- Powered by
- WordPress
-
Conflicts in politicial coalitions
Coalitions become very unpopular when politicians are seen fighting and haggling. Calls for re-elections appear, together with the phrase “Instead of fighting all the time, the government should work.” Elections represent the choices of the people, ideally not just in the representatives but the direction they intend to lead towards. If people were to already…
-
How many people does it take for a person to have a miserable life?
Let’s say you are a victim of bullying. A fraction of your work place or school decides that they will feel better if they make you feel lower. You go there every day. What fraction of people would it need to have a bad experience? Let’s say you interact with 30 people there on average…
-
Sei nicht zufrieden nichts Schlechtes zu machen, schau jeden Tag etwas Gutes zu tun. ― Nicholas Winton
-
Movies are unrealistic because of communication bandwidth
Movies have scientific inaccuracies, for example: We also often see unrealistic or unfair depictions: People complain about these, but I have some sympathy with movie makers. As a movie maker, you have to communicate relatively quickly to get the story along. Using tropes and concepts that the audience is already familiar with is not only…
-
Astronomer’s logarithms
A few generations ago, you might have learned how to take logarithms with the slide rule scale. Here I’ll teach you the fast algorithm astronomers use to take logarithms in their head. Algorithm: dex: the units of logarithm differences Finally, we can talk differences in logarithmic plots. A difference of 1 in a log plot…
-
The half-dead tree of standard models of particle physics
Today, we speak about the standard models of particle physics, and often students of physics call it beautiful. But this version of the theory was not conceived at once. It is the product of many iterations until it was settled to its current form in ~1975. Many of the alternatives were more mathematically appealing, but…
-
Why I sign emails with “Cheers”
In New Zealand, I was lucky enough to have as a teacher the extraordinarily knowledgeable and patient senior scientist Tim Natusch. Tim brought me for observing at the Auckland observatory, where we many times looked from the dome at the long, white cloud lending the Maori name to the island (Aoteroa), and to the radio…
-
“I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.” ― Vincent Van Gogh
-
Competition
I don’t really understand sport competition. There is no denying that sport competitions are popular. I don’t participate in them much – to start with, I don’t like crowds or being yelled at. I suppose the core is that humans value extremes for their rarity. Competing is one way, but not the only way, to…
-
Running
I don’t think running is the pinnacle of human excellence. Marathon running is very popular among top scientists. I used to run half-marathons – rarely in events, mostly for myself – somewhat regularly at one point in my life. I want to talk about my approach to running and the advantages, drawbacks and importance of…