Apr 5, 2016 08:26 PM
The great mystery of mathematics is its lack of mystery
https://aeon.co/opinions/the-great-myste...of-mystery
EXCERPT: In one sense, there’s less mystery in mathematics than there is in any other human endeavour. In math, we can really understand things, in a deeper way than we ever understand anything else. [...] So how is it that many people, notably including mathematicians, feel that there’s something ‘mysterious’ about this least mysterious of subjects? What do they mean?
There are certainly mysteries that exist within math. For starters, there are the thousands of unsolved problems, assertions that no one can prove or disprove, sometimes despite decades or centuries of effort. [...] Yet, for reasons that apply to many other unsolved mathematical problems, it’s debatable whether to call this a ‘mystery’. [...] As Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, wrote, a dirty secret in mathematics is that many unsolved problems have a similar flavour: they’re less about mysterious coincidences than about the lack of them....
Five ways to travel through time
https://cosmosmagazine.com/physical-scie...rough-time
EXCERPT: Travel to the past is probably impossible. But to the future? That’s a different story. Cathal O'Connell considers the feasibility of physics. In 2009 the British physicist Stephen Hawking held a party for time travellers - the twist was he sent out the invites a year later. (No guests showed up). Travel into the past is probably impossible. Even if it were possible, Hawking and others have argued that you could never travel back before the moment your time machine was built.
But travel to the future? That’s a different story.
Of course, we are all time travellers as we are swept along in the current of time, from past to future, at a rate of one hour per hour. But, as with a river, the current flows at different speeds in different places. Science as we know it allows for several methods to take the fast-track into the future. Here’s a rundown....
https://aeon.co/opinions/the-great-myste...of-mystery
EXCERPT: In one sense, there’s less mystery in mathematics than there is in any other human endeavour. In math, we can really understand things, in a deeper way than we ever understand anything else. [...] So how is it that many people, notably including mathematicians, feel that there’s something ‘mysterious’ about this least mysterious of subjects? What do they mean?
There are certainly mysteries that exist within math. For starters, there are the thousands of unsolved problems, assertions that no one can prove or disprove, sometimes despite decades or centuries of effort. [...] Yet, for reasons that apply to many other unsolved mathematical problems, it’s debatable whether to call this a ‘mystery’. [...] As Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, wrote, a dirty secret in mathematics is that many unsolved problems have a similar flavour: they’re less about mysterious coincidences than about the lack of them....
Five ways to travel through time
https://cosmosmagazine.com/physical-scie...rough-time
EXCERPT: Travel to the past is probably impossible. But to the future? That’s a different story. Cathal O'Connell considers the feasibility of physics. In 2009 the British physicist Stephen Hawking held a party for time travellers - the twist was he sent out the invites a year later. (No guests showed up). Travel into the past is probably impossible. Even if it were possible, Hawking and others have argued that you could never travel back before the moment your time machine was built.
But travel to the future? That’s a different story.
Of course, we are all time travellers as we are swept along in the current of time, from past to future, at a rate of one hour per hour. But, as with a river, the current flows at different speeds in different places. Science as we know it allows for several methods to take the fast-track into the future. Here’s a rundown....
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