And now, two newly-minted Australian Nobel Laureates in Medicine take their places alongside those mentioned above in the pantheon of intellectual achievement from "down under":

http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laur...

<offramp> Just a bit of a tweak on your light-speed number...

Speed of Light =
(approx.) 186,000 miles/second

186K m/s * 3600 seconds/hour
= 669,600,000 miles/hour (approx.)

Even so, for many practical purposes, your estimate would be quite good (notwithstanding the fact that it exceeds the velocity-ceiling that Albert Einstein bumped his head on.)

<thathwamasi> If I may ask respectfully, I wonder if your name here at this fine site is a version of the sublime two-part Sanskrit utterance often rendered in English as

Aham Brahmasi

Tattvamasi ?

I believe this esoteric pair originate in the Upanishads, one of the sacred writings of the Hindu tradition (specifically, the Brhadaranyaka and the Chandogya Upanishads, if memory serves). They are sometimes "translated"

I am Brahman (the Supreme Self)

and

Thou art Brahman.

Though I'm sure there are many meanings associated with these utterances, I have always interpreted them to refer to the identity-yet-distinctness of the individual "smaller" self with the Collective Universal "Supreme Self" (Paramatman) spoken of by philosophers from many different traditions.

Thank you!

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

Incidentally, longtime friends Albert Einstein and Dr. Emanuel Lasker exchanged some interesting thoughts about the speed of light:

http://www.geocities.com/siliconval...

From Einstein's forward to Dr. Lasker's biography:

...Now I must justify myself because I never considered in detail, either in writing or in our conversations, Emanuel Lasker's critical essay on the theory of relativity. It is indeed necessary for me to say something about it here because even in his biography, which is focused on the purely human aspects, the passage which discusses the essay contains something resembling a slight reproach. Lasker's keen analytical mind had immediately clearly recognized that the central point of the whole question is that the velocity of light (in a vacuum) is a constant. It was evident to him that, if this constancy were admitted, the relative of time could not be avoided. So what was there to do? He tried to do what Alexnder, whom historians have dubbed "the Great," did when he cut the Gordian knot. Lasker's attempted solution was based on the following idea: "Nobody has any immediate knowledge of how quickly light is transmitted in a complete vacuum, for even in interstellar space there is always a minimal quantity of matter present under all circimstances and what holds there is even more applicable to the most complete vacuum created by man to the best of his ability. Therefore, who has the right to deny that its velocity in a really complete vacuum is infinite?"

Anand's 17...b5! initiates the attack to weaken and overwhelm White's Queenside castled position. Note that White cannot win a pawn here as 17...b5! 18. axb5 cxb5 19. Bxb5? Nxe3 20. fxe3 Qxb5 allows Black to win a piece with a discovered attack.

White cannot get away with pawn grabbing with 25. Bxb5?, since 25...Nxc3 26. bxc3 a6 using the fork and the pin to open up the Queenside castled position is winning for Black.

GM Shipov notes in analysis at http://www.chesspro.ru/events/sanlu... that 27...Qf7! is an outstanding defensive and positional attacking move, beginning a shift of the Queen to the opposite wing to support an attack on the King.

Polgar's 30. Bg5?! is a weak move (putting up more resistance is 30. Qd3!) that makes Black's winning attack on the King much easier after 30...b4! 31. c3 b3! . However to be fair, GM Shipov indicates that with perfect play, Black wins even after the better alternative 30. Qd3!

Anand's deflection sacrifice 34...Nc3+! is a pseudo-sacrifice which gives up the Knight to demolish White's pawn structure to facilitate the attack on the exposed castled King.

Also Rubinstein. This game, discussed by Vukovic in 'The Art of Attack in Chess', comes to mind:

P F Johner vs Rubinstein, 1922

click for larger view

Against passive play, White quickly develops an attack with 12.Rdg1, 13.g4, 14.h4 and 15.g5. In contrast, after Rubinstein's 11...Bg4 12.h3 Bxf3 13.gxf3

click for larger view

all White has is doubling against g7. As Vukovic points out, g7 is not weak and can easily be defended by Black. Later in the game, Rubinstein consolidated his castled position with

click for larger view

19...Kh8 20.Rg4 Rg8

and set up a lethal counterattack on the queenside.