Free Republic

It’s lights out and away we go at the box office as “F1,” a big-budget racing drama starring Brad Pitt, impressively revs to $55.6 million in its domestic opening weekend. With great reviews and a promising “A” grade on CinemaScore exit polls, “F1” landed in the middle of expectations of $50 million to $60 million. At the international box office, the film collected a strong $88.4 million from 78 markets. Those initial ticket sales are significant given “F1” is an adult-skewing tentpole that’s not part of an existing film franchise — a rarity in today’s I.P.-dominated movie theater landscape. Directed...

Twenty-nine nuclear scientists have signed a letter to US President Barack Obama praising the Iranian nuclear deal, the New York Times reports Saturday night, calling it “innovative” and “stringent.” Signatories include Richard L. Garwin, a longtime Washington advisor on nuclear issues and arms who helped design the first hydrogen bomb; Siegfried S. Hecker, who directed the Los Alamos nuclear testing and development program from 1986-1997; and Rush D. Holt, a physicist and former member of Congress who now leads the American Association for the Advancement of Science. …

Since this bill isn’t going away — we don’t have the votes to kill it — we are working with our allies AND the bill’s authors to transform it into something fair and constitutional. We’ve come a long way, and there are still more changes to come. There’s another hearing Wednesday at 2:15 in Room 10 of the State Office Building, and if you can come to show your support for civil rights, we’d love to see you there. The long version: Last Thursday and today, the Minnesota Senate and House heard their separate versions of Billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s “domestic...

Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons, and Alternative Theories of Everything by Margaret Wertheim Walker, 323 pp., $27.00                                                   Pierpont Morgan Library/Art Resource An engraving by William Blake from The Song of Los, 1795 Physics on the Fringe describes work done by amateurs, people rejected by the academic establishment and rejecting orthodox academic beliefs. They are often self-taught and ignorant of higher mathematics. Mathematics is the language spoken by the professionals. The amateurs offer an...