A Sunset Bloom
Then we sat on the sand for some time and observed How the oceans that cover the world were perturbed By the tides from the orbiting moon overhead "How relaxing the sound of the waves is," you said. I began to expound upon tidal effects When you asked me to stop, looking somewhat perplexed So I did not explain why the sunset turns red And we watched the occurrence in silence instead.Lieutenant Commander Data (2338 – 2379)
Phoneme Exercises
Start simple, recommends Karen Tankersley in her ASCD book The Threads of Reading: Strategies for Literacy Development (2003): Introduce beginning sounds first. Add medial and final sounds after the child has mastered the beginning sounds. Select one-syllable words that isolate the initial letter. This method lets children clearly hear the individual sound being made. As you speak the word (e.g., pat), draw out the sound of the initial letter so students can clearly hear the sound as it i...Understanding is Music
Sure there is music even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid Strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is music wherever there is harmony, order and proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres; for those well ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony.Knowledge brings us harmony everywhere.
The World is a Function
Kakeru Seki: A fact is somehow related to another fact. Unless you understand these relationships, you won't be a real reporter. Noriko Hikima: True journalism! Kakeru Seki: Well, you majored in the humanities. Noriko Hikima: Yes! That's true--I've studied literature since I was in high school. Kakeru Seki: You havea lot of catching up to do, then. Let's begin with functions. Noriko Hikima: Fu...functions? Math? What? Kakeru Seki: When one thing changes, it influences another thing. A ...As a programmer I know that algorithms can relate to the real world, and since these algorithms are constructed in computers that ultimately run on bits and boolean logic, then the real world may be imagined to deconstruct to pure mathematics.
"Sagan" as a Unit of Measurement
Carl Sagan was an American cosmologist, astronomer, and absolute tireless champion of the sciences in the public sphere. He was the author, co-editor, or editor of almost two dozen science books, and the host the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos. Sagan was well known for his excitement in talking about science, especially cosmological issues, and would strongly enunciate the M sound in millions and the B sound in billions to emphasize just how big the numbers were and properly diff...From the trademark "Billions and Billions." "Billions" is plural, meaning greater than two, so billions and billions at minimum equals four.
Pavlov's Conditioning and Humans
The dog [in Pavlov's experiments] does not continue to salivate whenever it hears a bell unless sometimes at least an edible offering accompanies the bell. But there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system. An experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of th...Humans can be conditioned by a single experience, while the dog must have regular conditioning to continue salivating at the sound of a bell.
Babies Learn The Sounds of Their Language
We mentioned that part of what makes learning language difficult is that languages carve up sounds and different Ianguages carve them up differently. A wide variety of different sounds, with very different spectrograms, will all seem like the same sound to us, and, in turn, that sound will seem sharply different from other sounds that are actually quite similar to it physically. Suppose you use a speech synthesizer to gradually and continuously change one particular feature of a sound, such a...When a language does not make a clear distinction between two sounds, the children of that language cannot hear the distinction in other languages.
John Locke VS Babies
Another great English philosopher, John Locke, posed another classical epistemological problem. What would happen if you miraculously restored the sight of someone who had been blind from birth? Would that person recognize all the objects he had known so intimately through touch, or would he have to painstakingly learn that the smooth, hard, curved surface looked like a porcelain teacup, or that the familiar, soft, yielding swells and silky hairs translated into a visual wife? Locke thought t...Locke wondered if a blind person given sight would need to learn how to associate this new sense with the others, but babies make these associations instinctively.
One Who Can See in the Country of the Blind
"Why did you not come when I called you?" said the blind man. "Must you be led like a child? Cannot you hear the path as you walk?" Nunez laughed. "I can see it," he said. "There is no such word as see," said the blind man, after a pause. "Cease this folly and follow the sound of my feet." Nunez followed, a little annoyed. "My time will come," he said. "You'll learn," the blind man answered. "There is much to learn in the world." "Has no one told you, 'In the Country of the Blind the On...The protagonist in HG Wells story can see, but that just means the society of blind people he encounters think him mad.