Alter (2004), Robert, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, W W Norton 2004 Through a distinguished career of critical scholarship and translation, Robert Alter has equipped us to read the Hebrew Bible as a powerful cohesive work of literature. In this landmark work, Alter's masterly translation and probing commentary combine to give contemporary readers the definitive edition of The Five Books of Moses. 
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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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Sorkin (2025), Andrew Ross, 1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street, Allen Lane 2025 ' In 1929, the world watched in shock as the unstoppable Wall Street bull market went into a freefall, wiping out fortunes and igniting a depression that would reshape a generation. But behind the flashing ticker tapes and panicked traders, another drama unfolded-one of visionaries and fraudsters, titans and dreamers, euphoria and ruin. <
With unparalleled access to historical records and newly uncovered documents, New York Times bestselling author Andrew Ross Sorkin takes readers inside the chaos of the crash, behind the scenes of a raging battle between Wall Street and Washington and the larger-than-life characters whose ambition and naivety in an endless boom led to wreckage. The dizzying highs and brutal lows of this era eerily mirror today's world-where markets soar, political tensions mount, and the fight over financial influence plays out once again.' 
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von Neumann (2018), John, and Nicholas A. Wheeler (editor), Robert T Beyer (translator), The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press 2018 ' Quantum mechanics was still in its infancy in 1932 when the young John von Neumann, who would go on to become one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century, published Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics--a revolutionary book that for the first time provided a rigorous mathematical framework for the new science. Robert Beyer's 1955 English translation, which von Neumann reviewed and approved, is cited more frequently today than ever before. But its many treasures and insights were too often obscured by the limitations of the way the text and equations were set on the page. In this new edition of this classic work, mathematical physicist Nicholas Wheeler has completely reset the book in TeX, making the text and equations far easier to read. He has also corrected a handful of typographic errors, revised some sentences for clarity and readability, provided an index for the first time, and added prefatory remarks drawn from the writings of Léon Van Hove and Freeman Dyson. The result brings new life to an essential work in theoretical physics and mathematics.' 
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Albigensian Crusade - Wikipedia, Albigensian Crusade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'When Innocent III's diplomatic attempts to roll back Catharism met with little success and after the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered (allegedly by an agent serving the Cathar count of Toulouse), Innocent III declared a crusade against Languedoc, offering the lands of the schismatics to any French nobleman willing to take up arms. The violence led to France's acquisition of lands with closer cultural and linguistic ties to Catalonia (see Occitan). An estimated 200,000 to 1,000,000 people were massacred during the crusade.' back

Amir Tibon (2025_11_02), A Dangerous Israeli Scandal How a Leaked Video of a Notorious IDF Detention Center Could Help Netanyahu Take Down Israel's Democracy, back

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor - Wikipedia, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Andrew Albert Christian Edward Mountbatten Windsor[a] (born 19 February 1960), formerly Prince Andrew, Duke of York, is the third child and second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a younger brother of King Charles III. Andrew was born second in the line of succession to the British throne and is currently eighth.
Andrew served in the Royal Navy between 1979 and 2001 as a helicopter pilot and instructor and as the captain of a warship. During the Falklands War he flew on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, casualty evacuation and Exocet missile decoy. He married Sarah Ferguson in 1986, and was created Duke of York on his wedding day. They have two daughters: Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. Their marriage, separation in 1992 and divorce in 1996 attracted extensive media coverage. Andrew served as the UK's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment from 2001 to 2011, resigning amid scrutiny over his expenses and associations with figures including the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as well as Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity. He continued to undertake official duties on behalf of Elizabeth II until 2019. ' back

Artificial Intelligence - Wikipedia, Artificial Intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Artificial intelligence (AI), sometimes called machine intelligence, is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and other animals. In computer science AI research is defined as the study of "intelligent agents": any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals. [. . .]
Various subfields of AI research are centered around particular goals and the use of particular tools. The traditional goals of AI research include learning, reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, natural language processing, perception, and support for robotics. To reach these goals, AI researchers have adapted and integrated a wide range of techniques, including search and mathematical optimization, formal logic, artificial neural networks, and methods based on statistics, operations research, and economics. AI also draws upon psychology, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, and other fields. Some companies, such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta, aim to create artificial general intelligence (AGI)—AI that can complete virtually any cognitive task at least as well as a human.' back

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Wikipedia, Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopdia, ' On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed 150,000 to 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only uses of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. Japan announced its surrender to the Allies on 15 August, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan and invasion of Manchuria. The Japanese government signed an instrument of surrender on 2 September, ending the war.' back

Catholic Church - Wikipedia, Roman Catholic Church - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Catholic Church (Latin: Ecclesia Catholica), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. The Church consists of 24 sui iuris (autonomous) churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies around the world, each overseen by one or more bishops.The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church.' back

Christianity - Wikipedia, Christianity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead after his crucifixion, whose coming as the messiah (Christ) was prophesied in the Old Testament and chronicled in the New Testament. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with over 2.3 billion followers, comprising around 28.8% of the world population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 120 countries and territories. ' back

Claude Shannon (1949), Communication in the Presence of Noise, 'A method is developed for representing any communication system geometrically. Messages and the corresponding signals are points in two “function spaces,” and the modulation process is a mapping of one space into the other. Using this representation, a number of results in communication theory are deduced concerning expansion and compression of bandwidth and the threshold effect. Formulas are found for the maximum rate of transmission of binary digits over a system when the signal is perturbed by various types of noise. Some of the properties of “ideal” systems which transmit at this maximum rate are discussed. The equivalent number of binary digits per second for certain information sources is calculated.' [C. E. Shannon , “Communication in the presence of noise,” Proc. IRE, vol. 37, pp. 10–21, Jan. 1949.] back

Crusades - Wikipedia, Crusades - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Crusades were a series of intermittent military campaigns in the years from 1096 to 1487, sanctioned by various Popes. In 1095 the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios I, sent an ambassador to Pope Urban II requesting military support in the Byzantines' conflict with the westward migrating Turks in Anatolia. The Pope responded by calling Catholics to join what later became known as the First Crusade. One of Urban's stated aims was to guarantee pilgrims access to the holy sites in the Holy Land that were under Muslim control while his wider strategy was to reunite the Eastern and Western branches of Christendom, divided after their split in 1054, and establish himself as head of the united Church. This initiated a complex 200-year struggle in the region.' back

Daniel Johnson (2025_11_02), Kemi has a path to victory in 2029: this warrior queen has the appetite to transform Britain , ' What, then, should be Kemi’s path to victory in 2029? What must she do to achieve what would be by far the greatest Conservative comeback in the longest history of any political party in the world?
First: she should reaffirm, at every opportunity, her commitment to freedom. Ever since Mrs Thatcher plonked down Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty and told her querulous shadow cabinet “This is what we believe!”, the Conservative Party has been for liberty or for nothing. Unless Mrs Badenoch can persuade voters that she alone is serious about liberating them from the shackles of the state, the Tories will continue to languish in the polls.
This sacred vow to protect our liberties – not least the freedom of the press, so eloquently elucidated by Charles Moore and Janet Daley in the alarming case of The Telegraph – should be balanced by a firm commitment to defend our borders. That does not mean mass deportations of law-abiding migrants. Extreme measures, such as the Trump administration’s decision to send Russian émigrés back to Moscow, are contrary not only to the rule of law but to this country’s sense of decency. [. . .] Above all, Mrs Badenoch must reassure the older generation that they are still valued and cherished – though not by the present Government, which has fought a war of attrition against the despised “Boomers”. Instead, she should unleash the vast potential of this healthiest, most hard-working and least selfish generation in history.
Fifth: the name of Kemi Badenoch should be synonymous with caring for the things that make life worth living. The tranquillity of the countryside and the flourishing of the animals with whom we share the earth; the sublime and the beautiful in every branch of human creativity, in science as well as the arts. Conservatives must never again succumb to crude utilitarianism, but instead strive to regain the respect of all whose gifts give us purpose and meaning.
Sixth and last: Kemi needs to enforce strict party discipline as she charts her path ahead. Between now and next May, she must unite her troops around her platform of Manchester Conservatism. There can be no more flirting with Faragism, whether by Robert Jenrick or anyone else.' back

David Remnick: The New Yorker Festival, Jon Stewart Talks with David Remnick, The comedian talks about the suppression of political speech at Paramount and in America, and how he plans to respond to it. back

Elaine Gregersen (20245_11_06), Lily Allen’s new album is ‘autofiction’ – but turning your life into a story carries ethical and emotional risks, ' To listen to Lily Allen’s new album West End Girl is to be drawn into the painful disintegration of a marriage. It feels like we are there, with Allen: on the call learning about her husband’s alleged infidelity, reading the texts on his phone, finding the physical evidence. The critics love it. Fans are writing obsessive, breathless newsletters about it. One reviewer said that it may well have changed the chemistry in their brain. I was alone in my office when I first pressed play, expecting a couple of catchy but ultimately forgettable pop songs. After listening to the album from start to finish – twice – I ran downstairs and subjected my own husband to a track-by-track breakdown. I recounted every twist in the tale like I was reading out a celebrity gossip page. Unlike her contemporaries, Allen hadn’t succumbed to coy sexual metaphors about “knocking on wood”. This was raw, in-your-face, storytelling about imagining another woman naked on top of your spouse. It felt like Allen had created a theatrical moment. I wasn’t wrong – it turns out she’s touring the entire album in theatres next year. back

Elementary particle - Wikipedia, Elementary particle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a subatomic particle that is not composed of other particles. Particles currently thought to be elementary include the fundamental fermions (quarks, leptons, antiquarks, and antileptons), which generally are "matter particles" and "antimatter particles", as well as the fundamental bosons (gauge bosons and the Higgs boson), which generally are "force particles" that mediate interactions among fermions. A particle containing two or more elementary particles is a composite particle.' back

European wars of religion - Wikipedia, European war of religion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The conflicts began with the minor Knights' Revolt (1522), followed by the larger German Peasants' War (1524–1525) in the Holy Roman Empire. Warfare intensified after the Catholic Church began the Counter-Reformation in 1545 against the growth of Protestantism. The conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War, which devastated Germany and killed one-third of its population, a mortality rate twice that of World War I. The Peace of Westphalia broadly resolved the conflicts by recognising three separate Christian traditions in the Holy Roman Empire: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.' back

Francesca Jackson (2025_11_01), Why was it ‘necessary’ for King Charles to take action on Andrew – and why now?, ' The man formerly known as Prince Andrew will now simply be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor after he was stripped of all his official titles. In a statement, Buckingham Palace said the king has “initiated a formal process” to remove his brother’s titles. This refers to letters patent – the mechanism by which the monarch can remove titles like “prince”.
But why was it, in the words of Buckingham Palace, “necessary” for King Charles to “censure” his brother in this way – and why now? [. . .]
According to the 19th-century writer Walter Bagehot, known for his work on constitutional matters, the monarchy is the “dignified” part of the constitution which provides a “moral example” for people to follow by displaying “virtues”. King Charles is part of a long line of monarchs who have strained to project (and protect) this image. [. . .]
The threat by Liberal Democrat MPs to “humiliate” Mountbatten Windsor by using their opposition day debate to discuss him in Parliament and bring him before a parliamentary select committee appears to have been the final straw.
Mountbatten Windsor was sparking wider scrutiny of the monarchy’s constitutional affairs more generally, from its secretive funding to outdated rules preventing MPs from criticising the royals in parliament.
That’s why Charles had to act now. Bagehot wrote that the monarchy needs to maintain an air of “mystery” in order to survive: “When there is a select committee on the Queen, the charm of royalty will be gone.” The king appears to have shared Bagehot’s view that the “poking around” of politicians would be too damaging to the monarchy’s dignified façade.' back

Gifford Lectures -Wikipedia, Gifford Lectures -Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , ' The Gifford Lectures (/ˈɡɪfərd/) are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford at the four ancient universities of Scotland: St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Their purpose is to "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term – in other words, the knowledge of God." A Gifford lectures appointment is one of the most prestigious honours in Scottish academia. University calendars record that at the four Scottish universities, the Gifford Lectures are to be "public and popular, open not only to students of the university, but the whole community (for a tuition fee) without matriculation. Besides a general audience, the Lecturer may form a special class of students for the study of the subject, which will be conducted in the usual way, and tested by examination and thesis, written and oral". The lectures are normally presented as a series over an academic year and given with the intent that the edited content be published in book form. A number of these works have become classics in the fields of theology or philosophy and the relationship between religion and science.' back

Harriet Sherwood (2025_10_24), A rift that took 500 years to repair: King Charles prays with the pope, ' Almost every British schoolchild is taught that Henry VIII, the swaggering Tudor king driven by lust and his quest for an heir, broke away from the Roman Catholic church in 1534 after the pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Henry created the Church of England, appointed himself its supreme governor, divorced Catherine and married Anne Boleyn (who lasted just three years before she was beheaded for treason). Henry did not stop there. He declared war on Catholicism, ordering monasteries to be destroyed, land and valuables seized, libraries and manuscripts burned, and priests, monks and abbots executed. For hundreds of years, Catholics in England and Scotland were banned from openly worshipping. Even until the 1950s, mixed marriages between Catholics and Anglicans were frowned upon. Now, almost 500 years after Henry’s momentous breakaway, his successor, King Charles III, has prayed with Pope Leo XIV beneath the sublime frescoes of the Sistine Chapel in an act of rapprochement between the Roman Catholic church and the Church of England. “The age of mutual suspicion really is now over,” Jamie Hawkey, a canon-theologian at Westminster Abbey, told a briefing hosted by the Religion Media Centre.' back

Henry Bodkin (2025_11_03), The torture video shaking Israel to its core, ' Masked guards pull a blindfolded prisoner to his feet from a face-down position on the floor. He is marched into a corner, where Israeli soldiers have formed a barrier with riot shields, blocking the man from the view of a nearby security camera. He is surrounded and, as military guard dogs bark, there is movement from behind the shields. The leaked footage does not make events entirely clear, but the Palestinian man — a suspected terrorist — was later admitted to hospital with severe rib and rectal injuries. The footage of abuse at the Sde Teiman detention facility was first aired last year by Israel’s Channel 12 and prompted an investigation. However, before the inquiry could take its course, the video prompted a backlash from politicians on the Right, including those close to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, who dismissed accusations against the guards as a “blood libel”.' back

Hilbert space - Wikipedia, Hilbert space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In mathematics, Hilbert spaces (named after David Hilbert) allow the methods of linear algebra and calculus to be generalized from (finite-dimensional) Euclidean vector spaces to spaces that may be infinite-dimensional. Hilbert spaces arise naturally and frequently in mathematics and physics, typically as function spaces. Formally, a Hilbert space is a vector space equipped with an inner product that induces a distance function for which the space is a complete metric space. A Hilbert space is a special case of a Banach space. ' back

History of Palestine - Wikipedia, History of Palestine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The region of Palestine is part of the wider region of the Levant, which represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia. The areas of the Levant traditionally serve as the "crossroads of Western Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Northeast Africa", and in tectonic terms are located in the "northwest of the Arabian Plate".Palestine itself was among the earliest regions to see human habitation, agricultural communities and civilization. Because of its location, it has historically been seen as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. In the Bronze Age, the Canaanites established city-states influenced by surrounding civilizations, among them Egypt, which ruled the area in the Late Bronze Age. During the Iron Age, two related Israelite kingdoms, Israel and Judah, controlled much of Palestine, while the Philistines occupied its southern coast. The Assyrians conquered the region in the 8th century BCE, then the Babylonians c. 601 BCE, followed by the Persian Achaemenid Empire that conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE. Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire in the late 330s BCE, beginning Hellenization.' back

Initial singularity - Wikipedia, Initial singularity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The initial singularity is a singularity predicted by some models of the Big Bang theory to have existed before the Big Bang. The instant immediately following the initial singularity is part of the Planck epoch, the earliest period of time in the history of our universe. The use of only general relativity to predict what happened in the beginnings of the universe has been heavily criticized, as quantum mechanics becomes a significant factor in the high-energy environment of the earliest stage of the universe, and general relativity on its own fails to make accurate predictions. . .. Although there is no direct evidence for a singularity of infinite density, the cosmic microwave background is evidence that the universe expanded from a very hot, dense state. 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

Judaea (Roman province) - Wikipedia, Judaea (Roman province) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Judaea was a Roman province from 6 to 135 AD, which at its height encompassed the regions of Judea, Idumea, Peraea, Samaria, and Galilee, as well as parts of the coastal plain of the southern Levant. At its height, it encompassed much of the core territories of the former Kingdom of Judaea, which had been ruled by the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties in previous decades. The name Judaea (like the similar Judea) derives from the Iron Age Kingdom of Judah, which was centered in the region of Judea.' back

Judaism - Wikipedia, Judaism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Judaism (Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת‎, romanized: Yahăḏūṯ) is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant, which they believe was established between God and the Jewish people. The religion is considered one of the earliest monotheistic religions. ' back

Larsa - Wikipedia, Larsa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Larsa (Sumerian: 𒌓𒀕𒆠, romanized: UD.UNUGKI, read Larsam), also referred to as Larancha/Laranchon (Gk. Λαραγχων) by Berossos and connected with the biblical Ellasar, was an important city-state of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu with his temple E-babbar. It lies some 25 km southeast of Uruk in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of the modern settlement Tell as-Senkereh or Sankarah.
Larsa is thought to be the source of a number of tablets involving Babylonian mathematics, including the Plimpton 322 tablet that contains patterns of Pythagorean triples. back

Laura Snapes (2025_11_02), Rosalia, Berghain Review, ' The Top 10 of today’s Spotify Global Top 50 looks like business as usual: two Taylor Swift songs; Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ Die With a Smile hanging around for an eighth month; the eminently normal male pop stars Sombr and Alex Warren doing brisk business. But nestled among the crowd-pleasers is something of an outlier: a gothic, baroque assault powered by Vivaldi-style strings and operatic singing in German and Spanish.
Berghain is the lead single from Catalan pop star Rosalía’s fourth album, Lux, a monumental orchestral feat that has confounded critics and fans alike.
It features the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), a Catalan choir, Björk offering “divine intervention” and the alternative-rock star Yves Tumor reprising Mike Tyson’s 2002 tirade at opponent Lennox Lewis: “I’ll fuck you ’til you love me.”
Since her breakout album El Mal Querer in 2018, the 33-year-old musician and producer born Rosalía Vila Tobella has made her name on visionary avant garde mutations of the flamenco she studied at a prestigious music school. She has also attracted praise and controversy for exploring Caribbean and Latin sounds on her 2022 album Motomami.
Her new record centres her classical training: the LSO is featured throughout – directed by Daníel Bjarnason – alongside fado and flamenco singers. “It is thrilling to watch this woman grow,” Björk wrote in an approving tweet. “Congratulations to her with this incredible album, switching genre kung-fu style. This concept is fierce".' back

Lee Billings (2025_04_07), Quantum Physics Is on the Wrong Track, Says Breakthrough Prize Winner Gerard ’t Hoof, 'the Netherlands, has spent much of the past five decades reshaping our understanding of the fundamental forces that knit together reality. But ’t Hooft’s unassuming, soft-spoken manner belies his towering scientific stature, which is better revealed by the mathematical rigor and deep physical insights that define his work—and by the prodigious numbers of prestigious prizes he has accrued, which include a Nobel Prize, a Wolf Prize, a Franklin Medal, and many more.
His latest accolade, announced last April, is the most lucrative in all of science: a Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, worth $3 million, in recognition of ’t Hooft’s myriad contributions to physics across his long career.
His most celebrated discovery—the one that earned him, along with his former Ph.D. thesis adviser, the late Martinus Veltman, the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics—showed how to make sense of non-Abelian gauge theories, which are complex mathematical frameworks that describe how elementary particles interact. Together, ’t Hooft and Veltman demonstrated that these theories could be renormalized, meaning intractable infinite quantities that cropped up in calculations could be tamed in a consistent and precise way. This feat would change the course of science history, laying the groundwork for the Standard Model, the reigning paradigm of particle physics. [. . .]
Quantum mechanics is the possibility that you can consider superpositions of states. That’s really all there is to it. And I’d argue that superpositions of states are not real. If you look very carefully, things never superimpose. Erwin Schrödinger asked the right questions here—you know, take my cat; it can be dead, it can be alive. Can it be in a superposition? That’s nonsense .[. . .]
I think quantum technology is just what you get if you assume the reality of superimposed systems. What do I mean by that? We know superposition in the macroscopic world is nonsense. That’s clear. And I believe that in the microscopic world it’s clearly nonsense, too, even though it may seem we have nothing besides superposition to use to understand atoms. What people in quantum technology probably don’t realize is that they’re doing the very converse of what they think they are doing. They think they’re understanding quantum mechanics. I think what they should be doing instead is trying to remove the quantum mechanics from the description, trying to use more fundamental degrees of freedom, like those discrete states I mentioned[. . ].
A simpler question is: Can you formulate quantum mechanics without a superposition principle? And my answer is yes. In one of my last papers on arXiv.org, I wrote a little simple model—too simple to be useful in the real world. But the model is just a clock with a pendulum that moves in a very organized way, and that pendulum drives a wheel that shows the time, the hands that show the minutes and seconds. I call it my “grandfather’s clock” model. From the pendulum, you can derive what time the hands should show. And these hands are deterministic. They are just showing a time with infinite precision, say. The pendulum is really a quantum pendulum—it can be quantized; we can write quantum equations for it.' back

Leonora Risse (2025_11_03), Unpaid ‘women’s work’ is worth $427 billion, new research shows. See how much your unpaid labour is worth, ' All those thousands of hours that Australians put towards unpaid household work and care – cooking, cleaning and caring for family members – are an essential thread that keeps our economy stitched together.
But they’re not recognised in official economic statistics.
My new research puts a dollar value on what all this unpaid labour is worth to the economy: about A$688 billion. That’s equivalent to around one-third of gross domestic product – and is mostly contributed by women.
The System of National Accounts, which guides how countries worldwide define “production” and measure the size of their economy, is limited to activities that have a price tag or market wage.
Unpaid work and care falls outside this official definition.
In my new academic paper, published in the Economic Record, I calculate a dollar value of this unpaid productive activity by adding up how much it would cost if we were to pay someone an hourly wage do this work as their paid job.' back

Machine translation - Wikipedia, Machine translation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Machine translation is the use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic, and pragmatic nuances of both languages.
Machine translation tools, while some language models are capable of generating comprehensible results, remain limited by the complexity of language and emotion, often lacking depth and semantic precision. Its quality is influenced by linguistic, grammatical, tonal, and cultural differences, making it inadequate to replace real translators fully. Effective improvement requires understanding the target society’s customs and historical context, human intervention and visual cues remain necessary in simultaneous interpretation, on the other hand, domain-specific customization, such as for technical documentation or official texts—can yield more stable results, and is commonly employed in multilingual websites and professional databases.' back

Martinus J G Veltman, Nobel Lecture 1999: From weak interactions to gravitation, ' This lecture is about my contribution to the renormalizability of gauge theories. There is of course no perfectly clear separation between my contributions and those of my co-laureate 't Hooft, but I will limit mysef to some brief comments on those publications that carry only his name. An extensive review on the subject including detailed references to contemporary work can be found elsewhere. As is well known, the work on renormalizability of gauge theories caused a complete change in the landscape of particle physics.' back

Measurement problem - Wikipedia, Measurement problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In quantum mechanics, the measurement problem is the problem of definite outcomes: quantum systems have superpositions but quantum measurements only give one definite result.
The wave function in quantum mechanics evolves deterministically according to the Schrödinger equation as a linear superposition of different states. However, actual measurements always find the physical system in a definite state. Any future evolution of the wave function is based on the state the system was discovered to be in when the measurement was made, meaning that the measurement "did something" to the system that is not obviously a consequence of Schrödinger evolution. The measurement problem is describing what that "something" is, how a superposition of many possible values becomes a single measured value.' back

Minkowski space - Wikipedia, Minkowski space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' By1908 Minkowski realized that the special theory of relativity, introduced by his former student Albert Einstein in 1905 and based on the previous work of Lorentz and Poincaré, could best be understood in a four-dimensional space, since known as the "Minkowski spacetime", in which time and space are not separated entities but intermingled in a four-dimensional space–time, and in which the Lorentz geometry of special relativity can be effectively represented using the invariant interval x² + y² + z² − c² t².' back

Olivier Julien, Mesopotamia: The Rise of Cities, ' After decades of inaccessibility due to unrest and wars, teams of archaeologists from around the globe return to the greatest sites in Mesopotamia in a bid to save what can still be saved. back

Order of Preachers, Dominican Province of the Assumption, 'Preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Australia, Aotearoa_New Zealand, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea' back

P versus NP problem - Wikipedia, P versus NP problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in computer science. It asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified (technically, verified in polynomial time) can also be solved quickly (again, in polynomial time). The underlying issues were first discussed in the 1950s, in letters from John Forbes Nash Jr. to the National Security Agency, and from Kurt Gödel to John von Neumann. The precise statement of the P versus NP problem was introduced in 1971 by Stephen Cook in his seminal paper " The complexity of theorem proving procedures" and is considered by many to be the most important open problem in the field.' back

Parthian Sources Online, SKZ | English Translation, ' 51. As I now apply myself to affairs and the cult-business for the gods and am the ‘dastgerd’ of the gods, and as I with the help of the gods acquired and possess these so numerous lands, and acquired fame and bravery, [in this way] should whoever will come after me and will be successful apply themselves to affairs and the cult-business for the gods, so that the gods will be an aid [to him] and will make [him] their ‘dastgerd’. This [is] written in my hand by Hormezd the writer, the son of Silag the writer.' back

Peter Edwell (2025_11_10), A Roman emperor grovelling to a Persian king: the message behind a new statue in Tehran, 'A new statue unveiled in recent days in Iran depicts a Roman emperor in subjection to a Persian king.
Erected in Tehran’s Enghelab Square, the statue titled Kneeling Before Iran shows the emperor grovelling before Shapur I (who ruled around 242–270 CE).
But where did this imagery come from? And why has this statue gone up now?
In the third century CE, a new dynasty known as the Sasanians came to power in ancient Iran.
Within a few years, the first Sasanian king, Ardashir I, threatened Roman territory in Mesopotamia (in modern-day Turkey, Iraq and Syria). The Romans had captured this territory from the Parthians, the predecessors of the Sasanians.
Now Ardashir wanted to recover some of the territory previously lost to the Romans. He met with some successes in the 230s. But his son and successor, Shapur I, took this to another level.
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Peter Ormerod (2025_07_30), I was a Samaritan – I love Samaritans. But for the sake of all who take those calls, it must change course, ' In the darkness, a light. It shines on the corner of a modest row of houses in a nondescript street. The night may feel oppressive and empty, but still the light shines. And it illuminates a word that says there is still hope. That word is: Samaritans. That light was fixed to a building where I spent many extraordinary hours. I had the privilege of volunteering for the charity for three years; the experience changed my life. And there are many other such lights, in cities and towns and villages across the country: you may sometimes glimpse them from a window of a train, and they remind you there is desperate suffering everywhere, but also that, everywhere, there is someone to help. A Samaritans sign near coastline Resistance to change in the lifesaving work of the Samaritans | Letters Read more Samaritans has more than 200 branches. But, according to its managers, that is too many. They said last week that they want to close 100 of them. Volunteers will be moved to “regional hubs”, and some volunteers will take calls at home. This news has alarmed many of those who give up their free time for the charity, and I share their fears. Both parts of the plan carry wider significance, too: the first as an example of a trend towards making charities more like corporations, the second in the questions it raises about working from home. back

Planck postulate - Wikipedia, Planck postulate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Planck Postulate (or Planck's Postulate), one of the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, is the postulate that the energy of oscillators in a black body is quantized, and is given by
E = hf
, where h is Planck's constant, and f is the frequency of the oscillator.
The Planck Postulate was introduced by Max Planck in his derivation of his law of black body radiation in 1900. This assumption allowed Planck to derive a formula for the entire spectrum of the radiation emitted by a black body. Planck was unable to justify this assumption based on classical physics; he considered quantization as being purely a mathematical trick, rather than (as we now know) a fundamental change in our understanding of the world.' back

Qiu-Hong Hu (2005_12_29), The nature of the electron, ' Through investigating history, evolution of the concept, and development in the theories of electrons, I am convinced that what was missing in our understanding of the electron is a structure, into which all attributes of the electron could be incorporated in a self-consistent way. It is hereby postulated that the topological structure of the electron is a closed two-turn Helix (a so-called Hubius Helix) that is generated by circulatory motion of a mass-less particle at the speed of light. A formulation is presented to describe an isolated electron at rest and at high speed. It is shown that the formulation is capable of incorporating most (if not all) attributes of the electron, including spin, magnetic moment, fine structure constant, anomalous magnetic moment, and charge quantization into one concrete description of the Hubius Helix. The equations for the description emerge accordingly. Implications elicited by the postulate are elaborated. Inadequacy of the formulation is discussed.' back

Reuters (2025_10_23), King Charles, Pope Leo pray together in 500-year first, ' Britain’s King Charles and Pope Leo prayed together in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel on Thursday, in the first joint worship including an English monarch and a Catholic pontiff since King Henry VIII broke away from Rome in 1534.
Latin chants and English prayers echoed through the chapel, where Leo was elected the first US pope by the world’s Catholic cardinals six months ago in front of frescoes by Michelangelo depicting Christ delivering the Last Judgment.
Charles, supreme governor of the Church of England, was seated at the pope’s left near the altar of the chapel as Leo and Anglican Archbishop Stephen Cottrell led a service that featured the Sistine Chapel Choir and two royal choirs.
Although Charles has met the last three popes, and Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI travelled to Britain, their previous encounters never included joint prayers.' back

Shamash - Wikipedia, Shamash- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , ' Shamash (Akkadian: šamas), also known as Utu (Sumerian "Sun"), was the ancient Mesopotamian sun god. He was believed to see everything that happened in the world every day, and was therefore responsible for justice and protection of travelers. As a divine judge, he could be associated with the underworld. Additionally, he could serve as the god of divination, typically alongside the weather god Adad. While he was universally regarded as one of the primary gods, he was particularly venerated in Sippar and Larsa. The moon god Nanna (Sin) and his wife Ningal were regarded as his parents, while his twin sister was Inanna (Ishtar). Occasionally other goddesses, such as Manzat and Pinikir, could be regarded as his sisters too. The dawn goddess Aya (Sherida) was his wife, and multiple texts describe their daily reunions taking place on a mountain where the sun was believed to set. Among their children were Kittum, the personification of truth, dream deities such as Mamu, as well as the god Ishum. Utu's name could be used to write the names of many foreign solar deities logographically. The connection between him and the Hurrian solar god Shimige is particularly well attested, and the latter could be associated with Aya as well.' back

Stephen Bates (2025_11_01), Stupidity and royal self-entitlement sank Andrew, and it may not be over yet, back

Thomism - Wikipedia, Thomism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Thomism is the philosophical and theological school which arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the Dominican philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church.
[. . .] In theology, [Aquinas's] Summa Theologica is amongst the most influential documents in medieval theology and continues to be the central point of reference for the philosophy and theology of the Catholic Church. In the 1914 motu proprio Doctoris Angelici Pope Pius X cautioned that the teachings of the Church cannot be understood without the basic philosophical underpinnings of Aquinas' major theses:

The capital theses in the philosophy of St. Thomas are not to be placed in the category of opinions capable of being debated one way or another, but are to be considered as the foundations upon which the whole science of natural and divine things is based; if such principles are once removed or in any way impaired, it must necessarily follow that students of the sacred sciences will ultimately fail to perceive so much as the meaning of the words in which the dogmas of divine revelation are proposed by the magistracy of the Church.'

Universal Turing Machine - Wikipedia, Universal Turing Machine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Alan Turing's universal computing machine (alternately universal machine, machine U, U) is the name given by him (1936-1937) to his model of an all-purpose "a-machine" (computing machine) that could process any arbitrary (but well-formed) sequence of instructions called quintuples. This model is considered by some (for example, Davis (2000)) to be the origin of the stored program computer -- used by John von Neumann (1946) for his "Electronic Computing Instrument" that now bears von Neumann's name: the von Neumann architecture. This machine as a model of computation is now called the Universal Turing machine.' back