Showing posts from April, 2021Show all

Is "sustainable farming" like a married bachelor?

I came across an interesting view, that sustainable farming is an oxymoron, impossible by definition. Let's look at the argument, here's the relevant portion but you can view the full post here : My only quibble: "sustainable farming" is as much as bu… Read more

Personal identity: are you a different person every day?

You wake up every morning and your brain and body are not the same as they were the night before. You have some new connections in your brain, while some old connections have been broken. Every cell in your body has undergone changes, some cells have divided, others ha… Read more

Anthropic reasoning 2: the merciful Dr. Killian.

In part 1, I argued that taking your own existence as a datum is coherent and, at least in some situations, necessary. To show that, I gave a simple barebones example of Dr. Killian, who flips a coin and, if it lands tails, kills you in your sleep. If you then wake up … Read more

Animation: slope, tangent line, derivative.

There's a secret calculus teachers don't want you to know: derivative is just a fancy word for how steep a curve is. How do we measure this steepness? These animations will show you.  Straight line Quadratic General Read more

The ensemble technique: how to easily handle tricky probability puzzles with 5th grade math.

There are some fun and tricky puzzles with probability, like the famous Monty Hall problem, where sometimes even professional mathematicians get confused. But there is one easy "hack" to quickly solving even the most bizarre such conundrums, the ensemble tech… Read more