18 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
The Moon is Binary in Nature
Having heard the poem, Monkey went up to him and said, "Master, you only know about the moon's beauty,
and you're homesick too. You don't know what the moon's really about. It's like the carpenter's line and
compasses−−it keeps the heavenly bodies in order. On the thirtieth of every month the metal element of its
male soul has all gone, and the water element of its female soul fills the whole disk. That is why it goes black
and has no light. That's what is called the end of the old moon. ...Old Chinese way of thinking about the moon, with the bright side as yang and the dark side yin.
31 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Importance of Accuracy
In 1905, a physicist measuring the thermal conductivity of copper would have faced, unknowingly, a very small systematic error due to the heating of his equipment and sample by the absorption of cosmic rays, then unknown to physics. In early 1946, an opinion poller, studying Japanese opinion as to who won the war, would have faced a very small systematic error due to the neglect of the 17 Japanese holdouts, who were discovered later north of Saipan. These cases are entirely parallel. Social, ...Folksonomies: statistics measurment
Folksonomies: statistics measurment
Comparing an error in measuring the thermal conductivity of copper to surveying Japanese after WWII.
31 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Aristotle's Attempt to Categorize Motion
11 Now everything that changes place is moved either by itself or by something else. In as many of these as are moved by themselves, it is obvious that the moved and mover are together, since the first mover is present in them, so that nothing is in-between. But as many as are moved by other things must come about in four ways, for there are four kinds of change of place by means of something else: pulling, pushing, carrying, and whirling. For all motions with respect to place lead back to th...His efforts to build a taxonomy of motion demonstrates the difficulty of properly classifying things as a foundation to building hypotheses.