I can never stop marveling at the wonder that the great big classroom in the skies, the WWW, is. Take a bunch of computers, link them up with high speed communications link, create standards and protocols, and let people do what they feel like doing with it — then watch as magic happens. Sure a lot of serious stuff happens on the web — from commerce to scientific research — but I think that the more interesting thing is that it allows people to play. It is the world’s biggest playground.
Continue reading “Learning from the web: The Sagan Series”
Day: July 14, 2012
What about that Higgs boson?
The last time I had mentioned the Higgs boson in connection with the naming of the particle. But what is the Higgs boson? Particle physics is hard to comprehend because it deals with the extremely small. We, middle-sized creatures, are not equipped to comprehend the infinitesimally small or the infinitely large. Moreover, them itty-bitty things lie in the domain of quantum mechanics — which according to Feynman, if you believe you understand QM then it means that you actually don’t. QM is useful but incomprehensible. Thus, human comprehension is not a precondition for human utility. Also, although there’s little utility in it, attempting to comprehend advances in high energy physics can be fun. So here’s something just for fun.
Continue reading “What about that Higgs boson?”
Life is a Random Draw 