15 JUN 2016 by ideonexus
Theoretical Uncertainty has No Meaning
If one looks at the history of knowledge, it is plain that at the beginning men tried to know because they had to do so in order to live. In the absence of that organic guidance given by their structure to other animals, man had to find out what he was about, and he could find out only by studying the environment which constituted the means, obstacles and results of his behavior. The desire for intellectual or cognitive understanding had no meaning except as a means of obtaining greater secur... 1 
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notes21 MAY 2016 by ideonexus
Essay Writing is About Figuring Things Out
To understand what a real essay is, we have to reach back into history again, though this time not so far. To Michel de Montaigne, who in 1580 published a book of what he called "essais." He was doing something quite different from what lawyers do, and the difference is embodied in the name. Essayer is the French verb meaning "to try" and an essai is an attempt. An essay is something you write to try to figure something out.
Figure out what? You don't know yet. And so you can't begin with a ... 1 notes
notes11 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
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...
1 The paradox that a set of sets that do not contain themselves must contain itself.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Ira Remsen Experiments with Nitric Acid
While reading in a textbook of chemistry, ... I came across the statement, 'nitric acid acts upon copper.' I was getting tired of reading such absurd stuff and I determined to see what this meant. Copper was more or less familiar to me, for copper cents were then in use. I had seen a bottle marked 'nitric acid' on a table in the doctor's office where I was then 'doing time.' I did not know its peculiarities, but I was getting on and likely to learn. The spirit of adventure was upon me. Having... 1 notes
notesAn amusing anecdote.
16 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Elegant, Simple Description of the Electromagnetic Strong...
If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into ... 1 notes
notesPulled together when a little distance apart, but repel one another when squeezed together.
29 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Example of Relativity
Imagine that George, who is wearing a spacesuit with a small, red flashing light, is floating in the absolute darkness of completely
empty space, far away from any planets, stars, or galaxies. From George's perspective, he is completely stationary, engulfed in the
uniform, still blackness of the cosmos. Off in the distance, George catches sight of a tiny, green flashing light that appears to be
coming closer and closer. Finally, it gets close enough for George to see that the light is attache... 1 notes
notesAll motion is relative.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
1890 Statement on Climate Change
The number of hypotheses and theories about climate change are numerous. Quite naturally they have caught the public attention, as any proof of past climactic change points to the possibility of future climate change, which inevitably will have significant implications for global economics. Recognizes it, does not mention Carbon Dioxide, but acknowledges global economic impacts of it.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
God of the Gaps
The man in the street will, therefore, twist the statement that the scientist has come to the end of meaning into the statement that the scientist has penetrated as far as he can with the tools at his command, and that there is something beyond the ken of the scientist. This imagined beyond, which the scientist has proved he cannot penetrate, will become the playground of the imagination of every mystic and dreamer. The existence of such a domain will be made the basis of an orgy of rationali...The gaps in what science knows gets filled with gods and ghosts, but the atheist also fills it with the idea that chance rules the universe.
23 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Technical Terminology Raises the Bar to Entry into a Subject
The increasing technicality of the terminology employed is also a serious difficulty. It has become necessary to learn an extensive vocabulary before a book in even a limited department of science can be consulted with much profit. This change, of course, has its advantages for the initiated, in securing precision and concisement of statement; but it tends to narrow the field in which an investigator can labour, and it cannot fail to become, in the future, a serious impediment to wide inducti...Folksonomies: terminology lexicon
Folksonomies: terminology lexicon
1 notes
notesBut the advantage is that it makes it easier for those working in the subject to be more precises.
12 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
What is a "Law of Nature"?
Our modern understanding of the term "law of nature" is an issue philosophers argue at length, and it is a more subde question than one may at first think. For example, the philosopher John W. Carroll compared the statement "All gold spheres are less than a mile in diameter" to a statement like "All uranium-23 spheres are less than a mile in diameter." Our observations of the world tell us that there are no gold spheres larger than a mile wide, and we can be pretty confident there never will ... 1 notes
notesMany laws of nature are conclusions drawn from the larger "interconnected system of laws."
