Articoli di riviste sul tema "Galilee tours"

AbstractThe Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter in December 1995 to start its two-year mission of exploring the Jovian system. The spacecraft will complete eleven orbits around Jupiter and have ten more close encounters with the outer three Galilean satellites, after the initial close approach to Io on December 7, 1995. Since the Io encounter occurred closer to Io than originally designed, the spacecraft energy change was greater than nominally planned and resulted in an initial spacecraft orbital period about 7 days less than that designed in the nominal tour. A 100-km change in the Io-encounter distance results in an 8-day change in initial period of the spacecraft. Hence the first Ganymede encounter was moved forward one week, and the aim points for the first two Ganymede encounters were altered, but all other encounters would occur on their nominal dates and at the nominal altitudes. This was accomplished without expending spacecraft fuel and resulted in the first Ganymede flyby occurring on June 27, 1996 rather than the nominally scheduled July 4.Earth- and spacecraft-based data were employed in developing ephemerides in support of the Galileo space mission. An analysis of CCD astrometric observations from 1992–1994, of photographic observations from 1967–1993, of mutual event astrometric data from 1973–1991, of Jovian eclipse timing data from 1652–1983, of Doppler data from 1987–1991, and of optical navigation data from the Voyager spacecraft encounter in 1979, produced the satellite ephemerides for the Galileo space mission.

Galileo's imagination was quick to comprehend the importance of the 4 starry objects he observed near Jupiter in January 1610, not only for himself as a scientist but for our common understanding of the place of the Earth and our species in the cosmos. Even he, however, could not have imagined what those four objects would actually look like once humans got their first good look. Some 369 years the fast traveling Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft provided that first good look during 1979, followed by an even closer look from the Galileo Orbiter beginning in 1996 through 2001. The following mosaics represent some of the best of those views. They include views of impact craters young and ancient, icy terrains that have been intensely faulted, eroded or disrupted, mountains towering 10 or more kilometers high, and volcanic eruptions hotter than those on Earth. Each of the four Galilean satellites is geologically distinct, betraying very diverse global histories and evolutions. Images and other observations of these 4 objects revealed the importance of tidal heating and subsurface water oceans in planetary evolution, but mapping is very incomplete. New missions to explore these planetary bodies are being planned and the images and observations of the missions that went before will lay the groundwork for these new explorations as we begin the 5th Galilean century.

AbstractThe Io Plasma Torus (IPT) is a doughnut-shaped structure of charged particles, composed mainly of sulfur and oxygen ions. The main source of the IPT is the moon Io, the most volcanically active object in the Solar System. Io is the innermost of the Galilean moons of Jupiter, the main source of the magnetospheric plasma and responsible for injecting nearly 1 ton/s of ions into Jupiter's magnetosphere. In this work ground-based observations of the [SII] 6731 Å emission lines are observed, obtained at the MacMath-Pierce Solar Telescope. The results shown here were obtained in late 1997 and occurred shortly after a period of important eruptions observed by the Galileo mission (1996-2003). Several outbursts were observed and periods of intense volcanic activity are important to correlate with periods of brightness enhancements observed at the IPT. The time of response between an eruption and enhancement at IPT is still not well understood.

AbstractUVS results from Jupiter show the Io torus colder and brighter than the Voyager observations. Aurora near Jupiter’s poles emit 1-4 MR from altitudes of 300 – 400 km. Ganymede and Callisto have extended hydrogen exospheres. The near-UV reflectance of the Galilean satellites shows SO2, magnetospheric alteration, and O3. Remote sensing of Jupiter’s stratospheric haze determines that it thickens and darkens towards higher latitudes.

L’objectif de notre recherche est d’examiner pour quelles raisons l’innovation héliocentrique n’a pas conduit d’emblée Copernic à considérer les étoiles fixes comme des soleils en tous points semblables au nôtre. À cette fin, nous évoquerons brièvement en premier lieu l’état de la question dans la pensée scientifique antico-médiévale. Puis, dans un deuxième temps, nous nous demanderons pourquoi le système de Copernic qui avait immobilisé le Soleil ainsi que la sphère des étoiles fixes n’a pas jugé pertinent de leur reconnaître une semblable nature. D’ailleurs le copernicien Kepler refusa lui aussi de « stellariser » le Soleil. Dans un dernier temps, nous analyserons les raisons qui conduisirent Giordano Bruno à concevoir une nouvelle cosmologie qui multiplie à l’infini la pluralité des systèmes coperniciens dont chacun possède son propre soleil et son cortège de planètes. Cette refonte du système du monde à la fin de la Renaissance inspira certains des grands protagonistes de la science classique comme Galilée et Descartes, malgré leur profonde aversion pour la philosophie brunienne. * * * The aim of this paper is to examine the reasons for which the heliocentric innovation did not lead straight away Copernicus to consider the fixed stars as suns comparable to our own Sun. For this purpose, in the first place will be briefly recalled the state of scientific thought on this matter during antiquity and Middle Ages. Then, in the second place we will wonder why Copernicus, in his world-system which had “immobilized” the Sun as well as the fixed stars, did not judge relevant to acknowledge that they have a similar nature. Moreover Kepler himself, the great Copernican astronomer, denied also considering the Sun as a fixed star. Lastly, we will analyze the reasons which led Giordano Bruno to conceive a new cosmology which multiplies to infinity the plurality of Copernican systems of which each one possesses its own sun and its procession of planets, just as our solar system. This recasting of the world-system at the end of Renaissance inspired some of the greatest protagonists of classical science like Galileo and Descartes, in spite of their deep aversion to Bruno’s philosophy.

AbstractBecause of active volcanism, large amounts of gas and dust particles are being injected from the Galilean satellite, Io, into the Jovian system. The neutral cloud of sodium atoms and the plasma torus of sulfur ions provide very useful information on Io’s interaction with the Jovian magnetosphere. A program called MONICA (Monitoring of Neutral and Ionized Atoms Clouds) was established at NCU with a view to participate in an international campaign during the flyby of the Jovian system by the Cassini spacecraft in December, 2000. Spectrographic observations were carried out using the 2.16m spectrograph of the Beijing Astronomical Observatory in Xing-Long. A progress report is presented here.

La Physique est une science naturelle exacte, pourtant l’incertitude y joue un rôle croissant. En dissociant la cause efficiente et la cause finale d’Aristote, Galilée et la physique classique ramènent tout à du calculable, vouant l’incertitude à disparaître en principe. L’irruption de la physique quantique, et de son principe d’indétermination, aboutit à une incertitude radicale dont on a prouvé qu’elle ne provient pas de « variables cachées ». Ceci nous invite, désormais, à distinguer l’Être (en soi) et l’Existence, c’est-à-dire les phénomènes perçus, qui procèdent tous de l’Être sans que l’Être ne leur soit réductible. Cette étrangeté de l’Être, et sa capacité à nous dire « Non », garantissent, paradoxalement, que les lois physiques ne sont pas le seul produit de notre (inter)subjectivité. Ainsi l’attitude sceptique et son symétrique – la domination absolue par le savoir – deviennent déraisonnables. Nous proposons une analogie avec les principes des pratiques psychanalytiques.

Le conflit polono-ukrainien appelé de plus en plus souvent par les historiens « guerre civile » a eu des origines profondes. On peut remonter aux temps lointains des guerres cosaques, menées par la Pologne à l’époque moderne contre les cosaques ukrainiens, qui luttaient pour leurs droits et leur place au sein de l’État polono-lituanien. Les cosaques, sujets du roi polonais, prétendaient au même statut que la noblesse polonaise et lituanienne. Leurs insurrections engagèrent aussi nombre de paysans vivant dans les territoires du sud-est de la Pologne qui désiraient se libérer de contraintes féodales imposées par l’aristocratie polonaise. Cela dit, les origines du conflit pour Lvov et la Galicie orientale, déclenché au moment du morcellement de l’Autriche-Hongrie, étaient surtout liées au phénomène des récents nationalismes polonais et ukrainien, nés tous les deux dans la deuxième moitié du XIX e siècle.

Dans Double Oubli de l’Orang-Outang (Galilée, 2010), Hélène Cixous raconte ses « retrouvailles » avec le manuscrit de son premier livre, Prénom de Dieu, paru en 1967. Dans une sorte de Bildungsroman en abyme où l’archive de l’oeuvre se trouve en quelque sorte réincorporée dans la fiction littéraire, la narratrice de ce récit réfléchit sur la figure de l’auteur qu’elle « fut » : « Quand ai-je commencé à être moi-même mon auteur ? Ai-je écrit les nouvelles du Prénom de Dieu en tant que pleinement responsable de mes actes ? Étais-je plongée dans un état d’hypnose ? […] Suis-je une fiction ? », se demande-t-elle en se confrontant non sans inquiétude à cette question qui lui « cause des dommages irréparables ». Reprenant la question de Foucault au sujet de la fonction auteur, ce texte interroge à son tour ce qu’il en est de la question du « soi disant sujet » lorsque, en déconstruction et en psychanalyse, celui-ci, oscillant entre qui et quoi, est non seulement dédoublé mais irréductiblement divisé entre ses semblants, vrais et faux, pseudonymes et autres spectres, dissociation qui ébranle toutes les assises (forme, substance, ipséité, causalité, chronologie) donnant consistance à l’identité. Plusieurs aspects – notamment ceux de la mémoire, du nom, du faux, de la « réalité », fictive et pourtant vraie – sont également au foyer des questions pensées par ce récit d’Hélène Cixous.

The article examines the influence of information systems on the growth of the tourism industry. Historically, these technologies have enhanced service in the hotel and restaurant sectors. Tourism is characterised by a high volume of diverse information flows that require constant updating and rapid exchange operations. For instance, the implementation of new technologies involves automating numerous hotel processes, including electronic reservation systems, which can contribute to improving service quality. The text provides data on the use of information technologies and automated management systems in hotels and restaurants in Ukraine and worldwide, highlighting significant prospects in this direction. Additionally, it mentions programs initially developed by Ukrainian companies. When selecting a system, factors such as price and reliability are crucial as many systems share similar functional characteristics. This article outlines the history, development, and widespread adoption of computer reservation systems (CRS). CRS has expanded the range of services and reduced the cost of electronic booking and reservation services. The expansion of tourism activities has occurred in all areas of the industry, including accommodation and entertainment. The research provides information on global reservation systems such as Amadeus, Sabre, Galileo, and Worldspan (Travelport), as well as Ukrainian reservation systems in tourism. The development opportunities of the tourism industry are closely linked to the capabilities of the Internet in modern conditions. Thousands of tour operators, travel agencies, hotels, and airlines operate successfully online, along with ten reservation systems for tourism services. The network provides reliable information support and an additional electronic channel for implementing tourism services.

Le pèlerinage est I 'une des composantes de la vie religieuse médiévale. Pourtant, la pratique n'est pas recommandée par les textes sacrés des Chrétiens, mais elle va prendre de l'ampleur au cours du IVème siècle et pérenniser jusqu'à devenir indispensable pour des milliers de fidèles du Christ entre le XIème et le XIIIème siècle. Notre article repose sur l'expérience vécue par des pèlerins au Proche- Orient. II s'agit de considérer comment ils ont vécu et transmis leur aventure tant physique que spirituelle, tant concrète qu 'émotionnelle dans ces horizons nouveaux. Notre travail s'intéresse particulièrement aux trajets depuis les ports d'Acre et de Jaffa et aux itinéraires suivis pour gagner la Galilée et la Judée (territoires correspondant à l'Israël et à la Cisjordanie actuels). II observe le déroulement d'un pèlerinage à partir de témoignages très personnels (le corpus est présenté en fin d'article), se détachant la plupart du temps des guides de topographie contemporains à ces voyageurs particuliers. Une réelle volonté de montrer, d'inscrire le lecteur dans l'aventure vécue, de transmettre et d'édifier contribue à l'intérêt de ces récits de pèlerinages. Les pèlerins de notre corpus sont en majorité des hommes d'Église, bien éloignés de la tranquillité d'un ministère. En effet, la période sur laquelle nous avons choisi de travailler voit naître de nouvelles communautés religieuses centrées sur la prédication itinérante. Tous souhaitent mettre leurs pas dans ceux du Christ physiquement et moralement pour des raisons aussi variées que complémentaires (les motifs personnels n 'en sont pas exclus pour autant) : prêcher, rendre grâce à Dieu, toucher ou rapporter des reliques, renouveler leur foi, être édifiés de visu (et c'est tout l'intérêt du corpus qui offre une vision du Proche-Orient très concrète) ou mourir à Jérusalem.

Abstract: The aim of the codification of the Austrian General Civil Code (ABGB), a work which started in 1753 and took more than half a century to complete, was not only to renew the law but more importantly to unify the law. The multitude of kingdoms and provinces which had been connected by a loose constitutional union in 1713, were to be merged regarding all civil matters. The "Oberste Justizstelle" (predecessor of the Austrian Supreme Court), established in 1749, was responsible for the Austrian, Bohemian and Galician hereditary lands and it was only in these regions where the incomplete Civil Code laid out by Joseph II. was applied in 1787. By the time the new ABGB replaced the aforementioned code in 1812, the reach of the monarchy had been considerably reduced due to the Napoleonic wars. It was in the years after the Vienna Congress of 1815 that the ABGB was continuously introduced in all the new and recently re-acquired provinces. The introduction of the ABGB in the rest of the monarchy in 1853 was an unprecedented political achievement. It was introduced at the time of Neo-absolutism with the intention of fully integrating all provinces into a centrally controlled monarchy. The end of Neo-absolutism in 1861 led to the removal of the ABGB in Hungary, but the Code continued to be used in Croatia and Transylvania. However, it developed independently from Austria in these countries. The end of the Habsburg Empire did not mean the end of Austrian legal unity. The ABGB was maintained in all successor states and was even extended. During the interwar period, the newly created states of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia attempted but failed at creating their own national codes. After 1945, the new communist regimes replaced the ABGB in favour of new laws in line with their ideologies. Since 1964, the Republic of Austria and the Principality of Liechtenstein are the only states, where the ABGB is still in force. Résumé: Le but de la codification du Code civil général autrichien (ABGB), ouvrage qui débuta en 1753 et mit plus d'un demi-siècle avant d'être achevé, ne fut pas seulement de renouveler le droit mais,de manière plus importante, d'unifier le droit. La multitude de royaumes et de provinces qui avaient été réunis en 1713 parune union constitutionnelle assez vague devaient être unifiésen ce qui concerne toutes les affaires civiles. L'Oberste Justizstelle' (qui précéda la Cour suprême autrichienne) établie en 1749, avait sous sa juridiction les terres héréditaires d'Autrichie, de Bohème et de Galicie et ce n'est que dans ces régions que le Code civil incomplet établi par Joseph II fut appliqué en 1787. Au moment où le nouvel ABGB remplaça le code sus-mentionné en 1812, l'influence de la monarchie avait été considérablement réduite suite aux guerres napoléoniennes. C'est au cours des années qui suivirent le Congrès de Vienne de 1815 que l'ABGB fut peu à peu introduit dans toutes les provinces nouvelles et récemment récupérées. L'introduction de l'ABGBdans le reste de la monarchie en 1853 constitua un achèvement politique sans précédent. Il fut introduit à l'époque du Néo-absolutisme avec l'intention d'intégrer complètement toutes les provinces dans une monarchie aux pouvoirs centralisés. La fin du Néo-absolutisme en 1861 conduisit à la suppression de l'ABGB en Hongrie, mais le Code resta en vigueur en Croatieet en Transylvanie bien que dans ces pays, il se développa indépendamment de l'Autriche. La fin de l'Empire des Habsbourg ne signifia pas la fin de l'unité juridique autrichienne. L'ABGB fut maintenu dans tous les états successeurs et fut même étendu. Durant la période d'entre deux guerres, les &e

THE WATERS ABOVE THE FIRMAMENT: An Exemplary Case of Faith-Reason Conflict by Dino Boccaletti. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020. 136 pages. Hardcover; $99.99. ISBN: 9783030441678. Paperback; $69.99. ISBN: 9783030441685. *The Waters Above the Firmament is a fascinating tour through the exegetical history of an offbeat subject: the waters above the firmament. In both popular and scholarly conversations about science and religion, a few subjects tend to dominate the landscape, with the topic of origins dominating the conversation since Darwin's day. Interestingly, however, the "waters above the firmament" references have been largely overlooked, even though they bear on the cosmology and view of creation held by biblical authors. In this volume, physicist Dino Boccaletti takes readers through an in-depth tour of how these passages have been understood by Christian exegetes from the early centuries of the Christian era through the seventeenth century. *The driving question tackled by the exegetes is how to understand the following verses from the first chapter of the book of Genesis: "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day" (Gen. 1:6-8, KJV). *In the history of exegesis of this passage (and others that build on it, such as Psalm 148:4, "Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens"), many different theories about its meaning have been put forward. In our own day, those familiar with the young-earth creation (YEC) movement may have heard a bit of exegesis of this passage from a peculiarly YEC point of view. In their hands, it is sometimes understood to teach that the earth was surrounded by a canopy of water that made the whole world a paradise and reduced the harmful effects of the sun, enabling people to live the centuries-long lives described in Genesis. The canopy was then collapsed to become the source of the waters that flooded the earth in the days of Noah. *Boccaletti does not address that claim. Instead, he presents a historical overview that marches chronologically through the works of classical, medieval, and early modern commentators, trying to interpret a claim that seems to be plainly contradictory to common sense: that there is a shell of water surrounding the earth, or maybe the whole cosmos. While there was no definitive scientific refutation of this view in either the classical or medieval world, its prima facie implausibility nevertheless led to a persistent apparent conflict between faith and reason that needed to be contended with if the Bible's authority was to remain intact. There is also the thorny question of uncovering the cosmology that gave rise to such a description, along with its background in extra-biblical writings. *Boccaletti describes the first few centuries of Christianity, during which there were primarily three approaches to understanding the passage in question. First, it could be allegorized so that the waters were representative of something else, such as exalted spiritual beings who worship God. The second approach was to accept something like an ancient Near Eastern belief that the earth is shaped like a flat disc, and add the literal claim that there is an aqueous shell above it. The third, and most difficult, was to try to reconcile Greek cosmology with the claim about the waters. Incorporating the Greek picture, which posited a spherical earth at the center of the cosmos, led to the most creative, and sometimes convoluted, interpretive schemes. For example, Boccaletti brings us into Augustine's discussion about a theory that the waters above the firmament are held in place by God in order to cool and slow down the movement of the outer planets, which would otherwise overheat owing to their great velocities. Thus the waters above the firmament might serve to temper the heat of the empyrean. While many exegetes in the first millennium would also endorse this view or a variation on it, some thinkers, such as John Scotus Eriugena, would deny that such waters existed at all. No consensus was reached during the Middle Ages about which of these approaches was superior. *Boccaletti describes the increasing pressure to abandon the geocentric model owing to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century astronomers such as Copernicus and Galileo, and how those theories in astronomy were received by interpreters of the Bible. For reasons unrelated to science, Protestant thinkers such as Luther and Calvin began to consult sources outside the Latin interpretive tradition, most significantly the Hebrew text in which Genesis was originally written. Both men considered it vital to embrace the highest possible view of biblical authority, and inclined toward believing the waters were just that: waters, held in place in the heavenlies by a mysterious work of God. Allegories were rejected, as was the burgeoning heliocentrism of the day. Catholic interpreters of the period such as Benedictus Pererius and David Pareus also turned back to the Hebrew text, freeing themselves from the strictures of the Latin Vulgate of Jerome and its limitations about what firmamentum might mean. Thus they could posit that Moses's teaching in Hebrew, aimed at the everyman of his day, was consistent with the reasonable, common-sense claim that the waters above the firmament are just clouds, making the firmament the sky rather than the outer heavens. *Boccaletti does an excellent job of collecting the sources that address the passage in question. The book contains innumerable lengthy quotations that give context to the exegetes' perspectives, and he also provides helpful background to each thinker. There are over thirty interpreters presented in depth, scores more referred to, and abundant primary source materials. Boccaletti adds helpful commentary and interpretation of his own, including a nice comparison of the cosmology of Moses and the Greeks, guiding the reader through the development of interpretive movements and then situating them in their historical setting. In fact, if there is a complaint it might be that there is much more background than is needed to understand the various interpretations in question--but those who love history will revel in his thoroughness. *Despite Boccaletti's comprehensiveness and attention to detail, there were a few things a reader might expect to find that were not a part of this work. Billing itself as "An Exemplary Case of Faith-Reason Conflict," one might have anticipated more depth of analysis of the underlying methodological, epistemic, and exegetical issues. There were descriptions of some of those things, but they were not very well developed. Readers looking to get some new insights into those aspects of faith-reason conflicts--looking for a beefier treatment of theology and philosophy--will likely be disappointed. Along those lines, it is not at all clear what Boccaletti thinks we should take away from his careful study about faith-reason conflicts. What should we conclude? What are the lessons? He does not make it clear. The book is rich with history and primary sources, but very light on insight about the nature of science-religion tensions and how to resolve them; those looking for a new angle on these perennial problems may need to look elsewhere. But for those who desire to immerse themselves in all the intriguing commentary about the waters above the firmament throughout the first seventeen centuries of Christian history, this book will be a real treat. *Reviewed by Bradley L. Sickler, University of Northwestern, St. Paul, MN 55113

THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION: A Constructive Kuyperian Approach by Bruce Riley Ashford and Craig G. Bartholomew. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020. 366 pages, appendix, bibliography, index. Hardcover; $50.00. ISBN: 9780830854905. *This book is a welcome addition to our need for more work on the doctrine of creation. The authors, one Baptist (Ashford) and one Anglican (Bartholomew), offer what they term a "Kuyperian" or Dutch neo-Calvinist perspective (perhaps more properly, neo-Reformed?). They seek to be exegetical, not merely creedal, in their exposition. In 366 pages of text, they offer a doctrine of creation that comprehends the classical loci and add some of more recent concern. *The authors cover the classical loci in a systematic, well-organized way. In the first, creedally based, chapter, they lay out their approach and orient readers to their exposition of the doctrine. The following two chapters provide a brief but very well-done history of the doctrine. In the chapter from the early church up to the modern period, they survey the teachers of the church, with Irenaeus holding pride of place. This survey touches on the right people and draws out the constructive contributions that each makes. The only group that is treated almost entirely negatively is, predictably, the Anabaptists (pp. 66-68). The authors select negative examples, confuse an Anabaptist doctrine of the world with a doctrine of creation, and make tendentious use of selective quotes. It's hard to credit Anabaptists with a denigration of creation (or earthly matters) when they have well-formed practices of communal life, the sharing of goods, and, to be anachronistic, a thoughtful political theology rooted in particular practices of pacifism. Anabaptists are far from perfect, but they do not lack a doctrine of creation. It's just not one that's discernible through Dutch neo-Calvinist eyes. *The following chapter is an insightful tour of some highlights of the Modern Period with welcome attention to the wrongly neglected Johann Georg Hamann (pp. 75-80). In a clear and concise account of interpretations of Genesis 1 and the entanglement of God, creation, and science, Ashford and Bartholomew describe five positions that depend on "the conclusions of modern science" (p. 98). They then espouse a "literary framework theory" represented by Lee Irons and Meredith Kline, which argues that Genesis 1 reveals "three creation kingdoms" (days 1-3) and "three creation kings" (days 4-6). The picture is completed on day 7 when "God establishes himself as King on the Sabbath" (p. 98). This is filled out in the authors' later chapter on Genesis 1: the three creation kingdoms are "light; sky/seas; land/vegetation;" the three creation kings are "luminaries; sea creatures/winged creatures; land animals/men" (sic, pp. 155-70). This chapter concludes with a foundational assertion: "In the twenty-first century, a full-orbed Irenaean doctrine of creation presents itself as a salient remedy for the ills of our modern and postmodern eras ... Among Christian traditions in the modern period, the Dutch neo-Calvinist tradition is, in our opinion, particularly fruitful in providing resources for a recovery and renewal of the Irenaean doctrine of creation" (p. 99). *Following from this, the authors "outline the broad contours of the neo-Calvinist view of creation in seven propositions ..." (p. 103). Most of these propositions are familiar and commonplace within Christian orthodoxy. But two require further comment. The sixth proposition states that "sin and evil cannot corrupt God's good creation structurally or substantially" (p. 102; italics theirs). There may be profound truth in this, but the question of corrupt structures must be clarified. How does a "Kuyperian approach" empower a critique of injustice and oppression in, for example, the over-familiar case of apartheid? The concept of incorruptible structures cries out for further elucidation and glaring warnings against its abuse. The seventh proposition states that "God's restoration of creation will be an elevation and enhancement of creation in its original form" (p. 102). Here the language seems to fall short of a full-orbed Irenaean doctrine of creation. Isn't God's restoration the fulfillment and completion of creation? *After these first chapters that establish the direction and tone for the book, the following chapters are remarkably comprehensive in doctrinal coverage and practical import. Most of the ground covered is traditional, but the authors' discussions are lively and well argued. They proceed mostly by engaging the works of others, so readers of these chapters will receive an education in the scholarly world of the doctrine of creation. One welcome contribution, among others, is an entire chapter devoted to "The Heavenly Realm," which retrieves this inescapable biblical teaching and guards against "over-spiritualizing" (pp. 202-22). *Throughout the book, the authors maintain their commitment to biblical exegesis. They do this through engagement with the work of other scholars, which occasionally threatens to overshadow the biblical text itself. Like the rest of us heirs of modernity, they struggle to achieve what Oswald Bayer says of Hamann: "Scripture interprets me and not I scripture" (p. 77). Still, their determination to be faithful to the biblical narrative as they "do theology" is one to emulate. *Their commitment to exegetically grounded theology is fully displayed in a chapter devoted to Genesis 1. As they engage critically with other scholars, they lay out the foundations of their doctrine of creation. The chapter concludes with an exposition of creation order in the Kuyperian tradition. For the authors, "Creation order is good news!" (p. 173), allowing for the flourishing of life. Injustice only appears against the backdrop of this order. They conclude the chapter with one of their many in-text excurses, asserting that "at the heart of the biblical metanarrative stands the cross, which alerts us to the grace of the biblical story and its resistance to violent coercion" (p. 174). *Here, a number of questions arise. How can the crucifixion of a Galilean peasant on a hill outside Jerusalem sometime around AD 33, be part of a metanarrative? Doesn't its particularity preclude that? Don't we need some other language? Would "Christ is Lord" suffice? How might their account of creation order change if the crucifixion was indeed at the heart of their account? Are there forms of coercion that are not violent? If so, does the biblical story resist those? Is "resistance" strong enough to represent the relationship between the story and violence? *The following chapter, "Place, Plants, Animals, Humans, and Creation," covers a wide range of topics grounded in exegetical theology that leads to changed disposition. This excellent chapter brings together all the strengths of the book: its biblical exegesis, theological maturity, and practices grounded in the first two. *In the chapters that follow, Ashford and Bartholomew cover a lot of ground and give direction from "the Kuyperian tradition." This is evident in their discussions of sin, common grace, culture making, and providence, among other things. Culture making (in chapter 9, "Creation and Culture") takes on particular importance in their account. It occurs in "spheres" that "have their own integrity and function according to unique, God-given principles" (p. 267). But like some of their earlier accounts of creation order, true relationality is mostly missing. Culture doesn't occur in spheres; it occurs in messy, boundary-crossing relationships between God, humans, nonhuman creation, and self. Yes, God is sovereign over all of life, but it is a relational sovereignty, not a spherical and principled sovereignty. Moreover, one could easily conclude that culture making, as in the Kuyperian tradition, is the main calling of human beings. Missional witness to Jesus Christ by the body of Christ is offstage. It is possible to see the so-called cultural mandate of Genesis 1:26-31 as our missional mandate, in which case the wholistic calling envisioned by a "cultural mandate" is really a full, biblical practice of the missional mandate of Genesis 1. The calling is lived out in the healing of relationships under the condition of fallenness through the crucifixion of the one "through whom and for whom all things have been created," and in obedience to the Great Commission and Great Commandment. *Perhaps one striking indication of the absence of a robust account of relationality is the rare appearance of the Holy Spirit in the book, especially a book that aspires to be trinitarian. This may also account for the relatively minor role that the people of God play in the authors' exposition. *Even in a lengthy review such as this, I have not adequately represented the breadth and depth of this book. The authors manage to comment, often at length and in depth, on an enormous range of life, which, of course, the doctrine of creation comprehends. *My criticisms of this book (I have more!) are a sign of my deep respect for and learning from Ashford and Bartholomew. Critical matters for the life and witness of God's people are at stake in the development of a mature, robust conversation about the doctrine of creation and living it out. Bruce Ashford and Craig Bartholomew articulate a mature, robust, Irenaean doctrine of creation reshaped by Dutch neo-Calvinism that should be a part of a larger conversation and urgent action as we seek to bear witness to the One Creator and Redeemer in these times. *Reviewed by Jonathan R. Wilson, PhD, Senior Consultant for Theological Integration, Canadian Baptist Ministries; and Teaching Fellow, Regent College, Vancouver, BC V6T 2E4.

L’articolo intende tracciare un quadro della partecipazione italiana al dibattito sull’architettura del primo Settecento europeo a partire dal diretto coinvolgimento di personalità emergenti del panorama architettonico italiano nel processo di divulgazione delle fonti e dei Trattati di architettura in Gran Bretagna e dalla documentazione relativa alla attività del fiorentino Alessandro Galilei autore di un Trattato di architettura civile redatto in lingua italiana e in lingua inglese. La redazione di traduzioni in lingua inglese delle fonti classiche dell’architettura italiana curate da taluni ‘impenditori’ illuminati del sapere scientifico oltre la Manica all’alba di un fenomeno importante come il Neopalladianesimo inglese è la premessa indispensabile al radicamento e alla diffusione, anche a scopo di studio, della grammatica architettonica classica e alla pratica frequente del Grand Tour.

Abstract We study a decoupling limit of M-theory where the three-form gauge potential becomes critical. This limit leads to nonrelativistic M-theory coupled to a non-Lorentzian spacetime geometry. Nonrelativistic M-theory is U-dual to M-theory in the discrete light cone quantization, a non-perturbative approach related to the Matrix theory description of M-theory. We focus on the compactification of nonrelativistic M-theory over a two-torus that exhibits anisotropic behaviors due to the foliation structure of the spacetime geometry. We develop a frame covariant formalism of the toroidal geometry, which provides a geometrical interpretation of the recently discovered polynomial realization of SL(2 , ℤ) duality in nonrelativistic type IIB superstring theory. We will show that the nonrelativistic IIB string background fields transform as polynomials of an effective Galilean “boost velocity” on the two-torus. As an application, we construct an action principle describing a single M5-brane in nonrelativistic M-theory and study its compactification over the anisotropic two-torus. This procedure leads to a D3-brane action in nonrelativistic IIB string theory that makes the SL(2 , ℤ) invariance manifest in the polynomial realization.

AbstractIn 1995, the Galileo spacecraft traversed the wake of Io at ∼900 km altitude. The instruments onboard detected intense bi‐directional field‐aligned electron beams (∼140 eV–150 keV), embedded in a dense, cold and slow plasma wake (Nel ∼ 35,000 cm−3, Ti < 10 eV, V < 3 km/s). Similar electron beams were also detected along subsequent Galileo flybys. Using numerical simulations, we show that these electron beams are responsible for the formation of Io's dense plasma wake. We prescribe the composition of Io's atmosphere in S, O, SO and SO2, compute the atmospheric ionization by the beams with a parameterization adapted from study of auroral electrons at Earth, the plasma flow into Io's atmosphere with a Magneto‐Hydro‐Dynamic code, and the ion composition and temperature with a multi‐species physical chemistry code. Results reveal contrasting chemistries between the upstream and wake regions, leading to different ion compositions. The upstream chemistry is driven by the torus thermal electrons at 5 eV with SO2+ becoming the dominant ion because of electron‐impact ionization of the SO2 atmosphere. The wake chemistry is driven by the high‐energy electrons in the beams with S+ and SO+ becoming the dominant ions produced by dissociative‐ionization of SO2. We show that the wake ion composition is highly sensitive to the atmospheric composition. Juno, in its extended mission, will traverse Io's wake and determine its ion composition, which, compared with our numerical simulations will enable us to infer the detailed composition of the atmosphere.

AbstractIn Jupiter's middle magnetosphere, debate remains on the controlling physics of electron acceleration to the ultrarelativistic regime. Some local‐time asymmetric processes regulating MeV electrons may have their hold across electron spectra, leaving imprints down to 10–100s keV energies. Spectra at these lower energies can be measured with finite energy resolution, which is hardly achieved for MeV electrons. We investigate 10–100s keV electron spectra using Galileo measurements. We show that at 15–20 RJ, the power‐law exponents exhibit a previously unexpected dawn‐dusk asymmetry. This asymmetry is more prominent for 100s‐keV spectra, persistent but enhanced from 1996 to 2001. These match the theory of transport driven by a dawn‐to‐dusk electric field. Contrary to past expectations of dawn‐to‐dusk electric field at Io plasma torus (IPT) extending outward from 6 RJ, the origin of the field we infer may be completely different, despite its orientation and impacts on electron energization similar with the IPT one.

AbstractESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) will provide a detailed investigation of the Jovian system in the 2030s, combining a suite of state-of-the-art instruments with an orbital tour tailored to maximise observing opportunities. We review the Jupiter science enabled by the JUICE mission, building on the legacy of discoveries from the Galileo, Cassini, and Juno missions, alongside ground- and space-based observatories. We focus on remote sensing of the climate, meteorology, and chemistry of the atmosphere and auroras from the cloud-forming weather layer, through the upper troposphere, into the stratosphere and ionosphere. The Jupiter orbital tour provides a wealth of opportunities for atmospheric and auroral science: global perspectives with its near-equatorial and inclined phases, sampling all phase angles from dayside to nightside, and investigating phenomena evolving on timescales from minutes to months. The remote sensing payload spans far-UV spectroscopy (50-210 nm), visible imaging (340-1080 nm), visible/near-infrared spectroscopy (0.49-5.56 μm), and sub-millimetre sounding (near 530-625 GHz and 1067-1275 GHz). This is coupled to radio, stellar, and solar occultation opportunities to explore the atmosphere at high vertical resolution; and radio and plasma wave measurements of electric discharges in the Jovian atmosphere and auroras. Cross-disciplinary scientific investigations enable JUICE to explore coupling processes in giant planet atmospheres, to show how the atmosphere is connected to (i) the deep circulation and composition of the hydrogen-dominated interior; and (ii) to the currents and charged particle environments of the external magnetosphere. JUICE will provide a comprehensive characterisation of the atmosphere and auroras of this archetypal giant planet.

Jupiter and its moons form a complex dynamical system that includes several coupling dynamics at different frequencies. In particular, the Laplace resonance is fundamental to maintaining the energy dissipation that sustain Io’s volcanic activity and Europa’s subsurface ocean; studying its stability is thus crucial for characterizing the potential habitability of these moons. The origin and evolution of the Laplace resonance is driven by the strong tidal interactions between Jupiter and its Galilean moons, and the future planetary exploration missions JUICE and Europa Clipper could bring new light to this unsolved mechanism. During the Jupiter tours of both missions and JUICE’s Ganymede orbital phase, two-way radiometric range and Doppler data will be acquired between Earth ground stations and the spacecraft, which will be processed to recover the static and time-varying gravity field of the moons. Moreover, range and Doppler data will improve the orbit accuracy of the moons, providing precise measurements of Jupiter’s tidal parameters. This work presents a covariance analysis of the joint orbit determination of JUICE and Europa Clipper, aimed at quantifying the expected uncertainties on the main parameters that characterize the dynamics of the Jupiter system. We simulated radio science data from JUICE and Clipper missions under conservative noise assumptions, using a multi-arc approach to estimate the ephemerides and dissipation in the system. Even though JUICE and Europa Clipper will not perform flybys of Io, the strong coupling with Europa and Ganymede will allow an improvement of our knowledge of the Jupiter-Io dissipation parameters thanks to JUICE and Europa Clipper radiometric data. Moreover, the expected uncertainty in Jupiter’s dissipation at the frequency of Callisto could unveil a potential resonance locking mechanism between Jupiter and Callisto.

AbstractThe JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) of ESA was launched on 14 April 2023 and will arrive at Jupiter and its moons in July 2031. In this review article, we describe how JUICE will investigate the interior of the three icy Galilean moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, during its Jupiter orbital tour and the final orbital phase around Ganymede. Detailed geophysical observations about the interior of the moons can only be performed from close distances to the moons, and best estimates of signatures of the interior, such as an induced magnetic field, tides and rotation variations, and radar reflections, will be obtained during flybys of the moons with altitudes of about 1000 km or less and during the Ganymede orbital phase at an average altitude of 490 km. The 9-month long orbital phase around Ganymede, the first of its kind around another moon than our Moon, will allow an unprecedented and detailed insight into the moon’s interior, from the central regions where a magnetic field is generated to the internal ocean and outer ice shell. Multiple flybys of Callisto will clarify the differences in evolution compared to Ganymede and will provide key constraints on the origin and evolution of the Jupiter system. JUICE will visit Europa only during two close flybys and the geophysical investigations will focus on selected areas of the ice shell. A prime goal of JUICE is the characterisation of the ice shell and ocean of the Galilean moons, and we here specifically emphasise the synergistic aspects of the different geophysical investigations, showing how different instruments will work together to probe the hydrosphere. We also describe how synergies between JUICE instruments will contribute to the assessment of the deep interior of the moons, their internal differentiation, dynamics and evolution. In situ measurements and remote sensing observations will support the geophysical instruments to achieve these goals, but will also, together with subsurface radar sounding, provide information about tectonics, potential plumes, and the composition of the surface, which will help understanding the composition of the interior, the structure of the ice shell, and exchange processes between ocean, ice and surface. Accurate tracking of the JUICE spacecraft all along the mission will strongly improve our knowledge of the changing orbital motions of the moons and will provide additional insight into the dissipative processes in the Jupiter system. Finally, we present an overview of how the geophysical investigations will be performed and describe the operational synergies and challenges.

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If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me,” you are quoting Shakespeare.Bernard LevinPsoriatic arthritis, in its acute or “generalised” stage, is unbearably painful. Exacerbating the crippling of the joints, the entire surface of the skin is covered with lesions only moderately salved by anti-inflammatory ointment, the application of which is as painful as the ailment it seeks to relieve: NURSE MILLS: I’ll be as gentle as I can.Marlow’s face again fills the screen, intense concentration, comical strain, and a whispered urgency in the voice over—MARLOW: (Voice over) Think of something boring—For Christ’s sake think of something very very boring—Speech a speech by Ted Heath a sentence long sentence from Bernard Levin a quiz by Christopher Booker a—oh think think—! Really boring! A Welsh male-voice choir—Everything in Punch—Oh! Oh! — (Potter 17-18)Marlow’s collation of boring things as a frantic liturgy is an attempt to distract himself from a tumescence that is both unwanted and out of place. Although bed-ridden and in constant pain, he is still sensitive to erogenous stimulation, even when it is incidental. The act of recollection, of garnering lists of things that bore him, distracts him from his immediate situation as he struggles with the mental anguish of the prospect of a humiliating orgasm. Literary lists do many things. They provide richness of detail, assemble and corroborate the materiality of the world of which they are a part and provide insight into the psyche and motivation of the collator. The sheer desperation of Dennis Potter’s Marlow attests to the arbitrariness of the list, the simple requirement that discrete and unrelated items can be assembled in linear order, without any obligation for topical concatenation. In its interrogative form, the list can serve a more urgent and distressing purpose than distraction:GOLDBERG: What do you use for pyjamas?STANLEY: Nothing.GOLDBERG: You verminate the sheet of your birth.MCCANN: What about the Albigensenist heresy?GOLDBERG: Who watered the wicket in Melbourne?MCCANN: What about the blessed Oliver Plunkett?(Pinter 51)The interrogative non sequitur is an established feature of the art of intimidation. It is designed to exert maximum stress in the subject through the use of obscure asides and the endowing of trivial detail with profundity. Harold Pinter’s use of it in The Birthday Party reveals how central it was to his “theatre of menace.” The other tactic, which also draws on the logic of the inventory to be both sequential and discontinuous, is to break the subject’s will through a machine-like barrage of rhetorical questions that leave no time for answers.Pinter learned from Samuel Beckett the pitiless, unforgiving logic of trivial detail pushed to extremes. Think of Molloy’s dilemma of the sucking stones. In order for all sixteen stones that he carries with him to be sucked at least once to assuage his hunger, a reliable system has to be hit upon:Taking a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, and putting it in my mouth, I replaced it in the right pocket of my greatcoat by a stone from the right pocket of my trousers, which I replaced with a stone from the left pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my greatcoat, which I replaced with the stone that was in my mouth, as soon as I had finished sucking it. Thus there were still four stones in each of my four pockets, but not quite the same stones. And when the desire to suck took hold of me again, I drew again on the right pocket of my greatcoat, certain of not taking the same stone as the last time. And while I sucked it I rearranged the other stones in the way I have just described. And so on. (Beckett, Molloy 69)And so on for six pages. Exhaustive permutation within a finite lexical set is common in Beckett. In the novel Watt the eponymous central character is charged with serving his unseen master’s dinner as well as tidying up afterwards. A simple and bucolic enough task it would seem. But Beckett’s characters are not satisfied with conjecture, the simple assumption that someone must be responsible for Mr. Knott’s dining arrangements. Like Molloy’s solution to the sucking stone problem, all possible scenarios must be considered to explain the conundrum of how and why Watt never saw Knott at mealtime. Twelve possibilities are offered, among them that1. Mr. Knott was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that he was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that such an arrangement existed, and was content.2. Mr. Knott was not responsible for the arrangement, but knew who was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that such an arrangement existed, and was content.(Beckett, Watt 86)This stringent adherence to detail, absurd and exasperating as it is, is the work of fiction, the persistence of a viable, believable thing called Watt who exists as long as his thought is made manifest on a page. All writers face this pernicious prospect of having to confront and satisfy “fiction’s gargantuan appetite for fact, for detail, for documentation” (Kenner 70). A writer’s writer (Philip Marlow) Dennis Potter’s singing detective struggles with the acute consciousness that words eventually will fail him. His struggle to overcome verbal entropy is a spectre that haunts the entire literary imagination, for when the words stop the world stops.Beckett made this struggle the very stuff of his work, declaring famously that all he wanted to do as a writer was to leave “a stain upon the silence” (quoted in Bair 681). His characters deteriorate from recognisable people (Hamm in Endgame, Winnie in Happy Days) to mere ciphers of speech acts (the bodiless head Listener in That Time, Mouth in Not I). During this process they provide us with the vocabulary of entropy, a horror most eloquently expressed at the end of The Unnamable: I can’t go on, you must go on, I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. (Beckett, Molloy 418)The importance Beckett accorded to pauses in his writing, from breaks in dialogue to punctuation, stresses the pacing of utterance that is in sync with the rhythm of human breath. This is acutely underlined in Jack MacGowran’s extraordinary gramophone recording of the above passage from The Unnamable. There is exhaustion in his voice, but it is inflected by an urgent push for the next words to forestall the last gasp. And what might appear to be parsimony is in fact the very commerce of writing itself. It is an economy of necessity, when any words will suffice to sustain presence in the face of imminent silence.Hugh Kenner has written eloquently on the relationship between writing and entropy, drawing on field and number theory to demonstrate how the business of fiction is forever in the process of generating variation within a finite set. The “stoic comedian,” as he figures the writer facing the blank page, self-consciously practices their art in the full cognisance that they select “elements from a closed set, and then (arrange) them inside a closed field” (Kenner 94). The nouveau roman (a genre conceived and practiced in Beckett’s lean shadow) is remembered in literary history as a rather austere, po-faced formalism that foregrounded things at the expense of human psychology or social interaction. But it is emblematic of Kenner’s portrait of stoicism as an attitude to writing that confronts the nature of fiction itself, on its own terms, as a practice “which is endlessly arranging things” (13):The bulge of the bank also begins to take effect starting from the fifth row: this row, as a matter of fact, also possesses only twenty-one trees, whereas it should have twenty-two for a true trapezoid and twenty-three for a rectangle (uneven row). (Robbe-Grillet 21)As a matter of fact. The nouveau roman made a fine if myopic art of isolating detail for detail’s sake. However, it shares with both Beckett’s minimalism and Joyce’s maximalism the obligation of fiction to fill its world with stuff (“maximalism” is a term coined by Michel Delville and Andrew Norris in relation to the musical scores of Frank Zappa that opposes the minimalism of John Cage’s work). Kenner asks, in The Stoic Comedians, where do the “thousands on thousands of things come from, that clutter Ulysses?” His answer is simple, from “a convention” and this prosaic response takes us to the heart of the matter with respect to the impact on writing of Isaac Newton’s unforgiving Second Law of Thermodynamics. In the law’s strictest physical sense of the dissipation of heat, of the loss of energy within any closed system that moves, the stipulation of the Second Law predicts that words will, of necessity, stop in any form governed by convention (be it of horror, comedy, tragedy, the Bildungsroman, etc.). Building upon and at the same time refining the early work on motion and mass theorised by Aristotle, Kepler, and Galileo, inter alia, Newton refined both the laws and language of classical mechanics. It was from Wiener’s literary reading of Newton that Kenner segued from the loss of energy within any closed system (entropy) to the running silent out of words within fiction.In the wake of Norbert Wiener’s cybernetic turn in thinking in the 1940s, which was highly influenced by Newton’s Second Law, fiction would never again be considered in the same way (metafiction was a term coined in part to recognise this shift; the nouveau roman another). Far from delivering a reassured and reassuring present-ness, an integrated and ongoing cosmos, fiction is an isometric exercise in the struggle against entropy, of a world in imminent danger of running out of energy, of not-being:“His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat…” Four nouns, and the book’s world is heavier by four things. One, the hat, “Plasto’s high grade,” will remain in play to the end. The hand we shall continue to take for granted: it is Bloom’s; it goes with his body, which we are not to stop imagining. The peg and the overcoat will fade. “On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there. In the trousers I left off.” Four more things. (Kenner 87)This passage from The Stoic Comedians is a tour de force of the conjuror’s art, slowing down the subliminal process of the illusion for us to see the fragility of fiction’s precarious grip on the verge of silence, heroically “filling four hundred empty pages with combinations of twenty-six different letters” (xiii). Kenner situates Joyce in a comic tradition, preceded by Gustave Flaubert and followed by Beckett, of exhaustive fictive possibility. The stoic, he tells us, “is one who considers, with neither panic nor indifference, that the field of possibilities available to him is large perhaps, or small perhaps, but closed” (he is prompt in reminding us that among novelists, gamblers and ethical theorists, the stoic is also a proponent of the Second Law of Thermodynamics) (xiii). If Joyce is the comedian of the inventory, then it is Flaubert, comedian of the Enlightenment, who is his immediate ancestor. Bouvard and Pécuchet (1881) is an unfinished novel written in the shadow of the Encyclopaedia, an apparatus of the literate mind that sought complete knowledge. But like the Encyclopaedia particularly and the Enlightenment more generally, it is fragmentation that determines its approach to and categorisation of detail as information about the world. Bouvard and Pécuchet ends, appropriately, in a frayed list of details, pronouncements and ephemera.In the face of an unassailable impasse, all that is left Flaubert is the list. For more than thirty years he constructed the Dictionary of Received Ideas in the shadow of the truncated Bouvard and Pécuchet. And in doing so he created for the nineteenth century mind “a handbook for novelists” (Kenner 19), a breakdown of all we know “into little pieces so arranged that they can be found one at a time” (3): ACADEMY, FRENCH: Run it down but try to belong to it if you can.GREEK: Whatever one cannot understand is Greek.KORAN: Book about Mohammed, which is all about women.MACHIAVELLIAN: Word only to be spoken with a shudder.PHILOSOPHY: Always snigger at it.WAGNER: Snigger when you hear his name and joke about the music of the future. (Flaubert, Dictionary 293-330)This is a sample of the exhaustion that issues from the tireless pursuit of categorisation, classification, and the mania for ordered information. The Dictionary manifests the Enlightenment’s insatiable hunger for received ideas, an unwieldy background noise of popular opinion, general knowledge, expertise, and hearsay. In both Bouvard and Pécuchet and the Dictionary, exhaustion was the foundation of a comic art as it was for both Joyce and Beckett after him, for the simple reason that it includes everything and neglects nothing. It is comedy born of overwhelming competence, a sublime impertinence, though not of manners or social etiquette, but rather, with a nod to Oscar Wilde, the impertinence of being definitive (a droll epithet that, not surprisingly, was the title of Kenner’s 1982 Times Literary Supplement review of Richard Ellmann’s revised and augmented biography of Joyce).The inventory, then, is the underlining physio-semiotics of fictional mechanics, an elegiac resistance to the thread of fiction fraying into nothingness. The motif of thermodynamics is no mere literary conceit here. Consider the opening sentence in Borges:Of the many problems which exercised the reckless discernment of Lönnrot, none was so strange—so rigorously strange, shall we say—as the periodic series of bloody events which culminated at the villa of Triste-le-Roy, amid the ceaseless aroma of the eucalypti. (Borges 76)The subordinate clause, as a means of adjectival and adverbial augmentation, implies a potentially infinite sentence through the sheer force of grammatical convention, a machine-like resistance to running out of puff:Under the notable influence of Chesterton (contriver and embellisher of elegant mysteries) and the palace counsellor Leibniz (inventor of the pre-established harmony), in my idle afternoons I have imagined this story plot which I shall perhaps write someday and which already justifies me somehow. (72)In “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” a single adjective charmed with emphasis will do to imply an unseen network:The visible work left by this novelist is easily and briefly enumerated. (Borges 36)The annotation of this network is the inexorable issue of the inflection: “I have said that Menard’s work can be easily enumerated. Having examined with care his personal files, I find that they contain the following items.” (37) This is a sample selection from nineteen entries:a) A Symbolist sonnet which appeared twice (with variants) in the review La conque (issues of March and October 1899).o) A transposition into alexandrines of Paul Valéry’s Le cimitière marin (N.R.F., January 1928).p) An invective against Paul Valéry, in the Papers for the Suppression of Reality of Jacques Reboul. (37-38)Lists, when we encounter them in Jorge Luis Borges, are always contextual, supplying necessary detail to expand upon character and situation. And they are always intertextual, anchoring this specific fictional world to others (imaginary, real, fabulatory or yet to come). The collation and annotation of the literary works of an imagined author (Pierre Menard) of an invented author (Edmond Teste) of an actual author (Paul Valéry) creates a recursive, yet generative, feedback loop of reference and literary progeny. As long as one of these authors continues to write, or write of the work of at least one of the others, a persistent fictional present tense is ensured.Consider Hillel Schwartz’s use of the list in his Making Noise (2011). It not only lists what can and is inevitably heard, in this instance the European 1700s, but what it, or local aural colour, is heard over:Earthy: criers of artichokes, asparagus, baskets, beans, beer, bells, biscuits, brooms, buttermilk, candles, six-pence-a-pound fair cherries, chickens, clothesline, cockles, combs, coal, crabs, cucumbers, death lists, door mats, eels, fresh eggs, firewood, flowers, garlic, hake, herring, ink, ivy, jokebooks, lace, lanterns, lemons, lettuce, mackeral, matches […]. (Schwartz 143)The extended list and the catalogue, when encountered as formalist set pieces in fiction or, as in Schwartz’s case, non-fiction, are the expansive equivalent of le mot juste, the self-conscious, painstaking selection of the right word, the specific detail. Of Ulysses, Kenner observes that it was perfectly natural that it “should have attracted the attention of a group of scholars who wanted practice in compiling a word-index to some extensive piece of prose (Miles Hanley, Word Index to Ulysses, 1937). More than any other work of fiction, it suggests by its texture, often by the very look of its pages, that it has been painstakingly assembled out of single words…” (31-32). In a book already crammed with detail, with persistent reference to itself, to other texts, other media, such formalist set pieces as the following from the oneiric “Circe” episode self-consciously perform for our scrutiny fiction’s insatiable hunger for more words, for invention, the Latin root of which also gives us the word inventory:The van of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a chessboard tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor Dublin, the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the chapter of the saints of finance in their plutocratic order of precedence, the bishop of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the chief rabbi, the Presbyterian moderator, the heads of the Baptist, Anabaptist, Methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the society of friends. (Joyce, Ulysses 602-604)Such examples demonstrate how Joycean inventories break from narrative as architectonic, stand-alone assemblages of information. They are Rabelaisian irruptions, like Philip Marlow’s lesions, that erupt in swollen bas-relief. The exaggerated, at times hysterical, quality of such lists, perform the hallucinatory work of displacement and condensation (the Homeric parallel here is the transformation of Odysseus’s men into swine by the witch Circe). Freudian, not to mention Stindberg-ian dream-work brings together and juxtaposes images and details that only make sense as non-sense (realistic but not real), such as the extraordinary explosive gathering of civic, commercial, political, chivalric representatives of Dublin in this foreshortened excerpt of Bloom’s regal campaign for his “new Bloomusalem” (606).The text’s formidable echolalia, whereby motifs recur and recapitulate into leitmotifs, ensures that the act of reading Ulysses is always cross-referential, suggesting the persistence of a conjured world that is always already still coming into being through reading. And it is of course this forestalling of Newton’s Second Law that Joyce brazenly conducts, in both the textual and physical sense, in Finnegans Wake. The Wake is an impossible book in that it infinitely sustains the circulation of words within a closed system, creating a weird feedback loop of cyclical return. It is a text that can run indefinitely through the force of its own momentum without coming to a conclusion. In a text in which the author’s alter ego is described in terms of the technology of inscription (Shem the Penman) and his craft as being a “punsil shapner,” (Joyce, Finnegans 98) Norbert Wiener’s descriptive example of feedback as the forestalling of entropy in the conscious act of picking up a pencil is apt: One we have determined this, our motion proceeds in such a way that we may say roughly that the amount by which the pencil is not yet picked up is decreased at each stage. (Wiener 7) The Wake overcomes the book’s, and indeed writing’s, struggle with entropy through the constant return of energy into its closed system as a cycle of endless return. Its generative algorithm can be represented thus: “… a long the riverrun …” (628-3). The Wake’s sense of unending confounds and contradicts, in advance, Frank Kermode’s averring to Newton’s Second Law in his insistence that the progression of all narrative fiction is defined in terms of the “sense of an ending,” the expectation of a conclusion, whereby the termination of words makes “possible a satisfying consonance with the origins and with the middle” (Kermode 17). It is the realisation of the novel imagined by Silas Flannery, the fictitious author in Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveller, an incipit that “maintains for its whole duration the potentiality of the beginning” (Calvino 140). Finnegans Wake is unique in terms of the history of the novel (if that is indeed what it is) in that it is never read, but (as Joseph Frank observed of Joyce generally) “can only be re-read” (Frank 19). With Wiener’s allegory of feedback no doubt in mind, Jacques Derrida’s cybernetic account of the act of reading Joyce comes, like a form of echolalia, on the heels of Calvino’s incipit, his perpetual sustaining of the beginning: you stay on the edge of reading Joyce—for me this has been going on for twenty-five or thirty years—and the endless plunge throws you back onto the river-bank, on the brink of another possible immersion, ad infinitum … In any case, I have the feeling that I haven’t yet begun to read Joyce, and this “not having begun to read” is sometimes the most singular and active relationship I have with his work. (Derrida 148) Derrida wonders if this process of ongoing immersion in the text is typical of all works of literature and not just the Wake. The question is rhetorical and resonates into silence. And it is silence, ultimately, that hovers as a mute herald of the end when words will simply run out.Post(script)It is in the nature of all writing that it is read in the absence of its author. Perhaps the most typical form of writing, then, is the suicide note. In an extraordinary essay, “Goodbye, Cruel Words,” Mark Dery wonders why it has been “so neglected as a literary genre” and promptly sets about reviewing its decisive characteristics. Curiously, the list features amongst its many forms: I’m done with lifeI’m no goodI’m dead. (Dery 262)And references to lists of types of suicide notes are among Dery’s own notes to the essay. With its implicit generic capacity to intransitively add more detail, the list becomes in the light of the terminal letter a condition of writing itself. The irony of this is not lost on Dery as he ponders the impotent stoicism of the scribbler setting about the mordant task of writing for the last time. Writing at the last gasp, as Dery portrays it, is a form of dogged, radical will. But his concluding remarks are reflective of his melancholy attitude to this most desperate act of writing at degree zero: “The awful truth (unthinkable to a writer) is that eloquent suicide notes are rarer than rare because suicide is the moment when language fails—fails to hoist us out of the pit, fails even to express the unbearable weight” (264) of someone on the precipice of the very last word they will ever think, let alone write. Ihab Hassan (1967) and George Steiner (1967), it would seem, were latecomers as proselytisers of the language of silence. But there is a queer, uncanny optimism at work at the terminal moment of writing when, contra Dery, words prevail on the verge of “endless, silent night.” (264) Perhaps when Newton’s Second Law no longer has carriage over mortal life, words take on a weird half-life of their own. Writing, after Socrates, does indeed circulate indiscriminately among its readers. There is a dark irony associated with last words. When life ceases, words continue to have the final say as long as they are read, and in so doing they sustain an unlikely, and in their own way, stoical sense of unending.ReferencesBair, Deirdre. Samuel Beckett: A Biography. London: Jonathan Cape, 1978.Beckett, Samuel. Molloy Malone Dies. The Unnamable. London: John Calder, 1973.---. Watt. London: John Calder, 1976.Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths. Selected Stories & Other Writings. Ed. Donald A. Yates & James E. Irby. New York: New Directions, 1964.Calvino, Italo. If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller. Trans. 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