The Story of Pons and Fleischmann

The challenges of experimentation

In any effort to gain deeper insights into the universe, create new technologies or shape the future one has to have a firm understanding of experimentation. Richard Feynman wrote that the “principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific “truth”.”

Feynman was able to explain the most complex of issues. His energy and wisdom have benefited so many of us, and he pointed out how easy it is to get mislaid. …

A Definition of Stupidity

Carlo M. Cipolla defines a stupid person as one “who causes losses to another person or a group of persons while himself [or herself] deriving no gain or even possibly incurring losses.”

Most of our stupidities result in “local” harms to ourselves and a few others. We can thus be forgiven for these mistakes. Indeed, the mistakes we have made as a human species, when “local,” can partly be forgiven by the fact that our large rational-thought-capable brains have only recently evolved.

The Homo genus (encompassing Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, amongst other species) is just 2…

From Plato’s Cave into the Wide Open

In the ‘Allegory of the Cave’ Plato describes how prisoners are chained together at the back of a dark cave. They thus believe the world is all darkness with fleeting shadows. It is only when one prisoner becomes free and escapes outside the cave that the prisoner realizes the world’s enormity and beauty.

A key feature of World War I (28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918) was the tragic perfecting of trench warfare. In trench warfare opposing sides dig long lines of trenches from which they face their enemies and periodically launch attacks. Trench warfare had been used in earlier wars, in particular the American Civil war. However, it had never been used in such scale and with so much ferocity as during WWI. In WWI, millions of soldiers faced each other across trenches that stretched from the North Sea in the west to France’s border with Switzerland east. …

By Medium standards, this is a long piece. Perhaps it is sometimes worth proceeding as Shakespeare advised:

“Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.” (Shakespeare)

A Champion Metal

Despite humanity’s furious mining and search for Gold, stretching back 4,000 years ago, there is not much Gold on earth. The science writer Theodore Grey writes in his superb book, ‘The Elements — A Visual exploration of every known atom in the Universe,’ “All the Gold ever mined in the history of the human race would fit into a cube about 21 meters on edge.” …

“I refuse to consider myself to be anything more sharply defined than ‘human being.’ The most intractable problem we face in trying to avoid the destruction of civilization and humanity is the diabolical habit of people dividing themselves into tiny groups, and each group extolling itself and denouncing its neighbors.” Isaac Asimov

We admire great athletes, especially long-distance runners. Their incredible feats of speed, endurance, and stamina are widely acknowledged and praised. Equally, if not more challenging, are marathons of the mind. …

The Story of Herbert Gross

The epidemic of innumeracy

There are many statistics for each country on the illiteracy rate. A country is said to be more developed if its citizens can read and write. An equally important measure is that of innumeracy. This is the inability to understand math. For most of the 7.9 billion now on earth that have gone through or are in school, math is their most challenging subject. This may be a reason why getting data on a country’s innumeracy is extremely difficult. …

John Keegan (1934–2012) was one of the foremost experts in military history and strategy. Due to a childhood illness (orthopedic tuberculosis), he could not follow his dream of joining the army. Instead, he became a military historian and teacher at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was a visiting professor at Princeton.

While one might not agree with some of Keegan’s positions (he was in favor of the Vietnam and the second Iraq wars), he superbly analyzed the nature of warfare, the leaders of armies, and the political backgrounds of war. …