Education is good, but it has its limits
A scientist cautions against the idea behind the philosopher-king.
Plato’s fallacy
Articles for November 2016
Normal science
Progress that doesn’t go viral
Some recent posts have addressed events in astronomy that have attracted attention from the general public. Our astronomer would like to explain something that you’ll probably never hear about.
Extremes
They need not actually be spectacular
Our astronomer, somewhat reluctantly, talks about the Supermoon
On textbooks
Learning and re-learning
Textbooks are to learn from, of course. But who is doing the learning, and when?
Hard problems and easy ones
What’s difficult is not always clear
Humans have accomplished some pretty amazing things, from putting men on the Moon (with old technology!) to sequencing their own heredity. But stubborn problems that look much easier persist.