Search Results

There is a proven mathematical theorem for why dating and finding a job in a large urban area is difficult and frustrating.

The father of fractal geometry marvels that his work has led to computer renderings of natural shapes that are indistinguishable from the real thing.

I spoke with one of Atlanta’s former mayors last week about the new advocacy organization she had just joined. Shirley Franklin, the first black woman to run the city, seems […]

John Abele has ideas for how to fix the problem with math and science primary education in the U.S.

Steven Brams’ solution to math’s “cake-cutting problem” can be applied to everything from divorce settlements to land disputes in the Middle East. But does he use it on his own […]

Peter Woit believes that mathematicians and scientists are led astray by seeking “elegant” solutions. But there is one theorem that makes him wax poetic.

I was tooling around the internet for awhile yesterday, looking for a transcript of the Congressional hearings that featured Goldman Sachs executives and traders as the star witnesses, before I […]

Physics is as vulnerable to fads and politics as other disciplines. Math avoids the same fate by being content to stay “completely useless.”

Peter Woit explains the “deep relation” between the two disciplines and the most mind-bending new ways in which that relation is being explored.

A person’s aptitude for recognising faces is heritable, and is inherited separately from general intelligence or IQ, according to twin studies at MIT and in Beijing.

The other day my Triscuits came with a package of basil seeds glued into the box. According to the instructions, these could be used to start my very own “home […]

Poker involves a rare blend of logic and instinct, but which will help you the most?

The second part of Eruptions readers’ recollections of the historic May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

Textbooks–and perhaps, uniquely, economics textbooks–are not known for their literary brilliance. Why should they be? Does math need metaphor? In college when we think about numbers we think about things […]

People do many things without knowing why: buy stuff they didn’t think they wanted, vote differently when they’re in one setting than they would in another, order a different lunch […]

When I began listening to the recorded testimony of Wall Street banking executives to Congress Wednesday on C-Span, I started to feel like I was sitting in a circle at […]

Steven Pinker’s attack on Malcolm Gladwell in the New York Times Book Review was more lucid and entertaining than it was intellectually honest. Pinker’s take-away claim is that Gladwell’s work […]

Some time in the early 1960s, the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot was asked by a university librarian to give his advice about some dusty journals no one consulted—should they be thrown […]

Spare some change? This past Thursday, the New York Times ran a special section on giving, the big front page story of which was all about giving small. You know, […]

Francis Collins and J. Craig Venter are the scientists whose names will always be associated with mapping of the human genome — after racing to complete the job, the two […]

Applied Omniscience Defined – from the scientific stance –

Lieutenant Raymond Foster has graciously invited me to make some comments on leadership. I highly appreciated Raymond’s gesture and sophistication in dealing with the increasingly relevant subject. I attended a “LIVE” forum as Raymond was being interviewed I found his words of wisdom very original and useful.

New Jersey high schooler Steven Castellano spoke with Big Think today on all things neuroscientific. His forte is brain science, but we wouldn’t let him leave without first telling us […]

Actionable omniscience perspective defined.

Using the Definition of the Domain of Morality as a sort of logical compass, Conservatism is argued to be “going against nature.”

In this year marked by government largess, Big Think wants to know what you did to cut corners on your taxes this year. We know you did it. Totally anonymous, […]

In addition to an increased risk of needing Lasik surgery and an unnatural LCD-like glow to your complexion, excessive time on Facebook may be keeping you from your family and […]

Gmail’s hiccup this morning that wiped out the world’s most popular email program for millions of users across the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe for four long hours […]

Wall Street bonuses have been captured under the media’s microscope since the the recession began in earnest, and most objective perspectives have called the billions in performance-based pay superfluous remuneration. […]

Daniel Koretz laments that math gains in elementary and middle schools are not maintained in high school.