A professor from University of Reading has received lot of skepticism for inventing ‘nullity’ – a value that defines zero divided by zero. An excerpt from a harsh but interesting critic’s blog: “Basically, he’s defined a non-solution to a non-problem.”
Rich Karlgaard of Forbes has collected a fascinating list of 10 laws of the modern world. The usual suspect (Moore’s Law) is at the top of the list, but there are several new and insightful ones. My favourite in that list is Ogilvy’s Law! What’s yours?
Grigory Perelman solved one of the hardest and a century-old problem in mathematics called the Poincare Conjecture, but declined the Fields Medal. Another winner – Terence Tao – is one of the youngest winners at the age of 31. An excerpt from an article at NewScientist says something about him – “If you’re stuck on a problem, then one way out is to interest Terence Tao”.
It seems life really is faster in the city — even for birds. Birds living in urban areas sing a faster tune than their slower country counterparts. The change in birdsong may help their calls to be heard over the howl of traffic and the wind.
There are two dominant opinions about the future of Artificial Intelligence and Humanity. On one hand is the optimistic view of Ray Kurzweil that increasing potency of computers and AI will aid human beings in being better at everything they do. While, on the other hand, is the camp of Hugo de Garis who is of the opinion that the emergence of new species called ‘artilects’, intellectually billion times more capable than humans, will raise a war against us and destroy humanity.
Now here’s one to get your ‘consciousness neurons’ in a frenzy… A thought provoking write-up citing how scientists are approaching the matter of understanding ‘consciousness’. As a firm believer in science, I feel this should be possible – only a matter of time.
Btw, has anyone heard of the term qualia before?!
Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a method for training the common honey bee to detect the explosives used in bombs.