Coursera - Quantum Mechanics

I have discovered by accident Coursera on Kurzwei blog, and I was intrigued by the concept and the content that could be provided. But what is Coursera?

Atlas Shrugged vs Obama speech?

I came across the following article about the recent speech of President Obama regarding the need of government action and intervention.

U.S. Drought may lead to Higher Food Prices

Several articles have started to pop up in the background for the past two months. At first, it was just about the weather being unusually hot, and the impact on people lifestyle. The focus started to shift towards the impact on agriculture and the possible impact on food prices. 

Middle East - Going crazy?

The Higgs Boson Explained

Why Congress Doesn't Work?

Faced with a complex, hard-to-solve problem, there is a natural human tendency to solve a much simpler, easier one instead. Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, in his book,Thinking, Fast and Slow, dubs this cognitive process: “substitution.”

Benford's Law

Why the probability of a random number between 1 and 10,000 starting with "1" is greater than starting with "8"? How can this be applied to fraud detection? Below are the links to two interesting readings.

Everyone is a genius.

Sophie's Art

Submarine

Airplane

What is Health Care Compact Alliance (HCCA)?

What are solutions to solve Health Care problem?

America the Corporation

Below you will find a presentation that provides more detail about the financing of the United States as if it were seen as a business, which obviously it isn't.

The United States of America isn't a business, but what if it were? What would USA Inc. be worth? What would its income statement and balance sheet look like? Mary Meeker, the veteran Morgan Stanley tech analyst who is now a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, dug into the finances of USA Inc. and produced a 460-slide presentation. The following charts and tables are adapted from it.

Click here to see the presentation.

Paradox of Choice

The General Dogma of our Time is that to maximize the overall welfare it is important to increase the freedom and the access to choices. The access to multiple choices opens therefore the door to happiness and the maximization of welfare. Or is it? 

Code Jam 2010 is here!

RR just joined us...

Theory of Relativity

One of my favorite subject is the theory of relativity: its fundamental study, and its application to our lives: telecommunication, satellites, cellphones etc.

Pr. Leonard Susskind of Stanford University  covers in a 12 lectures series Einstein's theory of relativity.

Science of Babies

A short video about the remarkable baby's brain development.

A midday nap markedly boosts the brain's learning capacity

A midday nap markedly boosts the brain's learning capacity ?

Findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter.

If you see a student dozing in the library or a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle, don't roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour's nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter.

Brain capacity. What's the limit?

Never wandered about what was your brain capacity, how much memory you have, how fast can you process information, and if all of your RAM and CPU speed are cast in a stone or elastic? It seems pretty obvious that brain capacity is pretty much elastic, but think about it; it could mean that the more you remember the more you would be able to remember, the more you learn the more you would be able to learn, and  the faster you learn the faster you would be able to learn. Not so trivial.