20 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
Portrait of Social Media Psychosis
A Muslim woman with her burqa on fire: like. A policeman using a baton to beat a masked antifa protester: like. Hillary Clinton looking gaunt and pale: like. A military helicopter armed with machine guns and headed toward the caravan of immigrants: like.
She had spent a few hours scrolling one afternoon when she heard a noise outside her window, and she turned away from the screen to look outside. A neighbor was sweeping his sidewalk, pushing tiny white rocks back into his rock garden. The s... 1 
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notes31 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Tyrrany Sets Up Its Own Echo Chamber
I think it was Utz who first convinced me that history
is always our guide for the future, and always full of
capricious surprises. The future itself is a dead land
because it does not yet exist. When a Czech writer
wishes to comment on the plight of his country, one
way open to him is to use the fifteenth-century Hussite
Rebellion as a metaphor. I found in Prague Museum
this text describing the Hussites' defeat of the German
Knights: ''At midnight, all of a sudden, frightened
shouting was he...Folksonomies: tyrrany
Folksonomies: tyrrany
1 notes
notes25 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Paul Saffo: The Illusion of Scientific Progress
The breathtaking advance of scientific discovery has the unknown on the run. Not so long ago, the Creation was 8,000 years old and Heaven hovered a few thousand miles above our heads. Now Earth is 4.5 billion years old and the observable Universe spans 92 billion light years. Pick any scientific field and the story is the same, with new discoveries—and new life-touching wonders—arriving almost daily. Like Pope, we marvel at how hidden Nature is revealed in scientific light.
Our growing c...Folksonomies: scientific progress progress
Folksonomies: scientific progress progress
1 notes
notes11 FEB 2014 by ideonexus
Curse of the Gifted: Personal Account
I am miles away from Eric or Linus, but the "curse of the gifted" is very real.
Thankfully I wasn't smart or gifted enough that I could ride it for long, but when it comes to math and problem-solving I rode it well into my high school years. I never learned to do algebra "by the book," because I didn't need to. Or maybe because I wasn't smart enough to.
The math teacher would teach "3x 6 = 9." Basic algebraic problem-solving says you subtract the 6 from both sides, then divide by 3. So "3...
2 A reply to the article, personal anecdote.
03 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Parameters of "Spaceship Earth"
Our little Spaceship Earth is only eight thousand miles in diameter,
which is almost a negligible dimension in the great vastness of
space. Our nearest star — our energy-supplying mother-ship, the
Sun — is ninety-two million miles away, and the nearest star is one
hundred thousand times further away. It takes approximately four
and one third years for light to get to us from the next nearest
energy supply ship star. That is the kind of space-distanced pattern
we are flying. Our little Spa... 1 notes
notesOur place in the cosmos. This is the situation in which we find ourselves.
31 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Science Manipulates Language to Make it More Precise
Let us consider two spheres moving in different di-
rections on a smooth table. So as to have a definite
picture, we may assume the two directions perpendicu-
lar to each other. Since there are no external forces
acting, the motions are perfectly uniform. Suppose,
further, that the speeds are equal, that is, both cover
the same distance in the same interval of time. But
is it correct to say that the two spheres have the same
velocity? The answer can be yes or no ! If the speedo-
mete...The example is "velocity" which in common parlance is the same as "speed," but in science it means "speed and direction."
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Past and Future of the Mississippi
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the old Oolitic Silurian Period, must a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the ...Folksonomies: speculation
Folksonomies: speculation
1 notes
notes"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Science is Disconnected from the Needs of Man
A plain, reasonable working man supposes, in the old way which is also the common-sense way, that if there are people who spend their lives in study, whom he feeds and keeps while they think for him—then no doubt these men are engaged in studying things men need to know; and he expects of science that it will solve for him the questions on which his welfare, and that of all men, depends. He expects science to tell him how he ought to live: how to treat his family, his neighbours and the men... 1 notes
notesIt gives useless facts, while the average man is seeking meaning.
14 APR 2012 by ideonexus
The Zodiacal Light
The zodiacal light is caused by sunlight reflecting from meteoric dust that orbits the sun in the plane of the solar system, remnants of the vast nebula of dust and gas out of which the solar system was born more than four billion years ago. Like the planets, this diffuse stream of particles reflects light, although faintly and rarely seen. Moonless nights of winter are the best time to see the zodiacal light. and nowhere better than here, on the Tropic of Cancer, where the plane of the solar... 1 notes
notesChet Raymo describes seeing the light of our planetary disk of our solar system intersecting the light of the milky way galaxy.
29 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Why Nothing Can Go Faster Than the Speed of Light
Einstein's equation gives us the most concrete explanation
for the central fact that nothing can travel faster than light speed. You may have wondered, for instance, why we can't take some
object, a muon say, that an accelerator has boosted up to 667 million miles per hour—99.5 percent of light speed—and "push it a
bit harder," getting it to 99.9 percent of light speed, and then "really push it harder" impelling it to cross the light-speed barrier.
Einstein's formula explains why such eff... 1 notes
notesBecause its mass will become infinite.
