Book Review: Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opera, 1789-1794

Dr. Wayne Wentzel\u27s review of Mark Darlow, Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opéra, 1789-1794. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. xi + 421 pp. Tables, illustrations, graphs, musical examples, bibliography and index. $ 65.00 (hb). ISBN 978-0-19-977372-5

Modal Interpretations and Relativity

A proof is given, at a greater level of generality than previous 'no-go' theorems, of the impossibility of formulating a modal interpretation that exhibits 'serious' Lorentz invariance at the fundamental level. Particular attention is given to modal interpretations of the type proposed by Bub.Comment: 14 pages, to appear in Foundations of Physics Letter

Nonseparability, Classical and Quantum

This paper examines the implications of the holonomy interpretation of classical electromagnetism. As has been argued by Richard Healey and Gordon Belot, classical electromagnetism on this interpretation evinces a form of nonseparability, something that otherwise might have been thought of as confined to non-classical physics. Consideration of the differences between this classical nonseparability and quantum nonseparability shows that the nonseparability exhibited by classical electromagnetism on the holonomy interpretation is closer to separability than might at first appear

Probabilities in Statistical Mechanics: What are they?

This paper addresses the question of how we should regard the probability distributions introduced into statistical mechanics. It will be argued that it is problematic to take them either as purely ontic, or purely epistemic. I will propose a third alternative: they are almost objective probabilities, or epistemic chances. The definition of such probabilities involves an interweaving of epistemic and physical considerations, and thus they cannot be classified as either purely epistemic or purely ontic. This conception, it will be argued, resolves some of the puzzles associated with statistical mechanical probabilities: it explains how probabilistic posits introduced on the basis of incomplete knowledge can yield testable predictions, and it also bypasses the problem of disastrous retrodictions, that is, the fact the standard equilibrium measures yield high probability of the system being in equilibrium in the recent past, even when we know otherwise. As the problem does not arise on the conception of probabilities considered here, there is no need to invoke a Past Hypothesis as a special posit to avoid it

Book Reviews: Darius Milhaud by Paul Collaer; “The Operas of Darius Milhaud by Jeremy Drake

Wayne Wentzel\u27s book review contributions to Notes: The Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Associatio

Application of three-dimensional Bezier patches in grid generation

Bezier and B-spline patches are popular tools in surface modeling. With these methods, a surface is represented by the tensor product of univariate approximations. The extension of this concept to three dimensions is obvious and can be applied to the problem of grid generation. This report will demonstrate how three dimensional patches can be used in solid modeling and in the generation of grids. Examples will be given demonstrating the ability to generate three dimensional grids directly from a wire frame without having to first set up the boundary surfaces. Many geometric grid properties can be imposed by the proper choice of the control net

Metastability and rapid convergence to quasi-stationary bar states for the 2D Navier-Stokes Equations

Quasi-stationary, or metastable, states play an important role in two-dimensional turbulent fluid flows where they often emerge on time-scales much shorter than the viscous time scale, and then dominate the dynamics for very long time intervals. In this paper we propose a dynamical systems explanation of the metastability of an explicit family of solutions, referred to as bar states, of the two-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equation on the torus. These states are physically relevant because they are associated with certain maximum entropy solutions of the Euler equations, and they have been observed as one type of metastable state in numerical studies of two-dimensional turbulence. For small viscosity (high Reynolds number), these states are quasi-stationary in the sense that they decay on the slow, viscous timescale. Linearization about these states leads to a time-dependent operator. We show that if we approximate this operator by dropping a higher-order, non-local term, it produces a decay rate much faster than the viscous decay rate. We also provide numerical evidence that the same result holds for the full linear operator, and that our theoretical results give the optimal decay rate in this setting.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures. Version 3: minor error from version 2 correcte