Levels of predictability
The recent solar eclipse demonstrates much more than astronomy. (Image: one page of Guy Ottwell’s The Under-Standing of Eclipses, available here)
The Sun, clouds and people
Articles Tagged with calculation
Machine learning
Trained by our machines
Our chief consultant realizes how effective our machines have been at training us to perform tasks efficiently and exactly.
Greece vs. Bablylon
Two kinds of mathematics
Mathematics, at almost any level, can be either practical or ideal. Problems arise when the two kinds are confused.
An unlikely number
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?
Why a forecast discussion?
More than numbers
Weather forecasts are much more reliable than they used to be, mostly thanks to more powerful computers. Input from people is still important, though.
The seasons are complicated
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
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.