10 MAR 2017 by ideonexus
Six Fundamental Properties of Games
All games are in some way a combination of the four “mother” mechanics: agon, alea, mimicry, and ilinx.
Games have strict rules that all players must follow.
Game-winning conditions are clearly defined.
There are many different ways a game can end—not just one. In other words, there’s a way to win and (usually) lots of ways to lose.
Players try hard to win because winning is desirable.
Games can be played repeatedly with different outcomes.
Folksonomies: gaming
Folksonomies: gaming
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notes24 DEC 2016 by ideonexus
Unlike Physics, Biology Can't Ignore Information
Physicists love to think about systems that take only a little information to describe. So when they get a system that takes a lot of information to describe, they use a trick called 'statistical mechanics', where you try to ignore most of this information and focus on a few especially important variables. For example, if you hand a physicist a box of gas, they'll try to avoid thinking about the state of each atom, and instead focus on a few macroscopic quantities like the volume and total en... 1 notes
notes03 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
Why Carl Sagan Could Explain Things So Well
The adult Sagan always sounded like the smartest person in the room, but in the papers we encounter this interesting note in a 1981 file, right after “Cosmos” hit it big: “I think I’m able to explain things because understanding wasn’t entirely easy for me. Some things that the most brilliant students were able to see instantly I had to work to understand. I can remember what I had to do to figure it out. The very brilliant ones figure it out so fast they never see the mechanics of ...Folksonomies: understanding explanation
Folksonomies: understanding explanation
1 notes
notesBecause understanding did not come easy for him.
13 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Clock as the Mother of All Machines
PRECISELY because the clock did not start as a practical tool shaped for a single purpose, it was destined to be the mother of machines. The clock broke down the walls between kinds of knowledge, ingenuity, and skill, and clockmakers were the first consciously to apply the theories of mechanics and physics to the making of machines. Progress came from the collaboration of scientists—Galileo, Huygens, Hooke, and others—with craftsmen and mechanics. Since clocks were the first modern measur... 1 notes
notesIt required a number of sciences, was based on multiple engineering developments, and contributed itself to science by allowing the measurement of time.
13 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Talent of Mechanics
Generally speaking, people have a very erroneous idea of the type of talent proper to the ideal mechanician. He is not a geometrician who, delving into the theory of movement and the categories of phenomena, formulates new mechanical principles or discovers unsuspected laws of nature.… In most other branches of science are to be found constant principles; a multitude of methods offer to the genius inexhaustible possibilities. If a scholar poses himself a new problem, he can attack it fortif... 1 notes
notesIt is highly intuitive and cannot be taught from a textbook. It sounds much like an art.
29 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Thermodynamics Deals with Quantities
The laws of thermodynamics, as empirically determined, express the approximate and probable behavior of systems of a great number of particles, or, more precisely, they express the laws of mechanics for such systems as they appear to beings who have not the fineness of perception to enable them to appreciate quantities of the order of magnitude of those which relate to single particles, and who cannot repeat their experiments often enough to obtain any but the most probable results. Folksonomies: thermodynamics
Folksonomies: thermodynamics
1 notes
notesAt the microscopic level, things are much more complex.
17 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Engineering Requires Science
Engineering is quite different from science. Scientists try to understand nature. Engineers try to make things that do not exist in nature. Engineers stress invention. To embody an invention the engineer must put his idea in concrete terms, and design something that people can use. That something can be a device, a gadget, a material, a method, a computing program, an innovative experiment, a new solution to a problem, or an improvement on what is existing. Since a design has to be concrete, ...Folksonomies: science engineering
Folksonomies: science engineering
1 notes
notesScience passively observes, but Engineering must discover what it needs in order to make progress.
21 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Looking to the Present to Understand the Past
In using the present in order to reveal the past, we assume that the forces in the world are essentially the same through all time; for these forces are based on the very nature of matter, and could not have changed. The ocean has always had its waves, and those waves have always acted in the same manner. Running water on the land has ever had the same power of wear and transportation and mathematical value to its force. The laws of chemistry, heat, electricity, and mechanics have been the sa...Folksonomies: induction
Folksonomies: induction
1 notes
notesOceans have always had waves, streams have always worn down rocks, and other natural laws have always been the same throughout time.
01 FEB 2012 by ideonexus
To Spend 20 Years on an Epic Poem
I should not think of devoting less than 20 years to an Epic Poem. Ten to collect materials and warm my mind with universal science. I would be a tolerable Mathematician, I would thoroughly know Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Optics, and Astronomy, Botany, Metallurgy, Fossilism, Chemistry, Geology, Anatomy, Medicine—then the mind of man—then the minds of men—in all Travels, Voyages and Histories. So I would spend ten years—the next five to the composition of the poem—and the five last to ...Folksonomies: research
Folksonomies: research
1 notes
notesColeridge's described process sounds like scientific research, which is equally intense and epic.
30 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Biology is Too complex for Mathematical Explanation
There is a strange disparity between the sciences of inert matter and those of life. Astronomy, mechanics, and physics are based on concepts which can be expressed, tersely and elegantly, in mathematical language. They have built up a universe as harmonious as the monuments of ancient Greece. They weave about it a magnificent texture of calculations and hypotheses. They search for reality beyond the realm of common thought up to unutterable abstractions consisting only of equations of symbols...Folksonomies: biology mathematics
Folksonomies: biology mathematics
1 notes
notesThe biologist is inundated by a mass of facts.
