Genealogy and history
Some people put tremendous effort into extending and filling in their family trees. In the end, what purpose does it serve?
The ancestral line
explanation
Ideal lies
Why learn something that isn’t true?
As we progress in school, the lessons get more difficult and complicated. Sometimes they’re difficult because we have to unlearn things.
The tools of a professional
A ladder is often essential
What a photographer needs to do the job is sometimes far from obvious.
Proving nothing
Narrowing it down
Proving that something doesn’t exist is hard, though it can be done. More often, scientists work out more and more restrictions on the characteristics something can have, until the idea has no place left to hide.
Indirect arguments
Simple is not always true
A common feature of paradoxers is a confusion between a simple argument and a correct one.
The colors of your mind
An unlikely number
Consider the horse
A sudden obsolescence
The most momentous event of the twentieth century, as seen from the standpoint of human history, seems to have gone mostly unnoticed.
Remembrance of things past
When learning doesn’t fade away
Our tutoring consultant has an encouraging experience with his own memory.
A surfeit of features
No one uses them all
Digital cameras, like calculators, have an immense menu of features. It’s certainly rare, and possibly unknown, for anyone to use them all. Why have them, then?