Ways to Tackle a Problem

If a problem seems familiar, try reasoning by Analogy.  If you solved a similar one in the past, and can adapt to thedifferences, you may be able to re-use that solution.  If the problem still seems too hard, divide it into several parts.  Every difference you recognize may suggest a separate subproblem to solve. If it seems unfamiliar, change how you’re describing it. Find a different description that highlights more relevant information. If you get too many ideas, then focus on ...

 The Tragedy of Never Understanding Our Children

You must face the fact that yours is the last generation of homo sapiens. As to the nature of that change, we can tell you very little. All we have discovered is that it starts with a single individual—always a child—and then spreads explosively, like the formation of crystals around the first nucleus in a saturated solution. Adults will not be affected, for their minds are already set in an unalterable mould. In a few years it will all be over, and the human race will have divided in tw...

 Kantianism is a School and Not a Culture

Critical philosophy – Kantianism and neo-Kantianism – is also a school and not a solution. The Critique of Pure Reason can be said to deal with science or philosophy only within the narrow limits of an artificial, particularised experience (confined to laboratory or academic study). Similarly, the Critique of Practical Reason can be said to deal with life only within the narrow limits of personal affairs and within the kind of disunity that is not regarded as vice; it is a moral code fo...

 Spherical Cows

Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer, "I have the ...

 The Century of Biology

The century of biology upon which we are now well embarked is no matter of trivialities. It is a movement of really heroic dimensions, one of the great episodes in man's intellectual history. The scientists who are carrying the movement forward talk in terms of nucleo-proteins, of ultracentrifuges, of biochemical genetics, of electrophoresis, of the electron microscope, of molecular morphology, of radioactive isotopes. But do not be fooled into thinking this is mere gadgetry. This is the depe...

 Science is Human Power, Needing Guidance

It is against the background of conflict and confusion in the relations of science and society that we find ourselves confronted with a crisis in the history of mankind, and particularly in the history of human government. It is a crisis arising from the rapidly increasing power given to man by science. It is a crisis such as we are accustomed to leave to the arbitrement of sectional interests supported by shouts and cries. But it is one to which scientific inquiry can provide a solution. For...

 Scientists Read the Book of Nature

IN IMAGINATION there exists the perfect mystery story. Such a story presents all the essential clues, and com- pels us to form our own theory of the case. If we follow the plot carefully, we arrive at the complete solution for ourselves just before the author's disclosure at the end of the book. The solution itself, contrary to those of inferior mysteries, does not disappoint us; more- over, it appears at the very moment we expect it. Can we liken the reader of such a book to the sci...

 Solution to Russel's Paradox

An analysis of the paradoxes to be avoided shows that they all result from a kind of vicious circle. The vicious circles in question arise from supposing that a collection of objects may contain members which can only be defined by means of the collection as a whole. Thus, for example, the collection of propositions will be supposed to contain a proposition stating that “all propositions are either true or false.” It would seem, however, that such a statement could not be legitimate unles...

 The Surgeon Must Have All the Facts in His Head

At a given instant everything the surgeon knows suddenly becomes important to the solution of the problem. You can't do it an hour later, or tomorrow. Nor can you go to the library and look it up.

 The Goal of Any Science is to Become Trivial

Whether we like it or not, the ultimate goal of every science is to become trivial, to become a well-controlled apparatus for the solution of schoolbook exercises or for practical application in the construction of engines.