22 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Beauty is More Important than Accuracy
I think that there is a moral to this story, namely that it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment. If Schroedinger had been more confident of his work, he could have published it some months earlier, and he could have published a more accurate equation .... It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. If there is not complete ... 1 
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notesInteresting argument: beauty in an equation is more important than having it completely fit the reality.
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
The Political Environmental Conundrum
Action regarding the environment requires objectivity, precision, accuracy, validity, replication, constructive criticism, and consensus. Scientists, engineers, and economists have to stay focused on putting accurate data into the hands of decision makers, while they explain their findings to the public, which, in the end, wields decisive power in a free society. Mechanisms must be developed to transform highly technical findings into governmental and economic policies.
If we can reach a po...Folksonomies: politics environmentalism
Folksonomies: politics environmentalism
1 notes
notesGingrich succinctly explains the political, scientific, and media schisms that promote inaction concerning environmental issues.
31 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Stephen Chu's Pendulum High School Experiment
For the better part of my last semester at Garden City High, I constructed a physical pendulum and used it to make a 'precision' measurement of gravity. The years of experience building things taught me skills that were directly applicable to the construction of the pendulum. Twenty-five years later, I was to develop a refined version of this measurement using laser-cooled atoms in an atomic fountain interferometer.Folksonomies: experiment science fair
Folksonomies: experiment science fair
1 notes
notesHe used the pendulum to make a precise measurement of gravity, and the process would eventually inform his Nobel Prize winning work.
02 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
The Importance of Time-Stamping to Relevance
Time-stamping is of interest because the temporal element of context is essential for understanding a text (to take an obvious example, when reading a paper on global geopolitics in 2006 it is essential to know whether it was written before or after 11th September, 2001). Furthermore, some information has a 'sell-by date': after a certain point it may become unreliable. Often this point isn't predictable exactly, but broad indications can be given; naturally much depends on whether the inform... 1 notes
notesTime-stamping is a crucial function of semantic data. Some information grows less accurate over time, while a context is desired for other data.
