Category: Logical
-
Credo!
Tertullian is widely regarded as having originated the expression “Credo quia absurdum” (est) (I believe because it is absurd) and the phrase often appears in contemporary polemics about the rationality of religious belief. Patristic scholars have long pointed out that Tertullian never said this or meant anything like it. (although as I have explained many…
-
The real meaning of Tao: Everything possible. Illogical. Thus true.
People see patterns and rules everywhere. But these patterns and rules are elusive. A pattern could be there and you could “see” it, but if you interpret the data in a different way or if you examine the context of your observations, you could “know” that there is no pattern and you could stop “seeing”…
-
Stupid research. The only good research…
The next CEO of Australia’s leading research agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), is in hot water after suggesting the cash-strapped organization spend scarce research dollars investigating water divining, or dowsing. “I’ve seen people do this with close to 80% accuracy, and I’ve no idea how they do it,” Larry Marshall told…
-
Big Bang, universe, logical, illogical.
The big bang poses a big question: if it was indeed the cataclysm that blasted our universe into existence 13.7 billion years ago, what sparked it? Three Perimeter Institute researchers have a new idea about what might have come before the big bang. The problem, as the authors see it, is that the big bang…
-
1+2+3+… = -1/12 !? Or… “Why infinity does not exist!”
Srinivasa Ramanujan presented two derivations of “1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + … = −1/12” in chapter 8 of his first notebook. The simpler, less rigorous derivation proceeds in two steps, as follows. The first key insight is that the series of positive numbers 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ·…
You must be logged in to post a comment.