Eberty (2015), Felix, The Stars and the Earth: or Thoughts upon Space, Time and Eternity , Comino Verlag 2015 ' "This remarkable work reads in part like science fiction, although it is based on solid scientific facts. The author turns the tables – or the light beam – and has observers look down on the earth from stars located at a variety of distances out in space. (…) This idea was crucial for the special theory of relativity: Time travels with light. (...) Einstein would later supply the scientific foundation for these kinds of fantasies." Jürgen Neffe: Einstein – A Biography (2005)  
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Neffe (2009), Jürgen , and Shelly Frisch (Translator), Einstein: A Biography, Johns Hopkins UP ' Separating man from genius, Einstein offers a startling new portrait of the iconic physicist. Wild-haired eccentric, revolutionary scientist, peace activist, Albert Einstein is well established in the popular imagination. He is celebrated for his contributions to our understanding of the cosmos, and his personal life--particularly his troubled relationship with his family and his numerous affairs with women--continues to generate controversy. Jürgen Neffe takes a completely new approach to Einstein, giving readers an intimate look at Einstein's life and work. He debunks popular stereotypes and explains Einstein's scientific achievements in clear and accessible prose. Drawing on newly unearthed documents, including a series of letters from Einstein to his sons, Neffe presents a rich psychological portrait of a man whose character has too often been lost in the bright glow of celebrity.'  
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Nielsen (2016), Michael A., and Isaac L Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press 2016 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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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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Alice Speri (2025_07_22), Revealed: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication, ' In March 2024, six months into Israel’s war in Gaza, education in the territory was decimated. Schools were closed – most had been turned into shelters – and all 12 of the strip’s universities were partially or fully destroyed. Against that backdrop, a prestigious American education journal decided to dedicate a special issue to “education and Palestine”. The Harvard Educational Review (HER) put out a call for submissions, asking academics around the world for ideas for articles grappling with the education of Palestinians, education about Palestine and Palestinians, and related debates in schools and colleges in the US. “The field of education has an important role to play in supporting students, educators, and policymakers in contextualizing what has been happening in Gaza with histories and continuing impacts of occupation, genocide, and political contestations,” the journal’s editors wrote in their call for abstracts. people ripping diplomas Jewish organizers are increasingly confronting Trump: ‘The repression is growing, but so is the resistance’ Read more A little more than a year later, the scale of destruction in Gaza was exponentially larger. The special issue, which was slated to be published this summer, was just about ready – contracts with most authors were finalized and articles were edited. They covered topics from the annihilation of Gaza’s schools to the challenges of teaching about Israel and Palestine in the US. But on 9 June, the Harvard Education Publishing Group, the journal’s publisher, abruptly canceled the release. In an email to the issue’s contributors, the publisher cited “a number of complex issues”, shocking authors and editors alike, the Guardian has learned. US universities have come under intensifying attacks from the Trump administration over accusations of tolerating antisemitism on campuses. Many have responded by restricting protest, punishing students and faculty outspoken about Palestinian rights, and scrutinizing academic programs home to scholarship about Palestine. But the cancellation of an entire issue of an academic journal, which has not been previously reported, is a remarkable new development in a mounting list of examples of censorship of pro-Palestinian speech.' back

Ben McCann (2025_07_24), After 70 years, twisted gothic thriller The Night of the Hunter remains as disturbing and beguiling as ever, ' In 1955, director Charles Laughton crafted one of the darkest, strangest fairytales ever to come out of Hollywood. The Night of the Hunter remains visually exquisite and profoundly unsettling. Shortly before Ben Harper is hanged for robbing a bank and killing two men, he hides the $10,000 loot in the toy doll of his young daughter Pearl. Only Pearl and her brother John know the secret – until the deranged serial killer-priest Harry Powell hears about the money and sets out to recover it. Harry marries Willa, Harper’s widow, and then, after killing her, pursues John and Pearl relentlessly across West Virginia. Set in the Depression-hit 1930s, The Night of the Hunter is, to quote film critic Pauline Kael, “one of the most frightening movies ever made”. Mitchum’s depiction of pure evil is one of cinema’s most vivid creations, with LOVE and HATE tattooed on the fingers of each hand. But this is no simple chase film. It’s about the fight for the souls of two children between the forces of evil and good. [. . .] The film draws heavily from German Expressionist cinema, especially in the use of stark black-and-white contrast and exaggerated shadows. Cinematographer Stanley Cortez described it as his best work, and rightly so: the film often feels more like a dream (or a nightmare). Laughton and Cortez craft a series of remarkable images: Pearl and John fleeing down the river, watched over by owls, frogs and rabbits; Powell’s looming shadow cast across a bedroom wall; the slain Willa’s blonde hair floating under the river after her death. The film is deeply allegorical. It plays with Christian imagery, ideas of sin and salvation and the vulnerability of the innocent. Laughton’s masterstroke was to pit the predatory adult world against the instinctual wisdom and resilience of children. [. . .] t’s often the case that films which are misunderstood on first release are ahead of their time, and never fully appreciated until many years later. That’s the case with The Night of the Hunter. It remains unsettlingly modern, 70 years on.' back

Calcite - Wikipedia, Calcite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Single calcite crystals display an optical property called birefringence (double refraction). This strong birefringence causes objects viewed through a clear piece of calcite to appear doubled. The birefringent effect (using calcite) was first described by the Danish scientist Rasmus Bartholin in 1669. At a wavelength of about 590 nm, calcite has ordinary and extraordinary refractive indices of 1.658 and 1.486, respectively.[15] Between 190 and 1700 nm, the ordinary refractive index varies roughly between 1.9 and 1.5, while the extraordinary refractive index varies between 1.6 and 1.4.' back

Feynman, Leighton and Sands FLP II_02, Chapter 2: Differential Calculus of Vector Fields, ' What it means really to understand an equation—that is, in more than a strictly mathematical sense—was described by Dirac. He said: “I understand what an equation means if I have a way of figuring out the characteristics of its solution without actually solving it.” So if we have a way of knowing what should happen in given circumstances without actually solving the equations, then we “understand” the equations, as applied to these circumstances. A physical understanding is a completely unmathematical, imprecise, and inexact thing, but absolutely necessary for a physicist. ' back

Garrett M. Graff (2025_07_18), ‘Great Enough to Blow Any City Off the Map’: On Site at the First Nuclear Explosion , ' Adapted from the forthcoming book THE DEVIL REACHED TOWARD THE SKY: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb by Garrett M. Graff to be published by Avid Reader Press, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC. Copyright © 2025 by Garrett M. Graff. Printed by permission. Eighty years ago this week, a group of physicists and military leaders changed warfare — and the world — forever. From 1942 to 1945, the Manhattan Project had operated in secret to develop a weapon more fearsome than anything the world had ever seen. Now, in mid-July, they were ready — or at least, they hoped so. Top officials gathered in the desert outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, for the world’s first test of a nuclear explosion. They gave the operation codename Trinity.' back

Jesse Kearse (2025_07_20), The first video of Earth’s surface lurching sideways in an earthquake offers new insights into this force of nature, ' During the devastating magnitude 7.7 Myanmar earthquake on March 28 this year, a CCTV camera captured the moment the plate boundary moved, providing the first direct visual evidence of plate tectonics in action. Tectonic plate boundaries are where chunks of Earth’s crust slide past each other – not smoothly, but in sudden, violent ruptures. The footage shows Earth’s surface lurching sideways, like a gigantic conveyor belt switched on for just a second, as the fault slips. What we’re seeing is the propagation of a large earthquake rupture – the primary mechanism that accommodates plate boundary motion at Earth’s surface. These shear fractures travel at several kilometres per second, making them notoriously difficult to observe. back

LIGO Scientoific Collaboration (2025_07_14), GW231123: a Binary Black Hole Merger with Total Mass 190-265 M⊙, ' On 2023 November 23 the two LIGO observatories both detected GW231123, a gravitational-wave signal consistent with the merger of two black holes with masses 137+22 −17 M⊙ and 103+20 −52 M⊙ (90% credible intervals), at luminosity distance 0.7–4.1 Gpc and redshift of 0.39+0.27 −0.24, and a network signal-to-noise ratio of ∼22.5. Both black holes exhibit high spins, 0.90+0.10−0.19 and 0.80+0.20−0.51 respectively. A massive black hole remnant is supported by an independent ringdowanalysis. Some properties of GW231123 are subject to large systematic uncertainties, as indicated by differences in inferred parameters between signal models. The primary black hole lies within or above the theorized mass gap where black holes between 60–130 M⊙ should be rare due to pair instability mechanisms, while the secondary spans the gap. The observation of GW231123 therefore suggests the formation of black holes from channels beyond standard stellar collapse, and that intermediate-mass black holes of mass ∼200 M⊙ form through gravitational-wave driven mergers.' back

Mahabharata - Wikipedia, Mahabharata - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Mahābhārata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Rāmāyaṇa. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kaurava and the Pāṇḍava princes and their successors. It also contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or puruṣārtha (12.161). Among the principal works and stories in the Mahābhārata are the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Damayanti, the story of Shakuntala, the story of Pururava and Urvashi, the story of Savitri and Satyavan, the story of Kacha and Devayani, the story of Rishyasringa and an abbreviated version of the Rāmāyaṇa, often considered as works in their own right.' back

Matthew Taft (2025_07_23), Kazuo Ishiguro said he won the Nobel Prize for making people cry – 20 years later, Never Let Me Go should make us angry, ' Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go was published 20 years ago. Since then, the Japanese-born English writer has been awarded the Nobel Prize in 2017 and knighted for services to literature in 2018. Never Let Me Go has been translated into over 50 languages. It has been adapted into a film, two stage plays, and a ten-part Japanese television series. A critical and commercial success, the novel has been reissued in an anniversary edition with a fresh introduction from the author. A spate of reappraisals has accompanied this anniversary: “An impossibly sad novel […] it made me cry several times […] sadness spilled off every page.” “No matter how many times I read it,” one critic wrote, “Never Let Me Go breaks my heart all over again.” These brief excerpts are clear: the novel pulls us into a morass of sadness that never lets us go. “I’ve usually been praised for producing stuff that makes people cry,” Ishiguro has said. “They gave me a Nobel prize for it.” I want to reconsider the emotional charge of Never Let Me Go. [. . .] Translating this into political terms, Ishiguro is giving aesthetic form to neoliberalism’s eclipse of liberalism. It is no coincidence that Never Let Me Go takes place in England between the 1970s and 1990s, the exact period of neoliberalism’s emergence and consolidation. But this is no simple transition. Never Let Me Go implies that liberalism is the ghost in the neoliberal machine. The novel is a representation of a vicious neoliberal class system, where those who can afford replacement parts can substantiate the fantasy of liberal individualism, while those who can’t serve as replacement parts.' back

MaxBearak (20245_07_22), U.S. Is Missing the Century’s ‘Greatest Economic Opportunity,’ U.N. Chief Says, ' The United Nations secretary general’s speech on Tuesday was billed as a rare, optimistic one on the future of climate change. Look at the cold, hard economic data, António Guterres, the U.N. chief, said, and you will see that the world’s transition from polluting fossil fuels to cleaner renewable energy is “unstoppable.” But then there was the matter of the world’s largest economy, the United States. President Trump pulled the United States out of the main international agreement to limit climate change and has, with Congress, sought to cripple domestic wind and solar power industries, the growth of electric vehicles and climate science research. The United States and those that follow its lead are “missing the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century,” said Mr. Guterres. Their policies have imperiled global progress through the “clear market distortion” of subsidizing fossil fuels at a nine-to-one ratio against renewables. [. . .] Last year, he said, renewable energy received more than double the investment fossil fuels did, further widening a decade-long trend. Data compiled by the International Renewable Energy Agency showed that almost all new electricity generation built last year came from renewables and that renewables generated almost a third of all the world’s electricity. back

Nathan Cooper & Jennifer Campion (2025_07_23), ' Do countries have a duty to prevent climate harm? The world’s highest court is about to answer this crucial question, ' The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will issue a highly anticipated advisory opinion overnight to clarify state obligations related to climate change. It will answer two urgent questions: what are the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate and environment from greenhouse gas emissions, and what are the legal consequences for states that have caused significant harm to Earth’s atmosphere and environment? ICJ advisory opinions are not legally binding. But coming from the world’s highest court, they provide an authoritative opinion on serious issues that can be highly persuasive. [. . .] Meanwhile last week, an Australian federal court dismissed a landmark climate case, determining that the Australian government does not owe a duty of care to Torres Strait Islanders to protect them from the consequences of climate change. The court accepted the claimants face significant loss and damage from climate impacts and that previous Australian government policies on greenhouse gas emissions were not aligned with the best science to limit climate change. But it nevertheless determined that “matters of high or core government policy” are not subject to common law duties of care. [. . .] With the next global climate summit coming up in November, the ICJ opinion may offer timely encouragement for states to reconsider their emissions targets and the ambition of climate policies. Most countries have yet to submit their latest emissions reduction pledges (known as nationally determined contributions) under the Paris Agreement. [. . .] If the ICJ affirms that states have binding obligations to prevent climate harm, including trans-boundary impacts, New Zealand’s climate change policies and progress to date could face increased legal scrutiny.' back

Richard P. Feynman (1982), Simulating Physics with Computers, ' You probably have all heard this example of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, but I will explain this little example of a physical experiment which can be done, and which has been done, which does give the answers quantum theory predicts, and the answers are really right, there's no mistake, if you do the experiment, it actually comes out. And I'm going to use the example of polarizations of photons, which is an example of a two-state system. When a photon comes, you can say it's either x polarized or y polarized. You can find that out by putting in a piece of calcite, and the photon goes through the calcite either out in one direction, or out in another--actually slightly separated, and then you put in some mirrors, that's not important. You get two beams, two places out, where the photon can go. If you put a polarized photon in, then it will go to one beam called the ordinary ray, or another, the extraordinary one.' back

Roy Ebel (2025_07_21), New study peers beneath the skin of iconic lizards to find ‘chainmail’ bone plates – and lots of them, ' Monitor lizards, also known in Australia as goannas, are some of the most iconic reptiles on the continent. Their lineage not only survived the mass extinction that ended the reign of non-avian dinosaurs, but also gave rise to the largest living lizards on Earth. Today, these formidable creatures pace through forests and scrublands, flicking their tongues as they go. A new study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society looks beneath their skin. For the first time, it reveals hidden bone structures that may hold the key to the evolutionary success of goannas in Australia. [. . .] Our most astonishing finding concerned goannas. Scientists have been studying monitor lizards for more than 200 years. They were long thought to lack osteoderms, except in rare cases such as the Komodo dragon. So we were all the more surprised when we discovered previously undocumented osteoderms in 29 Australo-Papuan species, increasing their overall known prevalence five times. This isn’t just an anatomical curiosity. Now that we know Australian goannas have osteoderms, it opens up an exciting new avenue for further studies. This is because goannas have an interesting biogeographic history: when they first arrived in Australia about 20 million years ago, they had to adapt to a new, harsh environment. If osteoderms in goannas showed up around this time – possibly owing to new challenges from their environment – we’d gain crucial insights into the function and evolution of these enigmatic bone structures. Not only may we just have found the key to an untold chapter in the goanna story, our findings may also improve our understanding of the forces of evolution that shaped Australia’s unique reptiles as we know them today.' back

Shannon Bosch & Philip Glover, UK bans Gaza protest group – could the same thing happen in Australia?, ' More than 100 people were arrested in the United Kingdom on the weekend for supporting Palestine Action, a protest group that opposes Britain’s support of Israel. Palestine Action was recently proscribed as a terrorist organisation, placing it in the same category as Hamas, al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Many of those arrested were simply holding signs that read: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”. They were predominantly aged over 60. In recent weeks, an 83-year-old vicar, a former government lawyer and various pensioners have been taken into custody and could be jailed for up to 14 years if found guilty of belonging to the protest group. Simply holding a sign or wearing a T-shirt with the words “Palestine Action” could be punishable with a six-month jail term. The protesters say they refuse to be silenced: If we cannot speak freely about the genocide that is occurring […], if we cannot condemn those who are complicit in it […] then the right to freedom of expression has no meaning, and democracy and human rights in this country are dead.[. . .] Critics, including Amnesty International, civil liberties groups and The Guardian editorial board warn the ban blurs the line between non-violent civil disobedience and terrorism. They argue it also threatens democratic dissent through a statutory abuse of power. Counter-terrorism laws permit extraordinary interference in due process and other fundamental human rights protections. Consequently, they must always be used with the highest degree of restraint. [. . .] United Nations legal and human rights experts have spoken out against treating the actions of protesters who damage property without the intent to injure people as terrorism: According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism. [. . .] Traditional boundaries between “activism”, “extremism”, “hate-crime” and “terrorism” are rapidly blurring in Australia.' back

Shawn Musgrave (2025_07_18), Executive Lawlessness: Leah Litman on the Supreme Court Enabling Presidential Overreach, ' During Donald Trump’s first term, the Supreme Court made some effort to check his power. But that era is over. The court has ruled that Trump cannot be prosecuted for actions he took as president, including for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and it just wrapped its latest term by restricting lower courts’ power to block his unlawful orders on issues like birthright citizenship, abortion care, and immigrants’ basic rights. “What the Supreme Court did is it limited lower courts’ ability to use what has been the most effective tool that lower courts have to reign in the Trump administration’s lawlessness, which is to block a policy on a nationwide basis,” says Leah Litman, author of the new book, “Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes.” This week on The Intercept Briefing, newsroom counsel and correspondent Shawn Musgrave speaks with professor and attorney Litman and politics reporter Jessica Washington about how the Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority is laying the legal foundation for unchecked executive lawlessness — and signaling to Trump that it won’t stand in his way. back

Yvonne Breitwieser-Faria (2025_07_21), In a world first, The Hague wants to arrest Taliban leaders over their treatment of women – what happens next?, ' Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan. The court’s Pre-Trial Chamber II cited reasonable grounds for believing supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani were guilty of “ordering, inducing or soliciting the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.” The warrants – the first ever on charges of gender persecution – are being hailed as an “important vindication and acknowledgement of the rights of Afghan women and girls”. [. . .] This is the first time an international tribunal or court has confirmed crimes against humanity involving LGBTQIA+ victims. This marks an important milestone in the protection of sexual minorities under international law. International law clearly spells put the offences which constitute crimes against humanity. [. . .] The definition under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the most comprehensive. It includes severe deprivation of personal liberty, murder, enslavement, rape, torture, forced deportation or apartheid. Specifically, the Taliban leaders are accused under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute, which states: Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender […] or other grounds that are universally recognised as impermissible under international law. Physical and direct violence is not necessary for persecution on “gender […] grounds” to be established. Systemic and institutionalised forms of harm, which can be the imposition of discriminatory societal norms, are sufficient.' [. . .] It is not yet clear if the warrants will actually lead to arrest and prosecution in The Hague. But we know this is possible. A prime example being the the arrest earlier this year of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. At the very least, the arrests warrants are a hopeful step towards accountability for the Taliban and justice for the women and girls of Afghanistan.' back