I was reading a book yesterday called The Emergence of Number by J. N. Crossley, and it got me wondering: Is there a way to write any natural number, no matter how large, inside of a fixed finite writing space (say a 1 by 1 cm square) using only a single notational convention?
For example, you [...]
Archive for April, 2008
25 Apr
Writing Big Numbers, Practically
25 Apr
Pirates, Kitties, and People Talking to CCDs
Honestly, who watches TV anymore when you can watch YouTube instead? Aside from Battlestar Galactica last Friday, I haven’t turned a TV on once in the past three weeks. And here’s another reason to perpetuate that habit.
There’s a bloke on YouTube named Paul Harrison. He’s a former Christian (as of six years or so ago, [...]
23 Apr
Wow, They Can Disagree
First I learn from Tyler DiPietro that DaveScot (also lovingly referred to as “DaveTard”) managed to utter something reasonable for once in his life.
Then I go searching on Uncommon Descent and find DaveScot actually arguing (however placidly) with the Uncommonly Dense over the connection (or more accurately, lack thereof) between natural selection [...]
19 Apr
More on Scientific Theories
In the prelude to his quantum mechanics textbook Principles of Quantum Mechanics, R. Shankar describes several features of the progression from older scientific theories to newer ones, and how the older ones are related to the newer ones:
There is a domain of phenomena described by the new theory and a sub-domain wherein the [...]
15 Apr
Logic: You’re Doing It Wrong
Mark Chu-Carroll, over at one of my favorite blogs, Good Math, Bad Math, writes about the discussion over Expelled::
…what strikes me is that we haven’t paid enough attention to something even more important than whether or not there’s a link between Darwin’s theory of evolution and the nazis.
Suppose that it was true that Darwin’s [...]
13 Apr
Scientifically Proven
In what may be the stupidest attempt at research using the Internet in history, I decided earlier today to google around and try and find the origins of the phrase “scientifically proven”. Yes, I hear you guffawing.
What I found instead were scientifically proven aromatherapy remedies, hangover remedies, fitness remedies, alternative “medicines”, anti-vaccination testimonies, baldness [...]
9 Apr
A Fiery Belch
Here’s a sweet video I found of a coronal mass ejection hitting the comet Encke a few months ago, blowing its tail to smithereens. You can find more information here.
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