The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is someone outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; someone strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary …
Pedantry vs. Mastery
Unless I maintain vigilance, I tend to be rather rule bound. It’s a part of my personality that I’m not fond of, so I do my best to be aware of my response in situations. That’s why this quote, from A Word a Day struck me as being noteworthy: Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a …
Testing Authority
A study by scientists at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has concluded that supraluminal velocities are impossible for single photons. This apparent confirmation of Einstein’s dictum that the speed of light in a vacuum is an absolute limit puts the kibosh on the possibilities for time travel–or so the team’s lead researcher, Du Shengwang, would have us …
How Would You Bet?
Lots of news today about a finding that under some conditions neutrinos may (I emphasize may) travel faster than the speed of light, a clear contravention of a basic tenet of physics. In this light (yes, that’s a joke), I found this little item to be of interest: Source: https://xkcd.com/955/ Given all the pronouncements lately about changes to established paradigms—often …
A Failure to Think Critically
Several weeks ago, a friend asked me what I thought about the advent of Comet Elenin, a long-period comet discovered in late 2010. What he found noteworthy was that the comet would be closest to Earth (perigee) during the Jewish High Holy Days this year, which occur over a 10-day span, late September into early October. He expressed some concern …
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