02 SEP 2016 by ideonexus
Math Exercise: Comparisons
Select two boxes or cans of food that weigh 8 ounces and 16 ounces, respectively. Have students hold each as you tell them (or they read) the weights of the containers. Give students a box or can with the weight covered and have them compare the weight of the new package to the weight of the 8- and 16-ounce samples. Th ey can then estimate whether the new item’s weight is closer to 8 or 16 ounces. As students become more successful, they may want to predict a more specifi c weight. Ask them...
1 03 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
Science and Democracy are Synergistic
The values of science and tha values of democracy are
concordant, in many cases indistinguishable. Science confers
power on anyone who takes the trouble to learn it. Science
thrives on the free exchange of ideas; its values are
antithetical to secrecy. Science holds to no special vantage
points or privileged positions. Both science and democracy
encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both
demand adeguate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of
evidence and hones...The two concepts support one another.
04 MAY 2013 by mxplx
Nonconceptual awareness
When we spend time in the wilderness, it can be tempting to focus our awareness on "doing" something: taking pictures; getting a certain amount of physical exercise; traveling from point A to point B; naming all the species of birds we encounter. While nature photography is a lovely craft, and we need to exercise for good health, and understanding what lives in our environment is a valid part of deepening our relationship with the land, these activities can separate us from a more intimate ex...Folksonomies: meaning perception
Folksonomies: meaning perception
"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
richard feynmann
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Scientists Work Near the Tower of Science
Whereas the man of action binds his life to reason and its concepts so that he will not be swept away and lost, the scientific investigator builds his hut right next to the tower of science so that he will be able to work on it and to find shelter for himself beneath those bulwarks which presently exist. Folksonomies: science shoulders of giants
Folksonomies: science shoulders of giants
Taking shelter under the ideas that previously exist.
08 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Gallileo's Realy Revolution
What the founders of modern science, among them Galileo, had to do, was not to criticize and to combat certain faulty theories, and to correct or to replace them by better ones. They had to do something quite different. They had to destroy one world and to replace it by another. They had to reshape the framework of our intellect itself, to restate and to reform its concepts, to evolve a new approach to Being, a new concept of knowledge, a new concept of science—and even to replace a pretty ... 1 
notes
notesWasn't in his new scientific truths, but in his methodology for obtaining them.
06 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Universe is Made Up of Two Kinds of Waves
The tendency of modern physics is to resolve the whole material universe into waves, and nothing but waves. These waves are of two kinds: bottled-up waves, which we call matter, and unbottled waves, which we call radiation or light. If annihilation of matter occurs, the process is merely that of unbottling imprisoned wave-energy and setting it free to travel through space. These concepts reduce the whole universe to a world of light, potential or existent, so that the whole story of its creat...
3 Bottled up waves in matter and the roaming waves of radiation.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Accepting Gray Areas in Concepts
Perhaps the problem is the seeming need that people have of making black-and-white cutoffs when it comes to certain mysterious phenomena, such as life and consciousness. People seem to want there to be an absolute threshold between the living and the nonliving, and between the thinking and the “merely mechanical,” ... But the onward march of science seems to force us ever more clearly into accepting intermediate levels of such properties. Folksonomies: life definitions
Folksonomies: life definitions
1 notes
notesSuch as defining life, instead of demanding black and white boundaries.
28 APR 2012 by ideonexus
There is No Lying in Science
However, all scientific statements and laws have one characteristic in common: they are “true or false” (adequate or inadequate). Roughly speaking, our reaction to them is “yes” or “no.” The scientific way of thinking has a further characteristic. The concepts which it uses to build up its coherent systems are not expressing emotions. For the scientist, there is only “being,” but no wishing, no valuing, no good, no evil; no goal. As long as we remain within the realm of scienc... 1 notes
notesScience is about right and wrong, the search for truth.
16 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
The Concept of the Chemical Bond
[The chemical bond] First, it is related to the disposition of two electrons (remember, no one has ever seen an electron!): next, these electrons have their spins pointing in opposite directions (remember, no one can ever measure the spin of a particular electron!): then, the spatial distribution of these electrons is described analytically with some degree of precision (remember, there is no way of distinguishing experimentally the density distribution of one electron from another!): concept...Folksonomies: chemistry
Folksonomies: chemistry
1 notes
notes...is based on things we cannot see or measure and only exist in terms of probabilities.
24 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Limits of Language
The ultimate origin of the difficulty lies in the fact (or philosophical principle) that we are compelled to use the words of common language when we wish to describe a phenomenon, not by logical or mathematical analysis, but by a picture appealing to the imagination. Common language has grown by everyday experience and can never surpass these limits. Classical physics has restricted itself to the use of concepts of this kind; by analysing visible motions it has developed two ways of represen... 1 notes
notesLanguage grows out of experience, but we have not experienced the alien phenomena of much of physics.
