With Educational Games, Even if the Kids Don't Get It, Yo...

...where does probability theory come from? What is its source? Clearly, like many other sciences, like arithmetic itself, probability theory emerged from observations of certain real-world phenomena, namely, random, unpredictable phenomena. And it is exactly these kinds of observations—fundamental to the formation of science—which are worth making together with kids. Well, not all of them, of course, just the simplest ones. Besides, kids are making them on their own; e.g., when they play...

 Hacking is Playful

Also central to the Hacker Ethic is playfulness. At a 2006 O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, Matt Webb and Ben Cerveny wrote, “Hacking is a playful act. In a primal sense, play is the investigation and experimentation with borders and combinations” (O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, website). Despite early, highly structured approaches to computing in mainframe laboratories in the mid-twentieth century, a computing culture of iterative experimental hacking has evolved th...

 Transhumanism and the Boundaries of the Self

Transhumanists’ commitment to technologically mediated transformation naturally generates great interest in the nature and limits of the self. The high level of interest in philosophy and neuroscience among transhumanists has led to a wide acknowledgment that the simple Cartesian view of the mind or self as a unitary, indivisible, and transparent entity is unsupportable. As we store more of our memories externally and create avatars, it is also becoming increasingly apparent that the bounda...

 How to Talk Math With Kids

Some simple ways to work numbers into the conversation: Note numbers on signs when you’re walking or driving with children: speed limits and exit numbers, building addresses, sale prices in store windows. Ask children to count how many toys they’re playing with, how many books they’ve pulled out to read, or how many pieces of food are on their plate. Use numbers when you refer to time, dates, and temperatures: how many hours and minutes until bedtime, how many weeks and days until a hol...

 There is No End to Mechanical Progress

[To] mechanical progress there is apparently no end: for as in the past so in the future, each step in any direction will remove limits and bring in past barriers which have till then blocked the way in other directions; and so what for the time may appear to be a visible or practical limit will turn out to be but a bend in the road.

 Myth and Science

Myths and science fulfill a similar function: they both provide human beings with a representation of the world and of the forces that are supposed to govern it. They both fix the limits of what is considered as possible.

 Big Bang Does Not Preclude a Creator

Hubble's observations suggested that there was a time, called the big bang, when the universe was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense. Under such conditions all the laws of science, and therefore all ability to predict the future, would break down. If there were events earlier than this time, then they could not affect what happens at the present time. Their existence can be ignored because it would have no observational consequences. One may say that time had a beginning at the big ba...

 Knowledge for the Sake of Understanding is in Our Blood

Science has a simple faith, which transcends utility. Nearly all men of science, all men of learning for that matter, and men of simple ways too, have it in some form and in some degree. It is the faith that it is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission. If we abandon that mission under stress we shall abandon it forever, for stress will not cease. Knowledge for the sake of understanding, not merely to prevail, that is the essence of our being. None can defin...

 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...

 The Promise of Science

One of the largest promises of science is, that the sum of human happiness will be increased, ignorance destroyed, and, with ignorance, prejudice and superstition, and that great truth taught to all, that this world and all it contains were meant for our use and service; and that where nature by her own laws has defined the limits of original unfitness, science may by extract so modify those limits as to render wholesome that which by natural wildness was hurtful, and nutritious that which by...