20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Enjoying Science Requires Effort
When you have reached and entered the gates of science, how are you to use and enjoy this new and beautiful land?
This is a very important question for you may make a twofold use of it. If you are only ambitious to shine in the world, you may use it chiefly to get prizes, to be at the top of your class, or to pass in examinations; but if you also enjoy discovering its secrets, and desire to learn more and more of nature and to revel in dreams of its beauty, then you will study science for it...Many don't love nature and don't fall in love with science as a result.
19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Conjecture versus Theorem
Mathematicians use the idea of proof to make a distinction between a 'conjecture' and a
'theorem', which bears a superficial resemblance to the OED's distinction between the two senses of
'theory'. A conjecture is a proposition that looks true but has never been proved. It will become a
theorem when it has been proved. A famous example is the Goldbach Conjecture, which states that
any even integer can be expressed as the sum of two primes. Mathematicians have failed to
disprove it for all eve...in mathematics and how it applies to scientific "theory".