Month: December 2008
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You Can’t Win, You Can’t Break Even, and Can’t Quit the Game – The Laws of Thermodynamics
The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics states: If two thermodynamic systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other. Liquid-Liquid barrier in Coffee with Creamer Credit: R.B. Boyer It’s called the “Zeroth Law” because it was discovered after the other laws, but is more fundamental than them.…
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Kevin Kelly Debunks Kurzweil’s Imminent Singularity
Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired Magazine, writes a convincing argument for why Ray Kurzweil needs to just relax and accept his mortality, explaining that, even if a super-AI emerged from the Google-Interwebs in 2045, simply being a supermind isn’t enough to solve all the world’s problems: No super AI can simply think about all the…
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American Natural History Museum: Primates
Shouldn’t the primates exhibit be merged with the Hall of Human Origins? Wouldn’t the recently discovered hobbit, the Alien from Earth, as PBS NOVA calls it, also properly go in both exhibits? Maybe some of the confusion and lack of appreciation for primates comes from people who forget that humans are primates. Orang-utan See the…
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The National Defense Education Act 50 Years Later
2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the National Defense Education act, a direct response to the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite into Earth orbit. The act employed one of the most brilliant strategic responses to an outside military threat ever devised: dramatically improve education for all Americans. The act’s goal was to bring “American…