Free Republic

For years scholars have debated what inspired William Shakespeare’s writings. Now, with the help of software typically used by professors to nab cheating students, two writers have discovered an unpublished manuscript they believe the Bard of Avon consulted to write “King Lear,” “Macbeth,” “Richard III,” “Henry V” and seven other plays. The news has caused Shakespeareans to sit up and take notice.

On August 16, author, pundit, and radio personality Dennis Prager — who also happens to be an amateur conductor — led the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 51 in B-flat major before a sold-out house, amidst the unique architecture and near-flawless acoustics of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Prager, a lifelong classical-music devotee, has, through his guest-conducting efforts, helped a number of orchestras raise operating funds and reach a wider audience. Knowing this, the SMSO approached Prager earlier this year to enlist his help, and he was keen to...

Any ideas?

The Citadel, one of the country's oldest military schools, has denied an incoming Muslim student's request to wear a hijab, saying it would interfere with its tradition of cadets' "relinquishing of self."

I love this work. And the violinist is sort of transfixing too.

What are we to make of Andreas Lubitz piloting a Germanwings airplane into the side of a mountain? There is an unhelpful tautology, meant to be explanatory, that arises at times like this. How could someone have done something this evil? Because they were evil. Or: How could someone have done something this heartless? Because they were heartless..

Incredible (IMHO) exposition of the co-dependence of "evolutionary" minerology and biology.

My computer shuts down completely upon watching certain video. For example, the earlier posted Tom Cotton speech. When I clicked onto it, I was able to watch essentially the introduction, then, BLANK. The thing just shuts off. FR, or stuff like my library account, or the weather forecasts, etc, are fine. But the minute I switch to a video format, or try to watch a CD...blank. It suddenly shuts down completely. Is it my system, or is there a fix that I'm unaware of? I know there are many knowledgeable herein. Thank you all in advance.

"Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson gave the most unusual speech at the conservative activist gathering CPAC on Friday.

Scientists are working to bring the multiverse hypothesis, which to some sounds like a fanciful tale, firmly into the realm of testable science. Never mind the Big Bang; in the beginning was the vacuum. The vacuum simmered with energy (variously called dark energy, vacuum energy, the inflation field, or the Higgs field). Like water in a pot, this high energy began to evaporate -- bubbles formed.

The road uniting quantum field theory and general relativity -- the two great theories of modern physics -- has been impassable for 80 years. Could a tool from condensed matter physics finally help map the way?

Bob was a Navy Corpsman who'd served a tour of Vietnam. He'd also worked in Saudi and once met Sadaam Hussein at one of his palaces. My daughter told me this news this am. Bob was her coworker. We'd all just had dinner at the Pita House in Greenville SC near Christmas. Bob was a happy man who's good humor passed onto all he met. Please pray for his soul. So Sad....

Interesting discussions and photos of varying rock types encountered on Mars to date.

Why does a mouse's heart beat about the same number of times in its lifetime as an elephant's, although the mouse lives about a year, while an elephant sees 70 winters come and go? Why do small plants and animals mature faster than large ones? Why has nature chosen such radically different forms as the loose-limbed beauty of a flowering tree and the fearful symmetry of a tiger? These questions have puzzled life scientists since ancient times. Now an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of Padua in Italy propose a thought-provoking answer based...

This is a musical genius just ready to flower.

Coaching HS baseball till family considerations made me leave it yet also made me realize that I was in the best shape a nearly 64 year old kid could be in. Though it's tough to stay in baseball “practice” shape, as opposed to “playing” shape, with no good places for long-toss or hitting, least whiles by one's self. And I just haven't been able to find anyone willing or able to play consistently maybe twice a week. Thus I was wondering if there might be some similar baseball fanatics near LA's Griffith Park area who might likewise take to the...

Astronomers propose an experiment that may close the last major loophole of Bell's inequality -- a 50-year-old theorem that, if violated by experiments, would mean that our universe is based not on the textbook laws of classical physics, but on the less-tangible probabilities of quantum mechanics. Such a quantum view would allow for seemingly counterintuitive phenomena such as entanglement, in which the measurement of one particle instantly affects another, even if those entangled particles are at opposite ends of the universe. Among other things, entanglement -- a quantum feature Albert Einstein skeptically referred to as "spooky action at a distance"...

Four pesticides commonly used on crops to kill insects and fungi also kill honeybee larvae within their hives, according to new research. Scientists also found that N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone -- an inert, or inactive, chemical commonly used as a pesticide additive -- is highly toxic to honeybee larvae.

Mathematics has been called the language of the universe. Scientists and engineers often speak of the elegance of mathematics when describing physical reality, citing examples such as π, E=mc2, and even something as simple as using abstract integers to count real-world objects. Yet while these examples demonstrate how useful math can be for us, does it mean that the physical world naturally follows the rules of mathematics as its "mother tongue," and that this mathematics has its own existence that is out there waiting to be discovered? This point of view on the nature of the relationship between mathematics and...

It is one the oldest mathematical problems in the world. Several centuries ago, the twin primes conjecture was formulated. As its name indicates, this hypothesis, which many science historians have attributed to the Greek mathematician Euclid, deals with prime numbers, those divisible only by themselves and by one (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, etc.). Under this assumption, there exists an infinite number of pairs of prime numbers whose difference is two, called twin primes (e.g., 3 and 5), but nobody has been able to confirm this so far.