Category: quotes

Gravitational waves are a prediction of the Theory of General Relativity It took decades to develop the technology to directly detect them They are ripples in the fabric of space and time produced by violent events Accelerating masses will produce waves that propagate at the speed of light Detectable sources ought to include merging black holes and neutron stars LIGO fires lasers into long, L-shaped tunnels; the waves disturb the light

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36540254

The Babel Fish is an invention of writer Douglas Adams, who used it in his series of books called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Douglas Adams was explicitly an atheist (Richard Dawkins refers to him as his “tallest convert”) and was quite a provocateur when it came to religion.

The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe.

It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with the nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.   Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen it to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this:

“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

  “But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”

  “Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

  “Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

  Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo’s kidneys, but that didn’t stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book Well That About Wraps It Up For God.

  Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/nov/04/relativity-quantum-mechanics-universe-physicists

At present physicists have two separate rulebooks explaining how nature works.
 
There is general relativity, which beautifully accounts for gravity and all of the things it dominates: orbiting planets, colliding galaxies, the dynamics of the expanding universe as a whole. That’s big.
 
Then there is quantum mechanics, which handles the other three forces – electromagnetism and the two nuclear forces. Quantum theory is extremely adept at describing what happens when a uranium atom decays, or when individual particles of light hit a solar cell. That’s small.
 
Now for the problem: relativity and quantum mechanics are fundamentally different theories that have different formulations. It is not just a matter of scientific terminology; it is a clash of genuinely incompatible descriptions of reality.
 

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3055241/infographic-of-the-day/the-entire-universe-as-we-know-it-in-one-spectacular-photograph?partner=rss

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/4-timeless-ways-boost-intelligence/

Factors that affect our growth.

a- The environment we choose This is the classic Nature vs Nurture debate. Nature: our genetic makeup. Nurture: the environmental factors which influence our development. Turns out it is not so much Nature vs. Nurture as it is Nature and Nurture

b- The mindset we choose What about when things do happen in our environment, which we have no control over? It comes down to our mindset. Embracing challenges Persisting in the face of setbacks Viewing effort as the path to mastery Learning from criticism Finding lessons and inspiration in the success of others

so… 4 Simple Ways To Get Smarter:

1. Challenge Yourself

2. Read Smarter

3. Hang Out With People Who Are Smarter Than You

4. Become An Idea Machine

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5981472/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-universe-here-is-one-possible-answer

Well, it just so happens that there is a theory that gives a kind of raison d’etre to our universe and all the objects flying through it. If true, it would mean that our universe is nothing more than a black hole generator, or a means to produce as many baby universes as possible. To learn more, we spoke to the man who came up with the idea.

It’s called the theory of Cosmological Natural Selection and it was conjured by Lee Smolin a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. Smolin proposed that Darwinian processes still apply at the extreme macro-scale and to non-biological entities. Because the universe is a potentially replicative unit, he suggests that it’s subject to selectional pressures. Consequently, nearly everything the universe does is geared toward replication.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5891740/quantum-suicide-how-to-prove-the-multiverse-exists-in-the-most-violent-way-possible

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5945801/8-philosophical-questions-that-well-never-solve

1. Why is there something rather than nothing?

2. Is our universe real?

3. Do we have free will?

4. Does God exist?

5. Is there life after death?

6. Can you really experience anything objectively?

7. What is the best moral system?

8. What are numbers?

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/11/opinions/lincoln-einstein-dark-energy/index.html

Current thinking is that the effects of dark energy will increasingly dominate. As the speed of the expansion of the universe speeds up, distant galaxies will be pushed away until they are no longer observed. In the far future, astronomers will see a very different night sky than they do now. Our universe will consist of but a few nearby galaxies (called the Local Group), with all the others pushed too far away to see. Indeed, we live in a privileged time in cosmic history that allows us to study the story of our universe from the beginning to now.

http://www.lifehack.org/305085/7-timeless-tips-learn-any-language-days-not-years
 
the 75 most common words make up 40% of occurrences
 
the 200 most common words make up 50% of occurrences
 
the 524 most common words make up 60% of occurrences
 
the 1257 most common words make up 70% of occurrences
 
the 2925 most common words make up 80% of occurrences
 
the 7444 most common words make up 90% of occurrences
 
the 13374 most common words make up 95% of occurrences
 
the 25508 most common words make up 99% of occurrences
 

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. — Helen Keller
 
http://completewellbeing.com/article/security-is-an-illusion/
 
The biggest risk in life is not taking risks. Because, then, we do not live – we merely exist.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christoph-adami/did-hawking-just-solve-his-own_b_8040772.html

It’s a bad day both for Albert Einstein and for hackers. The most rigorous test of quantum theory ever carried out has confirmed that the ‘spooky action at a distance’ that the German physicist famously hated — in which manipulating one object instantaneously seems to affect another, far away one — is an inherent part of the quantum world.

http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-spookiness-passes-toughest-test-yet-1.18255

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/26/us/sweden-hawking-black-hole-paradox-solution/index.html

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/32276547

http://www.marcandangel.com/2014/07/27/18-ways-youre-making-your-life-harder-than-it-has-to-be/

You look to everyone else for the answers only you can give yourself.

You let others make you feel guilty for living your life.

You allow toxic people to get the best of you.

You are part of the drama circle.

You assign negative intent to other people’s actions.

You are too worried that people will steal what you have.

You’re trying to compete with everyone else.

You have been too much of a taker.

You focus on popularity over effectiveness.

You keep cutting corners and taking the easy way out.

You focus on every point in time other than now

You are stuck on your mistakes.

You have an “all or nothing” mentality.

You expect life to always be happy

You keep thinking about worst-case scenarios

You’re letting loss devour you

You avoid facing the truth

You put off making decisions

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150819-a-dream-travellers-guide-to-the-sleeping-mind