By 2100, our destiny is to become like the gods we once worshipped and feared. But our tools will not be magic wands and potions but the science of computers, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and most of all, the quantum theory, which is the foundation of the previous technologies. By 2100, like the gods of mythology, we will be able to manipulate objects with the power of our minds. Computers, silently reading our thoughts, will be able to carry out our wishes. We will be able to move objects by thought alone, a telekinetic power usually reserved only for the gods. With the power of biotechnology, we will create perfect bodies and extend our life spans. We will also be able to create life--forms that have never walked the surface of the earth. With the power of nanotechnology, we will be able to take an object and turn it into something else, to create something seemingly almost out of nothing. We will ride not in fiery chariots but in sleek vehicles that will soar by themselves with almost no fuel, floating effortlessly in the air. With our engines, we will be able to harness the limitless energy of the stars. We will also be on the threshold of sending star ships to explore those nearby.

Although this godlike power seems unimaginably advanced, the seeds of all these technologies are being planted even as we speak. It is modern science, not chanting and incantations, that will give us this power.

via Big Think.

We’re an overconfident species. Ninety-four percent of college professors believe they have above-average teaching skills. A survey of high school students found that 70 percent of them have above-average leadership skills and only 2 percent are below average.

via NYTimes.com.

Philosophy is among the fastest-growing A-level subjects in Britain. This suggests that despite the pressure from governments to increase the teaching of technical, career-oriented subjects, a lot of sixth-formers have a stubborn interest in more traditional enquiries about the meaning of life. Also near the top of the list of fast-growing subjects is Religious Studies; and this again seems to confound the experts. Notwithstanding constant announcements that religion in educated Western Europe is "on the way out", many intelligent young people seem to have a keen desire to learn about traditional spiritual frameworks of human understanding.

via Standpoint.

He was supposed to have been indicted in June. His father had been hacked to death in his own bed with an ax the previous November. His mother was similarly brutalized and left for dead with her husband but survived. On the last Monday of that August, after several months and many investigative twists, turns, and fumbles, there sat the son—the prime suspect—in my literature class, the first class I would teach for the semester. Not only was the young man under suspicion for the murder and attempted murder of his parents, but his parents were acquaintances of mine. My husband and I exchanged news with them at school concerts and waited behind them in checkout lines. Their son sat near ours in band practice, and their house was on our running route.

His mom, an employee of a local school system, is the kind of woman who would agree to model clothing at the church fashion show; his dad was a guy who, when his boys were preschoolers, exchanged a private law practice for a public-sector job, a swap that must have meant less money but more time with his two sons. The couple mowed their lawn, arranged play dates for their kids, and carpooled to sports and lessons, just like the rest of us.

The killing and assault created a fault line for a while in our subdued suburb, with its fine schools and well-behaved citizenry. There were those in our town who "knew" the son did it and those who "knew" he didn't. The college kids' grapevine was ripe with stories, which, even if only half were true, revealed in the son a dangerous charisma and an Olympic-size ability to lie. His guilt was less frequently debated as family e-mails were reprinted in the news papers, as cameras and computers he allegedly stole and sold on eBay were located, and as security-camera videos of his familiar yellow Jeep came to light.

via The Chronicle of Higher Education.

 

 

Google Inc. suffered a critical communications disruption that lasted around 24 hours late last month: On the evening of Feb. 25, co-founder Sergey Brin switched off his cell phone.

Unlike the recent Gmail snafu, this particular downtime was planned. Brin's wife, 23andme Inc. co-founder Anne Wojcicki, was hosting a dinner at Hidden Villa in Los Altos, in advance of the National Day of Unplugging, during which the hyper-connected are encouraged to take a day off from technology.

Wojcicki is a board member of a Jewish nonprofit that developed the annual occasion, which begins at sundown tonight and ends sundown Saturday. She held the gathering in advance to encourage people to talk about the role of technology in their lives and take a practice run at unplugging.

"People here are so connected and they're really living their lives online," she said. "I thought it'd be a good idea to see if you can disconnect for the full 24 hours."

Reboot, a New York group focused on updating Jewish traditions to make them more relevant to modern life, created the National Day of Unplugging last year to encourage people to reconnect with the real world.

Though people of all backgrounds are encouraged to participate, the concept was inspired by the Sabbath in Jewish tradition, a weekly day of rest. Reboot devised a "Sabbath Manifesto" that included 10 goals for the day, such as: avoid technology, connect with loved ones, get outside and drink wine. Participants can draw that technology line wherever they please, from light switches to cars to televisions.

via SFGate.

Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn't have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I'd see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn't have to do it; it wasn't important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn't make any difference. I'd invent things and play with things for my own entertainment. So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.

Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.

I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ``Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it's two to one?''

I don't remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.

I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ``Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it's two to one is ...'' and I showed him the accelerations.

He says, ``Feynman, that's pretty interesting, but what's the importance of it? Why are you doing it?''

``Hah!'' I say. ``There's no importance whatsoever. I'm just doing it for the fun of it.'' His reaction didn't discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.

I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there's the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ``playing'' - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.

It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.

via ~kilcup.

Blues also suffer more often from a problem very difficult to quantify: confusion. If you believe pornography and cohabitation and premarital sex are wrong, then you will likely feel guilty when you misstep, but at least you know where you stand. Liberals have a hard time articulating what they in fact believe about sex, tending to fall back on a radical tolerance that does not always square well with the emotional weight of the matter. Lacking a well-defined ethical structure to understand sexual choices, blues seem to wish away the idea that such a structure might be worth having. (“It’s up to you to decide. Just use protection.”) But as Regnerus and Uecker show, sexual regret is a common phenomenon, arising even from mutual and safe hookups. Some 70 percent of young adults, in one study, think they should have waited longer to lose their virginity. And in a national college survey, nearly as many men as women—73 percent of them—regretted at least one hookup.

Reds who look back on sex they are sorry they had, the authors observe, often describe it as an aberration that does not alter their fundamental outlook; the broken rule remains in effect. But if you are a blue who does not believe in “moral rules” about sex, then a cringe-inducing sexual encounter leaves you to wonder why you are cringing. If God is dead and premarital abstinence is an antiquated idea, the source of such regret is mysterious and therefore tough to address. Regnerus and Uecker have not set out to construct a new sexual ethics, and anyone who does so in public tends to take a beating. But this book, which offers a wide-ranging guide to where we are now, could occasion some thinking about where we want to be.

via The New Republic.