The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 2,038 posts.
However, no experiment with actual coin-tosses has been done to investigate whether the predicted effect is empirically observed. Diaconis et al noted, correctly, that to estimate the probability with a S.E. of 0.1% would require 250,000 tosses, but this seems unnecessarily precise. Let's work with numbers of tosses…
Evidence that discoveries are getting smaller on average
On GPT-3: meta-learning, scaling, implications, and deep theory. The scaling hypothesis: neural nets absorb data & compute, generalizing and becoming more Bayesian as problems get harder, manifesting new abilities even at trivial-by-global-standards-scale. The deep learning revolution has begun as foretold.
Why did the oracle of Delphi go into a trance state? Does it have anything to do with ethylene?
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Here is what might possibly be my single favorite song in the world:
Before my first kiss, I scoured The Internet (Google Scholar + tracing blog posts back to their underlying studies - this was some time ago so I don’t still have the sources) for every valuable scrap of information available on the topic while trying to stray away from anything opinion-based. This is the result.
The environmental and cognitive factors at play that have people eating more without realising.
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
While most ghostwriting scandals in science involve physicians, the agrichemical company ran a unique and sophisticated campaign to promote GMO technology and attack critics.
I heard that bananas are radioactive. If they are radioactive, then they radiate energy. How many bananas would you need to power a house?
In February 2022, Jim Keller organized a scientific anarchism event in Woodside, California. Scientific anarchism, a term borrowed from the controversial philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, concerns the way science is performed in the laboratory and the way that ideas are generated, refuted, and incorporated into…
Interactive article explaining how a mechanical watch works.
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This article discusses different types of rocket engine cycles, from pressure-fed through gas generator, to full-flow staged combustion.
How to arrive at a number you can trust
Bayesianism, the doctrine that it's always rational to represent our beliefs in terms of probabilities, dominates the intellectual world, from decision theory to the philosophy of science. But does it make sense to quantify our beliefs about such ineffable things as scientific theories or the future? And what separates
Some of the forces blocking really new ideas in science
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
To grow copper acetate crystals, first prepare a saturated solution by reacting 10 g of scrap copper with 400 mL of white vinegar.
When I was a child, my father would take me trout fishing, and I spent hours marveling from the riverbank at the trouts’ ability to, seemingly effortlessly, h
It's a shortcut to understanding, and there are no shortcuts
The ultimate Trip To The Seaside Where Everything Went Wrong.
The science of psychedelics is everywhere – but we should treat it with serious scepticism
Cat owners often claim that cats are too intelligent to do the sort of tricks that dogs do willingly. Others believe cats are unintelligent because it's harder to train them to do tricks. In this article (on 2 pages) I aim to explain some of these differences and explore feline intelligence and the limitations on…
The Wolfram Institute will pursue opportunities in scientific research based on a new multicomputational paradigm found during a project to develop a fundamental theory of physics.
Bill Harris points to this cartoon from Randall Munroe. I think he (Munroe) is really on to something here. Not about Bayes’s theorem but about the sorts of examples that are in textbooks.
