In a recent short post, Not Probabilistic Smudges but Relationships, I jumped the gun and said: In James Gleick’s biography of Richard Feynman, Genius, he refers to an early theory developed by Feynman and John Wheeler as “a classical theory, not a quantum one. It treated objects as objects, not as probabilistic smudges.” Mr. Gleick … [Read more…]
Our current nuclear power technology is at least dirty, that is, it generates lots of dangerous waste. That is part of the attraction to the leaders of the United States since Truman. That waste includes weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. Yet, we have a need for large power-plants or — better — lots of smaller plants … [Read more…]
This article, Rebalancing the Nuclear Debate Through Education, tells us: Better physics teaching with a particular emphasis on radioactivity and radiation science could improve public awareness through education of the environmental benefits and relative safety of nuclear power generation, according to leading Brazilian scientist Heldio Villar. He suggests that it might then be possible to … [Read more…]
I’m speaking of rational ‘conspiracy theorists’ which means those who claim, rightly, that power-elites develop and are quite capable of engaging ruthlessly in focused criminal conspiracies when their interests are threatened. I don’t even know how to make a pitch to those who think there is a tight-knit conspiracy run by Satan or Jesuits or … [Read more…]
In a prior weblog posting, Intentionality as the Guide to Philosophical Thinking, I discussed this quote: I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light. [Sir Isaac Newton] I write often about my efforts to find … [Read more…]
I’ve been reading Albert J. Nock’s biography of Thomas Jefferson which is available for free download at Ludwig von Mises Institute. In that book, Nock deals with lines of thought in Jefferson and his colleague, friend of his younger and older years, John Adams. Jefferson (almost) saw the American Constitution as having been engineered to … [Read more…]
In The Liberal Mind, I think Professor Minogue dismisses the query “What is the essence of Liberalism?” for reasons which are proper, but I’ll discuss it anyway because I think it to be one of those ultimately futile lines of inquiry which can lead us to better ways of understanding human nature, especially in its … [Read more…]
In James Gleick’s biography of Richard Feynman, Genius, he refers to an early theory developed by Feynman and John Wheeler as “a classical theory, not a quantum one. It treated objects as objects, not as probabilistic smudges.” Mr. Gleick is speaking in terms of concepts of mainstream thinkers in physics and I’m not criticizing him, … [Read more…]
This article, Hunting for a Mass Killer in Medieval Graveyards , informs us that: Modern [bubonic] plague is carried by fleas and spreads no faster than the rats that carry them can travel. [And this modern plague can be defeated by eliminating fleas and/or rats.] The Black Death seems to have spread directly from one … [Read more…]
Is it surprising to learn there is a Marked Rise in Intensely Sexualized Images of Women, Not Men? It’s funny we live in an age where we’ve learned so much that enriches the traditional understanding that men and women are shaped to their different roles in reproduction and we fail to transfer any of that … [Read more…]