the apogee it reached in the medieval work of Thomas Aquinas into the world of empirical science (Aquinas 2019). Since the time of Aquinas, our understanding of the Universe has increased enormously. The ancient theologians not only conceived a perfect God, but they also saw the world as a very imperfect place. Their reaction was to place God outside the world. I will argue that we live in a Universe which approaches infinity in size and complexity, is as perfect as can be, and fulfils all the roles traditionally attributed to God, creator, lawmaker and judge.' back

John A Farrell, How Do You Explain Henry Kissinger, Review of THE INEVITABILITY OF TRAGEDY Henry Kissinger and His World By Barry Gewen: 'Barry Gewen tackles the contradictions, and offers absolution, in “The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World,” a timely and acute defense of the great realist’s actions, values and beliefs. “We dismiss or ignore him at our peril,” writes Gewen, a longtime editor at The New York Times Book Review. “His arguments for his brand of realism — thinking in terms of national interest and a balance of power — offer the possibility of rationality, coherence and a necessary long-term perspective at a time when all three of these qualities seem to be in short supply.” . . . Like Richelieu, Kissinger believes that a constellation of states, each striving for its own selfish interests, and offsetting rivals, can bring order in a way no church or empire can. “The well-being of the state justified whatever means,” Kissinger wrote in “Diplomacy” (a book that Gewen calls a near-masterpiece).' back

Marcott, Shakun, Clark & Mix, A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 years, ' Surface temperature reconstructions of the past 1500 years suggest that recent warming is unprecedented in that time. Here we provide a broader perspective by reconstructing regional and global temperature anomalies for the past 11,300 years from 73 globally distributed records. Early Holocene (10,000 to 5000 years ago) warmth is followed by ~0.7°C cooling through the middle to late Holocene (<5000 years ago), culminating in the coolest temperatures of the Holocene during the Little Ice Age, about 200 years ago. This cooling is largely associated with ~2°C change in the North Atlantic. Current global temperatures of the past decade have not yet exceeded peak interglacial values but are warmer than during ~75% of the Holocene temperature history. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change model projections for 2100 exceed the full distribution of Holocene temperature under all plausible greenhouse gas emission scenarios.' back

Matrix mechanics - Wikipedia, Matrix mechanics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Matrix mechanics is a formulation of quantum mechanics created by Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Pascual Jordan in 1925. Matrix mechanics was the first conceptually autonomous and logically consistent formulation of quantum mechanics. It extended the Bohr Model by describing how the quantum jumps occur. It did so by interpreting the physical properties of particles as matrices that evolve in time. It is equivalent to the Schrödinger wave formulation of quantum mechanics, and is the basis of Dirac's bra-ket notation for the wave function. back

Max Boot, Trump can't blame China for his own coronavirus failures, ' The 1918 influenza epidemic, which killed 50 million to 100 million people around the world, is now known as the “Spanish flu.” But it actually started in Haskell County, Kan., and it was spread around the world by U.S. soldiers initially infected at Camp Funston in Kansas. It should be known as the “American flu” or “Kansas flu.” The influenza became a global pandemic in no small part because U.S. officials failed to warn their own citizens — or the world. Many, in fact, lied to avoid undermining the war effort. back

Meliorism - Wikipedia, Meliorism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Meliorism is an idea in metaphysical thinking holding that progress is a real concept leading to an improvement of the world. It holds that humans can, through their interference with processes that would otherwise be natural, produce an outcome which is an improvement over the aforementioned natural one. Meliorism, as a conception of the person and society, is at the foundation of contemporary liberal democracy and human rights and is a basic component of liberalism.' back

Neil Bailey & Daniel West, Are the COVID19 restrictions really worth the cost? A comparison of estimated mortality in Australia from COVID19 and economic recession, ' There has been considerable public debate about whether the economic impact of the current COVID19 restrictions are worth the costs. Although the potential impact of COVID19 has been modelled extensively, very few numbers have been presented in the discussions about potential economic impacts. For a good answer to the question “will the restrictions cause as much harm as COVID19?” credible evidence-based estimates are required, rather than simply rhetoric. Here we provide some preliminary estimates to compare the impact of the current restrictions against the direct impact of the virus. Since most countries are currently taking an approach that reduces the number of COVID19 deaths, the estimates we provide for deaths from COVID19 are deliberately taken from the low end of the estimates of the infection fatality rate, while estimates for deaths from an economic recession are deliberately computed from double the high end of confidence interval for severe economic recessions. This ensures that an adequate challenge to the status quo of the current restrictions is provided. Our analysis shows that strict restrictions to eradicate the virus are likely to lead to at least eight times fewer total deaths than an immediate return to work scenario.' back

Path integral formulation - Wikipedia, Path integral formulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The path integral formulation of quantum mechanics is a description of quantum theory which generalizes the action principle of classical mechanics. It replaces the classical notion of a single, unique trajectory for a system with a sum, or functional integral, over an infinity of possible trajectories to compute a quantum amplitude. . . . This formulation has proved crucial to the subsequent development of theoretical physics, since it provided the basis for the grand synthesis of the 1970s which unified quantum field theory with statistical mechanics. . . . ' back

Robert Tait, Prague revamp reveals Jewish gravestones used to pave streets, ' Dozens of paving stones made from Jewish headstones have been found during redevelopment work in Prague’s tourist district, confirming speculation that the former communist regime raided synagogues and graveyards for building materials. . . . Rabbi Chaim Kočí, a senior official with the Prague rabbinate, witnessed workers unearthing cobblestones whose undersides revealed Hebrew lettering, the star of David and deceased dates. Other stones were blank but had polished surfaces that indicated they had also been taken from cemeteries. Jewish leaders hailed the unearthing as proof of long-held suspicions that the communist authorities – who ruled the former Czechoslovakia for more than four decades during the cold war – had taken stonework from Jewish burial sites for a much-vaunted pedestrianisation of Wenceslas Square during the 1980s.' back

Russell's paradox - Wikipedia, Russell's paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'According to naive set theory, any definable collection is a set. Let R be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If R is not a member of itself, then its definition dictates that it must contain itself, and if it contains itself, then it contradicts its own definition as the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. This contradiction is Russell's paradox.' back

Sarah Kaplan. Laura Reiley. Christopher Rowland, Rebecca Tan & Karen Weintraub, Guides to the other side, ' They don’t offer easy answers or miracle cures; they know there is no resurrecting the lives they once had. Still, they’re giving what they can to a moment that demands it. When it is most difficult to imagine the world getting better, they’ve summoned the creativity — and the courage — to invent the world anew. . . . back

Thomas L. Friedman, Make America Immune Again, ' This pandemic has both exposed and exacerbated the fact that over the last 20 years we as a country have weakened so many sources of our strength. We’ve simultaneously eroded our cognitive, ecological, economic, social, governance, public health and personal health immune systems — all the sources of resilience we need to get through this pandemic with the least damage to lives and livelihoods. All these immune deficiencies are the logical outcome of how we’ve let ourselves go as a country, how we’ve let ourselves be dumb-as-we-wanna-be for so many years — devaluing science and reading, bashing public servants for political sport, turning politics into entertainment, not to mention adopting horrible eating habits that have left 40 percent of Americans obese.' back

Tristan Ahtone & Robert Lee, Ask Who Paid for America's Universities, ' An investigation we did for High Country News found that the act redistributed nearly 11 million acres, which is almost the size of Denmark. The grants came from more than 160 violence-backed land cessions made by close to 250 tribal nations. When adjusted for inflation, the windfall netted 52 universities roughly half a billion dollars. The coronavirus pandemic has magnified the United States’ disparities and prompted conversations about its values. A cleareyed history of how land-grant universities profited from violence and expropriation can provide a starting point to confront the nation’s record of genocide.' back