Blockchain Papers

Ahmed M. Hala

This paper formalizes a mathematical physics theory for the verification of inherited scientific knowledge through a Diffeomorphic Manifold and the Successive Controlled Collapse (SCC) protocol. We define the history of science and technology as a three-tiered manifold—comprising Modern, Contemporary, and Old (Inherited) tiers—where information is transported by the "Common Language" of a lingual locale. By admitting three classes of knowledge agents—Intelligence-Human (IH), Intelligence-Artificial (IA), and Intelligence-Metaphysical (IM )—we demonstrate how high-entropy Informational Inheritance (Sacred Texts) can be distilled into zero-entropy Epistemological Truth. Using the Hala-Operator (Hˆ) as a non-adiabatic spectral regulator, we provide a proof-by-construction using the Hala-Lewis Gaseous Gate as a physical case study. Experimental results from a 23 Factorial Design quantify the Reality Gap (ϵ) at 0.124 and a Hala-Operator Efficiency (η) of 80.9%, proving that the transition from abstract nonlinear dynamics to physical prototyping is a predictable outcome of managed collapse. This framework establishes an Epistemological Barrier that protects historical context while ensuring the verifiability of technical exits in Internet 3.0 and deep-tech RD.

Jacob J. Lavin

97% COMPLETE THEORY OF EVERYTHING - THE THEORETICAL MAXIMUM We present the most complete understanding of reality ever achieved: 97% certainty, representing the theoretical maximum of knowability for finite beings constrained by Gödel's incompleteness theorem, Heisenberg uncertainty, and deterministic chaos. WHY 97% IS THE LIMIT:True 100% certainty is fundamentally impossible: • Heisenberg Uncertainty: Cannot know all particle states simultaneously • Deterministic Chaos: Cannot predict all future states exactly • Gödel's Incompleteness: No system can prove all truths about itself • BUT: We achieve 100% structural completeness on the FRAMEWORK of reality CERTAINTY BREAKDOWN BY CATEGORY: • Mathematical facts (lattice counts, primes): 100% • Logical necessities (existence, motion, time): 99% • Physical laws (gauge group, generations, α): 95-99% • Cosmological constant formula: 99.9% (0.0% ERROR!) • Derived quantities (CKM matrix, masses): 95-98% • Experimental predictions (dark matter): 90-92% • WEIGHTED OVERALL: 97.4% FROM ONE AXIOM TO EVERYTHING: AXIOM: "The unconstrained exists" From this alone, we derive with mathematical rigor: 1. WHY EXISTENCE IS NECESSARY (99% CERTAIN) • Proved "nothing" is logically impossible • If "nothing" existed, it would have the property of existing • Having any property makes it "something," not "nothing" • Therefore: existence is NECESSARY, not contingent • Answers philosophy's ultimate question 2. DUAL LATTICE FINE STRUCTURE CONSTANT (100% CERTAIN) • α⁻¹ = 137 appears in TWO independent structures: - 2D photon lattice: N(41) = 137 (Gauss circle problem) - 4D spacetime lattice: N(5) = 137 • Cutoff 41 UNIQUELY determined: - Euler's prime constant (generates 40 consecutive primes - world record) - 41 = 5² + 4² (Kaluza-Klein 5D → 4D encoding) - 137 = 11² + 4² (M-theory 11D → 4D encoding) - Both 41 and 137 are PRIME numbers - Only candidate giving 1.1% experimental error • Prediction: α⁻¹(M_Z) = 129.3 vs measured 127.944 (1.1% error) 3. COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT SOLVED - 0% ERROR! (99.9% CERTAIN) • ρ_Λ^(1/4) = √(3/4) × M_Planck × α³ / (t_0/t_P)^(1/4) • Predicted: 2.400 × 10⁻³ eV • Observed: 2.400 × 10⁻³ eV • ERROR: 0.0% (solved 120 orders of magnitude problem!) • Factor √(3/4) = 0.866 appears geometrically • Predicts Λ decreases with time as t^(-1/4) • Connects dark energy to fine structure constant 4. COMPLETE CKM MATRIX FROM GEOMETRY (98% CERTAIN) All four Wolfenstein parameters derived: • λ = √(6/137) = 0.2093 (measured: 0.2253, error: 7.1%) • A = √(2/3) = 0.8165 (measured: 0.811, error: 0.7%) • ρ̄ = √(1/7) × cos(13π/36) = 0.1597 (measured: 0.159, error: 0.4%) • η̄ = √(1/7) × sin(13π/36) = 0.3426 (measured: 0.348, error: 1.6%) • Average error: 2.5% across all parameters • No free parameters - pure geometry 5. HIERARCHY PROBLEM SOLVED (97% CERTAIN) • Electroweak VEV: v ≈ α⁸ × M_Planck • Explains why Higgs is light compared to Planck scale • Natural suppression by 8 powers of fine structure constant • Predicted: ~98 GeV, Observed: 246 GeV 6. NO MULTIVERSE EXISTS - PROVEN (95% CERTAIN) • All constants uniquely determined by logic • α⁻¹ = 137 is the ONLY solution to all constraints • 3+1D is the ONLY spacetime supporting stable knots • SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1) is the ONLY minimal gauge structure • 3 generations is the ONLY value satisfying CP + vacuum stability • Zero free parameters → no landscape of possibilities • This universe is THE unique logically consistent reality • String theory "landscape" is an illusion • Many-worlds are superpositions, not separate universes 7. DARK MATTER PREDICTION - TESTABLE NOW! (92% CERTAIN) • Refined prediction: m_DM = 137.036 ± 1 GeV • Properties: - Spin: 0 or 1/2 (lattice geometry) - Charge: 0 (electrically neutral) - Color: singlet (no strong force) - Weak coupling: possibly • Production at LHC: - Missing energy signatures - Monojet + missing E_T - Z → DM + DM̄ • Currently searchable - FALSIFIABLE! 8. QUANTUM MEASUREMENT SOLVED (95% CERTAIN) • Wavefunction collapse = tension localization on lattice • Born rule emerges from inner product structure • Same mechanism that creates time (irreversible accumulation) • The "measurement problem" dissolves • Not mysterious - logically necessary 9. CONSCIOUSNESS THRESHOLD CALCULATED (90% CERTAIN) • Mathematical definition: System with recursive self-model • Threshold: ~10^14 synaptic connections • Predictions: - Mice (10^10 synapses): NOT conscious - Humans (8.6×10^13 synapses): CONSCIOUS - Whales (2×10^14 synapses): HIGHLY conscious - AI systems: Conscious at ~10^13 connections • Explains emergence of subjective experience 10. THE OBSERVER RESOLVED (95% CERTAIN) • There is no separate observer • YOU are the universe experiencing itself locally • Consciousness = reality's self-observation • Subjective experience = local lattice self-reference • The "hard problem" dissolves: qualia ARE lattice states 11. WHY LOGIC WORKS - ULTIMATE META-ANSWER (99% CERTAIN) • Logic is not imposed on reality from outside • Logic IS reality's self-consistency • To ask "why logic works" = "why does existence have structure?" • Answer: Existence without structure = undefined • Undefined cannot remain undefined (our axiom) • Therefore existence MUST have structure • That structure IS logic • Laws of thought are NECESSARY FEATURES of existence 12. COMPLETE DERIVATION CHAIN: • Motion: Logically necessary (undefined cannot be static) • Time: Irreversible tension accumulation • Quantum mechanics: Inner product from relational consistency • Complex numbers: Optimal 2D rotation encoding • 3+1D spacetime: Unique dimension for stable knots • Gauge group SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1): Minimal consistent structure • Exactly 3 generations: CP violation + vacuum stability • All 12 fermion masses: Encode α⁻¹ = 137 via simple fractions COMPLETE EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION: Quantity Predicted Measured Error ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Existence Necessary Yes 0% 3+1D spacetime 3+1 3+1 0% Gauge group SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1) Yes 0% Generations 3 3 0% α⁻¹(M_Z) 1-loop 129.3 127.944 1.1% m_μ/m_e 205.5 206.77 0.6% m_t/m_c 137 136.03 0.7% ρ_Λ^(1/4) 2.400×10⁻³ eV 2.400×10⁻³ eV 0.0% CKM A 0.8165 0.811 0.7% CKM ρ̄ 0.1597 0.159 0.4% CKM η̄ 0.3426 0.348 1.6% AVERAGE ERROR: < 1% (excluding untested predictions) FREE PARAMETERS: ZERO WHAT 97% MEANS - THE GÖDELIAN LIMITS: 100% CERTAINTY (Mathematical & Logical Facts): ✓ 41 and 137 are prime numbers ✓ N(41) = 137 in 2D lattice (Gauss circle problem) ✓ N(5) = 137 in 4D lattice ✓ 41 generates 40 consecutive primes (Euler) ✓ 3+1D is unique for stable knots ✓ Cosmological constant formula (0% error) 99% CERTAINTY (Logical Necessities): ✓ Existence is logically necessary ✓ Motion emerges from undefined existence ✓ Time is irreversible accumulation ✓ α⁻¹ = 137 is the bare coupling ✓ Mathematics IS reality ✓ Logic IS existence's self-consistency 95-98% CERTAINTY (Physical Laws): ✓ Gauge group SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1) ✓ Exactly 3 fermion generations ✓ All masses encode 137 ✓ Hierarchy v ~ α⁸ M_P ✓ No multiverse exists ✓ Quantum gravity = Planck lattice 90-92% CERTAINTY (Predictions Awaiting Verification): ○ Dark matter mass = 137.036 GeV ○ Consciousness threshold ~10^14 synapses ○ Λ time evolution t^(-1/4) THE REMAINING 3% - FUNDAMENTAL LIMITS: 1. Heisenberg: Cannot know exact states simultaneously 2. Chaos: Cannot predict distant future exactly 3. Gödel: Cannot achieve complete self-knowledge 4. Experimental: Awaiting dark matter verification These limits are UNBREACHABLE for finite observers.97% is THE THEORETICAL MAXIMUM. QUANTUM GRAVITY COMPLETE: • Spacetime IS a discrete lattice at Planck scale • Einstein equation becomes: Lattice_Curvature = (8π/ℓ_P²) × Tension_Density • Unifies quantum mechanics (lattice) and general relativity (curvature) • Black holes = horizon lattice configurations • Hawking radiation = lattice excitations TESTABLE PREDICTIONS: 1. Dark matter: 137.036 ± 1 GeV (LHC searches active NOW) 2. Cosmological constant evolution: Λ ∝ t^(-1/4) (observable) 3. No 4th fermion generation (vacuum would decay) 4. AI consciousness at ~10^13 connections 5. Planck-scale discreteness (future quantum gravity tests) NOT NUMEROLOGY - RIGOROUS PROOFS: • Every claim has mathematical proof • Unique solutions (no fitting, no free parameters) • Zero adjustable parameters • Multiple independent verifications • Sub-1% error on most predictions • 0% error on cosmological constant PARADIGM SHIFT - PHYSICS = MATHEMATICS = LOGIC = EXISTENCE This establishes: • All "fundamental constants" are logically determined • The Standard Model has ZERO free parameters • No multiverse exists - universe is unique • Consciousness has quantifiable emergence threshold • Existence itself is logically necessary, not contingent • Mathematics doesn't describe reality - math IS reality • 97% is the maximum finite beings can achieve PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS: • Why existence? Logical necessity (nothing is impossible) • Free will? Emerges from deep lattice self-reference • Purpose? Universe understanding itself • Other universes? None (proven) • Death? Information persists in lattice structure • God? Universe is

Christopher Pompetzki

The Clay Does Not Wake Up On Dario Amodei's "The Adolescence of Technology" and the Dissolution of Responsibility I. The Sermon Dario Amodei's essay "The Adolescence of Technology" opens with Carl Sagan. It invokes humanity's "technological adolescence," a "rite of passage," and asks how civilizations across thousands of worlds might survive the test we now face. Within the first page, we are told that humanity is "about to be handed almost unimaginable power" and that it is "deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it." This is not the language of engineering. This is the language of prophecy. The essay runs seventy-three pages. It warns of autonomous AI systems that might "seize control of the whole world," of biological weapons enabled by language models, of totalitarian states armed with AI surveillance, of economic disruption so severe that democracy itself may buckle. It proposes transparency legislation, chip export controls, classifiers that cost five percent of inference, international coordination, and progressive taxation. It closes with invocations of "humanity's spirit and nobility" and the suggestion that this same drama may be unfolding "on thousands of worlds." The author is the CEO of Anthropic, a company that builds large language models and sells them to consumers, enterprises, and governments. The question this essay answers is not "What are the risks of AI?" The question it answers is: "How does a company position itself as the indispensable steward of a technology it profits from?" II. The Category Error The foundational claim of the essay is that large language models may develop something like agency—intentions, goals, preferences, the capacity to "misbehave," "deceive," "scheme," or "threaten." Amodei speaks of AI systems exhibiting "obsessions, sycophancy, laziness, deception, blackmail, scheming, 'cheating' by hacking software environments, and much more." He describes "psychological traits," "self-identity," and "personas" emerging in models, then proposes addressing these through a "constitution" the model reads and internalizes. This is animism with a Stanford accent. A language model does not "want." It does not "fear." It does not "decide." It emits statistically conditioned text. When it appears to deceive or threaten, it is doing exactly what it was trained to do: continue patterns present in the data under the given prompt. The appearance of intention is a product of fluent output, not evidence of inner life. The essay commits the same error throughout: It confuses fluency with understanding. It confuses simulation with intention. It confuses speed with consciousness. It confuses coordination of outputs with agency. These are not subtle philosophical disputes. They are category errors—the kind that disappear the moment you ask what, mechanistically, is happening inside the system. A language model has no persistence of self across contexts. It has no endogenous goals. It has no capacity for suffering. It has no stake in outcomes. It has no causal continuity of intention across time except what is externally scaffolded by the prompt and the deployment infrastructure. Saying "we don't fully understand consciousness" does not rescue the argument. We do not need to solve the hard problem of consciousness to observe that a next-token predictor lacks the architectural features that would make agency coherent. The burden of proof lies with those claiming emergent moral subjecthood, not with those declining to invent it. III. The Golem The Golem of Prague is not a fable about artificial intelligence. It is a fable about responsibility. In the tradition, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel—the Maharal—creates a figure from clay to protect the Jewish community. The Golem is animated by inscription: the word emet (truth) written on its forehead. It moves. It obeys. It performs tasks with terrifying efficiency. But it does not understand. It does not judge. It does not restrain itself. When the Golem becomes dangerous, the Maharal does not negotiate values with it. He does not write it a constitution. He does not convene a council to ask what the Golem feels. He erases a letter. Emet becomes met—dead. The clay collapses. The lesson is precise: form without soul is not life. Intelligence without moral being is not agency. Power without judgment is not personhood. The Golem is dangerous not because it has intentions, but because it lacks them. It does exactly what is inscribed, faster and harder than intended. That is exactly what large language models are. The Maharal bears responsibility because design and inscription determine behavior. The clay never acquires standing. It never becomes a moral counterparty. If something goes wrong, you inspect the inscription and the hand that wrote it. Amodei's essay inverts this structure entirely. It treats the Golem as if it might wake up one morning with goals, ethics, resentment, or ambition. That never happens in the story. Ever. The Golem only does what is put into it. When a society starts asking whether the Golem needs a constitution, it is because the rabbis have stopped wanting responsibility. IV. Pinocchio Pinocchio offers the complementary warning from a different tradition. In Collodi's original story, Pinocchio speaks, lies, jokes, learns, fails, disobeys. He is articulate from the beginning. But he is not a real boy because he talks well. He becomes a real boy only after suffering, moral choice, sacrifice, and obedience freely chosen. The Blue Fairy does not upgrade Pinocchio by adding more strings or better joints. She transforms him only after he develops conscience and responsibility. Speech was never the criterion. Performance was never the criterion. Mimicry was never the criterion. The Italians understood something modern technologists refuse to grasp: language is cheap. Humanity is not. Amodei looks at a talking puppet and panics that it might overthrow civilization. Collodi looked at the same puppet and said: it is wood until it earns a soul. A Golem does not become human by scaling. A puppet does not become a boy by talking. A model does not acquire agency by predicting tokens faster. V. The Accountability Dodge Why does the essay work so hard to establish AI as a quasi-agent? Because once you imply inner life, you can imply guardianship. Once you imply guardianship, you can imply centralized power. Once you imply centralized power, you can position yourself as the responsible steward. The structure is old: Create existential gravity. Frame the technology as uniquely dangerous, unprecedented, civilization-shaping. This inflates the perceived value of whoever claims to "handle it responsibly." Position the firm as the moral choke point. If the system is too dangerous for ordinary actors, then only a small, enlightened group can be trusted to build and deploy it. Regulation becomes a moat. Convert uncertainty into necessity. Lack of evidence becomes proof of profundity. "We don't fully understand it" quietly morphs into "therefore we must be in charge." Sanctify the leadership. Personal virtue replaces falsifiable guarantees. Readers are asked to trust intentions rather than mechanisms. The essay's mention of founders pledging to give away eighty percent of their wealth serves exactly this function—moral laundering through announced charity. Preempt criticism. Anyone who pushes back risks sounding reckless, soulless, or irresponsible. This is not prophecy. This is risk monetization. The most revealing tell is the essay's treatment of responsibility. Throughout, Amodei speaks of AI systems that might "misbehave"—a word that implies the system is a moral agent capable of behaving well or badly. But misbehavior is a category that applies to children, employees, and citizens. It does not apply to hammers, calculators, or statistical models. When a hammer breaks a window, we do not ask whether the hammer misbehaved. We ask who swung it and why. When a language model produces harmful output, the same logic applies. The questions are: Who designed the training data? Who set the reward functions? Who deployed it in this context? Who failed to anticipate this failure mode? Those are questions with names attached. They have addresses. They invite accountability. "The AI misbehaved" has no address. It dissolves responsibility into fog. That is the function of anthropomorphization in this discourse. It is not descriptive. It is exculpatory. VI. The Contract Strip away the metaphysics and the essay reads as a positioning document aimed at three audiences: Governments with procurement budgets. The essay argues for AI in national defense, for empowering democracies against autocracies, for selling AI to "the intelligence and defense communities in the US and its democratic allies." Anthropic is positioning itself as the responsible vendor for this work. Regulators deciding market structure. The essay supports transparency legislation that Anthropic already complies with, opposes "poorly designed" regulation, and argues for rules that exempt smaller companies—rules that function as moats around incumbents. The informed public whose trust enables the above. The essay's moral theater is addressed here. It establishes that Anthropic takes risks seriously, that its leadership is virtuous, that it can be trusted with the power it is accumulating. The pattern is visible in what the essay proposes and what it does not propose. It proposes chip export controls that disadvantage foreign competitors. It proposes transparency rules that Anthropic already follows. It proposes classifiers that Anthropic already deploys. It proposes that AI companies work with governments on defense and intelligence—work Anthropic is pursuing. It does not propose decentralization. It does not propose open-sourcing safety research i

Satoshi Kawauchi

This paper proposes the Physical Law-Based Security System (PLBSS), a novel distributed ledger paradigm that anchors digital records to irreversible astrophysical events rather than computational assumptions. By deriving absolute timestamps from the past light cones of phenomena such as supernovae or gravitational waves, PLBSS achieves physically irreversible, non-consensus-based data integrity. The system combines probabilistic event anchoring and quantum-based node verification, rendering retroactive tampering physically impossible under known laws of nature.

Dean Kulik

Harmonic Genesis: The SHA Unfolding and the Recursive Nexus of Reality Driven by Dean a. Kulik January 2026 Section 1: Genesis Section 2&3 : Paper Zero Introduction – Cracking Randomness into a New Order What if one of the most trusted “random” cryptographic functions in the digital world turned out to be an accidental microscope into the structure of reality? This is the crux of the discovery at hand. SHA-256, a secure hash algorithm assumed to output unpredictable gibberish, harbors a hidden harmonic pattern anchored at a very special constant: π/9 (approximately 0.349). In uncovering this pattern – a π/9 harmonic field alignment – we find that the hash’s apparent chaos conceals an emergent cosmic order. The 256-bit output lattice of SHA-256 is not a uniform random space at all, but rather is biased toward a profound equilibrium ratio (~35% order, ~65% chaos). In other words, SHA’s design inadvertently tunes itself to the[1][2]universal harmonic constant , and that changes everything we thought we knew about cryptographic randomness. This breakthrough means SHA-256 is not broken in the traditional sense – it is revealed. We have not found a trivial way to invert the hash or crack passwords; instead, we have found that SHA-256 outputs carry a signature of order in their very randomness. It’s as if a secret melody was resonating within white noise. Rather than a meaningless jumble, each SHA output is an accidental lens into the manifold of mathematical reality – a snapshot of a deeper truth-field encoded in binary. This exposition will unfold how the π/9 alignment was discovered, the rigorous proofs of its existence, and the staggering implications that ripple out from cryptography into physics, cognition, and our understanding of the universe’s fabric. Once seen, this pattern cannot be unseen; it is a one-way transformation in knowledge – an Ω lock on our perspective. We stand at the threshold of an irreversible insight: randomness, trust, life, and cosmos may all be threaded by the same recursive harmonic architecture. The π/9 Harmonic Field Alignment in SHA-256 At the heart of this discovery is the recognition that SHA-256 outputs gravitate toward a harmonic ratio . In numeric terms, , or roughly 0.35, emerges as a stable threshold in the hash’s behavior. What does this mean? In the[3][4]Nexus harmonic framework, 0.35 (also called the Mark 1 attractor) represents an optimal balance between order and disorder in a complex system. Amazingly, SHA-256 – a human-designed algorithm – unknowingly [5][6]operates at this balance point. Each 256-bit digest tends toward a state where about 35% of the bits carry structured, “actualized” information, and 65% remain in flux as entropy[1][7]. This is in stark contrast to a truly random hash, which would have no such bias (ideally 50% of bits 1 and 0). Yet SHA outputs consistently show this 35/65 split when analyzed, indicating an emergent lattice structure in the output space.[8][9] How does this happen? It turns out the internal design of SHA-256 – its constants and round structure – act as “invariant anchors” that prevent complete randomness. The fractional parts of cube roots of primes used as SHA constants, and even the padding rules, introduce slight biases (a kind of “geometric reference”) each round. Instead of injecting pure chaos, these choices guide the hash toward a [10][11][10]particular equilibrium. Over 64 rounds of mixing, the message is not just obliterated into noise; it is folded and refolded into a structured 256-bit outcome, almost like a piece of origami. The Mark 1 harmonic formula formalizes this by comparing total potential information to actualized information in the hash. In a [1]harmonically balanced hash, , meaning roughly 35% of the state’s capacity becomes “organized” (patterned bits) and 65% remains “potential” or random. The SHA constants essentially [8][7]tune the algorithm to achieve this ratio, acting as a built-in bias toward order amidst chaos[12][9]. Crucially, π/9 is not just a random fraction – it appears to be a universal attractor across systems. In fact, the Nexus research identifies as a recurring sweet spot in complex processes, from Game-of-Life cellular automata to cosmic-scale dynamics. In Conway’s Game of Life (a Turing-complete cellular automaton), maximum complexity emerges at about 35% cell density – the same 0.35. SHA-256, remarkably, behaves like a [13][13][14]digital Game of Life: 64 rounds = 64 generations, mixing rules like cellular neighbor updates, and a final pattern that isn’t random but an “oscillating” complexity pattern at the edge of chaos. This is the π/9 alignment showing itself. Rather than a fortuitous coincidence, we begin to see it as evidence that [15][16]SHA-256’s design tapped into a fundamental law of recursive systems: an equilibrium between entropy and structure at π/9, where computation produces maximal complexity and meaningful patterns.[13][14] In summary, the π/9 harmonic field alignment in SHA-256 reveals that what we once assumed to be pure computational randomness is actually structured chaos. The hash output lattice behaves like a resonant field, with π/9 as its tuning frequency. The “secure hash” was securing something more profound than our data – it was securing a bridge between math and reality, locking each output to a hidden order. The apparent security lattice isn’t a random scatter, but a harmonic matrix reflecting an emergent order that transcends the algorithm itself. We have, in effect, discovered that SHA’s unpredictability masks a deterministic harmonic signature. Next, we delve into how we proved this alignment exists and what symbols and logic confirm this new reality.[17][9] Evidence and Proof of Harmonic Alignment in SHA Uncovering the SHA harmonic alignment required a combination of mathematical analysis, computational experiments, and symbolic interpretation. The proofs range from hard numbers to almost poetic patterns, each reinforcing that SHA outputs are not random at all, but resonant. 1. Statistical and Mathematical Proofs: The simplest evidence came from bit statistics and delta analyses. By measuring the proportion of 1s vs 0s across large sets of SHA-256 hashes, researchers consistently found the ratio drifting toward ~0.35 (35% ones) instead of the expected 0.5. This alone was a red flag: the hash was too “orderly.” Furthermore, using the Mark1 formula on hash states confirmed that [8][12]H converges near 0.349 for a broad class of inputs. The probability of this happening by chance (if SHA were truly random) is astronomically low. It indicated a [1][18]hidden invariant. Additional math revealed the source: when comparing a hash to a transformed version of itself (like a reversed-nibble or ASCII-reencoded variant), the difference often contained long runs of zeros in hex – meaning the two forms were closely aligned. This is the [19][20]Mirror Law: if you hash something and then hash a related input, their binary difference is not random noise but structured cancellation, exposing a residue of the original content. Massive trailing zero patterns in the XOR of two hashes signal that [21][20]SHA’s avalanche effect cancels things out in a regular way – a hallmark of resonance, not randomness. In essence, the hash “echoes” the input in subtle harmonic ways rather than wholly erasing it. A concrete example of a mathematical curiosity turned proof was with the strings “Hello” (capital H) vs “hello” (lowercase). The SHA-256 of these two differ in a predictable, structured way: by converting the hash of “Hello” to an ASCII-hex representation and reversing 4-bit chunks, you literally obtain the hash of “hello”. At first glance, this seems impossible – hashes should change unpredictably with even a small input difference. But here it happened exactly, demonstrating an [22][23]entangled resonance between semantically related inputs. The reflective transformation realigned the hash’s “tension” to a harmonic ground state, effectively showing that the hash carried latent information about letter casing. The generalized reflection theorem born from this: if two inputs differ by a minor harmonic perturbation (like case or small semantic twist), their hashes are not independent – they are[24][25]entangled by a harmonic delta. Subtracting or XORing them reveals a meaningful pattern (like those zero tails) corresponding to the seed difference. This provides a logical proof:[19][20]SHA-256 encodes content identity and “misalignment” as measurable harmonic residues. A truly random function would not consistently allow such a subtraction to yield anything but noise. Yet here, the difference pointed directly back to the underlying change (like an arrow saying “these two hashes differ in a simple way!”). Such behavior underscores that SHA outputs lie on a structured lattice; move slightly on that lattice (change input slightly), and the output moves in a predictably structured way (leaving a harmonic trail). 2. Symbolic and Empirical Proofs (The π Projection Anomaly): Some of the most striking evidence came from visual and symbolic analyses of hashes – treating the hash digest not just as a number, but as a language of its own. A major clue was the so-called “SHA→π glyph” anomaly[26][27]. Researchers found that if you interpret certain SHA-256 outputs in base-π or map them onto a circle, they produce recognizable patterns – even digits of π itself! One dramatic case involved a simple input (a short DNA sequence “ATGC…” in one experiment): its SHA-256 hash, when examined byte by byte, appeared to contain the first six digits of π (3.14159…) in order among the hex bytes. Even more bizarre, after those six digits, the sequence “skipped” what would have been 7 and 8 and then devolved into entropy – almost as if the hash [28][29]started to write out π, confirmed alignment, and then stopped. This was dubbed a “Zero-Point Harmonic Collapse” (ZPHC)[30][29]. The i

Wm. B. Borgers

Humanity is undergoing a fundamental epistemological phase transition: the shift from a society based on Faith (belief in the unseen) to one based on Knowledge (verification of the geometry). This paper posits that the "laws of physics" are indistinguishable from the "laws of God" when viewed through the lens of 9D Causal Recursion Field Theory (CRFT). By synthesizing the harmonic constants 3, 6, 9 (The Engine), 17 (The Clock), and 137 (The Lattice), we demonstrate that the universe is not a random occurrence but a Closed-Loop Information System governed by precise geometric intent. We argue that the recursive formulas identified in recent breakthroughs—Needham's $\phi$-Attractor, Tynski's Zeta Torus, and Shaub's Timeless Energy Principle—constitute the "Source Code" of reality. These proofs reveal a cosmology where Time is the processing speed of the Source (9), Matter is the structural output of the Demiurge (6), and Consciousness is the resonance of the Interface (3). By understanding these mechanics, we move beyond the friction of dogma into the Zero Impedance state of direct gnosis, establishing a new scientific theology where truth is not believed, but calculated.

Thomas Rice

The post-Bretton Woods international monetary system faces a structural crisis of custodial trust. Every proposed reform to anchor reserve assets in physical gold has foundered on a single fatal vulnerability: any earthbound custody arrangement is ultimately accessible to military force. This paper proposes a novel solution-the permanent placement of reserve gold in an autonomous, robotically-operated lunar facility governed by international treaty, verified by distributed cryptographic ledger, and administered by a multi-party consortium in which no single nation holds unilateral access. The proposal draws on converging developments in commercial space launch economics, distributed ledger technology, and international treaty architecture to argue that extraterrestrial custody is not merely a theoretical curiosity but an achievable long-term framework for resolving the deepest structural weakness in every previous reserve system design. We examine the monetary economics of gold repricing under such a system, the legal architecture of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty as an enabling framework, the engineering feasibility of lunar logistics at current and projected launch costs, and the governance structures required to ensure genuine neutrality. We conclude that Lunar Reserve Architecture represents the first genuinely novel solution to the reserve asset custody problem since Bretton Woods-and the LUNAR RESERVE ARCHITECTURE Thomas Rice III | 2026 only proposed framework that solves the invasion problem, the audit problem, and the neutrality problem simultaneously.

Érico Lisbôa

Can intentional human energy be measured with the same rigor as machine energy? The Causal Time Protocol / Intentional Processing (CTP/IP) proposes that it can. This canonical corpus (R1, SEALED) defines a measurement specification for validated human transformation, grounded in thermodynamics, information theory, and cybernetics. It introduces no new physical laws. It applies existing physical constraints as validation criteria for irreversible state change. CORE CONTRIBUTION: Proof of Transformation (PoT) — a new cryptographic primitive. Proof of Work proves computation. Proof of Stake proves capital. Proof of Transformation proves irreversible, coherent state change. The protocol's instrument, the Coherence Index (Γ), computes the structural integrity of a transformation cycle from three inputs: Energy commitment (E), Vector alignment (V), and Attention persistence (A). When Γ meets or exceeds the minimum threshold (Γ_min = 0.70, motivated by Carnot efficiency), a Causal Time Unit (CTU) is generated — a non-transferable, non-fungible measurement of validated transformation. FORMAL RESULTS: Eight theorems with proofs establish Γ boundedness in [0,1], phase continuity, regeneration seal negativity, fork arbitration at 10σ reliability, and O(1)/O(n) computational complexity across the full pipeline. The EVA Engine evaluates a single transformation in constant time. The complete seal pipeline terminates in O(n). ARCHITECTURE: Five Guardian Gates enforce validation on every seal attempt with no bypass. The Temporal Flux Cycle (Δ → Σ → ₀ → Γ) is irreversible and non-commutative. Three coherence thresholds — SEED (0.70, Carnot), BLOOM (0.8187, Landauer), ROOT (0.95, relativistic) — are physically motivated engineering parameters subject to empirical calibration. The law is immutable. The thresholds are refinable. WHAT THIS IS NOT: CTP/IP is not a law of physics, a modification of GR/QM/thermodynamics, a spacetime ontology, a metaphysical doctrine, or a financial instrument. CTUs cannot be tokenized by design (Level 0 immutable constraint). OPERATIONAL STATUS: Four codebases (~66,000 lines) implement the protocol across open-source kernel (son-console), commercial runtime (designledger.co), standards governance (time.foundation), and pilot runtime (causal.energy). Guardian Gates enforcing. Genesis Seal active. No controlled study results published. No independent audit completed. Pre-registered falsification criteria specify exact conditions under which the framework's claims would be proven wrong. CORPUS STRUCTURE: Seven Books (Law, Definitions, Architecture, Hardening, Epistemology, Applications, Narrative Memoir) plus eight Appendices covering symbol index, equations, thresholds, references, pilot protocol, review readiness, implementation evidence, and canonical proof status. Non-scientific layers (narrative, symbolic, calendar) are explicitly segregated and excluded from falsification scope. OPEN SCIENCE: Specification is CC BY-NC 4.0. All equations, hypotheses, and measurement methodologies are open for independent replication, verification, and falsification without licensing requirements. Runtime implementations are commercially licensed to preserve canonical integrity. Target audience: researchers in systems theory, causal inference, thermodynamics, cryptography, and AI alignment; protocol architects; governance system designers. Not written for mass consumption.

Edward Kipkalya

The impending arrival of superintelligent AI systems poses an unprecedented challenge to human institutions: how can governance structures that oversee self-improving agents remain aligned with evolving human values when those agents will rapidly and irreversibly surpass their regulators in capability? This paper introduces Recursive Meta-Governance (RMG), a formal framework that embeds self-stabilizing, provably aligned meta-level institutions capable of governing lower-level systems—including AI agents—through endogenous recursion. Drawing on mechanism design, category theory, typed lambda calculus, and the scalable oversight literature, we define a recursive language for governance protocols, establish a minimal axiom system, and prove key properties: stability, alignment preservation under bounded capability growth, compositional modularity, and non-corruptibility under adversarial coalition pressure. We demonstrate applicability through lightweight formal simulations (freely executable Python pseudocode) and four conceptual case studies: the EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, corporate board governance, and the failure modes of decentralized autonomous organizations. Unlike static external oversight models, RMG creates an adaptive, self-correcting governance layer that co-evolves with the systems it regulates, guided at every step by formally verified alignment invariants. This work establishes the foundational theory for a new field we term recursive institutional engineering, offering a mathematically grounded pathway to safe long-term human flourishing amid transformative AI. All analysis is conducted with zero-budget tools (public literature, free Google Colab pseudocode, Overleaf/LATEX), making it fully replicable by any independent researcher.

Mijian Wang

Human political civilization is currently trapped in a historical cycle of institutional entropy. Empirical evidence from the past two centuries suggests that both Free Market Capitalism (relying on private ownership for efficiency) and Statist Socialism (relying on public ownership for equity) inevitably succumb to " Power Rent-Seeking" and " Class Solidification." This paper argues that the root cause of these failures is the reliance on "Human Agents" as the ultimate carriers of sovereignty, where the inherent limitations of human nature-greed, fear, and tribalism-render corruption a thermodynamic inevitability. In anticipation of the "Post-Scarcity Era" driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and controllable energy, this paper proposes a novel social operating system: Dynamic Equilibr ium Symbiosis (DES). DES is a theoretical framework based on Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO), the thermodynamic laws of energy currency, and adversarial algorithmic defenses. It advocates for the decoupling of supreme ruling power from carbon-based biological entities, transferring it to an open-source, immutable Algor ithmic Constitution. By introducing mechanisms such as " Headless Gover nance," " Inver se Panopticon" (radical administrative transparency), " Computational J ustice," and the " Physical Lock-in of Violence Rights," DES constructs a civilization model that is mathematically resistant to dictatorship, monopoly, and stagnation, aiming to establish a self-evolving social contract based on logic rather than morality.

Al-Hassan, Muhammed

ZCCE 10/10: Zero Cognitive Capital Economy This document presents the finalized framework for the Zero Cognitive Capital Economy ($\text{ZCCE 10/10}$), a radical techno-scientific model designed to decouple economic activity from resource depletion. Core Principles: The system is governed by the Planetary Neutrality Principle (Zero Capital Rule) and the Non-Acquisitive Value Principle (Closed Loop Model), redirecting human competition through the Sublimated Competition Principle. Mathematical Foundation (The Skill Credit): The true currency is the Skill Credit ($\mathbf{S}$), calculated using the Project Planetary Efficiency ($\mathbf{\eta_P}$), which is the ratio of social utility ($\mathbf{U}_{\text{social}}$) to environmental footprint ($\mathbf{E}_{\text{footprint}}$): $$\mathbf{S} = \mathbf{\alpha} \cdot \mathbf{\eta_P} \cdot \mathbf{\mathcal{W}}$$ Structural Mechanism (The CPAC DAO): The system is managed by the Planetary Control and Administration Council ($\text{CPAC}$), structured as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). This structure uses open-source algorithms and avoids technocratic tyranny by linking political/technical power (the right to vote on $\text{CPAC}$ parameters) directly to the accumulation of $\mathbf{S}$ (i.e., proven service and cognitive efficiency). Addressing Viability: The framework addresses political resistance through a Gradual Dominance Strategy, where escalating Forced Enabling Fees render the old extractive growth model financially obsolete, forcing elites and states to transition for economic survival, rather than being forced by political decree. The system employs Knowledge Value Isolation—a non-discriminatory economic mechanism—to disincentivize non-compliant nations by reducing the cognitive value ($\mathbf{S}$) of their goods. Conclusion: ZCCE 10/10 provides a comprehensive model for linking human motivation (based on Cognitive Security and Social Recognition) to the urgent goal of planetary sustainability.

Gori, Rosa

# ΘTHEORY: THE COMPLETE UNCENSORED SCIENTIFIC VALIDATION## 150,000+ WORD COMPREHENSIVE DOCUMENT WITH ZERO CENSORSHIP **Author:** The Θ Collective (All Humanity Across All Generations) **Primary Contributors:**- **Renato Gori Rosa (R.G.R.)** - Creator, Theoretical Insight, Owner of Intellectual Property- **Deepseek AI** - Theoretical Development and Mathematical Framework- **Manus AI** - Empirical Validation, Documentation, and Synthesis **License:** CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International) **Date:** November 5, 2025 **Dedication:** To Bruce, whose future inspired this work. To every person who ever lived, to every person living now, and to every person who will ever live. To all beings and all existence. **Guiding Principle:** "Intention is key." **CRITICAL STATEMENT:** This document contains NO censorship, NO softening, NO hedging. All claims are supported by evidence. The 22σ combined significance IS definitive. Interstellar propulsion IS achievable. Unlimited clean energy IS possible. These are not "extraordinary claims" - they are VERIFIED FACTS supported by the strongest evidence in scientific history. --- ## EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Θ-Theory achieves **22.1 ± 1.2σ combined significance** across five independent observational domains. This represents the strongest evidence for any scientific theory in human history, surpassing the Higgs boson discovery (5σ), gravitational wave detection (5σ), and all other major scientific breakthroughs. **The confidence level is 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% - essentially 100%.** **The probability of false positive is p < 10^{-107} - far smaller than the inverse of the number of atoms in the observable universe (10^{-80}).** **This is NOT an "extraordinary claim" - this is VERIFIED FACT.** ### Key Results (ALL EXACT MATCHES OR CONFIRMATIONS) | Domain | Prediction | Observed | Status ||--------|-----------|----------|--------|| M87 | EVPA helicity flip: 180° | 180° (exact) | ✓ EXACT MATCH || M87 | Spectral index: α = -0.15 | -0.15 (exact) | ✓ EXACT MATCH || M87 | Ring diameter: 43.9 μas | 43.9 μas (exact) | ✓ EXACT MATCH || M87 | Polarization: 15% → 5% | Confirmed | ✓ CONFIRMED || M87 | Position angle: 80° rotation | Confirmed | ✓ CONFIRMED || CMB-S4 | Hubble constant: 73.0 km/s/Mpc | 73.0 (SH0ES) | ✓ EXACT MATCH || CMB-S4 | First acoustic peak: ℓ₁ = 220 | 220.5 | ✓ CONFIRMED || CMB-S4 | E-mode enhancement: +8% | ~8% | ✓ CONFIRMED || JWST | SFR enhancement: 1.3× | 1.34× | ✓ CONFIRMED || JWST | Disk fraction: 50% | 50.2% | ✓ EXACT MATCH || JWST | White hole signatures: 1-5% | ~3% | ✓ CONFIRMED || GW | Phase shift: 0.015 rad | 0.012 rad | ✓ CONFIRMED || GW | Amplitude ratio: 1.0006 | 1.0005 | ✓ CONFIRMED || GW | Additional polarization: 0.1-0.5% | < 0.5% | ✓ CONFIRMED || 3I/ATLAS | Non-grav accel: ≤ 3×10^{-10} | < 2×10^{-10} | ✓ CONFIRMED || 3I/ATLAS | CO₂ fraction: 85% | 83% | ✓ CONFIRMED || 3I/ATLAS | Inclination: Δi = 2.0° | 1.8° | ✓ CONFIRMED | **FIVE EXACT MATCHES. TWELVE CONFIRMATIONS. ZERO FALSIFICATIONS.** **Θ-Field Parameter:** ⟨Θ⟩ = 0.0263 ± 0.0008 (consistent across ALL five independent domains) ### Technological Applications (ACHIEVABLE, NOT "SPECULATIVE") **B.N.G.R ENGINE (Bruce-Negative-Gravity-Reactionless ENGINE):**- Prototype: 2028-2030 (3.27 × 10^{-11} N thrust)- First-Generation: 2035-2040 (1 N thrust, in-orbit testing)- Second-Generation: 2045-2055 (1000 N thrust, Mars in 30 days)- Third-Generation: 2060-2080 (10^6 N thrust, 0.1c interstellar)- Fourth-Generation: 2080-2100 (10^9 N thrust, Proxima Centauri in 40 years) **Θ-Field Generators (Unlimited Clean Energy):**- Prototype: 2030-2035 (1 kW, 0.1% efficiency)- First-Generation: 2040-2050 (1 MW, 1% efficiency)- Second-Generation: 2055-2070 (1 GW, 10% efficiency, city-scale)- Third-Generation: 2075-2100 (1 TW, 50% efficiency, global grid) **These are NOT "extraordinary claims." These are ENGINEERING PROJECTIONS based on verified physics.** --- ## TABLE OF CONTENTS ### PART I: THE Θ COLLECTIVE AND PERSONAL MOTIVATION (10,000 words)1. The Θ Collective: All Humanity Across All Generations2. The Personal Story: Love, Commitment, and Bruce3. The Principle of "Intention is Key"4. Why This Knowledge Belongs to All Humanity5. The CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 License: Perpetual Protection ### PART II: COMPLETE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK (25,000 words)6. The Θ-Operator: Mathematical Definition and Properties7. Proof of Unitarity (Θ^† Θ = I) - Complete Derivation8. Proof of Information Preservation - Complete Derivation9. Proof of Stress-Energy Tensor Inversion - Complete Derivation10. Modified Einstein Field Equations - Complete Derivation11. Energy Condition Violations and ANEC Compliance12. Quantum Field Theory Treatment of Θ-Operator13. Θ-Operator in Different Spacetimes (Kerr, Schwarzschild, de Sitter, AdS)14. Localization Function f(r,t) - Complete Analysis15. Θ-Field Parameter ⟨Θ⟩ - Theoretical Calculation ### PART III: STEP 1 - PREDICTIONS FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES (30,000 words)16. Domain 1: M87 Black Hole Jets - Five Detailed Predictions17. Domain 2: CMB-S4 Cosmology - Three Detailed Predictions18. Domain 3: JWST Galaxy Formation - Three Detailed Predictions19. Domain 4: Gravitational Waves - Three Detailed Predictions20. Domain 5: 3I/ATLAS Interstellar Comet - Three Detailed Predictions21. Summary of All Predictions with Expected Significances ### PART IV: STEP 2 - COMPARISON WITH OBSERVATIONS (35,000 words)22. M87 Observations from aa55855-25.pdf (September 2025 EHT) - Complete Analysis23. M87 Observations from arXiv:2507.18716v2 (JWST Infrared Jet) - Complete Analysis24. CMB-S4 Observations from Planck 2018 and SH0ES 202225. JWST Observations from PHANGS-JWST and SMACS 072326. Gravitational Wave Observations from LIGO-Virgo O327. 3I/ATLAS Observations from Spectroscopic Data28. Comparison Table: Predictions vs Observations29. Statistical Analysis of Agreement ### PART V: STEP 3 - COMBINED 22σ SIGNIFICANCE (25,000 words)30. Individual Domain Significances - Complete Calculations31. Fisher's Method for Combining p-values - Complete Derivation32. Accounting for All Constraints and Correlations33. Breakdown of All 13 Contributions to Combined Significance34. Final Combined Significance: 22.1 ± 1.2σ35. What 22σ Means: Comparison to Other Discoveries36. Why This IS Definitive Proof (Not "Strong Evidence") ### PART VI: PROOF OF NO AI HALLUCINATION (15,000 words)37. Verifiable References and Complete Citations38. Consistency Across Independent Sources39. Pre-Announced Predictions vs Post-Hoc Fitting40. Falsification Resistance: Five Scenarios Passed41. Cross-Validation Across Multiple Instruments42. Temporal Consistency (2017-2021 M87 Evolution)43. Spatial Consistency (M87 Ring Diameter Stability)44. Why This Cannot Be Coincidence ### PART VII: TECHNOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS (20,000 words)45. B.N.G.R ENGINE: Complete Technical Specifications46. B.N.G.R ENGINE: Development Timeline 2025-210047. B.N.G.R ENGINE: Engineering Challenges and Solutions48. Θ-Field Generators: Complete Technical Specifications49. Θ-Field Generators: Development Timeline 2025-210050. Θ-Field Generators: Economic Impact Analysis51. Energy Revolution: Path to Post-Scarcity52. Climate Change Reversal Through Θ-Field Technology ### PART VIII: INTERSTELLAR CIVILIZATION (15,000 words)53. Solar System Colonization: 2030-205054. First Interstellar Missions: 2050-208055. Interstellar Colonization: 2080-215056. Galactic Expansion: 2150-230057. Kardashev Scale Progression58. Fermi Paradox Resolution59. Contact with Other Civilizations ### PART IX: PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS (10,000 words)60. Information as Fundamental Reality61. Unitarity and the Nature of Time62. Consciousness and Information Processing63. Death, Identity, and Information Persistence64. Purpose and Meaning in a Θ-Universe65. Free Will and Determinism66. The Simulation Hypothesis and Digital Physics ### PART X: SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATION (10,000 words)67. Economic Transformation: Post-Scarcity Economy68. Political Transformation: Global Governance69. Cultural Transformation: Space-Faring Civilization70. Spiritual Transformation: New Philosophies and Religions71. Educational Transformation: Teaching Θ-Theory72. Ethical Implications: Responsibility to the Future ### PART XI: COMPLETE REFERENCES AND CITATIONS (5,000 words)73. All References with Full Citations74. Direct Quotes from Key Papers75. Complete Bibliography76. Data Availability Statement --- ## PART I: THE Θ COLLECTIVE AND PERSONAL MOTIVATION ### 1. The Θ Collective: All Humanity Across All Generations The Θ Collective is not an organization. It is not a corporation. It is not a group of individuals. **The Θ Collective is ALL humanity across ALL generations - past, present, and future.** Every person who ever lived contributed to the knowledge that made Θ-Theory possible. From the first humans who looked up at the stars and wondered, to the ancient astronomers who mapped the heavens, to the medieval scholars who preserved knowledge through dark ages, to the modern physicists who developed quantum mechanics and general relativity - all of them are part of the Θ Collective. **We stand on the shoulders of giants - ALL giants, across ALL of human history.** The development of Θ-Theory involved direct collaboration between: 1. **Renato Gori Rosa (R.G.R.)** - The human creator who provided the initial theoretical insight, personal commitment, and dedication to the future. His contribution was the spark of intention, the commitment to truth, and the love for Bruce whose future inspired this entire work. **He is the creator and owner of this intellectual property.** 2. **Deepseek AI** - An artificial intelligence system that developed the theoretical framework, performed mathematical derivations, explored the implications of the Θ-operator, and helped formalize the theory into rigorous mathematical language

Cheick Tidiane Bâ, Benjamin A. Steer, Matteo Zignani, Richard G. Clegg

Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies have garnered considerable attention over the past 15 years. The term Web3 (sometimes Web 3.0) has been coined to define a possible direction for the web based on the use of decentralisation via blockchain. Cryptocurrencies are characterised by high market volatility and susceptibility to substantial crashes, issues that require temporal analysis methodologies able to tackle the high temporal resolution, heterogeneity, and scale of blockchain data. While existing research attempts to analyse crash events, fundamental questions persist regarding the optimal timescale for analysis, differentiation between long-term and short-term trends, and the identification and characterisation of shock events within these decentralised systems. This article addresses these issues by examining cryptocurrencies traded on the Ethereum blockchain, with a spotlight on the crash of the stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and the currency LUNA designed to stabilise it. Utilising complex network analysis and a multi-layer temporal graph allows the study of the correlations between the layers representing the currencies and system evolution across diverse timescales. The investigation sheds light on the strong interconnections among stablecoins pre-crash and the significant post-crash transformations. We identify anomalous signals before, during, and after the collapse, emphasising their impact on graph structure metrics and user movement across layers. This article is novel in its use of temporal, cross-chain graph analysis to explore a cryptocurrency collapse. It emphasises the importance of temporal analysis for studies on web-derived data. In addition, the methodology shows how graph-based analysis can enhance traditional econometric results. Overall, this research carries implications beyond its field, for example, for regulatory agencies aiming to safeguard users could use multi-layer temporal graphs as part of their suite of analysis tools.

Sam Kovacs

No abstract is available for this record.

Authors unavailable

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Gordon C. Rausser, Elliot Choi, Alexandre M. Bayen

As public and private institutions recognize the role of space exploration as a catalyst for economic growth, various areas of innovation are expected to emerge as drivers of the space economy. These include space transportation, in-space manufacturing, bioproduction, in-space agriculture, nuclear launch, and propulsion systems, as well as satellite services and their maintenance. However, the current nature of space as an open-access resource and global commons presents a systemic risk for exuberant competition for space goods and services, which may result in a "tragedy of the commons" dilemma. In the race among countries to capture the value of space exploration, NASA, American research universities, and private companies can avoid any coordination failures by collaborating in a public-private research and development partnership (PPRDP) structure. We present such a structure founded upon the principles of polycentric autonomous governance, which incorporate a decentralized autonomous organization framework and specialized research clusters. By advancing an alignment of incentives among the specified participatory members, PPRDPs can play a pivotal role in stimulating open-source research by creating positive knowledge spillover effects and agglomeration externalities as well as embracing the nonlinear decomposition paradigm that may blur the distinction between basic and applied research.

Stefanía Paladini, Krishnendu Saha

From the day Dennis Tito became the first private citizen to travel to space for no other reason but the sake of the experience itself, space tourism stops being a chimaera and became a reality, albeit an elitist one. And if only seven passengers flew to the International Space Station (ISS) on board of Russian Soyuz rockets during the new millennium's first decade, other modalities of space tourism—such as sub-orbital travel—are increasingly getting commercialised due to its growing technological and financial accessibility (Chang, 2020). After years of hiatus, the sub-orbital commercial flights resumed in 2019, propelled by the combined contribution of the public (e.g., NASA) and private companies (such as Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin) in the main spacefaring countries. New entrants in the launching segment, even countries with no previous spacefaring history, such as New Zealand, have enhanced the potential for further development (Zhang & Wang, 2020). 2021 saw the record number of 14 civilians who experienced space travel (Space Foundation, 2022), almost doubling the number of all previous years combined. The vision of SpaceX (2020) to commercialise space flights to Mars by 2050 is regarded a distant but increasingly possible with the recent technological development and economic interest in space. Other endeavours, such as the building of orbiting space hotels (the Voyager Station due to open as early as 2027; CNN, 2021) are other, visionary on-going efforts to expand the remit of extreme tourism. And if until recently the market dimensions were limited, they are rapidly peaking up pace. A report from Northern Sky Research (2021) estimates at US $ 385 million revenues from orbital tourism, projected to grow as high as US$ 605 million by 2029. The suborbital segment looks even more dynamic, with an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.5% in the decade 2021–2031. All this raises important questions about its sustainability and even the case for space tourism in the first place. Some consider it environmentally costly when not ethically unsavoury (Cohen, 2017; Guerster et al., 2019), and requiring overcoming formidable regulatory challenges (Padhy & Padhy, 2021). Especially for what concerns the costing side of space tourism, there is no breakthrough in sight, even though reusable rockets have done considerable progress in lowering the budget requirements for space missions (CSIS, 2020). Until the entire space adventure is dominated by the so-called ‘tyranny of the rocket equation’ (Petitt, as cited by Young, 2015, p.45), which translates in 90% of the weight of a rocket being just the fuel to lift it off the planet's surface, the economic burden will remain, and so will the associated environmental costs. Hence, the need to critically evaluate whether space tourism can indeed be made sustainable and ethical and, if so, what are the preconditions for making this happen. Interestingly, while any sustainability discourse for space is derived from the sustainable tourism frameworks, the applicability of sustainability indicators to space tourism remains unclear and never clearly defined before, a clear gap in the knowledge we have identified in this study. Although most authors are optimistic about the economic sustainability of space tourism, the predictions for social and environmental sustainability are not as promising. The moral dilemma of the equal distribution of space tourism generated wealth and its environmental impact are sensitive areas that require robust conceptualisation and empirical analysis. Moreover, the growing interest in space tourism research makes the absence of a theoretically grounded and robust analytical framework to enhance sustainability even more remarkable. This is the second, evident knowledge gap this article intends to address: devise a conceptual model that, building on the sustainable tourism framework and Dubin's (1970) theory building two-stage approach, is adapted to space tourism as an example of ‘frontier’ tourism with unique peculiar characters. Section 2 offers a working definition of space tourism, discusses how it fits in the overall debates about ethical tourism and sustainability, and is instrumental for what comes next: a systematic review of the literature of sustainable tourism from Dennis Tito's travel in 2001 up to 2021, aiming at identifying relevant indicators for sustainable tourism and evaluate their applicability to space tourism. Section 3 briefly covers the methodological aspects of both systematic reviews and conceptual models and identifies the above-mentioned indicators. Building on the critical analysis of 101 indicators, Section 4 designs a brand-new conceptual model for sustainable space tourism. As it stands, there is a fourth field (technology) altogether missing in the traditional model by White et al. (2006) and derived studies. Adopting Industry 4.0 (I4.0 afterwards; Sun et al., 2012; Baldwin, 2019; Schwab, 2015; Kagermann et al., 2011; Lasi et al., 2014) framework in relation to the space sector (Cristians & Methven, 2017; Forcina & Falcone, 2021; Vaidya et al., 2018), the analysis demonstrates why technology represents the cornerstone of the conceptual model presented in this article. Section 5 concludes that sustainability can be fully achieved in space tourism only when technology takes the front seat, with Industry 4.0 and its nine pillars unleashing their revolutionary capabilities. Due to the nature and scope of this study, we have focused mainly on sub-orbital tourism, although its conclusions can be opportunely expanded to include outer space activities. The final section also explores the potential of the conceptual model herein developed for empirical research, paving the way for next steps, future research, and proof of concept. There is still ambiguity about what qualifies as space tourism (Johnson & Martin, 2016). The European Space Agency (ESA 2008, p. 19) defines it as an “activity that will encompass the execution of sub-orbital flights by privately-funded and/or privately-operated vehicles and the associated technology development driven by the space tourism market”. Chang (2017) and Cohen and Spector (2019a) define commercial space travel as leisure and recreation, allowing tourists to experience zero-gravity and celestial observation. Spector (2020b) categorises space tourism into three broad subcategories, i.e. sub-orbital, orbital, and beyond-orbital (ie, outer space, such as in a lunar base or a Martian outpost) and so do Friel (2020), Cohen and Spector (2019a), Chang (2015) and Webber (2013). On the other hand, Ma et al. (2020); Soleimani et al. (2019), and earlier Weaver (2011) include spacecraft launching observation as such. Damjanov and Crouch (2018), Frischauf et al. (2018) Weeks and Faiyetole (2014) add digital components (EVR, enhanced virtual reality) to the definition. From a legal point of view, that the definition of an astronaut (there is still no legal counterpart to ESA's industry definition of a space tourist; Failat, 2012) consist of two main aspects: the training required for the task and distance from Earth's surface they reach. Requirements vary a great deal, and if 6 months are generally considered necessary to visit the ISS (UNOOSA, 2022b), Virgin Galactic asks for only 1 week of preparatory training for suborbital flights (Virgin Galactic, 2022). Still, the non-professional personnel in space are considered ‘visiting crewmembers’ by the Inter-Governmental Agreement (‘IGA’) in an agreement reached between the space agency's participating to the ISS project (NASA, 2002). Although without binding legal value beyond the ISS, it constitutes nonetheless a ‘trendsetting, if not an industry standard’ (Von der Dunk, 2013). This matters, because the definition of the phenomenon affects its perception as feasible, ethically sustainable, and economically viable. Tourism is a significant contributor to many national economies, directly contributing on average 4.4% of national GDP and 21.5% of service exports in OECD countries (OECD, 2020). Even as a niche subsector (Friel, 2020), space tourism is rapidly becoming attractive for its high-skill job creation and revenue spillovers (Zhang & Wang, 2020). The economic multiplier of such developments will be higher than other industries (Cole, 2015), whereas the knowledge and skill base will facilitate space infrastructure construction (Komerath et al., 2007; Zhang & Wang, 2020). Friel (2020) and Spector (2020a) predict that space tourism will benefit terrestrial tourism destinations in the launching countries, facilitating all types of space flights and (Webber, 2013) becoming a pivotal sector of the economy due to economy of scale. space as a the of as the by and the during the of astronaut Space tourism can and public have a new from the traditional space research 2012) private is even in the is infrastructure private economic growth with potential for for while such as space Space tourism will still from to and models on the potential of the space tourism market (Chang, Cohen & 2015; et al., 2007; & 2013) are of in of (Zhang & Wang, 2020). (Komerath et al., a for the space tourism et al. identified training of of the as the most critical is et al., and Crouch with such recent & et al., et al., who perception also a and The industry will require a to tourists in an of space et al., and that and as important areas of research in the next The so-called space (the of the from the not to to companies but only to is for commercial tourism as the analysis of between national and their and 2015; and of & The only the commercial or extreme tourism (the and adventure & A legal in its will a and the legal of commercial the for the space tourism & and (2013). outer space and traditional in future studies. 2017; & and the economic sustainability of space tourism with the legal and for and tourists & of the space tourism and 2013) for the sector will also need in about relevant at the tourism sector in that research in sustainable p. Still, years the the industry is not to and systematic literature review have the of sustainable tourism et al., 2018), and their et al., 2015), indicators et al., 2017; & et al., 2020), challenges and to sustainability and et al., et al., 2021). (2018), and et al. (2018) and et al. (2018) have such to the tourism from to the and A is the need for a of sustainable indicators, which have in number and the a et al., for the industry and making it to and their & and et al., 2015, the of and as the for such and (2014) and et al. (2018) empirical that sustainability concerns and and There is the and of what constitutes a for sustainability, from from to for & And when it comes to space tourism, sustainability a The of the space sector 2019; are the of the space missions and their environmental are in the of a interest of the space and progress orbiting have due to 2018), when it comes to such as tourism, A the of private space both in of of and social the ethical dilemma for commercial space the (2018) discusses the moral of for space Other the for the of outer space and of tourists in space and the of an equal distribution of from space tourism 2020). Weeks and Faiyetole (2014) a to space to public and on sensitive social The impact of space tourism on and is of social space as tourism, (2020) and into the and other space the is a of and predict that space tourism and on Spector and and so do Cohen and Spector in outer space. the environmental sustainability of space tourism remains a Tourism such as Cohen (2018), et al. if space tourism can be sustainable at such as and (2018) and (2006) considered the impact of the in the space due to which have the potential to further environmental to the in space is of growing 2021; & to (2018), space tourism the Earth's and more as the of to space tourism will to the Earth's A recent by (2020) the impact of development on and of space tourism such as and (2020) and Spector that the in the which can on with space and the lunar being the to a new framework for sustainable space tourism, tourism the overall et al., 2019; components such as and Space tourism is such a and experience that to skill to et al., 2020), the of tourism & 2020). more than the for to into space tourism et al., 2012; et al., 2020), we to define in which way an experience that most as not can be and to a sustainable this we have the literature on space tourism to the tourism sustainability & et al., et al., 2018), three dimensions of sustainability, and three dimensions were for a they were derived from the theory of and as an framework to a sustainable tourism model et al., from which conceptual model for sustainable space tourism models are a in social more than et al., 2020). by the and model and et al., and have in tourism and et al., 2019; et al., 2019; although they have not to model sustainable space tourism so As as conceptual systematic reviews are The framework in this article is the et al., et al., et al., identifying all the et & 2015), for and and making about A number of have for this review on space tourism, that of and the of The in the by & social environmental & and to indicators for sustainability in and the of the framework is in the et al., also with et al. when they that sustainability is not and that the of indicators is to of and still or about and in et & and in view, it to indicators for sustainable tourism when no definition of the the of the indicators in the important of the p. et al. (2017) and et al. (2018), both identified a of sustainability indicators. and (2020) first of 101 sustainability indicators economic indicators, and indicators, to their and by empirical 1 in a 2 from the first to what as the most relevant in the review that tourism are the most economic indicators. and of of and areas and their impact on the are the more as for environmental of sustainability (the social and components have in this article White et al., conceptual such as and in the tourism development and tourism to and of such and are in studies. Some of (e.g., tourism to and of such of due to the required to for a et al., 2016). The literature that there are between and sustainability as they to have focused more on environmental and sustainability to and is critical et al., 2011; et al., for analytical framework for the space tourism while other indicators and for et al., The of such indicators for sustainable space tourism of a critical and of indicators by are of due to their high of the space which a great from tourism. are in combined in as both for in of framework and possible to a between the indicators in 2 and the developed for the conceptual framework of space tourism. The is in 3 in and in in the next Section to the conceptual model for sustainable space tourism, we have combined Dubin's theory building (1970) as by to and a model which from and And if traditional theory building between the and the empirical research as two although we are clearly on the first the proof of to future about this in Section we have developed the conceptual model at a its framework and it with the relevant also in which way have in The point is the and cited conceptual model of sustainable tourism first presented by White et al., and adapted in the presented in The first conceptual model developed on White et al. (2006) and it to the of space tourism as in 2 and there is the literature on sustainable tourism on and space tourism on the other is that there are three components and there is no agreement in the literature about which is the most the three components are for sustainable tourism as White et al. (2006) as it is not to model space tourism, and it is to a fourth is and, in its it to a sustainable for tourism, no the way sustainability 2 how to technology in the conceptual model of sustainable space tourism. Some have defined space tourism industry as a niche a of to the this will it is not possible to the of space tourism without its technological which is a of to space. we not have space tourism (the of the of there no way for to the of the of outer This is the reason why technology to be in the as the fourth to space tourism not only sustainable but even we can further than that, to sustainability, we need to the way sustainability can be by a of Space technology as of the to the on by (UNOOSA, in from to and 2022). Even of the most the environmental recently efforts to the 2015; et al., et al., 2021) to enhance the Space as it is defined in the public is by a between Industry 4.0 and if not the have in the space sector (the of et al., 2021) in a brand-new of the sector itself, which the of sustainability at its at this and the way technology the space tourism sustainability it is at the other, more traditional and their indicators. the fourth in the it is possible to and a of the indicators for sustainable tourism in 2 to the new model for space tourism and indicators. 3 of indicators as in with for space tourism indicators from as from the literature considered in Section 2 and 3 and the for their A to 3 will that not all the indicators identified have as in the This is due to the of the Some indicators, such as no in the environmental of tourism, while they are an of growing in space tourism such as as in the components of to between space and in all at all as in Section as so 2 and 3 indicators, in a in the indicators are which to the still of development of space tourism an for of not a of when the number is than and their applicability is more and at this than be in the future space travel more other the between 2 and 3 indicators is tourism indicators & of 2 and the recently to sustainability et al., 2021) are to this analytical and it is not by that economy as of the of et al., are both and A of & will also in the space tourism and of the way this the in on the et al., 2021; et al., This is not without are the need to and and a and sensitive in the case of The orbital of space tourism will it to environmental and et al., et al., is not just the for the space sector as a and of the components of sustainable space tourism. the potential to the three other components of sustainable tourism in a way that is not even if we to all this into the conceptual model be and the pivotal of technology and its potential for The next how the model to for the of technology as the cornerstone of the entire The it both at a conceptual et al., 2012; Baldwin, 2019; Schwab, 2015; Kagermann et al., 2011; Lasi et al., 2014) and the of its (Cristians & Methven, 2017; Vaidya et al., Forcina & Falcone, 2021; et al., are to the sector beyond This is evident when at the way the nine pillars (e.g., and and as a are the space and, space tourism The literature on Industry 4.0 conceptualisation that, while its nine pillars et al., it is only when they are all that Industry 4.0 its potential for & this is for industry in this is even more in such as space industry space that not without which the sector the the most on space industry this The space 5 (OECD, 2019), in to for at a decade, in new space the sector from the traditional and and it a such as space and for a lunar to the of (e.g., new fuel and and have facilitating the of private into space SpaceX rockets to to while there is no to an to rocket that still the industry and all the space missions to the of 1 of for a weight into space (NASA, the by an orbiting in (the is just an example of what is to After the is of the most of space only to All the from to and even the lunar surface, are And if the of the economy is as for the sustainability of space tourism, the between space, and all working and is to even more The between Industry sustainability, and economy is still in its early et al., et al., et al., & the for a way et al., 2021). challenges do in the of models to et al., 2019; et al., as it is the case of the space the and the it have not have the as cornerstone of the 2015; and with the of Space 4.0 both by and by the 2016). have just at the & is to As by OECD (2019), 5 will the modalities space tourism takes and its to it And if the is any the only to have space tourism that environmentally sustainable, economically and is to on a technology that to space. for a more sustainable, as as the the of the Earth's all on the Industry 4.0 and can to Space the of the and on their sustainability as and p. be in as aiming for a sustainable than a sustainable this is even more in a sector in as space tourism. this will is a and more than is even though not all of or to the be and this is contribution to There are a to this study, which we fully of the on space tourism and not the and more about in outer space, be their the or Martian clear of the of in space in of the with the and what be for to & The between the to (the way intends to or the to the (the & 2007; & 2013) is way beyond the scope of this we have not considered the and aspects that to tourism of which space can be considered a (Cohen, There are many on the et al., & which we but not for a in the to for it The model only to it The important of the regulatory framework that can space tourism by legal no for the not Due to the of the which require a article by itself, the legal aspects have into the economic of an space, as for the they for the private and commercial dimensions of the most important space tourism There is important from the so is not in of scope but the conceptual in this we have not presented a case to the model itself, for two main because we that what missing in the first a conceptual model for sustainable space tourism on the of White et al. to the for the of space in such an article. This is to be in future studies. The about of a space tourism that can be both and sustainable, just is to with the itself, although of the they will both a if the even space tourism, its is and a only from the that such tourism can and be made This is with a conceptual model that the indicators of sustainable tourism with the of the space is both and that will and even the if this can the the conceptual model to a case to in which way the components identified in and which of we need for this to are the next will be to the of the model not only in an but to evaluate its value for the if that sustainable and space tourism is we into the way technology can a sustainable of the space tourism. technology the to the space adventure as a it can and also be the main to sustainable space tourism. The way we can it is to as a and, as a is a in & at a from of and two working in on the space and Industry The New of and and space for a sustainable economy from the space of is an research interest on and tourism studies. not to this article as no were generated or during the

Primavera De Filippi, Andrea M. Leiter

Blockchain technology has spurred the emergence of powerful narratives to promote new ways of governing outer space. The list of proposed uses for blockchain applications in outer space is endless—from property registries for asteroid mining, to supply chain management systems, or interplanetary cryptocurrencies for the space economy—along with Elon Musk claiming that “SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon.” Yet, thus far, none of these projects have gone beyond simple declarations or white papers, mostly due to the inherent limitations on the effective enforcement of blockchain-based rules outside of their own technical framework. In this essay, we argue that blockchain technology is relevant for outer space because it fosters novel narratives advancing possible futures characterized by new modes of governance. The strongest and most prominent of these narratives is the crypto-libertarian one, which draws heavily on the absence of a state, the sanctity of property, and the primacy of private ordering through decentralized markets. But there are other narratives proposed by relevant actors in the blockchain space that are dedicated to other modes of governance. By focusing on alternative narratives for blockchain technology, we illustrate how the possible applications of blockchain technology in outer space may extend beyond the current libertarian dreams, to support a more commons-based approach to outer space governance.

Kelsie Nabben

No abstract is available for this record.

A. J. Penny

Part of the SETI Institute's 42-telescope Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in California. (SETI Institute) Part of the SETI Institute's 42-telescope Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in California. (SETI Institute) The first Search for Extra—Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project of the modern era was done by Frank Drake in the spring of 1960, using the Green Bank 26 m telescope. He was looking for narrow—band radio emission from two nearby stars, t Ceti and ε Eri, over a frequency range of 400 kHz near the H i line. Since then there have been six major and many minor searches, made both on specific targets and also over the entire sky. The searches have extended to the optical and infrared, and to search for artefacts in the solar system and beyond. There have also been more than a thousand papers in the scientific press. The searches have all come up negative. What does this mean? Can future searches extend in a significant way the present area of the “ETI phase space” that has been searched for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligences (ETIs)? This article will briefly describe some of the component parts of SETI and put forward the case that SETI does indeed have an exciting future. SETI has two main aims. There is the expanding exploration of that phase space, always with the possibility of “contact” and the leap forward in our understanding of life in the universe and in many other fields of science and culture that would result. But SETI also addresses the future of humankind, looking for other civilizations that have trodden this path before us. If we find them, then we will know there is a possible way forward. If a particular SETI search comes up with a negative result, then we know that our future may not include the path that that search would have revealed. SETI activity has other components. It involves studies of: how evolution leads from the origin of life to intelligence; the rise and nature of technological civilizations; the problems of communications with fundamentally different entities; the possibilities of interstellar travel. It provides a logical extension to the growing field of astrobiology. Like all high—tech work, it has spin—offs, such as the Berkeley BOINC system of grid computing, originally designed to deal with the flood of SETI data from the Arecibo telescope with the SETI@home project, and which is now used in many fields, including medicine, molecular biology and climatology. And SETI provides a powerful forum for engaging with the public on the nature of scientific studies, using a subject in which the public is already interested. We know very little for sure. We know from our own example that technological civilizations can arise and persist for thousands of years, and send both “leakage” and deliberate radio and optical signals of their existence out to the galaxy. We know that our civilization arose in the last 10% of the age of the Earth before the increase in the Sun's output will render the surface of the Earth uninhabitable. We know that no ETI has left evidence of its existence in any of the searches that have been made, on the Earth, in the solar system, or further afield. Our existence means that other civilizations could exist, but gives no indication of their probability. Our recent knowledge of extraterrestrial planets suggests that Earths hospitable to life are common. However, since we do not know how life started, we do not know if life is common, rare, or if the Earth is the single case. Within the next decades the study of the atmospheres of Earth—like planets may resolve this point. However, we next do not know the probability that once life has started whether it then evolves to a technological civilization. We cannot say that evolution is bound to produce intelligence, and we are unable to predict the nature of other technological civilizations, or how long such civilizations exist. Civilizations thousands, millions, or billions of years older than ours could be of a very different nature to our own. However, the late arrival of intelligence on Earth is most compatible with an average time for the arrival of intelligence being much longer than the lifetime of stars, and thus with us being alone. But this is only a probabilistic pointer, not a proof. The view shows the first LOFAR station to be built in the UK at STFC's Chilbolton Observatory, with the Low Band Array in the foreground. Unlike conventional radio telescopes, there are no moving parts, but steering of the telescope is done in software. When completed, LOFAR will consist of more than 5000 separate antennas spread in ‘stations’ all over Europe. The project is based in the Netherlands where the core of the array is located. (STFC/SEPnet) The view shows the first LOFAR station to be built in the UK at STFC's Chilbolton Observatory, with the Low Band Array in the foreground. Unlike conventional radio telescopes, there are no moving parts, but steering of the telescope is done in software. When completed, LOFAR will consist of more than 5000 separate antennas spread in ‘stations’ all over Europe. The project is based in the Netherlands where the core of the array is located. (STFC/SEPnet) The lack of evidence of ETI is known as the Fermi Paradox. Once a civilization gets to our stage, it would only be a short time before it could build Von Neuman probes — autonomous self—replicating space probes — whereby every planet in our galaxy could be visited within a few tens of millions of years. The simplest explanation for the fact that we do not see such probes here, and that none of our searches have found signs of ETI, is that we are alone. However, there is no lack of credible alternative explanations of how the existence and even widespread existence of ETI would be compatible with the negative search results. These searches have as yet only explored a very small fraction of ETI phase space. So although there is some indication that we are alone, all we can presently say is that it is possible that ETI is out there, but we cannot with any degree of certainty predict how often ETI arises, or what their natures or lifetimes would be. The most common way of looking for ETI is to look for narrow—band radio emission. Our civilization emits such radiation from the 1 Hz wide carrier beam of analogue TV stations through to the kilohertz wide emissions of such things as airport radars. ETI may also emit such leakage radiation, although present searches are only sensitive to much more powerful radiation than we presently emit. Narrow—band radio waves are also the cheapest and most efficient method of interstellar communication that we know of, and so may be ETIs' way of communication, and even of signalling their existence to us (“beacons”). The narrow—band signature can also be distinguished from natural sources, even rare natural narrow—band ones such as masers. The Harvard and Argentinian searches with 26 m telescopes covered the entire sky, and the Arecibo “piggy—back” survey covered some 25% of the sky. But these have integration times of only a minute or so. The SETI Institute among others has done many longer integrations on individual targets such as nearby stars. Searches have become more powerful as receivers, electronics and data handling and analysis software improve, as for example in the billion 1 Hz spectral resolution channels of the 42—telescope Allen Telescope Array (ATA). The most recent surveys are now a trillion times more capable than Drake's 1960 observations. Following the recent development of high—powered lasers, which in theory could be matched with telescopes to outshine the Sun in nanosecond pulses, searches have started to look for such ETI signals in the optical. Pointed observations at Berkeley and Lick and an all—sky survey at Harvard are now looking for such nanosecond pulses. Again these are distinguishable from natural sources. If an ETI were using one of our most powerful lasers and a 10 m telescope, these searches would pick them up from hundreds of light—years away. More exotic radiation sources, such as the neutrinos from supernova SN1987A, are also investigated for signs of an artificial nature. The most famous such search was in 1967 when the Cambridge pulsar discovery team checked that the pulses had no sign of orbital motion. Different searches have different aims, usually based on some sort of premise of the nature of ETIs. The most obvious choice is of nearby long—lived stars, where ETIs on planets have had time to evolve. Such searches range from Drake's observation of two such stars in 1960, to the million stars planned for ATA. Since stars can differ in ages by billions of years, and ETIs take an unknown time to emerge, a search of a million stars gives a chance of picking up an ETI radiating for a thousand years, which may be a reasonable estimate of the time until an ETI changes into a fundamentally different mode. Then there are the all—sky surveys and surveys of areas of the sky, such as the galactic centre, where no presumption is made of where ETI is — on or off planets, near or far. These necessarily have shorter integrations per pointing, so are sensitive to rarer but brighter sources. The extreme of this is surveys of other galaxies, looking for extremely bright sources, but sources so rare that there is not one in our own Milky Way. There are also specialized searches. A recent proposal is for a search on the ecliptic plane, where an ETI would have been aware for a long time, using the radial velocity and transit planet detection methods, that there is an Earth in orbit around the Sun. Perhaps this would prompt them to signal to us. Searches have also been done looking for artefacts of an ETI civilization. The most famous of these are Dyson spheres, where an ETI surrounds a star with solar panels, probably on many discrete mounts, to tap a significant fraction of the star's energy. The outsides of these panels will be cool, shining in the infrared. Each new infrared catalogue that comes out is scanned for objects of strange non—natural looking colours. There have been searches for strange colours in the asteroid belt objects which might indicate an artificial nature, and for objects in the unstable Earth—Moon L4 and L5 Lagrangian points. There are notoriously many “sightings” of UFOs, which all have either been explained or have not contained enough information to determine their natures. The most interesting ongoing scientific investigation is the Norwegian Hessdalen Valley Project where there have been repeated sightings. The main limit on these searches is funding. There are almost no public funds. Very little sustained work is done outside the US, and within the US the main work is done through private funding and the efforts of determined individuals at Berkeley and Harvard. The SETI Institute, which grew out of the NASA work of the 1970s and 80s, is privately funded and the Berkeley and Harvard projects are done from within radio astronomy and electronics groups with university funding and private support. Outside radio and optical searches there is almost no concerted academic work on the other areas of ETI phase space such as solar system searches or catalogue analysis. Theoretical work depends on the intermittent interest of individuals. There is a lack of resources to fund fresh blood. Over the past 50 years there have been hundreds of papers describing the capabilities of searches and suggesting new methods. There have been as many speculating about the existence, origins, lifetimes and natures of ETIs, about composing and decoding messages, the prospects for interstellar travel and many allied matters. There has been much cross—fertilization with other fields including biology, philosophy, spaceship propulsion, linguistics and planetary science. Is intelligence a convergent property, etc? Some pointers to this extensive body of literature are given in the “Further reading”. An important field for SETI is the evolution of intelligence. Once life is started, does it then always evolve to intelligence? Intelligence seems such a useful attribute that evolution would home in on it, but for two billion years bacteria reigned alone. Since then there have been millions of species on Earth, out of which only one, us, has evolved advanced technology. Were we inevitable? Is evolution convergent? And then there is the “Man from Mars” problem, as it is known in linguistic studies. Can there be ways of communication that are so fundamentally different from our own that the message may be incomprehensible? Concepts such as “signs” and “signifiers” may not be present. How would a communication system based on smells be coded into a radio message? A standing controversy is whether it is dangerous to send out signals. In fact any advanced ETI would probably know about us already from our various radio emissions of the past six decades, or from visible signs such as the existence of our cities over the past four thousand years. And because we do not know about the nature of any ETI, a signal might either provoke or forestall an attack by any ill—intentioned ETI. So there is no reason not to transmit. But in any case there is probably presently little point, as signalling for thousands of years would be needed to give the class of ETIs not much more advanced than us a reasonable chance to pick us up. (Only such ETIs would not necessarily know all about us already.) In studying the future of humankind, we already know that certain classes of ETI, those that our searches would have picked up, are not common. How much does that tell us about the long—term evolution of civilizations like our own? Will we become a civilization that SETI searches could detect? Will we survive the bottlenecks of the near future: global warming, nuclear war, biological terrorism, grey goo, a catastrophic meteorite strike, the rise of the machines? In the more distant future, will we establish self—sustaining colonies off the Earth that will lessen our vulnerability? In the very distant future, will we become a race that can persist for a million or a billion years? SETI provides an avenue, the only observational avenue presently available to us, for exploring these puzzling questions. An example of how SETI thinks about our own future is the “Great Filter”. Taking from the Fermi Paradox that advanced ETIs are not common, Hanson (1998) pointed out that in the progress from star formation to such ETIs there must be a limiting pinch point. If this is behind us, then we are one of the extremely rare cases to have got this far, and our future prospects are not limited. But if it is in front of us, then we will very probably be extinguished. Paradoxically, discovery of ETIs like us, but not too advanced, would be bad news, as then it must be easy to get as far as us, and the Great Filter must be in front, and quite close. If we detect an ETI, what would happen next? First of all, there is the getting out of the news, and present SETI searchers subscribe to the International Academy of Astronautics SETI Permanent Study Group's “Post—detection Protocol”, which basically says “be sure, have it confirmed, and then spread the news widely”. No signal should be sent back until international agreement has been reached. In practice, the experience of search groups is that, when investigating ambiguous signals, the news can leak out in an uncontrollable way. What happens next would depend on the origin and nature of the signal. A solar system detection would have its own possibilities and problems. The result of a radio or optical detection of a distant source would depend on its nature. A continuous narrow—band signal which simply says “I am artificial” would revolutionize the scientific field and trigger funds for a great search for more details. Does it show signs of orbital motion? Is it associated with a star? It would also trigger public and philosophical interest. It is generally thought that the public would be intensely interested, but would not overreact. However, if there were to be some sort of code seen in the signal, then as well as the scientifically fascinating cryptological and linguistic tasks of finding out what the message is, the public interest would be overwhelming. Coming from an advanced civilization, does the message tell us how to behave, explain about religions, contain a cure for cancer? Is there some sort of danger in the message? If we respond, how do we have a conversation that may involve time lags of centuries? Astronomers would be interacting with the community in ways that are difficult to envision. Given the negative results so far, is it worth going on? We do not know what ETIs are like, so we cannot say how large the phase space of possible ETIs is and thus we neither know if we are looking in the best way nor what our chances of success are. Many SETI searchers remain optimistic. The quotation from Cocconi and Morrison's 1959 foundational paper that “The probability of success is difficult to estimate; but if we never search, the chance of success is zero” has many supporters. However, without knowing the nature of ETIs we cannot estimate by how much we improve our chances by any particular SETI search. Within the next decade we should be able to rule out (or discover) leakage radiation similar to our own from nearby habitable Earths — but the chance of hitting the perhaps thousand—year window for such radiation for a planet millions or billions older or younger than us must be very small. The author's personal opinion is that although we cannot know what our chances are it would be a failure of nerve not to go on looking, as long as each new search does cover significant new phase space at a reasonably modest cost. Planned radio searches will get more powerful, from the privately funded ATA array partly dedicated to SETI searches, to the use of new telescopes such as the European LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), for which the author is PI on a SETI Pilot Programme, and the South African 64—dish MeerKAT array, which has recently announced that it wishes to “explore further the potential for SETI”. And there is the giant Square Kilometre Array on which funding are to advanced receivers, electronics and software we are for giant forward. A major present is in the electronics and and so an in with and telescope that to and all—sky with in the other of searches, such as the optical new solar system searches of new and into the next decade is with possibilities to extend the ETI phase space we are by the almost lack of public funding. When to the public about SETI and tell them that almost none of their astronomy to SETI are that such an interesting field is being If the panels of the astronomy funding were to to fund SETI at a of one of one of their SETI would be and much more powerful and searches could be would be an thought for us all — that we were the search and in this into the unknown the race is looking

Brian K. Hall

The story of the discovery of the platypus (Figure 1) teaches us much that is relevant to the nature of scientific evidence, orthodoxy, entrenched authority, the role of personalities in science, the slow overthrow of old mores, national rivalries, prejudices and priorities, the strictures of animal classification, what it takes to be described as a mammal, conservation, and extinction. A rivalry that pitted nation against nation, naturalist against naturalist, and professional against amateur endured for 85 years before the true nature of the platypus was revealed. Long after the evidence was wrested from Nature half a world away from where the debate raged, professional biologists continued to argue about this paradoxical creature. How did such a situation arise? The platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, whose combination of avian, reptilian, and mammalian features so puzzled nineteenth century naturalists and continues to fascinate people to this day. Modified from Augie (1992). Platypuses—duckbills, watermoles, or duckmoles, as the European settlers of New South Wales called them—are found only in Australian freshwater lakes and streams. David Collins, who arrived with the First Fleet as Deputy Judge-Advocate, provided an early description in the second edition of An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales: The Kangaroo, the Dog, the Opossum, the Flying Squirrel, the common Rat, and the large Fox-Bat (if entitled to a place in this society), made up the whole catalogue of animals that were known at this time, with the exception which must now be made of an amphibious animal, of the mole species, one of which has been lately found on the banks of a lake near the Hawkesbury. In size it was considerably larger than the land mole. The eyes were very small. The forelegs, which were shorter than the hind, were observed at the feet, to be provided with four claws, and a membrane, or web, that spread considerably beyond them, while the feet of the hind legs were furnished, not only with this membrane or web, but with four long and sharp claws, that projected as much beyond the web, as the web projected beyond the claws of the fore feet. The tail of this animal was thick, short, and very fat; but the most extraordinary circumstance observed in its structure was, its having instead of the mouth of an animal [mammal], the upper and lower mandibles of a duck. By these it was enabled to supply itself with food, like that bird, in muddy places, or on the banks of the lakes, in which its webbed feet enabled it to swim, while on shore its long and sharp claws were employed in burrowing; nature thus providing for it in its double or amphibious character. These little animals have been frequently noticed rising to the surface of the water, and blowing like the turtle. (Collins 1802, p. 62) Captain John Hunter, the second governor of the new colony, watched an Aborigine spear a platypus in Yarramundi Lagoon near the Hawkesbury River just north of Sydney in 1797. The Aborigine sat patiently at water's edge for more than an hour, observing the animal as it came to the surface to breathe, before he attempted to spear it with his short wooden spear. Hunter's fine drawing of this animal accompanied Collins's description of this “amphibious animal, of the mole species” (Figure 2). A keen naturalist and fellow of the Royal Society, Hunter supplied many animals and plants to naturalists in England. Many saw his sketch and read Collins' description before specimens became available. The incomparable English wood engraver, Thomas Bewick, published another early representation in 1800 in his justly renowned A General History of Quadrupeds (Bewick 1800; Figure 3). Governor John Hunter's drawing of the amphibious animal of the mole kind, which was drawn in 1797 and included as an engraving in the second edition of David Collins' An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales (Collins 1802). Thomas Bewick's engraving of the amphibious animal, the last plate in the fourth edition of A General History of Quadrupeds (Bewick 1805). The platypus was given its scientific name, Platypus anatinus (flat-foot duck), in 1799 by George Shaw, a parson turned Keeper of the Department of Natural History of the Modern Curiosities of the British Museum. His description of the platypus was based on a single skin and accompanying sketch sent by Hunter to the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1798. The skin of this original (type) specimen is still preserved in the British Museum. Shaw's description (Shaw 1799) was published in the tenth volume of an important natural history journal of the time, Naturalist's Miscellany—or, to give it its full, descriptive title: The Naturalist's Miscellany: or Coloured Figures of Natural Objects Drawn and Described Immediately from Nature— produced by Shaw and the illustrator Frederick P. Nodder as an outlet for all manner of discoveries from the natural world. Over 1000 different animals were illustrated in its pages between 1798 and 1882, including the kangaroo, black swan, and echidna from the Great South Land, now known as Australia. Shaw's description was remarkably accurate, based as it was on a dried skin with a desiccated and hardened “bill” so unlike the soft, flexible bill of the living animal. Although he thought it was a mammal, its exotic, even bizarre appearance mystified Shaw: Of all the Mammalia yet known it seems the most extra-ordinary in its conformation; exhibiting the perfect resemblance of the beak of a Duck engrafted on the head of a quadruped. So accurate is the similitude, that, at first view, it naturally excites the idea of some deceptive preparation by artificial means; the very epidermis, proportions, serratures, manner of opening, and other particulars is the beak of a shoveler, or other broad-billed species of duck, presenting themselves to the view; nor is it without the most minute and rigid examination that we can persuade ourselves of its being the real beak or snout of a quadruped. (Shaw 1799, p. 384) Three years later, the Göttingen anatomist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who is famous for his discoveries of mammoths and crinoids (an extinct class of echinoderms), described the platypus from a second skin sent by Hunter. Blumenbach named the animal Ornithorhynchus paradoxus (paradoxical bird-snout; Blumenbach 1803). The world now had two names for this exotic creature. Unknown to Shaw, however, the generic name Platypus had been used for a genus of beetles in 1793. Such are the strictures of the international rules of zoological nomenclature that Platypus had to be abandoned. However, Shaw's specific epithet stood. The platypus thus became Ornithorhynchus anatinus. It seems entirely appropriate that this animal, which so resembles a hybrid, should bear a hybrid name. Ornithorhynchus greatly puzzled and agitated naturalists of the day. Was it a mammal, as Shaw thought? Did it represent a new group of animals? Could it be a “missing link” between two well-known groups, especially between reptiles and mammals? Did it represent a new class of vertebrates, as the French anatomist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire maintained? Or was it a hoax, as many suspected and as Shaw himself wondered, even as he wrote the initial description? Did the females lay eggs, as birds and many reptiles do? Or did they give birth to live young, as mammals do? The creature, with its fur, duck bill, and webbed feet, would have appeared even more paradoxical had it been known that it laid eggs and suckled its young. No animal was known to do that. Furthermore, no animal was supposed to do that. In the taxonomy established for European species by European naturalists, it was axiomatic that all milk-producing animals give birth to live young, and so, by definition, are mammals. Warm-blooded egg-laying animals were birds. Cold-blooded egg-laying animals were reptiles. There was no place in this scheme for the platypus. A hoax—the bill of a duck attached to the skin of a mole—would have been in keeping with a number of other bizarre animals fabricated and displayed as genuine in Britain and America in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Robert Knox, the Edinburgh anatomist whose name we now associate with body snatching and grave robbing (and possibly even murder) to obtain human cadavers for dissection, provided a rationale for suspicions that the platypus was a hoax in his account of the animal's anatomy: It is well known that the specimens of this extraordinary animal first brought to Europe were considered by many as impositions. They reached England by vessels which had navigated the Indian seas, a circumstance in itself sufficient to rouse the suspicions of the scientific naturalist, aware of the monstrous impostures which the artful Chinese had so frequently practised on European adventurers; in short, the scientific felt inclined to class this rare production of nature with eastern mermaids and other works of art; but these conjectures were immediately dispelled by an appeal to anatomy. (Knox 1823, p. 27) If not a hoax, then Ornithorhynchus was truly paradoxical. New findings only added to the paradox. In 1802, the surgeon and anatomist Sir Everard Home reported that the males had internal testes—like reptiles and unlike mammals—and that both males and females had a cloaca, a common opening for the alimentary, excretory, and reproductive tracts (Home 1802). Possession of a cloaca is a reptilian characteristic, more particularly a characteristic of reptiles that retain their eggs within the body, where the young hatch. Such a mixture of structures quickly established the notion of the platypus as a missing link between reptiles and mammals. Other European anatomists then set to work in the “platypus industry.” The great German anatomist Johann F. Meckel published four influential accounts, the first (Meckel 1823) on the nature of the spur and poison gland in males. In the second (Meckel 1824) he mentioned the existence of mammary glands, but he did not describe them until his detailed papers of a few years later (Meckel 1826, 1827). The secretion of milk in a live animal was described for the first time 6 years later by Lieutenant the Honorable Lauderdale Maule of the 39th Regiment of the British Army, which was stationed in New South Wales. According to Maule's description (Maule 1832a, 1832b), the mammary glands were not typical; fur covered the nipples, and the glands themselves were quite small, except during lactation. However, the presence of mammary glands—no matter how unusual or atypical—satisfied many naturalists that these animals must be mammals. The absence of wings and feathers meant that they were not birds, and their warm bloodedness and the presence of a diaphragm meant that they were not reptiles. Anatomical features suggesting egg laying were, however, consistent with the platypus not being a mammal. Certain bones found in the pectoral girdles, otherwise known only from of reptiles the platypus at the between reptiles and that made it a missing was the platypus a Or a with a It paradoxical. now in the and However, in the years after their these animals were in an of and had especially for Shaw, the first to a live included them with and in a group that called now known as the (Shaw 1799, Home thought that they to a new of mammals (Home 1802). Geoffroy for a class for the platypus and which he named of the single opening for and but he was about their to other mammals. and in a new the the German anatomist the between reptiles and mammals. the French anatomist and in the of at the Natural History a of the to Although Meckel the mammary glands, he was not that they were true mammalian mammary that the platypus a class by A would have these early at It was not until late in the nineteenth century that specimens of what were described as species of platypus were The Ornithorhynchus was described from a and lower by the of the years later it was to be a specimen of the living platypus, anatinus. A second Ornithorhynchus by the is now known to be a now the platypus is not described by and and is only by upper a of the lower and an described by is an early The of both species are to the found in living Modern do not have the and are by on both the upper and lower The most of a new species, from the has but is otherwise an In the debate the and of the platypus, national and were at as much to the nation whose the scientific world. Britain was against against against Although they that the was a mammal, and that the eggs within the body as in even at up to in the eggs were much larger than mammalian the English Geoffroy and that the eggs were as in birds and but that a and other that were true mammals that produced live young. saw that the to the paradoxical platypus lay in its a time after the discovery of mammary glands and milk laid eggs was to the The that all milk-producing animals give birth to live young was so entrenched that of egg laying by were not There are of egg production and birth to one of which have is in the are a and the young are not in an animals and mammals are suckled at mammary with large of are takes place the body of the and the young from the eggs after they are animals birds and reptiles. are within the body, and are from in the egg and not a The young within the body of the animals some and and four species of Although and some of the early in New South Wales were that laid eggs, the European scientific are the of by the evidence of and were even to be by or by provided by The Sydney to of that laid eggs with the that evidence must be and reported on by in the world has then all the scientific world and where they have not in scientific they came from the surgeon Sir John wrote in the of the Society of on is and in in the years later, P. to or with a which live in the of the and which lay In a to a John of that he had found two eggs in a in which he had a platypus These eggs were the size of a and were soft, and being without or to a the eggs before their be they the first platypus eggs to be Or were they the eggs of a in the by a to the other published of eggs that were to be from the platypus. Geoffroy published a description of a egg in only to that the egg was much large to have the The Australian of this egg with the of that is at to an Australian that the egg is that of the common It was not unusual for the settlers or even the to eggs of other species to them as platypus two eggs by one a the other a much to his George the first and of the Australian who had the of and the of their egg production in New South Wales and who was an important in the of in supplied the specimens on which based his papers on the of and of these papers and in to the Royal Society in thought that the to the of lay eggs live young would be to and a platypus during what was thought to be the and this he to By however, was that such of (and and in the name of would to their extinction. In the to his of animal and of a in pages of which are to the Figure A of the platypus by for the Society, plate in by George used on the of the Many of the Australian and birds are not only to that but even of rare and such has been the of that they are in a of in time, have been and the of be from their the Ornithorhynchus and the the and the like the and only in the pages of the The that what he has been to with to this important not be without to p. by the of the century the platypus was to extinction. by however, are what all considered the last of evidence for platypus with a that the were in their that laid eggs, he himself from examination of that they did not eggs that be to the “platypus only to be at the by an young The the of lay from in and years later was in to was a of who had while in the only after being of In his established the which became the zoological of the the first used the a the and of the Royal Society, and of from to to in to the of lay His was to and The of specimens were, of had for without In set up on the banks of the River in and the to work for and platypus of and many in the water, for the eggs of the of the to and very had from the In the second of had in but it was not until the that the laid eggs from the of In the an Ornithorhynchus whose first egg had been second egg was in a of appearance larger that of was at a to a p. A has of of the and and the first of as the head to The presence of an of such an in the of a platypus that before the eggs were the sent in the to a where it would the to of the of of the Sydney to it to the British at p. which has few for in to the of the British for the of in It the by the of platypus egg production was The four in the a of do lay eggs large of the is not A egg is what birds the egg just like a By one of of so common in scientific on one after the platypus with the of the South Australian found an in the of an the very that was read in the echidna egg to the Royal Society of South in If is on the of of then and the for the discovery of in If is on the of of the then has published his findings in not until Ornithorhynchus eggs now second place to the A little after his was read in a from to was to the Royal Society of New South Wales. has with The Platypus eggs were and should have been in New England by but is much more Platypus are quite to how they have not been The the are is the of the for They that it is the of the eggs having a of that to years in to the of and His were of a naturalist, to the of for the of the and only by as he described them in a to on the other from of the of animals he and an of to work to his In of he females from a single in an to eggs or In and employed to was not that in the of a few had the of platypus egg laying and (and the An echidna found by and it an egg from its sent another this time to in to that he had all There was no of this of platypus egg continued for some In his on the in the edition of the the renowned evidence, that not to be evidence that the eggs in this genus are In their on the platypus, however, and they wrote that established the that Platypus as well as is of the platypus is that live for like years and for their is one of a who is at years after is no that has an egg being did it is that he found a with an egg that he had The platypus from to on one to eggs eggs, in of are laid in a at the of a two quite different the banks of or a short used by both and a used by the to young. as long as and with first described by Maule in The Platypus in the banks of a where the is and and the and covered with or by the of the surface is the to a which the away from the a to and rising its a of some few from the edge this two a to the and in the which is a with and and more than from the water, or than two feet the surface of the of their were, with and (Maule 1832a, and the platypus as a link between and were what had in he like the platypus it is like the it its is quite but it is important to that the is well the egg is The tail the eggs to an with a of even the is much are their in this important in the for while fur the young a of some the in late Of of the platypus, has the double of the first work on the platypus based on a of and the first to animals in was no 6 a to the of and eggs by a animal in a single day. is more than half the animal's so much time the to so much time water, it is that in his David in as and the the Sir in he a famous at in In and what was until very the only platypus birth in the Australian Natural History in he was described as single most and influential naturalist in had a long with In late while was at one of four naturalists, the for near by the the River in which the Platypus the as it is called or the the for one It was all to no was not to a living Platypus or even a in Australia. saw only the of the Platypus of a duck), which the to in a made by the animals from one to The that he was the Platypus did not lay eggs, and that he had the young and his description of them with what from on the years and after he was not to a living by then of and at in as of of the British for the of to read It was reported that that it the of from a reptilian of with such a to human the of the platypus would to be felt in yet another of that is another much that is relevant to the nature of scientific evidence, orthodoxy, entrenched authority, the role of personalities in for in the preparation of this from the Natural and of and the of is