Science
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Geheugensteuntje om de planeten van het zonnestelsel te onthouden
Sta je ook soms met de mond vol tanden als ze je vragen om de planenten van het zonnestelsel op te noemen in volgorde ? Daar is een handig trukje voor. Maak (Mercurius) Van (Venus) Acht (Aarde) Meter (Mars) Japanse (Jupiter) Stof (Saturnus) Uw (Uranus) Nachtjapon (Neptunus). Of, als Pluto ook nog erbij moet :…
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Understanding Gell-Mann: Giants versus Dwarfs
‘If I have seen further than others, it is because I am surrounded by dwarfs.‘― Murray Gell-Mann
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Remembering Solar System Planets: Easy Mnemonics
Also have trouble remembering the planets of our solar system and their sequence according to distance from the sun ? Fortunately some good mnenomics have been invented for this. Like this one : My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nachos. Or if you are from the old guard when Pluto was still a planet…
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A Tour of the Calculus, David Berlinski (ISBN 978-0-679-74788-8, Vintage Books)
A Tour of the Calculus is a strange and unique book. According to text on the back it is likely to become a classic as Gödel, Escher, Bach. But I doubt that very much. The book was written in 1995 and so far I haven’t come across it in any list of classics. I also…
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Not knowing
‘I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.‘― Richard Feynman
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Through rugged ways to the stars, Harlow Shapley (ISBN 9781124074719, Charles Scribner’s Sons)
This is the autobiography of Harlow Shapley, the man who discovered size of the milky way and the place of our sun in it. Shapley considered the discovery that our sun was not in the center of the milky way as his most important contribution to our world view because it was more or less…
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The Story of Numbers, John McLeish (ISBN 978-0-449-90938-6, Fawcett Columbine)
The Story of Numbers explores the history of mathematics to trace the rise of various number systems in cultures from Mesopotamia to the modern Computer Era. It is not a traditional history of mathematics or a history of mathematicians. Instead it focuses on the different number systems and calculation methods that evolved in time in…
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Poison
‘Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.‘― Adam Smith
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Logical Proof
‘It is useless, my son. I have read Aristotle through twice and have found nothing about spots on the Sun. There are no spots on the Sun. They arise either from imperfections of your telescope or from defects in your eyes.‘― 17th century Jesuit professor
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