Explaining the world one sketch at a time
When every option is equal, how do you choose? It’s nice to think that we have a reason for what we do: It’s a good idea to do this , I really want to do that . But what if two choices are equally good? How do we choose then? That’s the situation for an ass (no snickering, please) in the thought experiment Buridan’s Ass. What is Buridan’s Ass? Buridan’s Ass is the puzzle where an ass is…
Wisdom is a strange thing. The Wisdom Paradox is this: when we realise we are less wise than we thought, we become wiser. Anthony de Mello, in his book One-Minute Wisdom , relates a master’s thoughts on wisdom: It always pleased the Master to hear people recognize their ignorance. “Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance,” he claimed. When asked for an explanation,…
Thumbtrap is “When your thumb keeps scrolling after you've decided to stop.“ Perhaps you know the experience: Something triggers you to pick up your phone, perhaps a message you think of sending, the weather to check, or just a gap with nothing happening. But something else catches your eye, then a post below, something interesting, something boring you skip by, a video starts playing, something…
As young kids, most of us were up at 6 am, raring to go on weekend mornings. As teenagers, many of us slept in until late morning or noon. But people are different. Some love Marmite, some hate it. As adults, we start finding what works best for us. And it’s not necessarily the same as, or what works best for, our partners. It struck me that I know a lot of couples, us included, who are…
Imagine your life is a rose bush. Each passion, interest, or piece of your attention at any time is a flower. To allow each bud to blossom, you give it your attention and care. At different times in my life, I’ve had flowers blooming for family, my partner, music, studying, football, staying fit, hiking, exploring, new friend groups, being a father, working on a house, this project, swimming, my…
When I was first learning French at school, I was confused to see that London was known as Londres . It already had a name that people in the UK use. Why did it need another? Then, of course, I gradually realised that I was doing the same with names all over the world. Germany is called Deutschland by Germans. Spain is called España . Italy , Italia . And on and on. I grew up knowing Holland, only…
Two simple ideas at the heart of music: melody and harmony. I had a general awareness of both of these, but came across this wonderful, clear distinction: Melody is the relation of successive notes. Harmony is the relation of notes sounding at the same time. In other words, melody is about notes over time; harmony is about notes together. The simplicity of melody and harmony makes them beautiful…
Have you ever heard, maybe when watching a swimming event on TV during the Olympics, the commentators say that it’s a fast or slow pool? I was baffled! How can a bunch of water be fast or slow? But there's both science and practice in it, and a fast pool can make the difference between a good swim and a great one. After researching different factors and quizzing a former Olympic swimmer who…
Legendary basketball coach John Wooden won 10 national championships in 12 years with the UCLA men’s team—a record yet to be bettered. His thoughts on coaching still provide insights and wisdom across all sports and teaching generally. He was a big advocate for preparation, dedication in practice, and repetition so that a player could perform instinctively when it counted. To achieve this, he…
What would you see if you tried to travel alongside a light wave at the speed of light? And suppose you held a mirror in front of you as you zipped along. What would you see in the mirror? This and similar thought experiments were posed by the young Albert Einstein to himself in his teens. It’s come to be known as Einstein’s Mirror and is also the title of a popular book on relativity . It would…
Many things we encounter in life are self-reinforcing. Sometimes in a positive way, other times in a negative way. Trying new things and anxiety can run both ways. Trying new things can be daunting and uncomfortable. But in my experience, usually when I have a go at something, I find it wasn’t as difficult or as bad as it seemed. Doing this enough builds confidence and reduces anxiety about trying…
I’ve long been intrigued by the innocuous power of Little Openings. Say you are walking down a corridor with your hands full of papers and books. Before long, they start to slip. As you try to stabilise the falling papers, the rest go down in a clatter and flutter. However, a passerby in the corridor kneels down to help you pick everything up. They say hello. You say thank you. You each introduce…
The 3 Phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation I expect you have heard of El Niño. Huge parts of the world, if not all of us in some way, are affected by El Niño, or, more completely, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSO is a weather pattern that varies over a period of years. From typical conditions, to El Niño (the boy), the warm phase, to La Niña (the girl), the cold phase. ENSO…
It can be extremely frustrating to be separated from your pickles or jams by only a powerful twist of a jar top. Can’t open a jar? Here are my personally tried and tested methods of escalation: 1. Grip and turn harder (and breathe out) Sounds dumb, but often we have that little bit of extra in us that we didn’t realise. Go on, give it some welly. You can also try forcibly exhaling as you turn.…
Abraham Lincoln stands among the most admired US presidents. Apart from his deeds and what he stood for, from what I’ve read, he also appears kind and wise. As a model for behaviour, Dale Carnegie points out Lincoln’s humble and kind approach several times in his awkwardly titled book, How to Win Friends and Influence People . Apart from highlighting the value of a sharp axe to cut down trees…
Perhaps, like me, you’ve tried diving down towards the bottom of a lake and noticed how after the first few metres, the water quickly drops in temperature. It has been a personal joy to test this in mountain lakes. Even just a few metres down, the water can be much colder than at the surface. This temperature gradient is a thermocline. In the ocean, the thermocline is the zone below the surface…
What do you get if you have a lake on an island with an island on it? A recursive island. Visual recursion happens when something contains a smaller version of itself—a pattern within a pattern or a scene within a scene . A recursive island is a geographical version of this: an island, within a lake, which itself is within an island. Kind of like a nested island, or perhaps an island squared. But…
On the capabilities of machines and people In his 1988 book Mind Children , Austrian robotics researcher Hans Moravec, wrote : “…as the number of demonstrations has mounted, it has become clear that it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult-level performance in solving problems such as intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a…
Maybe you, like me, heard that there are no words that rhyme with orange or chimney . From time to time, I've wondered at this. For orange , I got as far as lozenge, which I don't think is bad, but beyond that, it's not clear to me what works. In a short segment on the 60 mins show , Eminem said, "People say that the word orange doesn't rhyme with anything, and that kind of pisses me off because I…
The McNamara Fallacy is a belief in easy-to-measure quantitative metrics at the expense of ignoring hard-to-measure qualitative factors. Robert McNamara was president of Ford Motor Company and later the Secretary of Defense for the USA during the war in Vietnam. He was highly intelligent and excelled at dealing with data and using it to inform strategy. Coined by social scientist Daniel…