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🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 Finance & Investment 🔗 Economics 🔗 Numismatics

The everything bubble refers to the correlated impact of monetary easing by the Federal Reserve (and followed by the ECB and the BOJ), on asset prices in most asset classes, namely equities, housing, bonds, many commodities, and even exotic assets such as cryptocurrencies and SPACs. The term is related to the Fed put, being the tools of direct and indirect quantative easing that the Fed used to execute the monetary easing, and to modern monetary theory, which advocates use of such tools, even in non-crisis periods, to create economic growth through asset price inflation. The term first came in use during the chair of Janet Yellen, but it is most associated with the subsequent chair of Jerome Powell, and the 2020–2021 period of the coronavirus pandemic.

The everything bubble was not only notable for the simultaneous extremes in valuations recorded in a wide range of asset classes and the high level of speculation in the market, but also that this was achieved in a period of recession, high unemployment, trade wars, and political turmoil – leading to a realization that it was uniquely a central bank creation, with concerns on the independence and integrity of market pricing, and on the Fed's impact on wealth inequality.

Bloomberg attributed Powell's maintenance of monetary stimulus into 2021 (the final year of his first term as Fed chair), in spite of warnings of unprecedented levels of market risk and speculation, to his fear of repeating the crash in Q4 2018 when he started quantitative tightening; thus extending the bubble.

High up on his [President Biden] list, and sooner rather than later, will be dealing with the consequences of the biggest financial bubble in U.S. history. Why the biggest? Because it encompasses not just stocks but pretty much every other financial asset too. And for that, you may thank the Federal Reserve.

Salt water dimmers, which are an example of liquid rheostats, were used in theatres after the introduction of electric lighting to control the brightness of the lights on stage.

🔗 Australia 🔗 Death 🔗 Australia/Sydney 🔗 Australia/Australian crime

The Bogle–Chandler case refers to the mysterious deaths of Gilbert Bogle and Margaret Chandler on the banks of the Lane Cove River in Sydney, Australia on 1 January 1963. The case became famous because of the circumstances in which the bodies were found and because the cause of death could not be established. In 2006 a filmmaker discovered evidence to suggest the cause of death was hydrogen sulphide gas. In the early hours of 1 January an eruption of gas from the polluted river bed may have occurred, causing the noxious fumes to pool in deadly quantities in the grove.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Physics 🔗 Systems 🔗 Systems/Cybernetics

Bremermann's limit, named after Hans-Joachim Bremermann, is a limit on the maximum rate of computation that can be achieved in a self-contained system in the material universe. It is derived from Einstein's mass-energy equivalency and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and is c²/h ≈ 1.36 × 10⁵⁰ bits per second per kilogram. This value is important when designing cryptographic algorithms, as it can be used to determine the minimum size of encryption keys or hash values required to create an algorithm that could never be cracked by a brute-force search.

For example, a computer with the mass of the entire Earth operating at the Bremermann's limit could perform approximately 10⁷⁵ mathematical computations per second. If one assumes that a cryptographic key can be tested with only one operation, then a typical 128-bit key could be cracked in under 10⁻³⁶ seconds. However, a 256-bit key (which is already in use in some systems) would take about two minutes to crack. Using a 512-bit key would increase the cracking time to approaching 10⁷² years, without increasing the time for encryption by more than a constant factor (depending on the encryption algorithms used).

The limit has been further analysed in later literature as the maximum rate at which a system with energy spread ${\displaystyle \Delta E}$ can evolve into an orthogonal and hence distinguishable state to another, ${\displaystyle \Delta t={\frac {\pi \hbar }{2\Delta E}}.}$ In particular, Margolus and Levitin have shown that a quantum system with average energy E takes at least time ${\displaystyle \Delta t={\frac {\pi \hbar }{2E}}}$ to evolve into an orthogonal state. However, it has been shown that access to quantum memory in principle allows computational algorithms that require arbitrarily small amount of energy/time per one elementary computation step.

🔗 Mathematics

Reverse mathematics is a program in mathematical logic that seeks to determine which axioms are required to prove theorems of mathematics. Its defining method can briefly be described as "going backwards from the theorems to the axioms", in contrast to the ordinary mathematical practice of deriving theorems from axioms. It can be conceptualized as sculpting out necessary conditions from sufficient ones.

The reverse mathematics program was foreshadowed by results in set theory such as the classical theorem that the axiom of choice and Zorn's lemma are equivalent over ZF set theory. The goal of reverse mathematics, however, is to study possible axioms of ordinary theorems of mathematics rather than possible axioms for set theory.

Reverse mathematics is usually carried out using subsystems of second-order arithmetic, where many of its definitions and methods are inspired by previous work in constructive analysis and proof theory. The use of second-order arithmetic also allows many techniques from recursion theory to be employed; many results in reverse mathematics have corresponding results in computable analysis. Recently, higher-order reverse mathematics has been introduced, in which the focus is on subsystems of higher-order arithmetic, and the associated richer language.

The program was founded by Harvey Friedman (1975, 1976) and brought forward by Steve Simpson. A standard reference for the subject is (Simpson 2009), while an introduction for non-specialists is (Stillwell 2018). An introduction to higher-order reverse mathematics, and also the founding paper, is (Kohlenbach (2005)).

🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Military science, technology, and theory 🔗 Politics 🔗 Media 🔗 Journalism

Atrocity propaganda is the spreading of information about the crimes committed by an enemy, which can be factual, but often includes or features deliberate fabrications or exaggerations. This can involve photographs, videos, illustrations, interviews, and other forms of information presentation or reporting.

The inherently violent nature of war means that exaggeration and invention of atrocities often becomes the main staple of propaganda. Patriotism is often not enough to make people hate the enemy, and propaganda is also necessary. "So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations", wrote Harold Lasswell, "that every war must appear to be a war of defense against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about who the public is to hate." Human testimony may be unreliable even in ordinary circumstances, but in wartime, it can be further muddled by bias, sentiment, and misguided patriotism.

According to Paul Linebarger, atrocity propaganda leads to real atrocities, as it incites the enemy into committing more atrocities, and, by heating up passions, it increases the chances of one's own side committing atrocities, in revenge for the ones reported in propaganda. Atrocity propaganda might also lead the public to mistrust reports of actual atrocities. In January 1944, Arthur Koestler wrote of his frustration at trying to communicate what he had witnessed in Nazi-occupied Europe: the legacy of anti-German stories during World War I, many of which were debunked in the postwar years, meant that these reports were received with considerable amounts of skepticism.

Like propaganda, atrocity rumors detailing exaggerated or invented crimes perpetrated by enemies are also circulated to vilify the opposing side. The application of atrocity propaganda is not limited to times of conflict but can be implemented to sway public opinion and create a Casus belli to declare war.

🔗 Physiology 🔗 Evolutionary biology

In evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, the Trivers–Willard hypothesis, formally proposed by Robert Trivers and Dan Willard in 1973, suggests that female mammals are able to adjust offspring sex ratio in response to their maternal condition. For example, it may predict greater parental investment in males by parents in "good conditions" and greater investment in females by parents in "poor conditions" (relative to parents in good condition). The reasoning for this prediction is as follows: Assume that parents have information on the sex of their offspring and can influence their survival differentially. While pressures exist to maintain sex ratios at 50%, evolution will favor local deviations from this if one sex has a likely greater reproductive payoff than is usual.

Trivers and Willard also identified a circumstance in which reproducing individuals might experience deviations from expected offspring reproductive value—namely, varying maternal condition. In polygynous species males may mate with multiple females and low-condition males will achieve fewer or no matings. Parents in relatively good condition would then be under selection for mutations causing production and investment in sons (rather than daughters), because of the increased chance of mating experienced by these good-condition sons. Mating with multiple females conveys a large reproductive benefit, whereas daughters could translate their condition into only smaller benefits. An opposite prediction holds for poor-condition parents—selection will favor production and investment in daughters, so long as daughters are likely to be mated, while sons in poor condition are likely to be out-competed by other males and end up with zero mates (i.e., those sons will be a reproductive dead end).

The hypothesis was used to explain why, for example, Red Deer mothers would produce more sons when they are in good condition, and more daughters when in poor condition. In polyandrous species where some females mate with multiple males (and others get no matings) and males mate with one/few females (i.e., "sex-role reversed" species), these predictions from the Trivers–Willard hypothesis are reversed: parents in good condition will invest in daughters in order to have a daughter that can out-compete other females to attract multiple males, whereas parents in poor condition will avoid investing in daughters who are likely to get out-competed and will instead invest in sons in order to gain at least some grandchildren.

"Condition" can be assessed in multiple ways, including body size, parasite loads, or dominance, which has also been shown in macaques (Macaca sylvanus) to affect the sex of offspring, with dominant females giving birth to more sons and non-dominant females giving birth to more daughters. Consequently, high-ranking females give birth to a higher proportion of males than those who are low-ranking.

In their original paper, Trivers and Willard were not yet aware of the biochemical mechanism for the occurrence of biased sex ratios. Eventually, however, Melissa Larson et al. (2001) proposed that a high level of circulating glucose in the mother's bloodstream may favor the survival of male blastocysts. This conclusion is based on the observed male-skewed survival rates (to expanded blastocyst stages) when bovine blastocysts were exposed to heightened levels of glucose. As blood glucose levels are highly correlated with access to high-quality food, blood glucose level may serve as a proxy for "maternal condition". Thus, heightened glucose functions as one possible biochemical mechanism for observed Trivers–Willard effects.

Wild and West published a paper describing a mathematical model built on the Trivers–Willard hypothesis that allows precise predictions of alterations in sex-ratio under different circumstances.

🔗 Mathematics

The interesting number paradox is a semi-humorous paradox which arises from the attempt to classify every natural number as either "interesting" or "uninteresting". The paradox states that every natural number is interesting. The "proof" is by contradiction: if there exists a non-empty set of uninteresting natural numbers, there would be a smallest uninteresting number – but the smallest uninteresting number is itself interesting because it is the smallest uninteresting number, thus producing a contradiction.

In a discussion between the mathematicians G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan about interesting and uninteresting numbers, Hardy remarked that the number 1729 of the taxicab he had ridden seemed "rather a dull one", and Ramanujan immediately answered that it is interesting, being the smallest number that is the sum of two cubes in two different ways.

🔗 Internet

🔗 Russia 🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Transhumanism 🔗 Alternative Views 🔗 Russia/science and education in Russia 🔗 Russia/language and literature of Russia 🔗 Russia/religion in Russia

Russian cosmism is a philosophical and cultural movement that emerged in Russia in the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.