Take a list of numbers. Maybe it's your lab's itemized expenses, or the prices from a week's grocery shopping, or a list of values for physical constants. Look at just the leading digit of all those numbers. So if the number is $1.59 then you get a 1, or if it's 3.14 then you get a 3, and so forth. Now count up all the 1s, 2s, 3s, etc. What do you expect you'll find? Are you imagining a roughly equal amount of each of the nine possible digits? If so, you are in good company, because that's a common expectation. But … [Read more...] about Science Corner: One Is The Likeliest Number
probability theory
Science Corner: “It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it.”
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"--surely a familiar quote to anyone who has spent time with Sherlock Holmes. It is a reassuring sentiment, the idea that there is only possible answer and a methodical process of elimination will lead you to it. And indeed, Holmes' world operates that way (unless you believe Pierre Bayard who claims Holmes and even Arthur Conan Doyle were wrong about The Hound of the Baskervilles). Such certainty is more elusive in our … [Read more...] about Science Corner: “It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it.”
Faith and Reason, Part 5: Hume
Frequent ESN contributor and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA Graduate & Faculty Ministries Staff Mark Hansard explores David Hume's ideas in Part 5 of his series on faith and reason. As you may remember, Part 1 took a brief look at a Scriptural basis for using reason and logic, Part 2 discussed St. Augustine's ideas about faith and reason, Part 3 engaged with the thought of Aquinas, and Part 4 addressed John Locke. Image: Sculpture of David Hume. … [Read more...] about Faith and Reason, Part 5: Hume