Asimov on Scientific Discovery
“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ [I’ve found it!], but ‘That’s funny.’
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“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ [I’ve found it!], but ‘That’s funny.’
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In a recent edition of the New Yorker, the magazine published a story by Dashiell Hammett and one of the paragraphs in that wonderful story nicely captures the way that waiting for something bad to happen can be worse than experiencing that bad thing. In the scene, a group of people stand on the sidewalk…
We Americans are notoriously bad at saving money. While people in Germany, Sweden and even France save about 10% of the money they make, folks in the U.S. save closer to 3 or 4% of their earnings. With so little money saved, Americans face difficulty absorbing economic shocks like recessions and layoffs, and also find…
Lyndon Johnson’s advisers were worried. They were drafting a Medicare proposal, a major component of Johnson’s war on poverty. But the cost of this program was turning out to be much larger than expected. By their estimates, in the first year alone, they would face $400 million more in expenditures than they had budgeted for….
“No” isn’t an ideology. “Nada” is no way to govern a country. “Nope” won’t turn around the economy, and political rope-a-doping won’t balance the federal budget. Yet if you had to summarize the three top “accomplishments” of the Republican party since Obama took office, they would be no, nada, and nope. Because it is out…
An article from The Economist last April explored Margaret Thatcher’s influence on government spending in Britain during her tenure as prime minister. The magazine published a very interesting graphic, showing the rise of government spending in five countries. I thought I would reproduce the picture for you here, because it illustrates some fascinating issues: First, at…
Steven Johnson was a rising star at the NordicWear Company, even before that brutal winter of 2002. But then, thanks to a rebate program he instituted for their new line of snow pants, he rocketed up the corporate ladder. His plan was brilliant in its simplicity. Late in the previous winter, he ran a series…