Monthly Archives: August 2025

Recompense Is My Way To Freedom

Posted on August 11, 2025 by nathanalbright

When I was a 9th grader beginning high school, a close friend of mine gave me a copy of “Jesus Freak,” the breakout album of Christian contemporary group DC Talk. I listened to that album often during that time and … Continue reading →

Posted in Christianity, History, Music History, Musings | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

White Paper: The Relevance of the No Free Lunch Theorems to Unguided Stepwise Searches for Solutions

Posted on August 11, 2025 by nathanalbright

Abstract The No Free Lunch (NFL) theorems, originally formulated in the context of optimization and machine learning, establish that averaged over all possible objective functions, all search and optimization algorithms perform equally well. Any algorithm’s advantage in one class of … Continue reading →

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White Paper: How Fermat Might Have Thought He Could Prove His Last Theorem

Posted on August 11, 2025 by nathanalbright

Abstract Fermat’s Last Theorem — the assertion that there are no nonzero integer solutions to the equation x^n + y^n = z^n for n > 2 — remained unproven for 358 years. Pierre de Fermat’s marginal note in his copy … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Musings | Tagged , | 1 Comment

A Typology of Conservatives: Mapping the Right-of-Center Spectrum in the United States and Worldwide

Posted on August 10, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Conservatism, as both an intellectual tradition and political movement, resists neat categorization. The right-of-center in the United States and globally encompasses a wide variety of ideological families, strategic approaches, and sociocultural identities. These range from those motivated primarily … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

White Paper: The Dangerous Conflation of the American Republic with the Interests of the Democratic Party

Posted on August 10, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Over the past several decades, and especially in recent years, a persistent rhetorical and conceptual conflation has emerged in American political discourse: the equation of “democracy” with the political fortunes of the Democratic Party. This conflation is both … Continue reading →

Posted in American History, History, Musings | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

White Paper: Structural Reasons For The Elusiveness Of Yemeni Unity

Posted on August 9, 2025 by nathanalbright

Introduction Yemen’s modern history has been shaped by deep-rooted fractures—historical, political, tribal, economic, and geopolitical—that persistently thwart its unity. Despite the 1990 formal unification, true cohesion remains out of reach. 1. Historical and Colonial Legacies Yemen historically consisted of separate … Continue reading →

Posted in History, International Relations, Middle East, Musings | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

White Paper: Who Counts as a Public Figure in U.S. Civil Litigation — A Typological Analysis

Posted on August 9, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary The designation of a person as a “public figure” in U.S. civil litigation, particularly in defamation and privacy-related cases, has significant legal consequences. Most notably, it raises the burden of proof the plaintiff must meet to succeed in … Continue reading →

Posted in American History, History, Musings | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

White Paper: The History and Legacy of the Karaite Sect of Judaism

Posted on August 8, 2025 by nathanalbright

Abstract: This white paper provides a comprehensive historical and theological account of the Karaite sect of Judaism, a movement that rejected rabbinic oral tradition in favor of a direct, personal, and literal reading of the Hebrew Bible. Emerging in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, History, Musings | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

White Paper: The Impact of Gerrymandering in Republican-Controlled States on Democratic Representation

Posted on August 8, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Gerrymandering, the manipulation of electoral district boundaries to favor one political party, remains a significant issue in American politics. Republican-controlled states like Texas and Indiana have pursued aggressive redistricting strategies to maximize partisan advantage, particularly following the 2020 … Continue reading →

Posted in American History, History, Musings | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

White Paper: Verifying Theoretical Closure—The Role of Proof Assistants in Discovering and Exhausting Mathematical Corollaries

Posted on August 7, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary This white paper explores the epistemological and practical question of how we can know whether all corollaries and “obvious” proofs have been derived from a given set of mathematical theorems. In doing so, it evaluates the limitations of … Continue reading →

Posted in Graduate School, Musings | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments