Notes: Thorium Reactor
Uses desalinization electricity Liquid Salt Thorium is much safer passive safety with fluid fuel and low pressures can drain to a passive cooling area in case of problem More flexible high temp operation offer high conversion efficiency air cooling offers…
Physics of Wall Street
Yesterday I attended a book talk given by a young professor here in the Philosophy department, James Weatherall, promoting his a recent work, The Physics of Wall Street. James told a rousing good story concerning many famous characters. Each chapter…
Bayesian Anthropic Law
This one has been on my plate for a long time. There is a popular argument for the existence of God/Creator known as the “Fine-Tuning Argument”. When looking at the universe, we notice that it has a specific construction which…
Information Uncertainty Principle
Through Denning’s Presentation Great Principles of Computing I heard of this fascinating tale regarding Buridan’s ass. It refers to a hypothetical situation wherein an ass is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a pail of water. Since…
Philosophy of Computer Science: Boundaries
One of the reasons that I’ve decided to spend my life studying Computer Science is its deep connections with philosophy. Mankind has been asking deep philosophical questions for a very long time, but we’ve been able to chip away at…
Weakening of the Teleological Argument
Wikipedia defines the Teleological Argument as “an argument for the existence of god based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design, or direction — or some combination of these — in nature.” I’ve always found it a really tough one…
Bayesian Priors and Quantum Mechanics
I was reading The Quantum Times, and it occurred to me that much of the stuff about Alice and Bob sharing a Quantum State, and then Alice changing Bobs particle by measuring hers, strikes me as counter-intuitive. It seems to…
Math and Occam’s Razor
In discussion with Ben about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I concluded that the success of mathematical elegance in solutions is a physical manifestation of Occam’s Razor. Indeed, mathematical elegance is to be held above normal logic. As…