David F. Percy is Professor of Operational Research & Applied Statistics at Salford Business School, University of Salford. A Chartered Mathematician, he is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a former Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society., medicine, business and industry.
Early life
He obtained his BSc in Mathematics from Loughborough University, following it by a PhD in Statistics from the University of Liverpool.
Academic and research career
He joined Salford in 1991 as a lecturer in statistics, progressing to senior lecturer and then Reader in Mathematics.
He has 12 refereed journal articles, has written 3 book sections and had papers published for 6 conference proceedings and a member of the Finance Committee. He is Chairperson of the Lancashire and North-west Branch. In 2007 he jointly organised and chaired the First I.M.A. International Conference on Mathematical Modelling in Sport.
Much of his initial research was funded by EPSRC. Since 2004, working with Professor David Forrest he has been on contract with the National Lottery Commission. He provides statistical work and consultancy advice on issues including the randomness of the Euro Millions, Thuderball, Lotto Extra, Lotto draws and the Lotto Lucky Dip facility'. He also has considerable experience working on research projects for the National Health Service<ref name=seek/>.
Early life
He obtained his BSc in Mathematics from Loughborough University, following it by a PhD in Statistics from the University of Liverpool.
Academic and research career
He joined Salford in 1991 as a lecturer in statistics, progressing to senior lecturer and then Reader in Mathematics.
He has 12 refereed journal articles, has written 3 book sections and had papers published for 6 conference proceedings and a member of the Finance Committee. He is Chairperson of the Lancashire and North-west Branch. In 2007 he jointly organised and chaired the First I.M.A. International Conference on Mathematical Modelling in Sport.
Much of his initial research was funded by EPSRC. Since 2004, working with Professor David Forrest he has been on contract with the National Lottery Commission. He provides statistical work and consultancy advice on issues including the randomness of the Euro Millions, Thuderball, Lotto Extra, Lotto draws and the Lotto Lucky Dip facility'. He also has considerable experience working on research projects for the National Health Service<ref name=seek/>.
Linear Programming Language - LPL - is a high-level computer-executable mathematical modeling language and modeling system, to build, modify and document linear, non-linear and other mathematical optimization and logical models. The system is applicable for solving complex and large-scale modeling applications with numerous constraints.
History
Initally, designed at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland for own large linear programming models in the early 90s, it became a platform for developing new ideas in the field of modeling and project-related promoted by the Swiss Federal Research Foundation. Eventually it was further developed and assigned by Virtual Optima Inc. .
Functionality
LPL is a powerful modeling language and a full-fetched mathematical modeling system with a point-and-click interface. The language is a structured mathematical and logical modeling and programming language with an extended index mechanism, which allows one to build, maintain, modify, and document large linear, non-linear, and other mathematical (optimization) models. A language compiler translates the model automatically into a solver acceptable form; reads data directly from database, calls a solver and can write the results directly back to the database or generate complex solution report files. LPL can communicate with most commercial and free solvers.
the essence of the content
* declarative mathematical language
* algorithimic programming language
* optimization tool
* data modeling tool
* data manipulation tool
* modeling environment
* documentation tool
* reporting tool
* library in other applications
* internet solving tool
History
Initally, designed at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland for own large linear programming models in the early 90s, it became a platform for developing new ideas in the field of modeling and project-related promoted by the Swiss Federal Research Foundation. Eventually it was further developed and assigned by Virtual Optima Inc. .
Functionality
LPL is a powerful modeling language and a full-fetched mathematical modeling system with a point-and-click interface. The language is a structured mathematical and logical modeling and programming language with an extended index mechanism, which allows one to build, maintain, modify, and document large linear, non-linear, and other mathematical (optimization) models. A language compiler translates the model automatically into a solver acceptable form; reads data directly from database, calls a solver and can write the results directly back to the database or generate complex solution report files. LPL can communicate with most commercial and free solvers.
the essence of the content
* declarative mathematical language
* algorithimic programming language
* optimization tool
* data modeling tool
* data manipulation tool
* modeling environment
* documentation tool
* reporting tool
* library in other applications
* internet solving tool
Sophia Stewart (aka Zenia Kavala) is an African-American and the author of a work titled The Third Eye. In 2003 she unsuccessfully sued several people and organizations associated with The Matrix and The Terminator claiming they infringed on her work. However, because Stewart failed to appear for a preliminary hearing, her original lawsuit was dismissed in 2005.
In the original copyright registration for The Third Eye and letters from the author, Stewart uses Sofia, and uses both Sophia and Sofia in real life. She says they both mean the same.
Litigation
Stewart's manuscript of Third Eye was registered with the United States Copyright Office (TXu 117-610) on February 2, 1983. Additional work was registered on February 6, 1984 (TXu-154-281) consisting of a narrative, preface, introductions, 8 brief chapters, and illustrations. Stewart claims this work has been creatively infringed upon by the movie series The Matrix and Terminator, and has taken legal action. Stewart asserts that "these two franchises are owned by the same people or movie house".
A complaint was filed by Stewart against Larry Wachowski and Andy Wachowski, Warner Bros., and Joel Silver, (responsible for The Matrix and its sequels/spin offs) and Gale Ann Hurd, James Cameron, Hemdale Films and 20th Century Fox (responsible for Terminator and its sequels) in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on April 24, 2003. In the complaint, damages are sought for relief from the results of copyright infringement, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) violations, and supplemental state claims.
On October 4, 2004, the court granted her leave to continue the case against the accused. This particular case has since been dismissed:
Stewart believes that her lawyers are to blame for the failure of her lawsuit, she explains on her website: "I want the people to know that the defendants have not only defrauded me… but with this great deception the entire world has been made a victim to this scam". She further explains her position and intent keep on with her suit. On July 30, 2007, Sophia Stewart filed a $150 million malpractice lawsuit (case number 2:07-cv-00552-DAK) against her former attorneys: Michael T. Stoller, Jonathan Lubell, Gary S. Brown, and Dean Webb in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah.
In the original copyright registration for The Third Eye and letters from the author, Stewart uses Sofia, and uses both Sophia and Sofia in real life. She says they both mean the same.
Litigation
Stewart's manuscript of Third Eye was registered with the United States Copyright Office (TXu 117-610) on February 2, 1983. Additional work was registered on February 6, 1984 (TXu-154-281) consisting of a narrative, preface, introductions, 8 brief chapters, and illustrations. Stewart claims this work has been creatively infringed upon by the movie series The Matrix and Terminator, and has taken legal action. Stewart asserts that "these two franchises are owned by the same people or movie house".
A complaint was filed by Stewart against Larry Wachowski and Andy Wachowski, Warner Bros., and Joel Silver, (responsible for The Matrix and its sequels/spin offs) and Gale Ann Hurd, James Cameron, Hemdale Films and 20th Century Fox (responsible for Terminator and its sequels) in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on April 24, 2003. In the complaint, damages are sought for relief from the results of copyright infringement, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) violations, and supplemental state claims.
On October 4, 2004, the court granted her leave to continue the case against the accused. This particular case has since been dismissed:
Stewart believes that her lawyers are to blame for the failure of her lawsuit, she explains on her website: "I want the people to know that the defendants have not only defrauded me… but with this great deception the entire world has been made a victim to this scam". She further explains her position and intent keep on with her suit. On July 30, 2007, Sophia Stewart filed a $150 million malpractice lawsuit (case number 2:07-cv-00552-DAK) against her former attorneys: Michael T. Stoller, Jonathan Lubell, Gary S. Brown, and Dean Webb in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah.
In The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Our Understanding of the Universe, published in 1999 and also sold under the alternate title The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics, Julian Barbour as anything but an illusion.
Auto-biography
The book begins by describing how Barbour's view of time evolved. After taking physics in graduate school, Barbour became obsessed with the idea that time is nothing but change. He encountered the work of Paul Dirac which turned his attention to the results of quantum physics. He worked as a translator of Russian scientific articles, providing him plenty of time to pursue his research as he desired.
Possibility
Cognizant of the counter-intuitive nature of his claim, Barbour eases the reader into the topic by first endeavouring to persuade the reader that our experiences are, at the very least, consistent with a timeless universe, leaving aside the question as to why one would hold such a view.
Barbour points out that some sciences have long done away with the 'I' as a persisting identity. To take atomic theory seriously is to deny that the cat that jumps is the cat that lands, to use an illustration of Barbour's. The seething nebula of molecules of which we, cats, and all matter are made is ceaselessly rearranging at incomprehensibly fast speeds. The microcosm metamorphoses constantly, therefore one must deny there is any sense to say a cat or a person persists through time.
Early on, Barbour addresses the charge that writing with tensed verbs disproves his proposal. The next revolution in physics will undermine speaking in terms of time, he says, but there is no alternative.
If a universe is composed of timeless instants in the sense of configurations of matter that do not endure, one could nonetheless have the impression that time flows, Barbour asserts. The stream of consciousness and the sensation of the present, lasting about a second, is all in our heads, literally. In our brains is information about the recent past, but not as a result of a causal chain leading back to earlier instants. Rather, it is a property of thinking things, perhaps a necessary one to become thinking in the first place, that this information is present. In Barbour's words, brains are 'time-capsules'. He investigates configuration spaces and best-matching mathematics, fleshing out how fundamental physics might deal with different instants in a timeless scheme. He calls his universe without time and only relative positions 'Platonia' after world of eternal forms.
Plausibility
Why, then, is the instant in configuration space, not matter in space-time, the true object and frame of the universe? He marshals as evidence a non-standard analysis of relativity, many-worlds theory and the ADM formalism. Since, he believes, we should be open to physics without time, we must evaluate anew physical laws such of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation that take on radical but powerful and fruitful forms when time is left out. Barbour writes that our notion of time, and our insistence on it in physical theory, has held science back, and that a scientific revolution awaits. Barbour suspects that the wave function is somehow constrained by the 'terrain' of Platonia.
Barbour ends with a short meditation on some of the consequences of 'the end of time'. If there is no arrow of time, no becoming only being, creation is equally inherent in every instant.
Auto-biography
The book begins by describing how Barbour's view of time evolved. After taking physics in graduate school, Barbour became obsessed with the idea that time is nothing but change. He encountered the work of Paul Dirac which turned his attention to the results of quantum physics. He worked as a translator of Russian scientific articles, providing him plenty of time to pursue his research as he desired.
Possibility
Cognizant of the counter-intuitive nature of his claim, Barbour eases the reader into the topic by first endeavouring to persuade the reader that our experiences are, at the very least, consistent with a timeless universe, leaving aside the question as to why one would hold such a view.
Barbour points out that some sciences have long done away with the 'I' as a persisting identity. To take atomic theory seriously is to deny that the cat that jumps is the cat that lands, to use an illustration of Barbour's. The seething nebula of molecules of which we, cats, and all matter are made is ceaselessly rearranging at incomprehensibly fast speeds. The microcosm metamorphoses constantly, therefore one must deny there is any sense to say a cat or a person persists through time.
Early on, Barbour addresses the charge that writing with tensed verbs disproves his proposal. The next revolution in physics will undermine speaking in terms of time, he says, but there is no alternative.
If a universe is composed of timeless instants in the sense of configurations of matter that do not endure, one could nonetheless have the impression that time flows, Barbour asserts. The stream of consciousness and the sensation of the present, lasting about a second, is all in our heads, literally. In our brains is information about the recent past, but not as a result of a causal chain leading back to earlier instants. Rather, it is a property of thinking things, perhaps a necessary one to become thinking in the first place, that this information is present. In Barbour's words, brains are 'time-capsules'. He investigates configuration spaces and best-matching mathematics, fleshing out how fundamental physics might deal with different instants in a timeless scheme. He calls his universe without time and only relative positions 'Platonia' after world of eternal forms.
Plausibility
Why, then, is the instant in configuration space, not matter in space-time, the true object and frame of the universe? He marshals as evidence a non-standard analysis of relativity, many-worlds theory and the ADM formalism. Since, he believes, we should be open to physics without time, we must evaluate anew physical laws such of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation that take on radical but powerful and fruitful forms when time is left out. Barbour writes that our notion of time, and our insistence on it in physical theory, has held science back, and that a scientific revolution awaits. Barbour suspects that the wave function is somehow constrained by the 'terrain' of Platonia.
Barbour ends with a short meditation on some of the consequences of 'the end of time'. If there is no arrow of time, no becoming only being, creation is equally inherent in every instant.