The Rule of Law as a Law of Standards: Interpreting the Internal Revenue Code

This Essay seeks to demonstrate that the interpretive use of standards in applying provisions of the Internal Revenue Code is not inconsistent with the rule of law. Part I discusses the relationship between rules and the rule of law and explains why we think so many tax scholars are drawn to a view of the tax law as consisting primarily of rules. We then demonstrate that the definition of income is properly understood as a standard. Part II addresses the descriptive dimension of this claim, summarizing and expanding our previous discussion of the definition of income to determine whether the term is susceptible to construction as a rule. We show that even a brief trip through some of the litigation required to determine whether certain items are income leads to the conclusion that the definition of income is not a rule. Part III addresses the normative dimension of our claim. There, we tease out the functions served by interpreting income as a standard and question where the interpretive authority lies with respect to the Code in order to argue that income ought to be treated as a standard. Part IV turns to several examples of what Professor Lawrence Zelenak regards as either a “disregard” or an “underenforcement” of the law to clarify our understanding of interpretation. We then conclude by observing that the Code does not “read itself”: Deciding whether a provision is itself a rule or a standard is itself an act of interpretation. Moreover, interpreting a provision as a standard is fully consistent with the rule of law

Nature of BD + 17° 4708

Oke, Greenstein, and Gunn (1966) called the GO star BD + 17° 4708 a field horizontal-branch star. They determined its effective temperature to be 6000° K, and its surface gravity as log g = 3.0. In his study of field horizontal-branch stars, Newell (1969) found + 17° 4708 to be the reddest such star, and it occupied a critical position in his plot of 0_e vs. log g, serving to separate more clearly the groups he calls disk horizontal-branch and halo horizontal-branch stars. It is the purpose ofthis note to indicate that + 17° 4708 is a G subdwarf, possibly slightly evolved, rather than a field horizontal-branch star

The Faint End of the Main Sequence

New infrared observations of the two faintest known, late M dwarfs, Wolf 359 and +4°4048B (=VB 10) provide accurate luminosities and moderately well-determined temperatures (2500° and 2250° K, respectively). The photometric observations are fitted to a blackbody energy distribution on the assumption that line and band blocking affect most of the spectrum below 1 μ; the temperature structure is taken as that of a gray body. The resulting data, together with Johnson's observations for dM4 and dM5 stars, which have been reanalyzed, calibrate the faint end of the main sequence, with results given in a table and a figure. The bolometric corrections are very large and increase steeply to 6 mag, so that the faintest known stars are, in fact, not very faint; Wolf 359 has L = 13 X 10^(-4) L_☉, and VB 10 has L = 5 X 10^(-4) L_☉. A statistical discussion of Luyten's faint red stars of large proper motion gives L = 4 X 10^(-4) L_☉. With a conventional mass-luminosity relation, ℳ ≥ 0.09 ℳ_☉ , for stars of known luminosity. Stars of still lower mass, such as L726-8, are difficult to interpret

Spectrum of a^2; Canum Venaticorum, 5000-6700 Å

A complete list is given of all lines observed between 5000 and 6650 Å in the spectrum of a^2 CVn. Approximately three-quarters of the features have been identified. Lines of Pb ii and P ii are not present. Lines of Gd m and Pr m vary in equivalent width and radial velocity in a manner similar to the singly ionized rare earths. Lines of Cl ii are present and also behave like those of a rare earth

Indistinguishability and Interference in the Coherent Control of Atomic and Molecular Processes

The subtle and fundamental issue of indistinguishability and interference between independent pathways to the same target state is examined in the context of coherent control of atomic and molecular processes, with emphasis placed on possible "which-way" information due to quantum entanglement established in the quantum dynamics. Because quantum interference between independent pathways to the same target state occurs only when the independent pathways are indistinguishable, it is first shown that creating useful coherence (as defined in the paper) between nondegenerate states of a molecule for subsequent quantum interference manipulation cannot be achieved by collisions between atoms or molecules that are prepared in momentum and energy eigenstates. Coherence can, however, be transferred from light fields to atoms or molecules. Using a particular coherent control scenario, it is shown that this coherence transfer and the subsequent coherent phase control can be readily realized by the most classical states of light, i.e., coherent states of light. It is further demonstrated that quantum states of light may suppress the extent of phase-sensitive coherent control by leaking out some which-way information while "incoherent interference control" scenarios proposed in the literature have automatically ensured the indistinguishability of multiple excitation pathways. The possibility of quantum coherence in photodissociation product states is also understood in terms of the disentanglement between photodissociation fragments. Results offer deeper insights into quantum coherence generation in atomic and molecular processes.Comment: 26 pages, based on one Chapter from first author's Ph.D thesis in 200

Quantum mechanics explained

The physical motivation for the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics is made clear and compelling by starting from an obvious fact - essentially, the stability of matter - and inquiring into its preconditions: what does it take to make this fact possible?Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures. v2: revised in response to referee comment

Realistic interpretation of a superposition state does not imply a mixture

Contrary to previous claims, it is shown that, for an ensemble of either single-particle systems or multi-particle systems, the realistic interpretation of a superposition state that mathematically describes the ensemble does not imply that the ensemble is a mixture. Therefore it cannot be argued that the realistic interpretation is wrong on the basis that some predictions derived from the mixture are different from the corresponding predictions derived from the superposition state

Identification of 13 DB + dM and 2 DC + dM binaries from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We present the identification of 13 DB + dM binaries and 2 DC + dM binaries from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Before the SDSS only 2 DB + dM binaries and 1 DC + dM binary were known. At least three, possibly 8, of the new DB + dM binaries seem to have white dwarf temperatures well above 30000 K which would place them in the so called DB-gap. Finding these DB white dwarfs in binaries may suggest that they have formed through a different evolutionary channel than the ones in which DA white dwarfs transform into DB white dwarfs due to convection in the upper layers.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in A&A Letter