Weekly Wordle: Babbage “Reflections on the Decline of Science in England”
Tue Feb 24 2009
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Generated from the text of Reflections on the Decline of Science in England. by Charles Babbage.
Chess, Beautified
Fri Feb 20 2009
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The Thinking Machine (v4) is a wonderful experience for both chess fanatics and fans of beautiful visualizations. Each move is transformed into a piece of art as the ‘thought process’ of the program is visualized. An added benefit to many is that, unlike most modern computers, this particular program is very beatable by players of reasonable strength. From the About TM4 page (emphasis ours):
When it is your (White’s) turn to move, the chess board will gently pulse to show the influence of the various pieces. in the left image below, you can see waves over the squares around the king and (very lightly) over the squares where the pawns might capture. When the machine (Black) is thinking, a network of curves is overlaid on the board; see image at right. The curves show potential moves–often several turns in the future–considered by the computer. Orange curves are moves by black; green curves are ones by white. The brighter curves are thought by the program to be better for white. […]
Perspective Matters
Thu Feb 19 2009
Post a commentSome wonderful shots of the recent lunar eclipse on February 10th:
“Wait a second”, you might be saying, “that looks more like a solar eclipse!”. And you’d be right. But this is indeed a series of photos taken during a lunar eclipse. [Read More…]
Quoted
Thu Feb 19 2009
Post a comment– Stephen W. Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, University of Cambridge.Physics is all very well, but it is completely cold. I couldn’t carry on with my life if I only had physics. Like everyone else, I need warmth, love and affection. Again, I’m very fortunate, much more fortunate than many people with my disabilities, in receiving a great deal of love and affection.
Music is also very important to me. […] I have to say that the pleasure I have had when everything works out in physics is more intense than I have ever had with music. But things work out like that only a few times in one’s career, whereas one can put on a disc whenever one wants.
Scientist or Engineer?
Wed Feb 18 2009
Post a commentRuss Altman, fresh off of winning the Nature Network Science Blogging Challenge 2008 prize for his blog Building Confidence, posted an entry exploring the difference between what he terms Bioinformatics and Computational Biology.
One passage in particular jumped out at me:
All this became important to me when I finally joined a bioengineering department, and I was forced to ask myself if I was a scientist or an engineer. I am both, and now am at peace.
Wow. This sure rings true to me — at least the last bit.
I guess I still agree with the ‘first 15 years’ Russ though, because I think these are two sides of the same coin. I suppose I might take a wider view of what constitutes ’science’ than Russ though. Perhaps this will change for me, as it did for Russ, and the distinctions between otherwise very related fields will seem more important.
Generally, though, I think the distinction between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ sciences is way overblown, particularly in today’s age. FemaleScienceProfessor apparently took great offense to a piece by Henry Petroski (ironically, a frequent contributor to American Scientist) entitled Want to Engineer Real Change? Don’t Ask a Scientist that appeared in the Washington Post last month.
