Summer                                                                              Solstice Moon

Found this via Big Think, which excerpted from this blog at RealScience, Newton, which listed the 10 greatest ideas in the history of science.  This one, #10, was the one that surprised me the most, especially the part about transcendental numbers.

(archimedes cigar box label)

I could, but won’t, challenge the list save to say this:  discoveries in so-called fundamental sciences like physics are neither fundamental nor necessarily the most important.  Evolution, listed as #1, is of the type I would tend to seek for my list of 10, those discoveries that lie in the complex world well above the world of elemental particles.  This list suffers from the reductionist bias of much of western science.  (we can discuss this at another time.)

“Fundamentally, mathematics makes no sense. That probably doesn’t come as a surprise to those of us who struggled in algebra or calculus. Though it is the language of science, the truth is that mathematics is built upon a cracked foundation.

For instance, consider a number. You think you know one when you see one, but it’s rather difficult to define. (In that sense, numbers are like obscenity or pornography.) Not that mathematicians haven’t tried to define numbers. The field of set theory is largely dedicated to such an endeavor, but it isn’t without controversy.

Or consider infinity. Georg Cantor did and went crazy in the process. Counterintuitively, there is such a thing as one infinity being larger than another infinity. The rational numbers (those that can be expressed as a fraction) constitute one infinity, but irrational numbers (those that cannot be expressed as a fraction) constitute a larger infinity. A special type of irrational number, called the transcendental number, is particularly to blame for this. The most famous transcendental is pi, which can neither be expressed as a fraction nor as the solution to an algebraic equation. The digits which make up pi (3.14159265…) go on and on infinitely in no particular pattern. Most numbers are transcendental, like pi. And that yields a very bizarre conclusion: The natural numbers (1, 2, 3…) are incredibly rare. It’s amazing that we can do any math whatsoever.

At its core, mathematics is intimately tied to philosophy. The most hotly debated questions, such as the existence and qualities of infinity, seem far more philosophical in nature than scientific. And thanks to Kurt Gödel, we know that an infinite number of mathematical expressions are probably true, but unprovable.

Such difficulties explain why, from an epistemological viewpoint, mathematics is so disturbing: It places a finite boundary on human reason.”

Source: Galileo’s Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science by Peter Atkins

Beltane                                                                          Solstice Moon

So many information sources, so little time.  Those of us who are indiscriminate infovores have entered the paradise period of the human era.  It’s not only the internet, though it looms very large in easy access to information (see the snapping turtle info below), it’s also the smart phone and the services that disaggregate television programs and resort them into chunks we can watch all at once with no commercials.

While the physical information stream has begun to dwindle like an old man’s (oh, no, I won’t go there.), the condensation and availability of information continues to accelerate.  The mail box has little of interest anymore and the post office is beginning to hear the hoof beats of the Pony Express.  And books.  Heavy physical paper things.  So yesterday.  Meanwhile, I can get TED talks on so wide a range of topics that interest me that I can spend all day watching them.  And not get anything done.

And there’s the youtube talks I just signed up for from Big Think, mentors giving advice about their areas of specialty.  Also, I get e-mails from Foreign Affairs, the Chinese Human Rights folks, Big Think, Brain Pickings, Delancy Place, NASA, Trendline and others I’ve forgotten, each one with interesting, compelling information about things I didn’t know I had an interest in, but suddenly I do.

Managing our information streams is not something any of us have been trained to do.  Yes, we were taught to read.  And an increasingly small number of people read an increasingly large number of books.  But who was taught to watch youtube videos.  or TED talks.  Or to sort out condensed information like the folks from Big Think and Brain Pickings offer up for germane and reliable data.  Who can manage–and interpret–personal information available both to us as individuals and increasingly to government and large corporations?

Notice that I haven’t mentioned podcasts, audio books or the extraordinary ease with which we can receive music tailored to our tastes.  Pandora.  Playlists on I-pods.  Classical or current or jazz or oldies radio stations  Neither have I mentioned my all time least favorite, the robo-call.  Or, the old fashioned, but still extant slow information venues like theaters, museums and sports arenas.  Real time entertainment?  Now there’s an idea.

I’ve not got a handle on this and I don’t know who has, though I’d sure like to hear from them.  I’m eager to get as much information as I can, but now, like never before in all of history, the inflection is on the can.  And the limits on our capacity to get information are now chronological more than anything else, i.e. we can’t have our ears and eyes occupied 24/7.  God forbid.

How do you manage your information streams?  Or do you?  Do they manage you?  Leave you exhausted?  Or, energized, better informed and more able to be what and who you want to be?  An interesting dilemma of our time.

OMG.  How last century of me.  I left out social media.  Twitter, Facebook, this blog for example.  And, I thought I was being clever in inventing infovore.  Nope.  It’s the title of a book on Amazon.

Beltane                                                                        New (Solstice) Moon

If you don’t know much about Nikolai Tesla, or, even if you do, this will blow your mind.  I promise.   Click this link to read it.

Beltane                                                             Early Growth Moon

Asteroid 1998 QE2 to Sail Past Earth Nine Times Larger Than Cruise Ship

“On May 31, 2013, asteroid 1998 QE2 will sail serenely past Earth, getting no closer than about 3.6 million miles (5.8 million kilometers), or about 15 times the distance between Earth and the moon.” nasa