¹ The first Charles Simonyi Professor of Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, Richard Dawkins can count among a plethora of publications a number of best-selling works, such as The Selfish Gene, Tlie Blind Watchmaker and River out of Eden.

² On 12 May 2002 in Haile E of the MuseumsQuartier, Vienna.

³ This first part was first performed in a longer version in 1998, but see Lack, Graham, ‘Munich: Reich's Hindenburg’ in Tempo 207, pp.29–30 Google Scholar.

⁴ The airship crashed on 6 May 1937 at Lakehurst, New Jersey. The next day, headlines in the New York Times proclaimed ‘Hindenburg burns in Lakehurst Crash, 21 known Dead, 12 missing, 64 escape’.

⁵ The Cargo Lifter project, involving key German and European companies, finally met with financial disaster in 2002.

⁶ Attributed to Dr. Hans Luther, the German Ambassador to the USA at the time.

⁷ Present-day research proposes that a highly-charged electro-static field had built up around the airship, forming a kind of second ‘skin’; as the Hindenburg attempted to dock, the charge was released, probably by contact with the tower.

⁸ Based on the original newsreel footage. The Hindenburg crash was one of the first major human disasters to be captured on film by the media.

⁹ Between 1946–52.

¹¹ Taken from an filmed interview with Jaron Lanier, who coined the term ‘virtual reality’. He is the pioneer in the technique of surgical simulation, holds a post with the Interactive Telecommunications Program of the Tisch School of the Arts at the University of New York and a research position in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University.

¹² A statement made in the filmed interview with Robert Pollack, Professor of Biology at Columbia University and Head of the Center for the Study of Science and Religion. His most important publications include The Missing Adoment and Signs of Life: Tlie Language and Meaning of DNA.

¹³ Genesis Ch.1, v.27..

¹⁴ Conversation with the author, Vienna, 13 May 2002.

¹⁵ Genesis Ch.2, v.7.

¹⁶ Genesis Ch.2, v.22.

¹⁷ Described thus by the American radio commentator.

¹⁸ Taken from the sound archives of the BBC, July 1946.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ The term denotes ‘shine’ or ‘glow’. According to tradition it was written by students of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the second century CE [AD]. Lost for a long period, the work was discovered again in the late 13th century. The final edited version was probably not completed until long after Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's time, and later additions may well have been made. The Zohar is still considered a highly important work. Its study, as with most kabbalistic writings, is usually restricted to only the most advanced scholars.

²¹ An esoteric study requiring extensive knowledge of the entire corpus of Jewish teachings, including the Scriptures, the Talmud, and halachic literature. Its concepts are difficult in the extreme but concentrate primarily on the study of God's relationship with the finite universe and how humans can attain closeness with God. Kabbalah also deals with the conflict between the transcendental and unknowable nature of God. Not to be confused with mysticism, which is based on the belief that knowledge can only be attained through achieving union with God through visions or other semi-prophetic methods, the Kabbalah admits these experiences but remains in essence ‘received knowledge’, the lexical definition of the term. Kabbalistic concepts are contained in Scripture, the most explicit section of the Bible being found in the first chapter of Ezekiel, where the prophet describes the Divine ‘Chariot’. Kabbalah still has a profound impact on religious Jewish life.

²² The word ‘torah’ simply means ‘a teaching’. It is the teaching by HaShem (God) to the Jewish people. There are two sections in the Torah: the Torah Shebiksav (the Written Torah) and the Torah Sheb'al Peh (the Oral Torah). The Written Torah contains 24 books, writings that also make up the Old Testament of the Holy Bible, which divides its canon into 39 books. The three sections of the Torah Shebiksav – the first simply called ‘Torah’, the second known as the ‘Nevi'im’, and the third as the ‘Kesuvim’ – are frequently referred to by the acronym TaNaKh (or Tanach). The Oral Torah arose because God gave explanations to Moses on Mount Sinai together with the Written Torah. These clarifications are called the Torah Sheb'al Peh, because they were meant to be passed from teacher to student.

²³ In the years after the destruction of the second temple there was a danger that the Oral Torah would be forgotten. And a number of sages, led by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, assembled a basic outline of the Torah Sheb'al Peh into a series of books called the ‘Mishna’. It was completed in the year 188 CE [AD]. The Mishna was intended to serve as a memory aid so that it would be easier for students to remember the Torah Sheb'al Peh. The Mishna was primarily an outline and did not include deeper analysis and explanation of the laws. These explanations are called ‘gemara’. About three hundred years after the completion of the Mishna there was a risk that the gemara would be forgotten. Again, the Jewish sages, now led by Rav Ashi and Ravina, compiled the gemara into a written work as a commentary on the Mishna. This completed work is called the ‘Talmud’. The Talmud is therefore the complete collection of the Mishna and the gemara.

²⁴ The Talmud is made up of six sections. Each section is called a ‘Seder’ (Order) and contains several books called ‘Mesechtos’ (Tracts). The first of the six ‘Sedarim’ is called ‘Zent'im’ (Seeds) and deals with the laws of agriculture.

²⁵ Conversation with the author, Vienna, 13 May 2002.

²⁶ The idiom is ‘weder Fisch noch Fleisch’, and – like the English ‘neither fish nor fowl’ – denotes ‘neither one thing nor the other’.

²⁷ The unique timbral regions associated with a single complex sound.

²⁸ A term used by psycho-acousticians to cover the phenomenon, of being able, to listen in to discrete areas of grouped frequencies.

²⁹ One of the leading Rabbis of the 20th century. He has translated the entire Babylonian Talmud into modern Hebrew, as well as into English, French and Russian. He holds research positions at Yale and Princeton Universities. He currently plays a vital intermediary role in aligning religious and non-religious groups of people.

³⁰ Cynthia Breazeal works at the ArtiBcial Intelligence Lab of MIT. She aims to produce humanoid robots whose grasp of intelligent and interactive communication is that of a baby in its first year of life.