The tentorium cerebelli is the second largest dural reflection in the skull, after the falx cerebri. It lies transverse, separating the occipital lobes from the cerebellum and providing the key landmark for separating the brain into the supratentorial and infratentorial brain regions. Though many would disagree, it is often described as “crescent-shaped.” It attaches anteriorly at the clinoid processes (clinoid in Greek is “bed-like”) and attaches at the back of the occipital bone.

Particularly from 1638 to 1653, John Milton was deeply engaged in Ireland, although his relationship with Ireland is less well known than Edmund Spenser’s. The 1641 Ulster Rising in Ireland informs Milton’s political development, culminating in his service to Cromwell’s republican government. As the Introduction details, the 1641 Rising follows decades of strife in Ireland, following on the 1541 acceptance of Henry VIII as king of Ireland, Counter-Reformation changes in the Roman Catholic Church, and successive English plantation attempts at reforming Ireland, including the Ulster Plantation (which started the year after Milton was born).

Days after the execution of Charles I, Eikon Basilike, a book purported to be written by the king, was published posthumously. Parliament commissioned Milton to write a response. With chapters on Wentworth’s execution and the Irish Rising of the early 1640s, Ireland is threaded throughout Charles’ Eikon Basilike and Milton’s response, Eikonoklastes. When Milton began writing Eikonoklastes, Cromwell was preparing to invade Ireland. By the time Eikonoklastes was published, in October of 1649, Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland had been underway for two months. Its most infamous battles, the siege of Drogheda had already taken place. In 1650, Milton publishes a revised second edition of Eikonoklastes, in which he hits upon the term “pluralist,” and invokes it scornfully against his opponents in Ireland. Milton is now up against a principle: pluralism, which Milton implies is built into the cultural and political map of Ireland. As Milton confronts in Ireland a different way of thinking about government, administration, and policy, the Stuart idea of Great Britain must be defeated in Ireland, because it threatens a century-old project of centralization.

The internal carotid artery (ICA) is a large blood vessel originating in the neck and terminating in the skull. The terminal branches of the common carotid artery, the internal and external carotid arteries (ECA), begin at the level of the C4 vertebra and ascend. Shortly after its division from the common carotid artery, the first 1–3 centimeters of the ICA are known as the carotid sinus, which serves as a baroreceptor to help regulate blood pressure.

The interventricular foramen (of Monro) is a comparatively small channel that drains CSF from the lateral ventricles to the third ventricle (which are all much larger cavities of fluid, and thus “two creeks between three lakes”). Each of them is oriented diagonally and thus flow “northeast to southwest.”

The foramen rotundum is named after the Latin word rotundum meaning “round.” The chief structure that traverses this foramen (or bore) is V2, the maxillary branch of the trigeminal nerve.

The foramen spinosum is the most posterior passage/hole in the greater wing of the sphenoid bone, posterolateral to the foramen ovale. The three structures that traverse this foramen are the middle meningeal artery, middle meningeal vein, and a meningeal branch of the V3 nerve (a mandibular division of the trigeminal nerve).

Having finished her law degree, Louise takes up work at a Boston law firm; they are not returning to Berkeley after all, so Weinberg resigns his professorship there. At MIT, he continues teaching graduate courses on general relativity, with an emphasis on cosmology. He spends the spring of 1971 in Paris, making comparisons between the academic characters of Paris and Boston. Gerard ’t Hooft and Martinus Veltman renormalize Weinberg’s theory of leptons, showing an experimental route to proving the theory. Weinberg starts to consider the extension of the electroweak theory to strongly interacting theories. Electroweak theory starts to receive a lot more attention from theorists. His first book, Gravitation and Cosmology, is published in 1972. Weinberg is offered the Higgins Professorship at Harvard, and accepts.

The pituitary gland is positioned midline inside the sella turcica (Latin meaning “Turkish saddle”). It is positioned just below the optic chiasm and connected to the rest of the brain by the pituitary stalk. It functions as an endocrine gland, producing many hormones such as adrenocorticotrophic hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, growth hormone, prolactin, thyroid-stimulating hormone, oxytocin, and antidiuretic hormone, which have an enormous importance in multiple body functions.

The superficial fibular nerve (SFN) is one of the two branches of the common fibular (peroneal) nerve. Its origin, the sciatic nerve, contains two fascicles – the common fibular and the tibial. These divide into two nerves in the distal posterior thigh. The common fibular nerve contains a medial fascicle that becomes the deep fibular nerve and a lateral fascicle that becomes the SFN at the fibular neck.

The primary auditory cortex is located within Heschl’s gyri, which are transverse temporal gyri located on the posterior aspect of the superior surface of the superior temporal gyrus within the sylvian fissure. This corresponds to Brodmann area 41. This region receives input from the medial geniculate nucleus (genu in Latin meaning “knee”). Planum temporale refers to the part posterior to the transverse gyri up to the termination of the sylvian fissure.

The amygdala derives its name from the Greek word amygdale for “almond,” given to it because of its almond-like shape. It is located in the mesial temporal lobe.

Familiarity with chemistry from children’s toy kits leads Weinberg to investigate physics, the subject that underlies all of chemistry. He reads George Gamow’s Mr. Tompkins books, among others. He is admitted to the famous Bronx High School of Science, where he becomes friends with Shelly Glashow and Gary Feinberg, who would also become well-known physicists. He wins a New York state scholarship to Cornell.