Paradigm Case Arguments

From time to time philosophers and scientists have made sensational, provocative claims that certain things do not exist or never happen that, in everyday life, we unquestioningly take for granted as existing or happening. These claims have included denying the existence of matter, space, time, the self, free will, and other sturdy and basic elements of our common-sense or naïve world-view. Around the middle of the twentieth century an argument was developed that can be used to challenge many such skeptical claims based on linguistic considerations, which came to be known as the Paradigm Case Argument ..

MuLan: Towards a 1ppm muon lifetime measurement

The MuLan experiment will measure the lifetime of the positive muon to 1ppm. Within the Standard Model framework, this will permit a determination of the Fermi Constant to 0.5ppm. I present an update on our progress and achievements to date.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure, contribution to the proceedings of CIPANP 2006 (May 30-June 3, 2006), Rio Grande, Puerto Ric

Composite scalars at CERN LEP: Constraining technicolor theories

LEPI and LEPII data can be used to constrain technicolor models with light, neutral pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons, Pa. We use published limits on branching ratios and cross sections for final states with photons, large missing energy, jet pairs, and b bbar pairs to constrain the anomalous Pa Z0 Z0, Pa Z0 photon, and Pa photon photon couplings. From these results, we derive bounds on the size of the technicolor gauge group and the number of technifermion doublets in models such as Low-scale Technicolor

Monastic hospitality : explorations

In a theoretical model, religious retreats are placed by Lynch (2005a) within the category of traditional commercial homes, noting that the essence of a commercial home is the use of the home as a vehicle for generating income. Lynch (2005b:539) describes the 'commercial home host' as "the principal contact whom the guest encounters when staying in the commercial home," and further states that "the host is central to the product experience in commercial homes. Successful stays from a guest perspective are dependent upon the quality of host-guest interactions" (Lynch 2005c:541). This chapter explores the provision of hospitality within Benedictine Monastries in order to contribute to insights on the commercial home, and starts by locating them within the context of literature on religious tourism and the umbrella term 'religious retreat house'

A Limit Theorem in Cryptography.

Cryptography is the study of encryptying and decrypting messages and deciphering encrypted messages when the code is unknown. We consider Λπ(Δx, Δy) which is a count of how many ways a permutation satisfies a certain property. According to Hawkes and O\u27Connor, the distribution of Λπ(Δx, Δy) tends to a Poisson distribution with parameter ½ as m → ∞ for all Δx,Δy ∈ (Z/qZ)m - 0. We give a proof of this theorem using the Stein-Chen method: As qm approaches infinity, the distribution of Λπ(Δx, Δy) is approximately Poisson with parameter ½. Error bounds for this approximation are provided

A Plagued Mind: The Justification of Violence within the Principles of Maximilien Robespierre

A Plagued Mind: The Justification of Violence within the Principles of Maximilien Robespierre, takes a new look into the political career of the French Revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre. This work explores the reasons as to why a man who valued principles so highly would seemingly turn against them by instituting the Reign of Terror. It follows the course of Robespierre\u27s political career from beginning to end, and explains how each action taken by Robespierre was actually not an attempt to rise to power, but rather a sincere effort to create a republican France. As the French Revolution spiraled into chaos, so to did Maximilien Robespierre. As the situation of the Revolution became more dire, Robespierre began to justify acts of increasing extremity, climaxing with the infamous Reign of Terror