One drone, four microphones and a loudspeaker: nothing more is needed to determine the position of walls and other flat surfaces within a room. This has been mathematically proved by Prof. Gregor Kemper of the Technical University of Munich and Prof. Mireille Boutin of Purdue University in Indiana, USA. (1)
Time, as far as we know, moves only in one direction. But in 2018, researchers found events in some gamma-ray burst pulses that seemed to repeat themselves as though they were going backwards in time.
Recent research suggests a potential answer for what might be causing this time reversibility effect. If waves within the relativistic jets that produce gamma-ray bursts travel faster than light – at ‘superluminal’ speeds – one of the effects could be time reversibility. (1)
Going back in time.
To speak to our self.
And to warn Him.
That his kids will go astray.
That He should not create the cosmos.
You will never listen to you.
Because you know.
What is here now it was.
What will be has already been.
The past affects the future.
Only because the future had already affected the past.
Sign languages are considered by linguists as full-fledged and grammatically very sophisticated languages. But they also have unique insights to offer on how meaning works in language in general.
Sign languages can help reveal hidden aspects of the logical structure of spoken language, but they also highlight its limitations because speech lacks the rich iconic resources that sign language uses on top of its sophisticated grammar.
For instance, the logical structure of the English sentence Sarkozy told Obama that he would be elected is conveyed more transparently in sign language. The English sentence is ambiguous, Schlenker explains, as he can refer to Sarkozy or to Obama. Linguists have postulated that this is because the sentence contains some unpronounced – but cognitively real – logical variables like x and y.
If the sentence is understood as Sarkozy (x) told Obama (y) that he (x) would be elected, with the same variable x on Sarkozy and on he, the pronoun refers to Sarkozy; if instead he carries the variable y, it refers to Obama. Remarkably, in sign language the variables x and y can be visibly realized by positions in space, e.g. by signing Sarkozy on the left and Obama on the right. (1)
See.
Now you know that it was about Sarkozy.
Listen.
Now you know what the other guy meant.
Feel.
Now you understand why the other one is even speaking to you.
Reach out with your senses.
It is all the same at the end.
Ideas may sometimes be conveyed better with images.
But blind people cannot see.
Ideas may sometimes be conveyed better with words.
But deaf people cannot hear.
At the end, you will need to reach out to understand what is said.
A team of scientists has uncovered the neural processes mice use to ignore their own footsteps, a discovery that offers new insights into how we learn to speak and play music.
“The ability to ignore one’s own
footsteps requires the brain to store and recall memories and to make some
pretty stellar computations”, explains David Schneider, an assistant
professor at New York University’s Center for Neural Science and one of the
paper’s lead authors. “These are the building blocks for other, more
important sound-generating behaviors, like recognizing the sounds you make when
learning how to speak or to play a musical instrument”.
The research was reported in the
journal Nature. (1)
