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UNESCO Preserves the Works of One of the Greatest Minds in Human History
This polymath's papers—full of personal and scientific revelations—have joined the World Register.
02 December, 2017
A stamp printed in Laos from the "Space Exploration " issue shows Isaac Newton and Lunokhod 2, circa 1984.
The UNESCO International Memory of the World Register has recently added another batch of genius to its collection of documents: the papers, diaries, books, and notes of Sir Isaac Newton, thereby helping to preserve for all time the works of one of the greatest minds in human history.
Wait, who added what?
The UNESCO Memory of the World Program is a programmed dedicated to the preservation of and access to the documentary heritage of the world. The program has existed since 1992 and has discovered, preserved, and exhibited countess documents of vital importance to the heritage of mankind since then, including the papers of Winston Churchill, the telegram Austria-Hungary sent to declare war on Serbia, and The Wizard of Oz.
So, why add Newton’s stuff?
Isaac Newton discovered and formulated the law of gravity, the classical laws of motion, the nature of color and optics, and invented calculus in his spare time. He invented the reflecting telescope, determined why the planets don’t move in perfect circles, and he later went on to invent the little indentations around the side of coins when he was the master of the mint for Great Britain. His contributions to science are nearly impossible to overstate.
And don’t take my word for it; Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains here why Newton is the greatest physicist of all time.
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</div> <p></p><p><strong>What documents of his did they add to the register?</strong><br> <br> This round of additions included the Cambridge Papers, <a href="http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/sir-isaac-newtons-cambridge-papers-added-to-unescos-memory-of-the-world-register" target="_blank">a grand collection of Newton’s works</a>. This includes his ‘<strong><em>Laboratory Notebook</em></strong>’ where he recorded the results of sticking a pin in his eye to induce color images (<strong>it didn’t quite work</strong>), his record of personal expenditures (<strong>he lost a bit of money at cards</strong>), and his personally annotated copy of <em>Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica </em>(1687)<em>, </em>one of the most important works in the history of science. Reading his handwritten notes, you can see the evolution of his understanding of physics from the first edition of his groundbreaking work and compare them to the changes he made in the second and third editions of <em>Principia. </em><br> <br> Amusingly, <a href="http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/03/newtons-sins.html" target="_blank">a list of the sins that he committed</a> before and after Whitsunday in 1662 was also included. He seemed to have had a habit of doing things he should not, and then lying about it. He lists the sin of gluttony twice in a row, proving that geniuses are not so different from us after all. <br><br><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODM0MTQwNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NjY1MjQyOX0.fvszCy0snRp15pD7ST1bs-zDpdbY-8Io9c4kJqeGUgc/img.jpg?width=980" id="ee2a5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="92510aee69846f83869824e1d2f5690a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><br> <em>His first thoughts were to pie, not gravity. </em><br><br>The work of Isaac Newton changed how humanity understood the universe. From his determining that white light was composed of all colors and that motion is unrelated to material, to inventing calculus in a “<a href="https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-04004/1" target="_blank">waste book</a>” for the sake of his own curiosity, the way his mind worked awes us. Alexander Pope was not far off when he quipped that,<strong> “</strong><strong>Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light.</strong>”</p> <p></p><p>Brush up on Newton's Laws of Motion with Crash Course:</p> <p></p><p class="flex-video"><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="efc122b149a3ea4a92d3ec30b54cbc3f"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kKKM8Y-u7ds?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span></p>
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Do Our Senses Reveal the World—Or Do They Obscure It?
Our brains didn't evolve to see the world accurately, we only perceive what is useful and apply meaning to it. Neuroscientist Beau Lotto shows us how the sausage of reality is made.
29 April, 2017
We know the world exists, we just don’t know what it actually looks like—and it's likely that we never will, says neuroscientist Beau Lotto. Humans can only access reality, whatever it may be, through the filter of our sensory organs, which interpret "inherently meaningless" data in ways that are useful for our survival. We don't see the world as it is, we see the world that helps us to live. It can be a concept that's hard to wrap your mind around: how is that chair not as I see it? What color is an apple, really? Lotto calls on two clarifying examples: "Dressgate", which blew people's minds in 2015 and exposed that perception is not objective, and the color spectrum, of which we only see a small slice of. Beau Lotto is the author of Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently.
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316300193"><img height="150" src="%5Cr%5Cnhttps://s3.amazonaws.com/edge-misc-assets/Book+Covers/Beau+Lotto.jpg" width="225"></a></p>
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Are Yellow or Blue Taxis Safer? Scientists Crunch the Data
If you want to get from A to B more safely, be a little more choosy at the cab rank.
13 March, 2017
Photo: Getty Images
If you’ve taken to the United States streets anytime lately, you may have noticed that most public school buses are a very particular shade of yellow. That shade is called National School Bus Glossy Yellow in Canada and the US, and it was specially designed by Dr. Frank Cyr. He was in charge of developing standards for the school bus. While there was no standard prior to this, many wanted something eye-catching so that every driver knew what vehicles hosted dozens of children on their way to learn. So, in 1939, after a long-awaited conference, they chose yellow.
<p>Yellow is easy to see in the dim lights of early morning or late evening, and because it's seen across <a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-can-our-eyes-see-yellow-faster-than-other-colours" target="_blank" title="Quora">both the green and red cones</a> in the eye, it pops in our vision faster than other colors. It's easier to notice even out of the corner of the eye, and stands out against the fog on a rainy day. What’s more, while the majority of those who are color blind have trouble distinguishing red from green, they can still see yellow just fine. The eye-popping color is just one of the reasons that school buses are one of the safest vehicles to travel in. Amanda Dumas-Hernandez, a Professor of Color Theory, agrees: </p> <blockquote><p>"Studies have proven that yellow is more visible on a spectral scale. It moves to the foreground while darker colors move to the back. Something yellow appears optically speaking heavier and larger than a darker shape the same size."</p></blockquote> <p>It makes sense that yellow taxi cabs are safer than the blue ones. According to PNAS.org, blue and yellow cabs have the same rates of fare and spend the same amount of money a month to keep their medallions, so neither set of drivers are more motivated to drive safer. It isn’t like Uber, where drivers are rated by the very customers they drive around. Furthermore, the drivers tend to drive at similar speeds, so the color of the cabs isn’t attracting certain driver personalities. It is mostly linked to the color of the cab.</p> <p>When Dumas-Hernandez learned that blue taxis got in <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/02/28/1612551114.full" target="_blank" title="PNAS.org">9% more accidents</a> than a yellow taxi, she was surprised. "I thought it would be more," she said.</p> <p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODMzODg5Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MjMzMjEwN30.h8wCCTVdKl-xJeoE9xR89LrmX_PFhbvTaHCCavXNC_E/img.png?width=980" id="1462e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2fb8a3e89021c7120845e7395aa2182c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><br><span style="color: #737d83; font-size: 13px;">Accident rate by taxi location. Image: PNAS.org.</span></p> <p>The long-standing association of yellow being <em>the</em> color of cabs means many people purchase cars that are specifically not yellow, because of the connection, but they will purchase blue cars. People are more careful around the yellow vehicle for the same reason they are careful around the school bus: they know what the color means.</p> <p>Blue cars are similar to the color of fog on a rainy day, or the water under a bridge, so because of their lack of distinction, they are more likely to be hit. Blue cabs have approximately six accidents more than their yellow siblings for every one thousand accidents. Yellow cabs are less likely to be hit from behind, whether at day or at night, than blue ones. The color blue blends in with the dark while driving at night, meaning the already troubling act of facing on-coming headlights while your eyes are dilated is more difficult when a blue car is hiding along the road.</p> <p>These findings may prompt introspection and the headquarters of ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft, and will push car buyers to consider color not just as a stylistic afterthought, but as a very low-tech but effective safety mechanism that could keep them and their passengers safer. The most immediate application of this research however will be helping people on the street make an easy choice when faced with two competing taxi companies. </p> <p>Of course, this is all a short-term worry: we won't be at the mercy human error <a href="http://bigthink.com/disruptive-demographics/what-will-you-do-in-your-self-driving-car-the-new-ridership-economy" target="_blank">for much longer.</a></p> <div class="video-full-card-placeholder" data-slug="welcome-to-the-hellabyte-era" style="border: 1px solid #ccc;">
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Language Controls What Colors You Can and Can't See, or Does It?
Not every language agrees on how many colors there are. With some having more terms and others fewer. But does that mean we see the world differently?
10 January, 2017
How many colors are there, or rather; how many can you see?
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://bigthink.com/big-think-tv/see-a-color-humans-cant-see" target="_blank"><span>Name a few colors</span></a><span>. Start with the basic ones. How many did you come up with? Six, seven? If you speak English, you probably came up with that many. If you have a different primary language, you might have come up with more or less.</span></p> <p dir="ltr"><a href="http://bigthink.com/big-think-tv/double-rainbow-what-does-this-mean" target="_blank"><span>There are seven colors in the rainbow if you speak English</span></a><span>. But if you speak Russian, you might name more, as that language names light and dark blue as two separate colors. The Hungarians divide red into two colors. If you speak a language with fewer color terms, you might say there are less than seven. If you speak a language without a word for “blue” for example-</span><strong> you might not be able to see the difference between blue and green at all.</strong></p> <p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2" target="_blank"><span>That is the bizarre finding of an increasing number of studies of language and color recognition</span></a><span>. </span><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.full" target="_blank"><span>All of them are similar in nature</span></a><span>, the researchers show a person a series of colored images, one of which is not the same as the others, and ask them to find the one that is different. For persons raised in cultures without words to describe blue and green as separate colors, it proves difficult if not impossible for them to find the bright blue square next to the green one.</span></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>For English speakers who take the tests, they show difficulty finding lighter and darker shades of green, as the language only identifies one color for such a large part of the light spectrum. Even if the actual difference in the two shades of green is quite large, or at least as large as the difference between other colors, like orange and brown.</span></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>The idea is shocking, but also ties into linguistic studies showing that </span><span><strong>most languages start out with fewer terms for colors and add more later on, with blue often being added last</strong>.</span><span> The Ancient Greeks, for example, may not have been able to see blue as distinct from other colors. With Homer calling the sea “Wine-Dark” rather than blue. His use of colors as descriptors is strange too, rarely using any color terms other than black and white.</span></p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Is this because their language prevented them from seeing color? Or because their language could not describe what they saw?</strong></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>This is a large problem, one that gets into the philosophy of language. After all, how do I know that when I see the color blue, I am “seeing” the same thing as you? Suppose that I see the sky as what you call “magenta” but we have agreed to call it blue? What if this is the case for everybody?</span></p> <p dir="ltr"><a href="http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/we-survive-because-reality-may-be-nothing-like-we-think-it-is" target="_blank"><span>Or perhaps our brains decide to process colors that we have decided are important enough to name</span></a><span>? This would help to explain the studies and the people who can’t see blue right in front of them. Of course, does this mean that you are missing out on a world of vibrant colors just because we don’t have more names for them?</span></p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>What is the solution?</strong></p> <p dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.wired.com/2008/03/babies-see-pure/" target="_blank"><span>A 2008 study from England has a suggestion</span></a><span>. </span><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/105/9/3221.full#sec-1" target="_blank"><span>The study</span></a><span> showed subjects an image of color in either their left or right eye, meaning that the image would be processed by the part of the brain that either relates or does not relate to language. They were then asked to distinguish the color from others or find a target against a similarly coloured background.</span></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>The findings showed that adults were better at distinguishing colors when they saw the color through their right eyes, which means it was processed by the left side of their brains where language is centered. While infants did best with the right hemisphere of the brain doing the work, which is pre-linguistic in its processes.</span></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>The study suggests that as we age we begin to filter our understanding of color to one dominated by language rather than just the word as is. </span><strong>Giving weight to the idea that language could control what colors we can and cannot see.</strong></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>Look around, are you seeing everything that’s there? Or are you seeing what we have words for? The science of this is new, and the philosophy is unsettled. Are we unable to see the world right in front of us? Does our choice of language control what we can and can’t see? Or is it just a question of what we can describe? The evidence suggests you can’t see everything, but at least you can describe what you can see. </span><span><br class="kix-line-break"></span><span><br class="kix-line-break"><br class="kix-line-break"></span></p>
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