Language, Subjectivity and the Agon: A Comparative Study of Nietzsche and Lyotard

Political Philosophy and Ethic

MSSM Dark Matter Without Prejudice

Recently we examined a large number of points in a 19-dimensional parameter subspace of the CP-conserving MSSM with Minimal Flavor Violation. We determined whether each of these points satisfied existing theoretical, experimental, and observational constraints. Here we discuss the properties of the parameter space points allowed by existing data that are relevant for dark matter searches.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs; talk given at SUSY0

Goals of the ARISE Space VLBI Mission

Supermassive black holes, with masses of 10^6 to more than 10^9 solar masses, are among the most spectacular objects in the Universe, and are laboratories for physics in extreme conditions. The primary goal of ARISE (Advanced Radio Interferometry between Space and Earth) is to use the technique of Space VLBI to increase our understanding of black holes and their environments, by imaging the havoc produced in the near vicinity of the black holes by their enormous gravitational fields. The mission will be based on a 25-meter space-borne radio telescope operating at frequencies between 8 and 86 GHz, roughly equivalent to an orbiting element of the Very Long Baseline Array. In an elliptical orbit with an apogee height of 40,000-100,000 km, ARISE will provide resolution of 15 microarcseconds or better, 5-10 times better than that achievable on the ground. At frequencies of 43 and 86 GHz, the resolution of light weeks to light months in distant quasars will complement the gamma-ray and X-ray observations of high-energy photons, which come from the same regions near the massive black holes. At 22 GHz, ARISE will image the water maser disks in active galaxies more than 15 Mpc from Earth, probing accretion physics and giving accurate measurements of black-hole masses. ARISE also will study gravitational lenses at resolutions of tens of microarcseconds, yielding important information on the dark-matter distribution and on the possible existence of compact objects with masses of 10^3 to 10^6 solar masses.Comment: 6 pages, New Astronomy Reviews, Proceedings of 4th EVN/JIVE Symposium, LaTeX, document class elsart.cls, bibliography style natbib.st

Can History Teach Us Peace?

The idea that we can learn from history is a recurring one and this essay examines dialectically the arguments for and against the proposition that history can teach us peace. Eight objections to the proposition that we can teach peace through history are discussed: 1) the problem that history implies a social inevitability, 2) the difficulty in ascribing moral or ethical responsibility in historical explanation, 3) the reliance on counterfactual history in attempting to teach peace through history, 4) the war-centred nature of history, 5) the violence-centred nature of history, 6) the depersonalized construction of war in history, 7) the past-centred nature of history, 8) the problem of despair. The conclusion to this essay is that the teaching of peace is possible, although one does need to be mindful of the limitations to such a project and to have a deliberately open view of the future