27 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Bubble of Viral Spacetime
‘The achievement of the Kaminari-zoku implies that there are other spacetimes. Certainly other regions of the Universe beyond our causal horizon. If rational actors have evolved in them, they will have broken their Planck locks – or worse, evolved natively in an environment with no restrictions on computational complexity. If so, it is likely that they will have optimised the expansion rate of their spacetime, turned into an expanding bubble of thought.
‘If so, such a bubble of viral s...Folksonomies: quantum physics spacetime
Folksonomies: quantum physics spacetime
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notes
notes02 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Everyone Can be Arrogant
Many things may become baggage, may become encumbrances if we cling to them blindly and uncriticaliy. Let us take some illustrations. Having made mistakes, you may feel that, come what may, you are saddled with them and so become dispirited; if you have not made mistakes, you may feel that you are free from error and so become conceited. Lack of achievement in work may breed pessimism and depression, while achievement may breed pride and arrogance. A comrade with a short record of struggle ma... 1 notes
notesAll people have some specialization that allows them to look down on others.
05 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Negative Capability
I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason - Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caugh...
1 According to wikipedia: "...the capacity of human beings to transcend and revise their contexts." Here is the first use of the term by John Keats, where it sounds more like the ability to remain calm and rational in the face of uncertainty and not jump to conclusions without evidence.
08 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Marvelous Invention of Indian Arithematic
It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped...Folksonomies: mathematics base-10
Folksonomies: mathematics base-10
Quoting Pierre-Simon Laplace.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Davy Refused to Patent His Safety Lamp
John Buddle, now entirely won over by Davy, was also concerned about a reward. By August there were 144 safety lamps ‘in daily use’ at Walls End, and they were rapidly spreading to all the other collieries in the North-East.91 Buddle urged Davy to take out a patent, pointing out that he could not only make his fortune but control the quality of the lamps issued to miners. Davy consistently refused, although he knew his colleague William Wollaston had made a fortune with a patent on proces... 1 notes
notesDespite the fact that it could have made him a fortune.
19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Conjecture versus Theorem
Mathematicians use the idea of proof to make a distinction between a 'conjecture' and a
'theorem', which bears a superficial resemblance to the OED's distinction between the two senses of
'theory'. A conjecture is a proposition that looks true but has never been proved. It will become a
theorem when it has been proved. A famous example is the Goldbach Conjecture, which states that
any even integer can be expressed as the sum of two primes. Mathematicians have failed to
disprove it for all eve... 1 notes
notesin mathematics and how it applies to scientific "theory".
19 APR 2011 by ideonexus
Scientists Create and Thrive in a Stable Civilization
I take a different view of science as a method; to me, it enters the human spirit more directly. Therefore I have studied quite another achievement: that of making a human society work. As a set of discoveries and devices, science has mastered nature; but it has been able to do so only because its values, which derive from its method, have formed those who practice it into a living, stable and incorruptible society. Here is a community where everyone has been free to enter, to speak his mind,...Folksonomies: science culture science virtue
Folksonomies: science culture science virtue
There's a question of cause and effect in considering Bronowski's observation.
