mental_floss Blog & Wacky Sci-Fi "Laws" Sci-Fi writers seem to enjoy coining Laws: adages bearing their own names that live on past their appearances in Sci-Fi stories. Here are five of my favorites, plus one bonus law (actually a Principle) from the world of cartoons. 1. "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." 2. "Ninety percent of everything is crap." 3. Finagle's Law is a variant of Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, will -- at the worst possible moment. "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum." See also: the second law of thermodynamics. 4. Arthur C. First law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. 5. Forming the basis for Isaac Asimov's fictional universe, these laws for robotic behavior have been the source of much Sci-Fi drama (I, Robot anyone?) There's also a Zeroth Law. 6. If that's not enough for you, check out Wikipedia's list of eponymous laws.
Nava Ora Unica Black Watch - Cool Watches from Watchismo.com At first glance, you might be confused as to how to tell time on the Ora Unica, but it’s actually quite simple. Just look at the position of the inner end of the squiggle for the current hour, and the outer end for minutes. Simple, elegant, and truly unique. 42mm stainless steel case, leather bracelet and water resistant to 3ATM/30m. The Ora Unica, designed by Denis Guidone for the Milanese Nava Design of Italy, is an accessory that takes fun of the time, for design lovers that make the imagination and the irony their distinguishing feature. A watch with whirlwind hands that build a very unusual moving geometry to indicate time. Because not every timepiece has to be foreboding and serious, Denis Guidone's watches play with the traditional expectation of what a timepiece should be.
The Ultimate Field Guide to Subatomic Particles - io9 This is, for the most part, an accurate article, except for a few statements. "Exactly what makes a fermion a fermion is a bit complicated, but suffice it to say that fermions are all the particles that deal with matter. So what about the last group of elementary particles, the ones that don't deal with matter? The statements above can be misinterpreted as suggesting that fermions are defined as particles that deal with matter and bosons are defined as particles that deal with forces. And that is not true. Particles that deal with matter are fermions and particles that carry the fundamental forces are bosons. What fermions and bosons really are have to do with two apparently unrelated (but actually related) particle properties: spin and statistics. "There are four known bosons" See, this is an example of the misconception I just mentioned. For instance, mesons (hadrons made of one quark and one antiquark), such as the pions, are bosons but aren't force-carriers. Actually, that isn't true.
Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Allegory of the Cave Plato realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc., without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of Forms. The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this. In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) Here are some students’ illustrations of Plato’s Cave Go back to lecture on the Phaedo Go back to lecture on the “One Over Many” Argument Go to next lecture on Criticism of Forms Need a quick review of the Theory of Forms? Return to the PHIL 320 Home Page Copyright © 2006, S.
The Psychology of Success in a Chart | IQ Matrix Products I would spend the next 12 months (mainly evenings, nights and the very early hours of the morning) plowing through my notes and piecing the MasterMind Matrix together step-by-step. I had all these questions I needed answered about the psychology of being human, and so much more. As I continued to expand the MasterMind Matrix, I came to the realization that many pieces were still missing. I therefore undertook further research, read more books, listened to just about every self-help program I could get my hands on to ensure that no stone would remain un-turned. I instinctively believed that the information these self-help Gurus were sharing with me could be compressed into an easy to understand format that would effectively lay down the building blocks for high levels of achievement in any field of endeavor. By early 2007 the MasterMind Matrix had grown out of control and became a dominating part of my bedroom wall — presented in A4 sized chunks that were stuck together with tape.
String Theory String theory was first studied in the late 1960s[3] as a theory of the strong nuclear force before being abandoned in favor of the theory of quantum chromodynamics. Subsequently, it was realized that the very properties that made string theory unsuitable as a theory of nuclear physics made it a promising candidate for a quantum theory of gravity. Five consistent versions of string theory were developed until it was realized in the mid-1990s that they were different limits of a conjectured single 11-dimensional theory now known as M-theory.[4] Many theoretical physicists, including Stephen Hawking, Edward Witten and Juan Maldacena, believe that string theory is a step towards the correct fundamental description of nature: it accommodates a consistent combination of quantum field theory and general relativity, agrees with insights in quantum gravity (such as the holographic principle and black hole thermodynamics) and has passed many non-trivial checks of its internal consistency.
40 Belief-Shaking Remarks From a Ruthless Nonconformist If there’s one thing Friedrich Nietzsche did well, it’s obliterate feel-good beliefs people have about themselves. He has been criticized for being a misanthrope, a subvert, a cynic and a pessimist, but I think these assessments are off the mark. I believe he only wanted human beings to be more honest with themselves. He did have a remarkable gift for aphorism — he once declared, “It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.” Even today his words remain controversial. Here are 40 unsympathetic statements from the man himself. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. More of Nietzsche’s genius here. Have a lot on your mind? Everyday mindfulness has transformed my life, and the lives of many others.
Epistemology 1. What is Knowledge? 1.1 Knowledge as Justified True Belief There are various kinds of knowledge: knowing how to do something (for example, how to ride a bicycle), knowing someone in person, and knowing a place or a city. According to TK, knowledge that p is, at least approximately, justified true belief (JTB). Initially, we may say that the role of justification is to ensure that S's belief is not true merely because of luck. 1.2 The Gettier Problem The tripartite analysis of knowledge as JTB has been shown to be incomplete. To state conditions that are jointly sufficient for knowledge, what further element must be added to JTB? Some NTK theorists bypass the justification condition altogether. 2. When we discuss the nature of justification, we must distinguish between two different issues: First, what do we mean when we use the word ‘justification’? 2.1 Deontological and Non-Deontological Justification How is the term ‘justification’ used in ordinary language? 2.2 Evidence vs. 3. 4. 5.
What is my Twitter account worth? Critias (dialogue) Timaeus Unlike the other speakers of the Critias, it is unclear whether Timaeus is a historical figure or not. While some classicists regard him as definitively historical,[3] others guess that "Plato's picture of him has probably borrowed traits from various quarters".[4] Frank assumes Archytas of Tarentum to be the person which Timaeus is partly based on.[5] On the other hand, F. Critias The latter group argues that there is too much distance of time between the oligarch Critias (460 – 403 BC) and Solon (638 – 558 BC), the famous lawmaker, who supposedly brought the Atlantis story from Egypt to Greece.[12] According to Plato, Solon told the story to the great-grandfather of the Critias appearing in this dialogue, Dropides, who then told it to his son, who was also named Critias and the grandfather of the Critias in the dialogue. On the other hand, this obviously too long time span between Solon and Critias would not be the only anachronism in Plato's work. Socrates Hermocrates Atlantis
Timaeus (dialogue) Participants in the dialogue include Socrates, Timaeus of Locri, Hermocrates, and Critias. Some scholars believe that it is not the Critias of the Thirty Tyrants who is appearing in this dialogue, but his grandfather, who is also named Critias.[1][2][3] Timaeus begins with a distinction between the physical world, and the eternal world. The speeches about the two worlds are conditioned by the different nature of their objects. Timaeus suggests that since nothing "becomes or changes" without cause, then the cause of the universe must be a demiurge or a god, a figure Timaeus refers to as the father and maker of the universe. Timaeus continues with an explanation of the creation of the universe, which he ascribes to the handiwork of a divine craftsman. (Later in history the term "demiurge" became a term of vilification by Gnostics who purported that the demiurge was a fallen and ignorant god creating a flawed universe, but this was not how Plato was using the term.)