Category Archives: Science

“CROWN SHYNESS” —THE SHYNESS OF TREES.

Posted on September 15, 2018 by Philip

“CROWN SHYNESS”—THE SHYNESS OF TREES. Tyler Cowen on the Marginal Revolution site linked to this twitter post by Jason Kottke entitled “The Shyness of Trees”. The term “”crown shyness” is used for “a phenomenon where the leaves and branches of … Continue reading →

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CREOLE LANGUAGES

Posted on September 14, 2018 by Philip

CREOLE LANGUAGES. Bakker defines a creole language: “When two or more groups of people with different languages come into contact with each other, the resulting language is called a creole when people start speaking it as their mother tongue or … Continue reading →

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THE LOSS OF OLD LANGUAGES.

Posted on September 13, 2018 by Philip

THE LOSS OF OLD LANGUAGES.S. This article by Peter Bakker at the ScienceNordic website (link via Real Clear Science) discusses how languages are dying and about how some new ones are created. There are estimated to be some 8475 languages. … Continue reading →

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REPLICATING THE MARSHMALLOW EXPERIMENT WITH A LARGER SAMPLE.

Posted on September 11, 2018 by Philip

REPLICATING THE MARSHMALLOW EXPERIMENT WITH A LARGER SAMPLE.. I have posted a number of times about the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. This wikipedia entry explains it. Children were offered a marshmallow with the promise that if they delayed gratification—held off on … Continue reading →

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SMALL SAMPLES.

Posted on September 10, 2018 by Philip

SMALL SAMPLES. The issue that Professor Kahneman missed—that small samples can lead to results that can’t be replicated—is one that is discussed almost routinely in Sabermetric studies (“Moneyball”). Many is the time I have seen Nick or his colleagues hedge … Continue reading →

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NOBEL PRIZE WINNER IN ECONOMICS RETRACTS HIS ENDORSEMENT OF SOME STATISTICAL STUDIES.

Posted on September 9, 2018 by Philip

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER IN ECONOMICS RETRACTS HIS ENDORSEMENT OF SOME STATISTICAL STUDIES. One of the changes that has occurred in the last ten years in the use of statistics is the increased emphasis on whether a study can be replicated. … Continue reading →

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PREENING BIRDS.

Posted on September 4, 2018 by Philip

PREENING BIRDS. One of the pleasures of living where we do is that there are lots of waterfowl which we can look at on our walks. I saved an article by Chris Bosak in the Darien News from last March … Continue reading →

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STEPPING IN A BLACK HOLE.

Posted on August 25, 2018 by Philip

STEPPING IN A BLACK HOLE. I have been thinking about vantablack because of this article from three days ago on the Gizmodo website by Andrew Liszewski. It is about an art work by Anish Kapoor which consists of an actual … Continue reading →

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VANTABLACK—THE NEW “BLACKEST BLACK”.

Posted on August 24, 2018 by Philip

VANTABLACK—THE NEW “BLACKEST BLACK”. Vantablack is, according to this wikipedia entry, “the darkest artificial substance…known, absorbing up to 99.965% of radiation in the visible spectrum.” According to this wikipedia entry, “color categories and physical specifications of color are associated with … Continue reading →

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“MAMIHLAPINATAPEI” AND “GIGIL”.

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Philip

“MAMIHLAPINATAPEI” AND “GIGIL”. The authors of the article select two examples of words that most other languages do not have. These are words that illustrate what the authors call “the myriad of concepts residing in other languages”: “Ever felt the … Continue reading →

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