Leo Szilard's Ten Commandments

1. Recognize the connections of things and the laws of conduct of men so that you may know what you are doing. 2. Let your acts be directed toward a worthy goal but do not ask if they will reach it; they are to be models and examples, not a means to an end. 3. Speak to all men as you do to yourself, with no concern for the effect you make, so that you do not shut them out from your world, lest in isolation the meaning of life slips out if sight and you lose the belief in the perfection of t...

 Molyneux's problem

I shall here insert a problem of that very ingenious and studious promoter of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr. Molyneux, which he was pleased to send me in a letter some months since; and it is this:- "Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt one and the other, which is the cube, which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on...

 Mathematics Offers Spirituality

Perhaps the best reason for regarding mathematics as an art is not so much that it affords an outlet for creative activity as that it provides spiritual values. It puts man in touch with the highest aspirations and lofiest goals. It offers intellectual delight and the exultation of resolving the mysteries of the universe.

 William Edward Ayrton Predicts the Cell Phone

Professor Ayrton said that we were gradually coming within thinkable distance of the realization of a prophecy he had ventured to make four years before, of a time when, if a person wanted to call to a friend he knew not where, he would call in a very loud electromagnetic voice, heard by him who had the electromagnetic ear, silent to him who had it not. “Where are you? ” he would say. A small reply would come, “I am at the bottom of a coalmine, or crossing the Andes, or in the middle of...

 The Mother-Infant Dyad

In a more evolutionardy appropriate infant-caretaker scheme, the infant is a social partner, part of a dyad. Both mother and infant are interested in being in equilibrium, that is, in a stable and contented state. This goal is adiieved by mutual regulation, by reciprocity, and by keep¬ ing tabs on each other. This system nicely describes the infant-caretaker pair, and as I have presented in Chapter Two, there is a great deal of evidence that infants and those who love them are attuned to eac...

 The Law Strives for an Impossible Standard of Accuracy

When we are asked to swear in courts of law that we will tell 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth', we are being asked the impossible. It is simply beyond our powers. Our memories are fallible; even scientific truth is merely an approximation; and we are ignorant about nearly all of the Universe. Nevertheless, a life may depend on our testimony. To swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to the limit of our abilities is a fair request. Without th...