27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Shannon and Thorp Hack the Roulette Wheel
It was in this tinkerer’s laboratory that they set out to understand how roulette could be gamed, ordering “a regulation roulette wheel from Reno for $1,500,” a strobe light, and a clock whose hand revolved once per second. Thorp was given inside access to Shannon in all his tinkering glory:
Gadgets . . . were everywhere. He had a mechanical coin tosser which could be set to flip the coin through a set number of revolutions, producing a head or tail according to the setting. As a joke... 1 
notes
notes18 MAY 2017 by ideonexus
Emergent Curriculum
Whereas teachers and school boards typically decide in advance
what knowledge children should receive based on their age, emergent
curriculum is the technique of letting topics for study arise out
of student interests and actions. Curriculum becomes what actually
happens, rather than what was planned to happen. After all, children
design their own “curriculum” all the time, simply by playing in,
exploring, and studying the world. In schools inspired by the Italian
Reggio-Emilia approach, ... 1 notes
notes09 AUG 2014 by ideonexus
12X Spiral
The theory is that numbers are self-organized around the smallest, most highly composite number, 12. The number 12 and many of its multiples (24, 36, 48, 60, etc.) are HCNs: highly composite numbers (with lots of divisors), which are extremely useful for measuring and proportions. Why are there 12 eggs in a carton, 12 inches in a foot, 12 months in a year, 24 hours in a day, 360 degrees in a circle, 60 seconds in minute? Because highly composite numbers can be divided evenly in many ways. For... 1 notes
notesBuilding a spiral around a clock, with 12-segments in the rotation, puts multiples of 3 at {3,6,9,12}, multiples of at {4,8,12}, multiples of 2 at {2,4,6,8,10,12}, and primes at {1,5,7,11}.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Conception of Time
We never really see time. We see only clocks. If you say this object moves, what you really mean is that this object is here when the hand of your clock is here, and so on. We say we measure time with clocks, but we see only the hands of the clocks, not time itself. And the hands of a clock are a physical variable like any other. So in a sense we cheat because what we really observe are physical variables as a function of other physical variables, but we represent that as if everything is evo...Folksonomies: time
Folksonomies: time
1 notes
notesWe do not see time, we only see its effects.
06 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Humanity is Like an Infant
Taking a very gloomy view of the future of the human race, let us suppose that it can only expect to survive for two thousand millions years longer, a period about equal to the past age of the earth. Then, regarded as a being destined to live for three-score years and ten, humanity although it has been born in a house seventy years old, is itself only three days old. But only in the last few minutes has it become conscious that the whole world does not centre round its cradle and its trapping...Folksonomies: metaphor perspective
Folksonomies: metaphor perspective
1 In a house 70 years old, but it is only three days old, and starting to see the house around it.
29 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Why Traveling at the Speed of Light Slows Down Time
the precise time difference between stationary and moving clocks depends on how
much farther the sliding clock's photon must travel to complete each round-trip journey This in turn depends on how quickly the
sliding clock is moving—from the viewpoint of a stationary observer, the faster the clock is sliding, the farther the photon must
travel to the right. We conclude that in comparison to a stationary clock, the rate of ticking of the sliding clock becomes slower and
slower as it moves fas... 1 notes
notesAn elegant explanation in physical terms of photons and the distances they travel.
26 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Chemistry of the Nucleus is Just the Metal for the Gears
For it is not cell nuclei, not even individual chromosomes, but certain parts of certain chromosomes from certain cells that must be isolated and collected in enormous quantities for analysis; that would be the precondition for placing the chemist in such a position as would allow him to analyse [the hereditary material] more minutely than [can] the morphologists ... For the morphology of the nucleus has reference at the very least to the gearing of the clock, but at best the chemistry of the... 1 notes
notesIt is the chromosomes that are the gears.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
A Clock Stopped at the Moment Feynman's Wife Died
Sometimes we can actually pin down the explanation of a weird coincidence. A great American scientist called Richard Feynman tragically lost his wife to cancer, and the clock in her room stopped at precisely the moment she died. Goose-pimples! But Dr Feynman was not a great scientist for nothing. He worked out the true explanation. The clock was faulty. If you picked it up and tilted it, it tended to stop. When Mrs Feynman died, the nurse needed to record tl the time for the official death ce... 1 notes
notesBut he traced the phenomenon to a faulty mechanism in the clock that triggered when the nurse picked it up to record the time of death.
08 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Baby Naming Explosion
Initially children use just a few names, mostly for familiar things and people. But when they are still just beginning to talk, many babies will suddenly start naming everything and asking for the names of everything they see. In fact, what'sat? is itself often one of the earliest words. An eighteen-monthold baby will go into a triumphant frenzy of pointing and naming: "What'sat! Dog! What'sat! Clock! What'sat juice, spoon. orange, high chair, clock! Clock! Clock!" Often this is the point at ... 1 notes
notesWhen babies start to learn to talk, they embark on a naming-spree where it is easy for a parent to imprint names onto things that the child will remember.
