December 2011
What is it like to have an understanding of very advanced mathematics?
You are often confident that something is true long before you have an airtight proof for it (this happens especially often in geometry). The main reason is that you have a large catalogue of connections between concepts, and you can quickly intuit that if X were to be false, that would create tensions with other ...
At last, Earth-sized alien-sized worlds
Nasa’s Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are too close to their star to be in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface, but they are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a star like...
Independently of ourselves we do not know what the world is like. And our cognition of things has nothing in common with the things as they are outside of us—that is, in themselves.
— P D. Ouspensky, (Tertium Organum)
crowded-by-vacancy asked: where did you get those super cool food pics from lady?
Hello-Goodbye by The Modern Art
“But things worked out. Everything works out. Though sometimes they work out...”
– Knut Hamsun, The Ring is Closed
“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already...”
– Kahlil Gibran
“I shall go on shining as a brilliantly meaningless figure in a meaningless...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“Not only must we accept that basic properties of our universe are accidental and...”
“If the multiverse idea is correct, then the historic mission of physics to...”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A vernier caliper
A caliper (British spelling also calliper, in technical and formal use a pair of callipers) is a device used to measure the distance between two opposing sides of an object. A caliper can be as simple as a compass with inward or outward-facing points. The tips of the caliper are adjusted to fit across the points to be measured, the caliper...
Deconstructing the physics of writing with a fountain pen
Wetting a fountain pen to compose a thank-you note is a grand way to express gratitude for a holiday gift, yet we often don’t give a thought to what happens when ink moves from pen to paper. But for a team of South Korean and American scientists, the medium is more important than the message — and can even provide new insights...
“Time, strictly speaking, does not exist (except the present, as a limit), and...”
Ice skaters move like avalanches
Saying an ice skater moves like an avalanche might insult the skater, unless of course you’re talking about hockey. Eight home wins in a row gave the Colorado Avalanche momentum they took on the road and turned into a surprise attack on Minnesota Wild winning 4 to 2 on Monday and brought home again yesterday with a 3 to 2 win against the Phoenix ...
Read Control Your Dreams by Tom Stafford and Cathryn Bardsley (ebook)
Anyone can learn to have lucid dreams, and this ebook tells you how. Lucid dreams are those dreams where you become aware you are dreaming, and can even begin to control the reality of the dream. Adventure, problem-solving and consequence-free indulgence await! And for those interested in the mind, lucid dreams are a great...
Decoded: the mystery of human migration
A new study aims to analyse modern DNA to track how man spread across the globe. Steve Connor persuades a series of high-profile figures to take the test - with fascinating results It is the greatest journey in history, and now the story of how the first members of our species walked out of their African homeland to colonise almost every corner of...
The signposts that point back to our origins
To illustrate the story of human migration, The Independent commissioned the Genographic Project to decipher the DNA signposts hidden in the genomes of six prominent people of varying genetic backgrounds.
Click here to see the graphic ‘The maternal journey of OF mitochondrial DNA’
In this public part of project, the Genographic...
“Ayahuasca is like a bus tour of Paris museums for several hours. Smoked N,N-DMT...”
– Bob Wallace
Absolutely. Would love to know what Bobby would say of Iboga. Holy fuck, man.
The guy I was saving my 5-MeO-DMT for, isn’t leaving London anymore. Now, I’m free to time travel a few days after New Year’s Eve :)
crowded-by-vacancy asked: i read damn near everything you post so dont think they go unnoticed :)
“I will remember the kisses, our lips raw with love,
and how you gave me...”
– Charles Bukowski
Your emotions are what you eat
If you believe your emotions can affect your health, nutritionist-author Nora Gedgaudas would say that’s only part of the story – because your emotions are, in many ways, a product of your health.
At the Ancestral Health Symposium this month at UCLA Gedgaudas spoke about “the myth of the ‘mind-body connection’ and how diet can ...
Pristine relics of the Big Bang spotted
For the first time, astronomers have discovered two distant clouds of gas that seem to be pure relics from the Big Bang. Neither cloud contains any detectable elements forged by stars; instead, each consists only of the light elements that arose in the Big Bang some 14 billion years ago. Furthermore, the relatively high abundance of deuterium seen in...
Computer architecture recreated on quantum device/ Complete quantum computer made on single chip
Physicists in California claim to be the first to implement a quantum version of the “Von Neumann” architecture found in personal computers. Based on superconducting circuits and integrated on a single chip, the new device has been used to perform two important quantum-computing...
The creating and sharing of awe
“We are enraptured prose-beings raised to the highest power”. - Walter Benjamin
On Hashish Timothy Leary and Buckminster Fuller called themselves “performing philosophers”, using the power of media communication to spread galactic-sized ideas about the state of the species in relation to the wider universe. Timothy Leary used to say, “In...
Kiss On My List by Hall and Oates ”Because your...
The future of moral machines
A robot walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have a screwdriver.” A bad joke, indeed. But even less funny if the robot says “Give me what’s in your cash register.”
The fictional theme of robots turning against humans is older than the word itself, which first appeared in the title of Karel Čapek’s 1920 play about artificial factory workers rising against their...
The science of ‘I love you’
For many relationships, there is a single moment that marks a major turning point toward either a future of togetherness or one that splits into separate roads. And that moment usually involves three little words: “I love you.”
In books and movies, this simple sentence may seem full of mystery and romance. But a new study suggests that...
Living laser brought to life
To date, lasers have been built from inanimate materials, such as purified gases, synthetic dyes or semiconductors. But now physicists in the US have shown how to induce lasing in a single living biological cell. By shining intense blue light onto fluorescent protein molecules in a cell, the team made the molecules generate intense, monochromatic, directional...
The science of champagne
Analysis by Emily Sohn
This law of physics states that the pressure of a gas above a solution is proportional to the concentration of the gas within the solution. For champagne, carbon dioxide is the gas that forms those delightful bubbles. And, in an unopened bottle of champagne, there is equilibrium between the CO2 inside the liquid and the gas in the spaces of the...
“To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold...”
– William Blake
