Assassination of prominent people occurred in all countries at all times over the history of mankind. They are not random events in the sense that there is always a motive behind them. In our analysis we shall more or less adhere to the following criteria: (i) The victim must be a public personage, (ii) The assassination must be premeditated, (iii) It must be done by stealth, (iv) There must be a motive and (v) The assassin aims only at the death of the person selected. In Part I we give a chronology of all major assassinations from biblical times onward. The number of assassinations in any particular year may often be seen to bear some strong correlation with the historical events unfolding. There is actually a year, 1934, that presages most major conflicts in Europe. Part II contains brief biographies of both victims and perpetrators. It is not unusual that he who arranges an assassination will be assassinated in his turn. As stated in Matthew's gospel: 'They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' The various categories of assassinations are discussed in Part III together with definitions and classifications and with descriptions of historical periods dominated by assassinations, as for example the French Wars of Religion.

These plays cover one thousand years of the ancient world from the golden age of Athens to 5th century Alexandria. The protagonists are Anaxagoras, Archimedes and Hypatia, scientists, mathematicians, philosophers. All three of them came into conflict with the prevalent views of the time. Anaxagoras maintained that the sun was a big burning rock of the size of the Peleponnesus. He was condemned to death on the charge of impiety. Archimedes, the first example of the efficacy of technology combined with science, built fortifications that could withstand the might of the Roman Army. His popular fame rests on him shouting Eureka and jumping naked out of his bath when he discovered the laws of Hydrostatics. He is also known by his statement: 'give me a fixed point and I shall move the Earth.' Hypatia was a philosopher and mathematician, a believer in the old faith. She was hacked to death by a bunch of monks at the instigation of Cyril, a Saint of the Christian Church.

Geniuses are few and far between. Most of them will have honors and prizes showered upon them. But there will be exceptions, numerous exceptions: We don't know how many because they never make it; they fall by the wayside. They believe themselves to be alone in a hostile world, unable to adapt, unable to bring their ideas to fruition. They detest their inferiors and detest even more their superiors. One such genius, a historian with acute observations about the past and the future, was immortalized by Ibsen in his play Hedda Gabler. The Portrait of a Genius tells a similar story. Dramatis personae are the following: Helen Gascoigne, young, beautiful, uncompromising; Leslie Brock, the dean of the faculty who wants to bed her; George Turner, Helen's devoted husband, a scientist not burdened with great leaps of imagination; Esmund, the reckless genius who invents an entirely new kind of computer; and finally, Rosalind, girlfriend and admirer of Esmund.

Metamaterials is a young subject born in the 21st century. It is concerned with artificial materials which can have electrical and magnetic properties difficult or impossible to find in nature. The building blocks in most cases are resonant elements much smaller than the wavelength of the electromagnetic wave. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of research in this field at a level that should appeal to final year undergraduates in physics or in electrical and electronic engineering. The mathematics is kept at a minimum; the aim is to explain the physics in simple terms and enumerate the major advances. It can be profitably read by graduate and post-graduate students in order to find out what has been done in the field outside their speciality, and by experts who may gain new insight about the inter-relationship of the physical phenomena involved.