a Fortune Universe

Our esteemed colleague C. V. Vishveshwara, popularly known as Vishu, turned sixty on 6th March 1998. His colleagues and well wishers felt that it would be appropriate to celebrate the occasion by bringing out a volume in his honour. Those of us who have had the good fortune to know Vishu, know that he is unique, in a class by himself. Having been given the privilege to be the volume's editors, we felt that we should attempt something different in this endeavour. Vishu is one of the well known relativists from India whose pioneer­ ing contributions to the studies of black holes is universally recognised.

A Beginner's Guide to Life in the Space Age

The fourth volume in an acclaimed series, presenting the work of a gifted Victorian-era songsmith in unprecedented depth. Based on 33 years of scholarship and promotion by the Istituto Nazionale Tostiano and a lifetime of studies on the part of this volume lives up to its predecessors in bringing to wider attention the work of a born melodist, at home in the English and French tongues as well as his native Italian, and one who brought the genre of salon song to a peak of perfection.

Human life is a staggeringly strange thing. On the surface of a ball of rock falling around a nuclear fireball in the blackness of a vacuum, the laws of nature conspired to create a naked ape that can look up at the stars and wonder where it came from. What is a human being? Objectively, nothing of consequence. Particles of dust in an infinite arena, present for an instant in eternity.