Category Archives: Mathematics

Cosmic and Psychological Lessons

Posted on Friday 8 March 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Phil Plait on the scale of the cosmos; Beware of pluralistic ignorance; How math education can be better taught with examples about money. – – –   Today’s cosmic lesson. Scientific American, Phil Plait, 8 Mar 2024: The Scale of … Continue reading →

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The Flaw of Math, or Perhaps Just the Limits of Human Cognition

Posted on Saturday 2 March 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Veritasium on math’s fatal flaw, or perhaps just a limitation on the extent humans can understand reality; Considering why cars are built to be able to break the law; A cartoon about religious folks who believe the Bible was written … Continue reading →

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The True and the Real

Posted on Sunday 11 February 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

About the difference between “true” and “real” and recalling Delany’s DHALGREN; An essay about the reality of mathematics, and whether math implies God. Years ago there was a novel — it was Samuel R. Delany’s 1975 novel DHALGREN — that … Continue reading →

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Items about Science, Math, and Philosophy

Posted on Thursday 8 February 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

There are always looking glass items, as I described topics in yesterday’s post, but for today let’s look at more substantial items. It’s been 100 years since Hubble discovered that our own galaxy wasn’t the entirety of the universe; Steven … Continue reading →

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Odds and Ends…

Posted on Saturday 27 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

How journalism may never again make money; Keeping lists of books you’re read; Decoding the Mandelbrot set. More links collected the past week or so, today non-political ones. Washington Post, Perry Bacon Jr., 27 Jan 2024: Opinion | Journalism may … Continue reading →

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Math and Beauty

Posted on Friday 19 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Big Think’s Ethan Siegel on the Fibonacci sequence; Big Think’s Adam Frank on biological and technological information flow; Shorter items on inflation and human irrationality; how calls for securing the border are political theater; how anti-science (vaccine “hesitancy”) is rising; … Continue reading →

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Christmas Presents and Consumerism; Beauty in the Universe

Posted on Monday 11 December 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Christmas presents, consumerism, and Adam Lee’s take on minimalism; The idea of ‘beauty’ in the universe, as another component of science fiction’s “consilience”; First take on the new Peter Gabriel album. Like many people as we get older, when Christmas … Continue reading →

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Last Questions and Possible Answers, 3

Posted on Monday 20 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

This is my third post, following this one in March and this one in June, in which I consider the John Brockman book The Last Unknowns, in which he gathers deep unanswered questions about “the universe, the mind, the future … Continue reading →

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Things that are True about the World, despite Human Intuitions

Posted on Sunday 12 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

After three posts about that Jonathan Rauch book, let’s post some items about conclusions made by the reality-based community. Veritasium on Euclid’s Fifth Postulate, and how there is more to reality than human intuitive thinking; Neil de Grasse Tyson on … Continue reading →

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Science and Political Items

Posted on Friday 29 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

First, a couple science bits. Let’s start with an intriguing episode of Veritasium. Veritasium: Math Has A Fatal Flaw. Maybe not a “flaw” but an aspect beyond human intuitive understanding: how in any system of mathematics, there exist true statements … Continue reading →

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