Today I Learned

[Sophia]

Vocab time!

 

[Silicon Waffle]

Vocab time!

Without the context we won't know the distinction between envy and jealousy in this case. Simpson has a long tongue.

Here is the difference between them by the way.

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

Today I learned that physical labor is called physical labor for a reason and that I'm much more suited for sitting down in front of this laptop with some mango carrot juice.

 

[Pepper Mint]

Today I learned many native speakers find it odd to hear someone say "I am an Irish" but not "I am an American". Interesting! Why is that though ?

 

[BornCane]

today i learned that Gottfried Leibniz was a German

mind blown

 

[mfb]

Which nationality did you expect?
The name is very German.

Today I learned: no one climbed Mount Everest (successfully) last year.
http://mentalfloss.com/uk/nature/37508/nobody-reached-the-top-of-mount-everest-in-2015

 

[BornCane]

Which nationality did you expect?
The name is very German.

Today I learned: no one climbed Mount Everest (successfully) last year.
http://mentalfloss.com/uk/nature/37508/nobody-reached-the-top-of-mount-everest-in-2015

well i thought he was English...because of his rival with Newton and at the time many scientists were probably only aware of only scientists in their countries

or am i mistaken

for example, was Newton's Principia only known in UK or throughout all of continental Europe when it was released

 

[zoobyshoe]

well i thought he was English...

He did travel to England, and met members of the Royal Society. Halley was the one who showed him some papers by Newton.

 

[Hornbein]

Did you know LaGrange was Italian?

 

[BornCane]

Ed Witten is a genius and is often called Einstein's Successor , and the "World's Greatest Living Theoretical Physicist"

makes me wonder what would happen if Witten got in a discussion of physics with this man

I would pay to see that discussion...

 

[mfb]

well i thought he was English...because of his rival with Newton and at the time many scientists were probably only aware of only scientists in their countries

or am i mistaken

for example, was Newton's Principia only known in UK or throughout all of continental Europe when it was released

Communication was certainly harder than today, but still, scientists heard of each other.

@BornCane: There are some technical challenges to such a discussion since 1988.

 

[Hornbein]

at the time many scientists were probably only aware of only scientists in their countries

Certainly not. The post was perfectly adequate.

 

[nsaspook]

Today I learned that auto-correct can save you from more than just an embarrassing spelling error.

https://blog.knowbe4.com/hackers-spoil-their-1-billion-cyberheist-with-a-typo

The hackers initiated a series of money transfer requests after stealing credentials the Bangladesh bank uses to authorize electronic money transfers. They used the stolen creds to send more than 30 money transfer requests to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, asking them to transfer the funds from the Bangladesh Bank’s account to organizations in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. One of these organizations was called the Shalika Foundation, but the crims misspelled the word “foundation” as “fandation” in the wire transfer, and that was the one that raised the red flags.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/uk-announces-language-test-for-immigrants-misspells-language/

 

[mfb]

LONDON -- Britain's Home Office officially announced Friday new languange requirements for foreign nationals applying to remain in the U.K. on spousal visas.

That was deliberate, right? Right?

 

[Ibix]

That was deliberate, right? Right?

Look at the screen shot carefully. This did the rounds in the UK a few weeks ago...

 

[mfb]

Yes I know. We have a news about misspelling "language" when requesting a language test, and that news misspelled language.

 

[Ibix]

I thought you had introduced the new typo. I didn't like to comment on a mentor's spelling. Now I've followed the CBS link I see it wasn't you, and I share your sentiment.

Unless they're subscribers to the old Usenet courtesy of always including a spelling/grammar error in any post complaining avout someone else's spelling/grammar?

 

[DrGreg]

Yes I know. We have a news about misspelling "language" when requesting a language test, and that news misspelled language.

Further evidence to support Muphry's[/PLAIN] law.

 

[Ibix]

Today I learned that dogs in the UK must be microchipped (have an implanted microchip identification) from April 6th this year.

Relevance to the current topic? I found this out in a thread on another forum titled "Did you know that you only have four weeks to get your dog microwaved?" The thread was predictably hilarious. My favourite was somebody claiming to have a cooker spaniel.

 

[BornCane]

Today i learned that Wolfgang Pauli developed a close relationship with Carl Jung, and both delved into the esoteric and mystical world

Both developed an obsession with the number 137

How can such a logical mind like Pauli become friends with such a crackpot as Carl Jung

 

[jim hardy]

How can such a logical mind like Pauli become friends with such a crackpot as Carl Jung

??

i rather enjoyed "Man and his Symbols"
at least the half of it he wrote. Marylouise von Franz's second half of the book i found impossible to follow.

Today i learned there's a book of their correspondence. Five years ago i couldn't find one...

uh oh, another for the "Read Me" pile.

 

[collinsmark]

Today i learned that Wolfgang Pauli developed a close relationship with Carl Jung, and both delved into the esoteric and mystical world

Both developed an obsession with the number 137

How can such a logical mind like Pauli become friends with such a crackpot as Carl Jung

Yeah, the fine structure constant. 'Pretty close to 1/137, but at Pauli's time, nobody knew the precision.

Well, we all make mistakes. I've made a bunch of 'em! (I'm not proud of my mistakes. But as long as I learn something in the process, I find my mistakes somewhat palatable. It's better than the alternative of missing out on the learning.)

 

[strangerep]

How can such a logical mind like Pauli become friends with such a crackpot as Carl Jung

Because Pauli had a severe breakdown and Jung was his psychotherapist. The most logical of minds can be defeated by anxiety, delusion, schizophrenia, etc.

(Indeed, today I learned a little more about the mental instability of Wolfgang Pauli, who I had previously only heard of as being a very smart A-hole. Evidently, one must be wary of very smart, arrogant, manic, A-holes.)

 

[Hornbein]

Today i learned that Wolfgang Pauli developed a close relationship with Carl Jung, and both delved into the esoteric and mystical world

Both developed an obsession with the number 137

How can such a logical mind like Pauli become friends with such a crackpot as Carl Jung

Is it possible Wolfgang Pauli knows something you don't?

 

[BornCane]

Is it possible Wolfgang Pauli knows something you don't?

dont you think its odd that such a legendary physicist, one of few founders of Quantum Mechanics along with Heisenberg, Born, De Broglie, and others.

would be obsessed with numerology

 

[Buzz Bloom]

Today I learned that a simple majority voting method is not the most "fair".

Hi @TheDemx27:

I was unable to find in the cited article

http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/​

any discussion of "simple majority voting".

What did you mean by this?

Regards,
Buzz

dont you think its odd that such a legendary physicist, one of few founders of Quantum Mechanics along with Heisenberg, Born, De Broglie, and others would be obsessed with numerology

Hi @BornCane:

You might also find it interesting that Arthur Stanley Eddington believed that the fine structure constant was exactly 1/137.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Eddington​

Regards,
Buzz

50-0-50 rule in psychology that pertains to personality and intelligence.

Hi @Pythagorean:

I recall (with some uncertainty) that I first read about this "rule" in Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works. As I remember it, the rule applies to only personality traits rather than intelligence. If you can cite a reference that applies the rule to intelligence, I would very much like to see it.

Regards,
Buzz

"I may not know everything, but I know which books to find the answer in".

Hi @OmCheeto:

I cannot remember where to find the relevant quote, but the quote above reminds me of something I read somewhere. People commonly used to have memory abilities which today would seem fantastic. Then came the printing press.

Regards,
Buzz

I didn't like its clockface because one of the numbers seemed wrong: it was different from what we'd been learning at primary school.

Hi @NascentOxygen:

I think what may have been disturbing is that many clocks with Roman numerals use "IIII" rather than "IV". Someone once explained to me that this was because "IV" had some ecclesiastical significance, and the church did not what "IV" on the clocks. I never tried to check if this was correct, so it might not be the real explanation.

Regards,
Buzz

What, then, do you suppose the most despised art is?

Hi @zoobyshoe:

I am uncertain about what criteria should be used to measure the degree of "despised". Are you perhaps thinking about a world survey asking people if they despise various forms of art?

I would guess that only people who had seen/heard/tasted/smelled a form of art would have an opinion, and they despised the art form they would likely avoid experiencing it again. (I can think of several examples for each of the four senses I listed, but not for tactile art. Ah, how about the art of sex? I would guess that is likely to be the least despised.)

Regards,
Buzz

I thought it was funny some would make a muscle out of an onion.

Hi @thankz:

I agree. They should be using spinach.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye#Spinach .​

Regards,
Buzz

 

[Buzz Bloom]

Where the conscious goes, the subconscious must follow.

Hi @jim hardy:

I don't think I can learn the above. I have a bias that the subconscious can be creative. In such cases, the conscious will follow the subconscious.

Regards,
Buzz

 

[Buzz Bloom]

Sometimes, some otherwise intelligent persons make some pretty stupid comments.

Hi @Astronuc:

I confess I am somewhat sympathetic with the fired Nobel laureate. I agree the remarks were stupid, but the stupidity is the kind often seen with Asperger types. I am guessing his remarks are more of a confession related to personal experiences or conversations than a general bias.

Regards,
Buzz

 

[OmCheeto]

Hi @OmCheeto:

I cannot remember where to find the relevant quote, but the quote above reminds me of something I read somewhere. People commonly used to have memory abilities which today would seem fantastic. Then came the printing press.

Regards,
Buzz

Today I relearned that the printing press was invented around the year 1440.
I would imagine that it took a while for the idea to catch on, and therefore books of knowledge wouldn't start to be common for another 100 years or so.
Might make an interesting research project, to find the relative abundance, of what we now consider really smart people, before and after the period of invention.

Oh, never mind. Here's what I came up with, based upon the businessinsider.com list of the the 40 smartest people of all time, throwing out all the people born within the last 100 years:

0360 Hypatia
0391 maybe the year the Library of Alexandria was destroyed (not from the list, but from my very shallow research)
1440 Gutenberg Printing Press
1452 da Vinci
1473 Copernicus
1473 Thomas Wolsey
1564 Shakespeare
1564 Galileo
1583 Hugo Grotius
1643 Newton
1646 Leibniz
1688 Emanuel Swedenborg
1694 Voltaire
1707 Euler
1749 Goethe
1773 Thomas Young
1777 Gauss
1806 John Stuart Mill
1822 Rudolf Clausius
1822 Francis Galton
1831 Maxwell
1856 Tesla
1867 Curie
1879 Einstein
1887 Ramanujan (my addition to the list)
1898 William Sidis
1904 Nathan Leopold
1906 Ettore MajoranaI'm guessing from the list that:

a. Hypatia was a book worm.
b. da Vinci, Copernicus, and Thomas Wolsey were surrounded by smart people
c. everyone else, as Newton once kind of inferred, read everyone else's books, and expanded on it.
​

I included Ramanujan, as, IMHO, Mathematics is a science where you can just sit down, and from the age of 4, without any help, expand upon it, all by your lonesome.

ps. Full names indicate that I have no idea, whatsoever, what these people are famous for.
pps. Greg one day indicated that we have members from every nation now. I wonder what their lists of "smartest people" would look like:

Hello! Didn't some guy over here invent "Al Gebra!"? And didn't someone over here invent the "zero"? Ever tried to do maths without a zero?
Um... One of our oldsters invented gunpowder, about 1000 years before your smarties were even born. Just sayin...​

 

[Ibix]

ps. Full names indicate that I have no idea, whatsoever, what these people are famous for.

I know some of them and looked up the rest (Wikipedia research only, so you pays your money and takes your chances).

• Thomas Wolsey - Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York, and an advisor to Henry VIII (I had to look him up - I knew his name and rank, but no more).
  
• Emanuel Swedenborg - created (yet) another Christian sect. My Dad was a lapsed member; I think his death put a significant dent in the surviving membership.
• Thomas Young - defined Young's[/PLAIN] modulus, the measure of elasticity.
• John Stuart Mill - a Scottish philosopher, a leading proponent of Bentham's school of utilitarianism. Also, of his own free will, on half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
• Rudolf Clausius - a thermodynamicist. The Clausius-Clapeyron equation is the thing I know him for.
• Francis Galton - I had to look him up (then kicked myself a bit). He's famous for regression to the mean and coining the word eugenics.
• William Sidis - I had not heard of him, but apparently he was an American child prodigy.
• Nathan Leopold - another child prodigy I had not heard of. Famous for murdering a child.
• Ettore Majorana - physicist/mathematician - developed the Majorana equation describing Majorana fermions, fermions which are their own anti-particle. Disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

 

[jim hardy]

I don't think I can learn the above. I have a bias that the subconscious can be creative. In such cases, the conscious will follow the subconscious.

Hmmmm that quote must be from six months ago !

I was being more literal.
Both reside physically in one's brain
and your conscious controls where your feet take you.

Doing random, anonymous acts of kindness will change how you feel, though. Try it for a few days . "Power of Positive Thinking" ?

 

[mfb]

and your conscious controls where your feet take you.

Studies show you can predict this before your consciousness thinks it makes the decision. I don't think they tested feet, but they tested motion of the hand(s). The basic conclusion: you make the decision without consciousness involved, and afterwards your consciousness thinks it made the decision. Very interesting topic. It also has a Wikipedia article.

 

[OmCheeto]

Studies show you can predict this before your consciousness thinks it makes the decision. I don't think they tested feet, but they tested motion of the hand(s). The basic conclusion: you make the decision without consciousness involved, and afterwards your consciousness thinks it made the decision. Very interesting topic. It also has a Wikipedia article.

This kind of reminds me of something I learned about the other day.
Dancing Squid:



I was kind of mortified.

But then, I googled, and everything I read about it, said that the Octopus/Squid didn't have a brain left, so the dancing was caused by the salt in the Soy Sauce.

Something didn't sound quite right, as cephalopods are all salt water creatures.

So I googled the anatomy of cephalopods, and found that their brains are directly between their eyes.
What looks like it might be the cranium on most creatures, turned out to be just about everything but the brain.
So all of these people, thinking they'd beheaded the poor creatures, had simply disemboweled them.

ps. I read the other day, that cephalopods have such a bizarre DNA pattern, that biologist consider them alien creatures, from another world.
google, google, google...
Here's an older reference, but confirms what I read: Scientists declare that octopuses are basically aliens

Seriously, someone with much greater photoshop skills than me needs to create a drawing of what humans would look like if our body parts were arranged like a cephalopod:

Its mouth is between its legs, and its anus, like nearly everything else, is on top of its head!

 

[mfb]

ps. I read the other day, that cephalopods have such a bizarre DNA pattern, that biologist consider them alien creatures, from another world.
google, google, google...
Here's an older reference, but confirms what I read: Scientists declare that octopuses are basically aliens

Alien != Aliens.
They use the same DNA and RNA, the same amino acids, the same translation between RNA and amino acids, and even have many genes in common with other branches of life.

Today I learned from Evolution of cephalopods: Lagerstätte (with ä!) is an "English" word.Edit:

1822 Francis Galton

Today I learned: He was a half-cousin of Charles Darwin, and their common grandfather also worked on evolution.

 

[Buzz Bloom]

A byte is always 8 bits. Bytes are not words. Words increased in size, bytes did not.

Hi @mfb:

I may be mis-remembering this, but I believe there was a time when a byte was 9 bits including a parity bit.

Regards,
Buzz