We Moved on September 21st to http://polycarp55words.blogspot.com/.

black hole information paradox

The black hole information paradox results from the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity. It suggests that physical information could "disappear" in a black hole. It is a contentious subject since it violates a commonly assumed tenet of science—that information cannot be destroyed. _Wikipedia (Black hole Information Paradox)


The scenario John Myers describes "is true, but it's really an issue of information getting scrambled, not lost." In the black hole paradox, the problem is that the information appears to be truly lost, not merely scrambled, yet "the foundations of classical mechanics and statistical mechanics are based on the exact conservation of information." Finally, "a number of the letters express a very common misconception, namely, that because an outside observer sees an infalling observer slow down, that the in falling observer sees the outsider speed up. This is simply not so. The in falling observer looks back and sees nothing unusual."--R. COWEN

Dark secrets by McGinnis, Michael / Science News

Ii; inimical

Adjective

1. adverse or unfavourable: inimical to change

2. unfriendly or hostile [Latin in- not + amicus friendly]

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

Winter is an inimical world; its punishment for doing things wrong is sure and prompt: death from cold or death from hunger. No margin, no reprieve. A man can trust his luck, but a society can't and culture change, like random mutation, may make things chancier. So they have gone very slowly. At one point in their history a hasty observer would say that all technological progress and diffusion had ceased. Yet it never has. Compare the torrent and the glacier. Both get where they are going. Le Guinn (The Left Hand of Darkness) page 99.

Tt: Time Travel

Cc: Crime

n.

1. An act committed or omitted in violation of a law forbidding or commanding it and for which punishment is imposed upon conviction.

2. Unlawful activity: statistics relating to violent crime.

3. A serious offense, especially one in violation of morality.

4. An unjust, senseless, or disgraceful act or condition: It's a crime to squander our country's natural

Noun	1.	crime - (criminal law) an act punishable by law; usually considered an evil act; "a long record of crimes" criminal offence, criminal offense, law-breaking, offense, offence evildoing, transgression - the act of transgressing; the violation of a law or a duty or moral principle; "the boy was punished for the transgressions of his father" barratry - the offense of vexatiously persisting in inciting lawsuits and quarrels capital offense - a crime so serious that capital punishment is considered appropriate cybercrime - crime committed using a computer and the internet to steal a person's identity or sell contraband or stalk victims or disrupt operations with malevolent programs felony - a serious crime (such as murder or arson) forgery - criminal falsification by making or altering an instrument with intent to defraud fraud - intentional deception resulting in injury to another person Had crime - (Islam) serious crimes committed by Muslims and punishable by punishments established in the Koran; "Had crimes include apostasy from Islam and murder and theft and adultery" highjack, hijack - seizure of a vehicle in transit either to rob it or divert it to an alternate destination mayhem - the willful and unlawful crippling or mutilation of another person infraction, misdemeanor, misdemeanour, violation, infringement - a crime less serious than a felony perpetration, committal, commission - the act of committing a crime attempt, attack - the act of attacking; "attacks on women increased last year"; "they made an attempt on his life" Tazir crime - (Islam) minor crimes committed by Muslims; crimes that are not mentioned in the Koran so judges are free to punish the offender in any appropriate way; "in some Islamic nations Tazir crimes are set by legislation" regulatory offence, regulatory offense, statutory offence, statutory offense - crimes created by statutes and not by common law thuggery - violent or brutal acts as of thugs high treason, lese majesty, treason - a crime that undermines the offender's government vice crime - a vice that is illegal victimless crime - an act that is legally a crime but that seem to have no victims; "he considers prostitution to be a victimless crime" war crime - a crime committed in wartime; violation of rules of war criminal law - the body of law dealing with crimes and their punishment abduct, kidnap, nobble, snatch - take away to an undisclosed location against their will and usually in order to extract a ransom; "The industrialist's son was kidnapped" shanghai, impress - take (someone) against his will for compulsory service, especially on board a ship; "The men were shanghaied after being drugged" commandeer, highjack, hijack, pirate - take arbitrarily or by force; "The Cubans commandeered the plane and flew it to Miami" skyjack - subject an aircraft to air piracy; "the plane was skyjacked to Uzbekistan" carjack - take someone's car from him by force, usually with the intention of stealing it; "My car was carjacked last night!" extort - obtain through intimidation blackmail - obtain through threats scalp - sell illegally, as on the black market bootleg - sell illicit products such as drugs or alcohol; "They were bootlegging whiskey" black market, run - deal in illegally, such as arms or liquor fob off, foist off, palm off - sell as genuine, sell with the intention to deceive push - sell or promote the sale of (illegal goods such as drugs); "The guy hanging around the school is pushing drugs" black marketeer - deal on the black market pyramid - use or deal in (as of stock or commercial transaction) in a pyramid deal ransom, redeem - exchange or buy back for money; under threat traffic - deal illegally; "traffic drugs" rustle, lift - take illegally; "rustle cattle" shoplift - steal in a store stick up, hold up - rob at gunpoint or by means of some other threat mug - rob at gunpoint or with the threat of violence; "I was mugged in the streets of New York last night"
	2.	crime - an evil act not necessarily punishable by law; "crimes of the heart" evildoing, transgression - the act of transgressing; the violation of a law or a duty or moral principle; "the boy was punished for the transgressions of his father"

Dd: Dark Energy

A form of energy hypothesized to reside in the structure of space itself, responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe. Dark energy theoretically counterbalances the kinetic energy of the universe's expansion, entailing that that the universe has no inherent curvature, as astronomical observations currently suggest. Dark energy appears to account for 73 percent of all the energy and matter in the universe. See also big bang.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Ss: Sons eso tse-na! (Zuni)

ZUÑI INTRODUCTION
It seems--so the words of the grandfathers say--that in the Underworld were many strange things and beings, even villages of men, long ago.

[1. From té-na-la-a, "time or times of," and pé-na-we, words or speeches (tales): "tales of time."

2. The invariable formula for beginning a folk tale is, by the raconteur: "Són ah-tchi!" ("Let us take up")--té-la-p'-ne, or "a folk tale," being understood. To this the auditors or listeners respond: "É-so!" (" Yea, verily.") Again, by the raconteur: "Sons i-nó-o-to-na! Tem," etc. ("Let us (tell of) the times of creation! When," etc.) Again, by the listeners: "Sons éso! Te-ä-tú!" ("Yea, let us, verily! Be it so.")]

Rr: Resonance

n.

1. The quality or condition of being resonant: words that had resonance throughout his life.

2. Richness or significance, especially in evoking an association or strong emotion: "It is home and family that give resonance . . . to life" (George Gilder). "Israel, gateway to Mecca, is of course a land of religious resonance and geopolitical significance" (James Wolcott).

3. Physics The increase in amplitude of oscillation of an electric or mechanical system exposed to a periodic force whose frequency is equal or very close to the natural undamped frequency of the system.

4. Physics A subatomic particle lasting too short a time to be observed directly. The existence of such particles is usually inferred from a peak in the energy distribution of its decay products.

5. Acoustics Intensification and prolongation of sound, especially of a musical tone, produced by sympathetic vibration.

6. Linguistics Intensification of vocal tones during articulation, as by the air cavities of the mouth and nasal passages.

7. Medicine The sound produced by diagnostic percussion of the normal chest.

8. Chemistry The property of a compound having simultaneously the characteristics of two or more structural forms that differ only in the distribution of electrons. Such compounds are highly stable and cannot be properly represented by a single structural formula.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

From beyond the low hills across the water came the dull resonance of distant guns and a remote weird crying.The War Of The Worlds by Wells, H.G.

Jj: Joke Insurance

September 1, 2009 Urban Word of the Day

When two mates have a mutual understanding to laugh at each others jokes, no matter how lame or awkward said joke is, therefore lessening the social failure of the bad joke.

I was talking to some girls the other day when I cracked a 'your mother' joke. Luckily, I had joke insurance with Chris so I still ended up getting both their numbers. All Chris got was a weird look for his over-the-top laugh.

Hh: Howl

The HOWL is the latest indie rock
collectible. Catch the trend live tonight with the
Screaming Females, who measure up to the name. The trio
from New Jersey is led by Marissa Paternoster, who
"possesses a stellar, guttural scream," writes Amanda
Petrusich. But "the bulk of her vocals are steady, tough
and clear, a nice accompaniment to the group's thumpy,
lo-fi punk-rock." They play with Black Wine, You Without
Teeth and Shellshag at the Mercury Lounge. -

NY TIMES September 1, 2009

Aa: Apiaries

Noun

pl -aries a place where bees are kept [Latin apis bee]

apiarist n

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

These buildings are bordered by the school's golf course, orchard, nursery, field crops, apiaries, dog kennels and a pasture area for livestock.

Dairy Today scholarship winner announced by Dickrell, Jim / Dairy Today

Pp: Plutocracy

1. Government by the wealthy.

2. A wealthy class that controls a government.

3. A government or state in which the wealthy rule.

In Context:
Peel's late conduct on the Catholic question, innocent of future gold-fields, and of that gorgeous plutocracy which has so nobly exalted the necessities of genteel life.Middlemarch by Eliot, George

Ss: Seldon Crisis

'Seldon Crises' planned and predetermined disaster with only one possible solution, (by Hari Seldon (after whom they were named)) as devices for controlling the flow of events in connection to the Government and the Governments Constitution.

Ss: Sardonic

adj.

Scornfully or cynically mocking. See Synonyms at sarcastic.

---

[French sardonique, from Greek sardonios, alteration of sardanios.]

---

sar·doni·cal·ly adv.

sar·doni·cism (--szm) n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

---

The Poison Belt by Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan

An elderly man was at their heels scolding and directing in a creaky, sardonic voice.

destructive creation

whereby new technologies that improve people’s lives replace old ones

Ll: Lame Duck

n.

1.

a. An elected officeholder or group continuing in office during the period between failure to win an election and the inauguration of a successor.

b. An officeholder who has chosen not to run for reelection or is ineligible for reelection.

2. An ineffective person; a weakling.

---

lame-duck (lmdk) adj.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Lame ducks come back to Washington this week and they're not going to do much.The days and weeks ahead in Washington by Bernard, Roger

Aa: Agnosticism

n.

1. The doctrine that certainty about first principles or absolute truth is unattainable and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge.

2. The belief that there can be no proof either that God exists or that God does not exist.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Agnosticism in Context:
Martin Eden by London, Jack

The fact that Spencer was very little read was for some time a source of surprise to Martin. "Herbert Spencer," said the man at the desk in the library, "oh, yes, a great mind." But the man did not seem to know anything of the content of that great mind. One evening, at dinner, when Mr. Butler was there, Martin turned the conversation upon Spencer. Mr. Morse bitterly arraigned the English philosopher's agnosticism, but confessed that he had not read "First Principles"; while Mr. Butler stated that he had no patience with Spencer, had never read a line of him, and had managed to get along quite well without him. Doubts arose in Martin's mind, and had he been less strongly individual he would have accepted the general opinion and given Herbert Spencer up. As it was, he found Spencer's explanation of things convincing; and, as he phrased it to himself, to give up Spencer would be equivalent to a navigator throwing the compass and chronometer overboard. So Martin went on into a thorough study of evolution, mastering more and more the subject himself, and being convinced by the corroborative testimony of a thousand independent writers. The more he studied, the more vistas he caught of fields of knowledge yet unexplored, and the regret that days were only twenty-four hours long became a chronic complaint with him.

FG: Finger Gun

finger guns

A way for creepy people with porn mustaches to say hello or "I understand". Hold your fingers in the shape of guns (use both hands for maximum effect) and point at someone who just arrived. Bend thumbs to simulate shooting your finger guns and make a clicking sound with your mouth. May be accompanied with a wink in extreme cases.

That dude that looks like he just fell out of the 70's just offered me a piece of candy and then winked and gave me finger guns. I said no.

---

Jj: Journeyman

n.

1. One who has fully served an apprenticeship in a trade or craft and is a qualified worker in another's employ.

2. An experienced and competent but undistinguished worker.

---

[Middle English journeiman : journei, a day's work; see journey + man, man; see man.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Gg: Gangrene

Noun

decay of body tissue caused by the blood supply being interrupted by disease or injury [Greek gangraina an eating sore]

gangrenous adj

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

Poor Jurgis might have been expected to make a successful beggar. He was just out of the hospital, and desperately sick-looking, and with a helpless arm; also he had no overcoat, and shivered pitifully. But, alas, it was again the case of the honest merchant, who finds that the genuine and unadulterated article is driven to the wall by the artistic counterfeit. Jurgis, as a beggar, was simply a blundering amateur in competition with organized and scientific professionalism. He was just out of the hospital--but the story was worn threadbare, and how could he prove it? He had his arm in a sling--and it was a device a regular beggar's little boy would have scorned. He was pale and shivering--but they were made up with cosmetics, and had studied the art of chattering their teeth. As to his being without an overcoat, among them you would meet men you could swear had on nothing but a ragged linen duster and a pair of cotton trousers--so cleverly had they concealed the several suits of all-wool underwear beneath. Many of these professional mendicants had comfortable homes, and families, and thousands of dollars in the bank; some of them had retired upon their earnings, and gone into the business of fitting out and doctoring others, or working children at the trade. There were some who had both their arms bound tightly to their sides, and padded stumps in their sleeves, and a sick child hired to carry a cup for them. There were some who had no legs, and pushed themselves upon a wheeled platform--some who had been favored with blindness, and were led by pretty little dogs. Some less fortunate had mutilated themselves or burned themselves, or had brought horrible sores upon themselves with chemicals; you might suddenly encounter upon the street a man holding out to you a finger rotting and discolored with gangrene--or one with livid scarlet wounds half escaped from their filthy bandages. These desperate ones were the dregs of the city's cesspools, wretches who hid at night in the rain-soaked cellars of old ramshackle tenements, in "stale-beer dives" and opium joints, with abandoned women in the last stages of the harlot's progress--women who had been kept by Chinamen and turned away at last to die. Every day the police net would drag hundreds of them off the streets, and in the detention hospital you might see them, herded together in a miniature inferno, with hideous, beastly faces, bloated and leprous with disease, laughing, shouting, screaming in all stages of drunkenness, barking like dogs, gibbering like apes, raving and tearing themselves in delirium.

Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Zz: Zeitgeist

Noun

1.

Zeitgeist - the spirit of the time; the spirit characteristic of an age or generation flavor, flavour, feel, spirit, smell, feeling, look, tone - the general atmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people; "the feel of the city excited him"; "a clergyman improved the tone of the meeting"; "it had the smell of treason"

Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2008 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

Bb: Blue Dog

Southern Democrats who still hold to the conservative values of the Democratic Party.

Ee: Entropy

n. pl. en·tro·pies

1. Symbol S For a closed thermodynamic system, a quantitative measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work.

2. A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.

3. A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message.

4. The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.

5. Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.

---

[German Entropie : Greek en-, in; see en-² + Greek trop, transformation; see trep- in Indo-European roots.]

---

en·tropic (n-trpk, -trpk) adj.

en·tropi·cal·ly adv.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

entropy (ĕn`trəpē), quantity specifying the amount of disorder or randomness in a system bearing energy energy, in physics, the ability or capacity to do work or to produce change. Forms of energy include heat , light , sound , electricity , and chemical energy.
..... Click the link for more information. or information. Originally defined in thermodynamics Carnot cycle after the French physicist Sadi Carnot , who first discussed the implications of such cycles. During the Carnot cycle occurring in the operation of a heat engine, a definite quantity of heat is absorbed from a reservoir at high temperature; part of this heat is
in terms of heat and temperature, entropy indicates the degree to which a given quantity of thermal energy is available for doing useful work—the greater the entropy, the less available the energy. For example, consider a system composed of a hot body and a cold body; this system is ordered because the faster, more energetic molecules of the hot body are separated from the less energetic molecules of the cold body. If the bodies are placed in contact, heat will flow from the hot body to the cold one. This heat flow can be utilized by a heat engine (device which turns thermal energy into mechanical energy, or work), but once the two bodies have reached the same temperature, no more work can be done. Furthermore, the combined lukewarm bodies cannot unmix themselves into hot and cold parts in order to repeat the process. Although no energy has been lost by the heat transfer, the energy can no longer be used to do work. Thus the entropy of the system has increased. According to the second law of thermodynamics, during any process the change in entropy of a system and its surroundings is either zero or positive. In other words the entropy of the universe as a whole tends toward a maximum. This means that although energy cannot vanish because of the law of conservation of energy, it tends to be degraded from useful forms to useless ones. It should be noted that the second law of thermodynamics is statistical rather than exact; thus there is nothing to prevent the faster molecules from separating from the slow ones. However, such an occurrence is so improbable as to be impossible from a practical point of view. In information theory the term entropy is used to represent the sum of the predicted values of the data in a message.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia® Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/

Marxism and ecological economics Ecological economics is a transdisciplinary field of academic research that addresses the dynamic and spatial interdependence between human economies and natural ecosystems. ; toward a red and green political economy.

Burkett, Paul.

Brill Brill or Bril, Flemish painters, brothers.

Mattys Brill (mä`tīs), 1550–83, went to Rome early in his career and executed frescoes for Gregory XIII in the Vatican. Academic Publishers

2006

355 pages

$89.00

Hardcover

Historical materialism historical materialism: see dialectical materialism. book series; v.11

HC79

Insights from Marxist political economy, argues Burkett (economic, Indiana State U.) can aid ecological economics "better fulfill its commitments to methodological pluralism, interdisciplinarity, and openness to new visions of policy and of structural economic change that confront the current biospheric crisis." For the purposes of his argument, he focuses on four fundamental issues: the relations between nature and economic value, the treatment of nature as capital, the significance of the entropy blaw for economic systems, and the concept of sustainable development.. In addressing the last of these, he employs the Marxist distinction between environmental crises of capital accumulation versus crises in the natural conditions of human development and discusses how Marxism already integrates the sustainable development dimensions of the common pool character of natural resources; the co-evolution of individual human beings, society, and nature; and common property management of natural resources, all concepts dealt with more or less separately by ecological economists.

([c]20062005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)

Pp: Populism

a. A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.

b. Noun

a political strategy based on a calculated appeal to the interests or prejudices of ordinary people: the Islamic radicals preach a heady message of populism and religion

populist adjn

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

---

c. populism

1. the principles and doctrines of any political party asserting that it represents the rank and file of the people.
2. (cap.) the principles and doctrines of a late 19th-century American party, especially its support of agrarian interests and a silver coinage. — populist, n., adj. — populistic, adj.

Oo: Ontology

ontology

Theory of being as such. It IS because it is probable.

Kant Critique of Pure Reason

Three Degrees of Belief and Assent:
1. Opinion:
Admitting that it is subjectively and objectively insufficient.
2. Faith:
Subjectively Sufficient but Objectively insufficient.
3. Knowledge:
Subjectively Sufficient and Objectively Sufficient.

Kant Critique of Pure Reason

roman a clef

Noun

1.

roman a clef - a novel in which actual persons and events are disguised as fictional characters novel - an extended fictional work in prose; usually in the form of a story

Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2008 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

Based on true events, director Costa-Gavras's Oscar-winning film chronicles the overthrow of the democratic government in Greece. The edge-of-your-seat action closely parallels the real-life assassination of Gregorios Lambrakis, a Greek doctor and humanist whose murder in 1963 led to an abortive public scandal. Part mystery and part thriller, Z made its mark as a groundbreaking political roman à clef, and it resonates even today.