First, some New Years resolutions (you know, just in case, stating them publicly makes sticking to them any more likely ;):
1) More exercise and fiber, less sugar, sodium, & carbs
2) More pickleball, birding, hiking, music, flossing (just kidding)
3) #Resist, resist, resist
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Anyway, some nice readings to start the new year with, courtesy of John Brockman’s Edge group. Every year they respond to some broad science-tinged question, and this year’s query was:
“What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?”
Doesn't sound all that scintillating, but I'm very much enjoying the responses. Haven’t seen the book version in stores yet, but the online version has 204 contributors, and looks to me to be one of the best such Edge volumes in recent years because of the sheer number, diversity, and succinctness of thoughtful, fun nuggets written. Here are just some of the more mathematically-tinged replies, and there are of course a great many interesting, non-mathematics ones as well:
Keith Devlin on Number Sense
Sean M. Carroll on Bayes’s Theorem
Bart Kosko on Negative Evidence
Jason Wilkes on Functional Equations
Lawrence Krauss on Uncertainty
Siobhan Roberts on Surreal Numbers
Ashvin Chhabra on Scaling
Kai Krause On Average
Simon Baron-Cohen on Boolean Logic
Clifford Pickover on the Menger Sponge
Much good stuff!
Scott Aaronson also took part and posted about the Edge essays at his blog with more details, so check out his take:
Lastly, I’ll note Eric Weinstein’s entry on “Russell Conjugation,” having to do with our emotional/visceral, rather than cerebral, reaction to words/language -- this is a topic that comes up in General Semantics (a subject I’ve been emphasizing of late) and which impinges on our current political scene:
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