You could go further with this idea. Maybe have an expert in the topic present to help people. You could even gather a bunch of meetups for different courses under one organization. Provide equipment, develop new courses, etc. You could call it I don't know a college maybe?
Every experiment contains randomness, regardless of quantum theory. Engineers call it noise. Statisticians call it unexplained variance. That's why statistics is the language of science. You can still repeat experiments, including quantum experiments, by collecting a large enough sample size and computing the relavent statistics.
I prefer "accepted." The accepted theory is the current state of the art in a field, meaning that it is the best description (in a practical makes-useful-predictions way) that we currently have. Accepted theories are constantly tested, and could be wrong in the details or even in broad strokes, but they're the best thing available, and work in a way that has been fairly well explored.
Of the theories listed in the summary, all are being actively tested and refined today. The only one that really isn't having it's details continually tweaked is Relativity, although that's mostly due to the lack of close up black holes to study.
If they'd actually read the Rand crap they'd be less confused. Instead they just spout what they've HEARD she said, which seems to usually be the opposite of what she actually said.
Theories are explanatory structures that attempt to describe some phenomenon. Laws are an old-timey name for short, succinct, important bits of theories. Theories are used to generate hypotheses, which are effectively predictions, which are then tested through experiment.
Einstein's theory of relativity was just as much a theory when the ink on his paper was still wet as it is now. All those theories about low energy supersymmetry are still theories, even though there is strong evidence that they are wrong.
Pundit "theory" is a good application of the scientific method.
Theoretically, if I hold the bob of a Focault pendulum to my chest and let go, I should be perfectly safe so long as I don't move forward. But being a good scientist I doubt the hypothesis until there are experiments to check. Even then, I might retest the hypothesis whenever some new situation arises in which it might not be true, and I'm prepared to scrap whatever doesn't work as soon as the failing is reasonably demonstrated.
Theoretically, organisms evolve according to specific rules, objects move and are attracted or repelled from each other according to specific rules, microorganisms cause a good deal of disease, and pumping carbon dioxide into an atmosphere will trap heat. But scientists are constantly checking, first the broad sweeps, then the details.
The problem is that pop culture equates doubt to weakness.
What's wrong with Ptolemaic cosmology? It explains the things you can see without a telescope pretty well. A couple of little refinements, like switching the frame of reference (which Einstein tells us is meaningless) and letting the planets move in ellipses instead of perfect circles, and you have Copernicus and Kepler. Mix in some Newton to explain the why and you have a model that's still useful today.
We do. There was a good analysis by somebody I read once looking at how much dark matter you'd expect to find in the solar system. It's not much. Space is really big, and dark matter is pretty well spread around. That's why it doesn't perturb the orbits of the planets noticeably. It also interacts with matter very little, so it's hard to detect.
Physicists maybe. And some engineers. Anyone who doesn't use a lot of equations, and anyone who has to work with someone who doesn't use a lot of equations, uses Word. Most of the physicians, psychologists and biologists I work with aren't competent to use a command line, never mind TeX.
Word sucks. It really does. But I suspect it's what the majority of scientists use. Thank god for mathML and LaTeXit.
Random thieves have difficulty getting warrants. If he wants to avoid theft and torture at the hands of the US government he would clearly have to move to another country.
The guy is described as a crypto expert and someone who's worked on classified projects. It's not likely that hard drive is in his home somewhere. It's probably in a safe deposit box. Or two.
Good examples: those whole grains have been processed up the wazoo. As has the rice. The raw vegetables probably not as much. The word "processed" doesn't mean anything, despite the way people throw it around.
The scientific advice on diet can be pretty much summarized as "eat a variety of foods including lots of vegetables and make sure you get the basic amounts of vitamins and minerals to avoid disease." And the last part of that is taken care of by the first part unless you've got a strange idea of "variety."
The rest is generally made up by dieticians, TV talk show hosts, people trying to sell books and random idiots on the Internet.
You're aware I didn't reply to you, right? The post I DID reply to said this:
I think you would be surprised by just how much "science" is actually influenced by culture and religion.
and this
Even Evolution and Geology has it's roots in the Genesis poem, where God is said to have created the world in stages.
He's got pretty much everything, right down to the gratuitous capitalization.
In regards to your post, I think you're wrong, but it's not a ridiculous point of view. The media certainly goes in for the cult of personality, but there seem to be lots of actual cosmologists who disagree with Hawking, and I think Hawking himself very much likes being spiritedly disagreed with. He's got a penchant for betting on hypotheses after all. He's also changed his mind a few times. Cambridge? Well, university PR departments are run by marketers working for schmoozing business types out to score some donations. Read the papers, not the press releases.
Sure, just like drivers today don't each try and drive a little faster than the speed limit so they can cut some time and get that delivery bonus. I guess you might get a Wal-Mart trailer train all tailgating each other, but the Target trucks would be in the left lane trying to get past them.
I see it either of those two ways, hey? How small your world is.
Myths and legends are great. I love mythology. Particularly how it connects to actual, or probable, history. But believing that ancient people were brilliant and those myths somehow reflect how they figured everything out without all this technology and science stuff is just naive.
Ancient people made up stories. The stories people thought were good they remembered, and those stories survived. Kind of like how Americans think everyone thought the world was flat until Columbus came along and discovered America. Or how people believe some guy cured cancer but it's not patentable and so the pharma companies aren't interested.
The ancients were just like us except they told stories around fires instead of posting them on Facebook.
Strange thing, drivers don't work so well when it's cold either. That's why truck cabs are generally heated when it's cold out.
I'm from a place where, before glow plugs, if you turned off your truck during the winter it wasn't starting again until June, so the drivers would just leave their trucks idling all night while they slept. If you were smart you'd shove some cardboard in front of the radiator on your car (or truck) to block the airflow so that you'd actually get warm air out of the heater, and avoid that driver/LCD screen freezing problem.
You get used to a different point of view pretty fast. As anyone who's ever driven in the UK or Australia can tell you. Or a motorcycle for that matter.
It took me almost a week to be able to signal routinely without first turning the wipers on though.
Slashdot Mirror
You could go further with this idea. Maybe have an expert in the topic present to help people. You could even gather a bunch of meetups for different courses under one organization. Provide equipment, develop new courses, etc. You could call it I don't know a college maybe?
Every experiment contains randomness, regardless of quantum theory. Engineers call it noise. Statisticians call it unexplained variance. That's why statistics is the language of science. You can still repeat experiments, including quantum experiments, by collecting a large enough sample size and computing the relavent statistics.
I prefer "accepted." The accepted theory is the current state of the art in a field, meaning that it is the best description (in a practical makes-useful-predictions way) that we currently have. Accepted theories are constantly tested, and could be wrong in the details or even in broad strokes, but they're the best thing available, and work in a way that has been fairly well explored.
Of the theories listed in the summary, all are being actively tested and refined today. The only one that really isn't having it's details continually tweaked is Relativity, although that's mostly due to the lack of close up black holes to study.
If they'd actually read the Rand crap they'd be less confused. Instead they just spout what they've HEARD she said, which seems to usually be the opposite of what she actually said.
Not quite as wrong as the OP, but still wrong.
Theories are explanatory structures that attempt to describe some phenomenon. Laws are an old-timey name for short, succinct, important bits of theories. Theories are used to generate hypotheses, which are effectively predictions, which are then tested through experiment.
Einstein's theory of relativity was just as much a theory when the ink on his paper was still wet as it is now. All those theories about low energy supersymmetry are still theories, even though there is strong evidence that they are wrong.
Pundit "theory" is a good application of the scientific method.
Theoretically, if I hold the bob of a Focault pendulum to my chest and let go, I should be perfectly safe so long as I don't move forward. But being a good scientist I doubt the hypothesis until there are experiments to check. Even then, I might retest the hypothesis whenever some new situation arises in which it might not be true, and I'm prepared to scrap whatever doesn't work as soon as the failing is reasonably demonstrated.
Theoretically, organisms evolve according to specific rules, objects move and are attracted or repelled from each other according to specific rules, microorganisms cause a good deal of disease, and pumping carbon dioxide into an atmosphere will trap heat. But scientists are constantly checking, first the broad sweeps, then the details.
The problem is that pop culture equates doubt to weakness.
What's wrong with Ptolemaic cosmology? It explains the things you can see without a telescope pretty well. A couple of little refinements, like switching the frame of reference (which Einstein tells us is meaningless) and letting the planets move in ellipses instead of perfect circles, and you have Copernicus and Kepler. Mix in some Newton to explain the why and you have a model that's still useful today.
Both matter concentrating in the middle and forming disks is due to it interacting with itself. Friction, basically. Dark matter doesn't do that.
We do. There was a good analysis by somebody I read once looking at how much dark matter you'd expect to find in the solar system. It's not much. Space is really big, and dark matter is pretty well spread around. That's why it doesn't perturb the orbits of the planets noticeably. It also interacts with matter very little, so it's hard to detect.
Which is why he had his people make Keynote....
If you watch Jobs' presentations though, they tend to be black title slides and slides with a single graphic. No bullets.
Physicists maybe. And some engineers. Anyone who doesn't use a lot of equations, and anyone who has to work with someone who doesn't use a lot of equations, uses Word. Most of the physicians, psychologists and biologists I work with aren't competent to use a command line, never mind TeX.
Word sucks. It really does. But I suspect it's what the majority of scientists use. Thank god for mathML and LaTeXit.
True. If you're showing data the easiest way to do it is with a projected image. You can even use Powerpoint. But no words (except axis labels).
My visual aids never have bullet points. The only words are the title, axis labels and sometimes diagram labels.
${backwoodsTown} Mom discovers simple trick that makes ${enviedProfessional} hate her!
One simple trick to ${doSomethingDesireable}!
I remember the first time I saw each of those and now they're everywhere.
Random thieves have difficulty getting warrants. If he wants to avoid theft and torture at the hands of the US government he would clearly have to move to another country.
The guy is described as a crypto expert and someone who's worked on classified projects. It's not likely that hard drive is in his home somewhere. It's probably in a safe deposit box. Or two.
Smart people know about pliers.
Sounds like you're going to New Zealand without your spouse.
Ah, see there's the thing. I don't worship idols. Not even one.
Good examples: those whole grains have been processed up the wazoo. As has the rice. The raw vegetables probably not as much. The word "processed" doesn't mean anything, despite the way people throw it around.
The scientific advice on diet can be pretty much summarized as "eat a variety of foods including lots of vegetables and make sure you get the basic amounts of vitamins and minerals to avoid disease." And the last part of that is taken care of by the first part unless you've got a strange idea of "variety."
The rest is generally made up by dieticians, TV talk show hosts, people trying to sell books and random idiots on the Internet.
I always think "what do you mean by processed?" It's one of those magic words that people have been trained to hate, like "chemical."
You're aware I didn't reply to you, right? The post I DID reply to said this:
and this
He's got pretty much everything, right down to the gratuitous capitalization.
In regards to your post, I think you're wrong, but it's not a ridiculous point of view. The media certainly goes in for the cult of personality, but there seem to be lots of actual cosmologists who disagree with Hawking, and I think Hawking himself very much likes being spiritedly disagreed with. He's got a penchant for betting on hypotheses after all. He's also changed his mind a few times. Cambridge? Well, university PR departments are run by marketers working for schmoozing business types out to score some donations. Read the papers, not the press releases.
Sure, just like drivers today don't each try and drive a little faster than the speed limit so they can cut some time and get that delivery bonus. I guess you might get a Wal-Mart trailer train all tailgating each other, but the Target trucks would be in the left lane trying to get past them.
I see it either of those two ways, hey? How small your world is.
Myths and legends are great. I love mythology. Particularly how it connects to actual, or probable, history. But believing that ancient people were brilliant and those myths somehow reflect how they figured everything out without all this technology and science stuff is just naive.
Ancient people made up stories. The stories people thought were good they remembered, and those stories survived. Kind of like how Americans think everyone thought the world was flat until Columbus came along and discovered America. Or how people believe some guy cured cancer but it's not patentable and so the pharma companies aren't interested.
The ancients were just like us except they told stories around fires instead of posting them on Facebook.
Strange thing, drivers don't work so well when it's cold either. That's why truck cabs are generally heated when it's cold out.
I'm from a place where, before glow plugs, if you turned off your truck during the winter it wasn't starting again until June, so the drivers would just leave their trucks idling all night while they slept. If you were smart you'd shove some cardboard in front of the radiator on your car (or truck) to block the airflow so that you'd actually get warm air out of the heater, and avoid that driver/LCD screen freezing problem.
You get used to a different point of view pretty fast. As anyone who's ever driven in the UK or Australia can tell you. Or a motorcycle for that matter.
It took me almost a week to be able to signal routinely without first turning the wipers on though.