21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Universities have Replaced Cathedrals
We thought of universities as the cathedrals of the modern world. In the middle ages, the cathedral was the center and symbol of the city. In the modern world, its place could be taken by the university.In the modern world.
06 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Mathematics as Exploration
Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers often get lost. Rigour should be a signal to the historian that the maps have been made, and the real explorers have gone elsewhere.Sounds like an adventure.
29 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Explorers Tolerate Complexity and Welcome Contradiction
The capacity to tolerate complexity and welcome contradiction, not the need for simplicity and certainty, is the attribute of an explorer. Centuries ago, when some people suspended their search for absolute truth and began instead to ask how things worked, modern science was born. Curiously, it was by abandoning the search for absolute truth that science began to make progress, opening the material universe to human exploration.Exploration requires these virtues.
29 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Tolerating Complexity Lead to Science Making Progress
The capacity to tolerate complexity and welcome contradiction, not the need for simplicity and certainty, is the attribute of an explorer. Centuries ago, when some people suspended their search for absolute truth and began instead to ask how things worked, modern science was born. Curiously, it was by abandoning the search for absolute truth that science began to make progress, opening the material universe to human exploration.Folksonomies: scientific progress
Folksonomies: scientific progress
When science stopped looking for truth and focused on how things worked, progress began.