When I was just out of graduate school, I attended my first meeting of the American Physical Society in New York City. A highlight was a special event arranged by the conference organizers: the great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov had been invited to speak to us.
Hour after hour he wrote down the stories he found in books in the university library about people protesting the invention of things like machines to spin thread and to weave cloth, steam-powered trains, automobiles, airplanes, etc. All of these advances were perceived by the general public either to be physically dangerous or to be a threat to the livelihoods of workers in trades that were about to be destroyed by these advances.
when he started to write science fiction, he remembered all of this work he had done. So while his fellow writers were all rhapsodizing about the thrill of rockets and space travel (long before such things were possible), he wrote a story about how the local populace showed up at the launch site with torches and pitchforks in opposition to space travel. Years later, when rockets and travel outside of the earth’s atmosphere became possible, there were protests, and many of Mr. Asimov’s colleagues were astounded that he had predicted so far in advance that this would occur.
“Why,” Mr. Asimov then asked us, “among all of these talented and visionary writers, was I the only one who was able to predict that this resistance to change would occur?” He let us think about the question for an uncomfortably silent minute, then leaned into the microphone and said in an intense voice that I still vividly remember: “It’s because people are stupid!”
The lesson I take from my memory of this experience is that the proper attitude to have when confronted with the vast complexity both of the universe and of the ideas and activities of the people who live on this small planet orbiting an ordinary star far away from the center of things in our galaxy is profound humility.
An account of a science writer broadcasting a podcast from Second Life. Includes brief and helpful background on the history of avatars and their social function and best practices. A good intro to avatars.
Difference engines are strictly calculators. They crunch numbers the only way
they know how - by repeated addition according to the method of finite
differences. They cannot be used for general arithmetical calculation. The
Analytical Engine is much more than a calculator and marks the progression from
the mechanized arithmetic of calculation to fully-fledged general-purpose
computation.
Physical Legacy
Aside from a few partially complete mechanical assemblies and test models of
small working sections, none of Babbage's designs was physically realized in its
entirety in his lifetime. The major assembly he did complete was one-seventh of
Difference Engine No. 1, a demonstration piece consisting of about 2,000 parts
assembled in 1832. This works impeccably to this day and is the first successful
automatic calculating device to embody mathematical rule in mechanism. A small
experimental piece of the Analytical Engine was under construction at the time
of Babbage's death in 1871. Many of the small experimental assemblies survived,
as does a comprehensive archive of his drawings and notebooks.
The designs for Babbage's vast mechanical computing engines rank as one of
the startling intellectual achievements of the 19th century. It is
only in recent decades that his work has been studied in detail and that the
extent of what he accomplished becomes increasingly evident.
A famous early example of natural selection in action was actually discovered right here in Providence by a Brown professor, Hermon Carey Bumpus. Passing by the Atheneum (just a few blocks from here on Benefit Street) after a severe blizzard in January 1898, Professor Bumpus found a flock of English house sparrows that had been knocked down by the storm. A typical scientist, he picked them all up and took them back to his lab, where some revived and some didn’t. When he measured them he discovered that the living were morphologically different from the dead. That was a case of natural selection acting in a single night!
Some of those experiments have already produced results — such as the rapid, pervasive, and dangerous evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
And a Gallup poll on Darwin’s birthday this February showed that only 39 percent of the American public overall “believes” in the theory of evolution.
I've always wondered if Natural Selection is different for humans in a day and age where debilitating physical characteristics don't always prevent humans from reproducing. I found this article and highlighted some interesting points.
Here is a summary of the old theory of quantum physics which is most commonly tied to Bohr. i dont really understand what it is saying. some others may understand it though.
Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye
This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting
A 2008 article in which the new kinds of digital relationships made possible through Facebook and other social media are discussed. Digital friends have "ambient awareness" through news feeds, begging the question about kind of friendship and their authenticity.
This blogger (i think this is a blog) poses the question "are dreams extensions of reality?" she uses descartes philosophy "i think therefore i am" to prove they are.
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Robert Hooke
Portrait of Hooke,
2004.
Born
18 July 1635Freshwater, Isle of Wight, England
Died
3 March 1703 (aged
67)London, England
Fields
Physics
and chemistry
Institutions
Oxford
University
Alma mater
Christ Church,
Oxford
Academic
advisors
Robert Boyle
Known for
Hooke's LawMicroscopyapplied the word 'cell'
Influences
Richard Busby
Contents [hide]
1 Life and works
1.1 Early life
1.2 Oxford
1.3 The Watch Balance
Spring
1.4 Royal
Society
2 Personality and
disputes
3 Hooke the scientist
3.1 Mechanics
3.2 Gravitation
3.3 Microscopy
3.4 Astronomy
4 Hooke the architect
5 Likenesses
6 Commemorations
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External
links
//
Hooke is known for his law of elasticity (Hooke's law), his book, Micrographia, and
for first applying the word "cell" to describe the basic unit of life
I sure hope that this does not come to pass! I love books and I get pretty tired of staring into a lightbulb to read. Great article, thanks for suggestion Mike.
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to
shape and mould the proletarian movement.
We are for you. You should join us. We will help you become equals, but not into a better position.
1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different
countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of
the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.
2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of
the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always
and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on
ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or
that would-be universal reformer.
mean to abolish their symbol of status, but not divide it to the masses. Say that it is commonly held together.
Abolition of private property
We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the
right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour,
which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom,
activity and independence.
, that quantum
of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer
in bare existence as a labourer.
But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace
home education by social.
And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social
conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect,
of society, by means of schools, &c.?
Secular learning might be taught in schools, but values, beliefs, toleration are all taught in the home. The only way to have successful society without these being taught in the home is to teach them in the schools. Which they currently are not.
Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their
proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take
the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.
capitalism has begun a reduction of national barriers.
The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries
and nationality.
In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will
also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also
be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within
the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to
an end.
Appealing to the 3rd world countries of the globe. trying to make communism a good thing.
The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical
and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious
examination.
We don't have anything to refute these claims, so we'll say they aren't important. Further we don't believe in religion because it causes differences, we can't refute something we believe in or think should exist.
The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling
class.