At left is a brief discussion on the subject of public schooling, and, in particular, the question of who should make the decisions re: curricula. The author suggests that the “client” to be served by public education is not the …
Who Should Call the Shots in American Public Education? Read More »
IMO, the content of the meme at left is one of the very best ideas ever propounded by humankind. It speaks to the subject of “cognitive biases,” a big deal nowadays. However, it’s been attributed to essentially everyone in history. …
I don’t think quantum mechanics is capable of being understood, not because it isn’t true, but because the human mind didn’t evolve in such a way to deal with things that fail to conform to our intuition of time and …
From the website Physics Is Fun: Stephen Hawking’s quote, “I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go into space,” underscores his belief in the existential importance of space exploration. He viewed humanity’s expansion into space as …
I like to answer this question as follows: If it’s the study of anything that’s alive, or that’s ever been alive, that’s biology. If it’s the study of how matter interacts at the level of the electrons that surround the …
Saptadip Pramanik submits this question and asserts that the answer is Aristotle. Yes, he wrote “De Motu Animalia,” or, in English: “On the Motion of Animals.” But most of what he put forward there turned out to be simply incorrect. …
“Object permanence” is a term developmental psychology used to mean the point at which infants, usually at the age of perhaps six months, come to understand that the things around them like bottles, toys, and people don’t disappear simply because …
I often say, “It hasn’t been a good last hundred years-or-so for philosophy.” And as shown at left, this sentiment is shared by minds far brighter than my own, in this case, German-British physicist and mathematician Max Born. Until fairly …
If this were correct, the ship would sink if it was stationary. The ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes discovered that the net upward force on an object immersed in water is equal to the weight of the water displaced by the …
It Would Be Nice if the Internet Weren’t Home to Troves of False Information Read More »
Insofar as science is a description of “what works, and how,” it makes sense to say, as physicist Michio Kaku does here, that “science is the engine of prosperity.” Whether we’re talking about transportation, medicine, nutrition, architecture, or IT and …
