tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post1757745242688035552..comments2024-01-13T18:57:18.243-05:00Comments on Information Processing: Seasons and VeritasSteve Hsuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428333897272913660noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-34244922232350739992015-02-22T01:44:12.454-05:002015-02-22T01:44:12.454-05:00wow! Algebra explains the universe. If only I h...wow! Algebra explains the universe. If only I had studied harder in high school, I would have a portal into the mind of GodHomoSapiensnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-32436327995743349502015-01-28T21:23:55.091-05:002015-01-28T21:23:55.091-05:00There is a longer version of this video that shows...There is a longer version of this video that shows some university professors giving completely moronic explanations of the reason for moon phases. Seasons and the Earth axis is a stuff solidly from the middle school - but failure to learn is not the really bad thing here. It's the failure to think that's the obvious problem - these people clearly never pondered why it's always warm DKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-35702896396025723132015-01-27T15:43:43.471-05:002015-01-27T15:43:43.471-05:00High verbal skill is only for selling idea or prod...High verbal skill is only for selling idea or product to average folk. Very useful as salesmen, politicians, religion figures.<br />Math is the rule how universe works (or rule of God).AGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-4667324552108914942015-01-26T23:28:14.057-05:002015-01-26T23:28:14.057-05:00I don't think the finer points of argument in ...I don't think the finer points of argument in Plato's Republic or Candide are comparable to a basic understanding of how the tilting of the earth results in seasons. These students were not asked to provide an equation laying out how the sun's energy is spread out over a larger area, in terms of the angle of tilt. If they simply said that the seasons resulted from the tilting of the aseussnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-43754241500394728502015-01-26T17:16:11.712-05:002015-01-26T17:16:11.712-05:00Situation seems to lend itself well to this behavi...Situation seems to lend itself well to this behavior. They are supposed to represent. Not just knowledge, but appearance.<br /><br />I am not convinced from the clip that they thought much anything about the question. I do think 30 seconds after a "let me think about it" would improve people's chances.Henningnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-12269422136827938662015-01-26T01:58:55.508-05:002015-01-26T01:58:55.508-05:00Two of my friends(and most probably more since I d...Two of my friends(and most probably more since I didn't go around asking for this) were confident that it was due to earth being farther from the sun during winters. Though their error was far less egregious than a prof. starting off his lecture with a FTL electron.namae nankahttp://endofwomen.blogspot.in/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-34903970282136515682015-01-25T22:58:03.308-05:002015-01-25T22:58:03.308-05:00I think those who have achieved more tend to speak...I think those who have achieved more tend to speak in this manner. Not sure if it is cause or effect, i.e. confidence gained from past success (getting into Harvard, getting promoted fast at the job etc). Even Einstein went around saying (supposedly) that God doesn't play dice when it is pretty clear that he was absolutely wrong.HomoSapiensnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-52002659334753589232015-01-25T20:08:11.387-05:002015-01-25T20:08:11.387-05:00"I think what's galling is that they spea..."I think what's galling is that they speak so confidently about matters they don't know." This is a cultural feature of high-achievers, no? I had to tell [in an IM] my third-level-boss [doctorate from a fancy northeast technical school] that his most current idea wasn't just useless, it was destructive, and that he need to stop talking [during the telecon we were on]. He David Coughlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-24155652718096732262015-01-25T18:51:45.733-05:002015-01-25T18:51:45.733-05:00I think what's galling is that they speak so c...I think what's galling is that they speak so confidently about matters they don't know. Somehow, that is being viewed as "high verbal ability". I didn't see any extraordinary verbal gifts in that video. Just some ignorance and maybe hubris. Go to any corporate meeting (even technical) and you will see people talking in this manner about things they don't know.HomoSapiensnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-90631896328952747092015-01-25T11:05:50.480-05:002015-01-25T11:05:50.480-05:00Rather di-hydrogen oxideRather di-hydrogen oxideUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02799291802979689902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-82384335779451709202015-01-25T10:12:22.807-05:002015-01-25T10:12:22.807-05:00Wasn't some faux environmental group successfu...Wasn't some faux environmental group successfully having students sign a petition to remove hydrogen dioxide from our water supply? Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02799291802979689902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-32798154321447630062015-01-25T06:54:45.674-05:002015-01-25T06:54:45.674-05:00I can see people making mistakes here much more re...I can see people making mistakes here much more readily than with "Why is it dark at night?" That seems like a ridiculous thing to get wrong.<br /><br />It would probably take me a little while to think about this question before arriving at "earth moving away from the sun would not be relevant to seasons occurring at different times in different regions", and then rememberingHenningnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-89597123488437408362015-01-23T15:33:19.872-05:002015-01-23T15:33:19.872-05:00The humor gene skipped meThe humor gene skipped meHomoSapiensnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-29821902134057611172015-01-23T13:43:04.356-05:002015-01-23T13:43:04.356-05:00Homo sapiens nonhumorensisHomo sapiens nonhumorensisBobSykesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-39131847325367093402015-01-23T09:50:12.537-05:002015-01-23T09:50:12.537-05:00I would be reluctant to fly on a plane designed by...I would be reluctant to fly on a plane designed by engineers who use the wrong value of pi to design the engines. There is a difference between adding a safety factor to a known quantity and having the wrong value for a quantity. As Feynman said, "Nature cannot be fooled."HomoSapiensnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-22631925167007112132015-01-23T07:34:26.502-05:002015-01-23T07:34:26.502-05:00From an engineering viewpoint, this is not a bad i...From an engineering viewpoint, this is not a bad idea. Setting pi = 3 is less than 5% error. Most real world engineering data (like river flow rate, etc) has errors approaching 50%, and safety factors of 2 or larger are common.<br /><br /><br />Setting e = 3 has a 9% error, which might be acceptable in some cases.<br /><br /><br />By the way, to simplify calcs, physicists often set many constantsBobSykesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-65423437398620862922015-01-22T21:24:44.784-05:002015-01-22T21:24:44.784-05:00I think that's an unfair assumption. People l...I think that's an unfair assumption. People learn many things throughout their life that they promptly forget since they have no interest in them. I think people tend to remember facts and associations between facts that hold an interest for them. If you have no interest in science, you will not be likely to remember scientific facts. Would the vaunted engineers at MIT be likely to HomoSapiensnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-54361441477699442992015-01-22T19:09:59.924-05:002015-01-22T19:09:59.924-05:00That explains why the US senate is voting on wheth...That explains why the US senate is voting on whether the climate change is real http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/22/us-senate-man-climate-change-global-warming-hoax<br /><br />Recollection on the Indiana Pi Bill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill that passed the house of rep but at the senate<br /><br />"it was nearly passed, but opinion changed when one senator dxie48noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-65539971181798872612015-01-22T18:35:08.385-05:002015-01-22T18:35:08.385-05:00"none of the people interviewed had studied a..."none of the people interviewed had studied astronomy, geography or meteorology" <br /><br /><br />How about elementary school or middle school science? Do you think they were exposed to that? It seems likely that all had been exposed to the idea that the Earth's axis is tilted relative to the orbit plane, etc. Whether they could recall this *geometrical* picture and its steve hsuhttp://plus.google.com/u/0/+StephenHsu/aboutnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-78260566251968738212015-01-22T18:08:28.517-05:002015-01-22T18:08:28.517-05:00It appears that none of the people interviewed had...It appears that none of the people interviewed had studied astronomy, geography or meteorology. So they made up explanations that made sense to them and communicated that effectively. This says more about the education system at Harvard (C.P Snow's Two Cultures) than it does about "High V, Low M" ability or anything of the sort. They were thinking physically about the problem HomoSapiensnoreply@blogger.com