Svend Brinkmann’s idea of thoughtfulness is not just about exercising our rational powers to solve puzzles, but the existential dimensions of thinking.
Can you find a matching set?
Cmglee/Wikimedia Commons
What mathematicians call ‘disordered collections’ can help engineers explore real-world worst-case scenarios. The simple card game Set illustrates how to predict internet and electrical grid failures.
Sapolsky summarises the latest scientific research relevant to determinism: the idea that we’re causally ‘determined’ to act as we do and couldn’t possibly act any other way.
David Dunning and Justin Kruger tested psychology students to see whether the least skilled were also the most unaware.
Rich Vintage/E+ via Getty Images
The idea that the least skilled are the most unaware of their incompetency is pervasive in science and pop culture. But a new analysis of the data shows that the Dunning-Kruger effect may not be true.
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s brilliant early work has had a lasting influence on philosophy, though almost no one has agreed with his conclusions – not even Wittgenstein himself.
Without uttering a word, actor Chris Pratt found himself at the center of a Twitter firestorm.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic via Getty Images
Framing cats as responsible for declines in biodiversity is based on faulty scientific logic and fails to account for the real culprit – human activity.
Post-truth questions the very nature of truth itself – that’s why it’s so dangerous.
U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller makes a statement on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, May 29, 2019.
REUTERS/Jim Bourg
What’s the role of someone who, like
Robert Mueller, speaks only facts in a tornado of partisan bombast? Is it a breath of fresh air or an abdication of responsibility to protect America’s interests?
We should all learn from mistakes. Driverless cars must do the same when it comes to any accidents they’ve been involved in on our roads, no matter who was to blame.
Kurt Gödel, the perfect mind to examine the US constitution.
Flickr/Levan Ramishvili
The mathematician Kurt Gödel is said to have found a way that the US constitution would allow for a dictator to take control, or so the story goes. He certainly had the mind for it.
An early understanding of numbers may be a sign of mathematical ability.
Oksana Kuzmina