152 research outputs found
A Modern Titan
I seriously propose for your consideration that not Charles Darwin, not Abraham Lincoln, not Bismarck, have so profoundly influenced the life of the world today as has the German writer and Socialist organizer, Karl Marx. The god of Soviet Russia is Karl Marx. And Vladimir Ilyitch Ulianoff—Lenin—is his Messiah. The Bible of the working classes of Europe-yes, of Socialist working men around the world, is the book which Karl Marx first published in 1867— Das Capital, in which his economic social theories are advanced with tremendous power, although with an opacity of expression that obstructed their meaning from him who reads them casually. I want to say something\u27to you about this man whose thinking is so alien to our own, and yet who is so deeply affecting the life of a large number of the human race today. Consider that a portrait of Karl Marx hangs on the wall of every village assembly room in Russia. Lenin devoted himself not only to expounding the doctrine of Karl Marx, or forcing it upon Russia, but of endeavoring to bring all the Russian peoples to regard Karl Marx as their genius, as their guide, philosopher and friend. Soviet Russia is the expression, as Lenin conceived it, of the teachings of Karl Marx. When one hundred sixty millions of people are committed by their legal heads, the Communist Party of Russia, to set a program, it is well for us to try to understand it, and when you understand that a part and parcel of that teaching is of necessity of a continuous and unremitting propaganda to express that doctrine around the world, you are given cause for thought
Problems of the Pacific
"We are confronted by the problems of the Pacific, and the powers of the Pacific, China and Japan, are met before us face to face.
Thermal gravity, black holes and cosmological entropy
Taking seriously the interpretation of black hole entropy as the logarithm of
the number of microstates, we argue that thermal gravitons may undergo a phase
transition to a kind of black hole condensate. The phase transition proceeds
via nucleation of black holes at a rate governed by a saddlepoint configuration
whose free energy is of order the inverse temperature in Planck units. Whether
the universe remains in a low entropy state as opposed to the high entropy
black hole condensate depends sensitively on its thermal history. Our results
may clarify an old observation of Penrose regarding the very low entropy state
of the universe.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, RevTex. v4: to appear in Phys. Rev.
Towards Quantum Superpositions of a Mirror: an Exact Open Systems Analysis
We analyze the recently proposed mirror superposition experiment of Marshall,
Simon, Penrose, and Bouwmeester, assuming that the mirror's dynamics contains a
non-unitary term of the Lindblad type proportional to -[q,[q,\rho]], with q the
position operator for the center of mass of the mirror, and \rho the
statistical operator. We derive an exact formula for the fringe visibility for
this system. We discuss the consequences of our result for tests of
environmental decoherence and of collapse models. In particular, we find that
with the conventional parameters for the CSL model of state vector collapse,
maintenance of coherence is expected to within an accuracy of at least 1 part
in 10^{8}. Increasing the apparatus coupling to environmental decoherence may
lead to observable modifications of the fringe visibility, with time dependence
given by our exact result.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX. Substantial changes mad
Recent advances in rhodium-catalysed conjugate addition reactions
The research presented herein is concerned with the exploration of rhodium-catalysed addition reactions with organoboranes encompassing the 1,4-addition enolate protonation to benzyl acrylate esters, and the synthesis of chiral organoboranes for use in the synthesis of natural products Hermitamides A and B. Chapter 1 introduces the area of rhodium-catalysed conjugate addition as a tool for asymmetric synthesis. An extensive discussion of this methodology is included and recent advances in the area will be highlighted. In addition to this some recently published alternatives to organoboranes are outlined and their use in rhodium-catalysed chemistry documented. Chapter 2 discusses the tandem process of rhodium-catalysed conjugate addition enolate protonation, a recently observed asymmetric development. By using a novel route to benzyl acrylic esters the synthesis of α,α′-dibenzyl esters is achieved in excellent yields and selectivity. This study highlights the fact that when dealing with 1,1-disubstituted activated alkenes it is more difficult to produce enantioselective results as the chirality is determined in the protonation step and not during insertion. Some insights into the mechanism are proposed based on the outcomes observed. Chapter 3 describes the total synthesis of Lyngbic Acid and related structures Hermitamides A and B. Synthesis of these natural products are achieved by synthesis of an enantiopure organoborane species and its subsequent coupling via rhodium catalysis. Some interesting insights into the addition of alkenyl organoborane species to unsubstituted 1,1-activated alkenes are detailed. Chapter 4 describes the synthesis and characterisation for the compounds discussed in the previous chapters.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Problems of the Pacific
"We are confronted by the problems of the Pacific, and the powers of the Pacific, China and Japan, are met before us face to face.
Is Hilbert space discrete?
We show that discretization of spacetime naturally suggests discretization of
Hilbert space itself. Specifically, in a universe with a minimal length (for
example, due to quantum gravity), no experiment can exclude the possibility
that Hilbert space is discrete. We give some simple examples involving qubits
and the Schrodinger wavefunction, and discuss implications for quantum
information and quantum gravity.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, 1 figur
Human bronchial fibroblasts express the 5-lipoxygenase pathway
BACKGROUND: Fibroblasts are implicated in sub-epithelial fibrosis in remodeled asthmatic airways and contribute to airway inflammation by releasing cytokines and other mediators. Fibroblast activity is influenced by members of the leukotriene family of bronchoconstrictor and inflammatory mediators, but it is not known whether human bronchial fibroblasts can synthesize leukotrienes. METHODS: The expression of leukotriene biosynthetic enzymes and receptors was investigated in primary fibroblasts from the bronchi of normal and asthmatic adult subjects using RT-PCR, Western blotting, immunocytochemistry and flow cytometry. RESULTS: These techniques revealed that human bronchial fibroblasts from both subject groups constitutively express 5-lipoxygenase, its activating protein FLAP, the terminal enzymes leukotriene A(4 )hydrolase and leukotriene C(4 )synthase, and receptors for leukotriene B(4 )(BLT1) and cysteinyl-leukotrienes (CysLT(1)). Human bronchial fibroblasts generated immunoreactive leukotriene B(4 )and cysteinyl-leukotrienes spontaneously and in increased amounts after calcium-dependent activation. Flow cytometry showed that human bronchial fibroblasts transformed to a myofibroblast-like phenotype by culture with transforming growth factor-β(1 )expressed 320–400% more immunofluorescence for leukotriene C(4 )synthase and CysLT(1 )receptors, with 60–80% reductions in leukotriene A(4 )hydrolase and BLT1 receptors. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that human bronchial fibroblasts may not only respond to exogenous leukotrienes but also generate leukotrienes implicated in narrowing, inflammation and remodeling of the asthmatic airway
Comments on Proposed Gravitational Modifications of Schrodinger Dynamics and their Experimental Implications
We discuss aspects of gravitational modifications of Schrodinger dynamics
proposed by Diosi and Penrose. We consider first the Diosi-Penrose criterion
for gravitationally induced state vector reduction, and compute the reduction
time expected for a superposition of a uniform density cubical solid in two
positions displaced by a small fraction of the cube side. We show that the
predicted effect is much smaller than would be observable in the proposed
Marshall et al. mirror experiment. We then consider the ``Schrodinger -Newton''
equation for an N-particle system. We show that in the independent particle
approximation, it differs from the usual Hartree approximation applied to the
Newtonian potential by self-interaction terms, which do not have a consistent
Born rule interpretation. This raises doubts about the use of the
Schrodinger-Newton equation to calculate gravitational effects on molecular
interference experiments. When the effects of Newtonian gravitation on
molecular diffraction are calculated using the standard many-body Schrodinger
equation, no washing out of the interference pattern is predicted.Comment: Tex, 17
- …