Topic: Science
You are looking at all articles with the topic "Science". We found 26 matches.
Hint:
To view all topics, click here. Too see the most popular topics, click here instead.
π Operation Serenata de Amor β An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil
Operation Serenata de Amor is an artificial intelligence project to analyze public spending in Brazil. The project has been funded by a recurrent financing campaign since September 7, 2016, and came in the wake of major scandals of misappropriation of public funds in Brazil, such as the MensalΓ£o scandal and what was revealed in the Operation Car Wash investigations.
The analysis began with data from the National Congress and then expanded to other types of budget and other instances of government, such as the Federal Senate. The project is built through collaboration on GitHub and using a public group with more than 600 participants on Telegram.
The name "Serenata de Amor," which means "serenade of love," was taken from a popular cashew cream bonbon produced by Chocolates Garoto in Brazil.
Discussed on
- "Operation Serenata de Amor β An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil" | 2018-03-06 | 342 Upvotes 110 Comments
π List of unsolved problems in physics
Some of the major unsolved problems in physics are theoretical, meaning that existing theories seem incapable of explaining a certain observed phenomenon or experimental result. The others are experimental, meaning that there is a difficulty in creating an experiment to test a proposed theory or investigate a phenomenon in greater detail.
There are still some deficiencies in the Standard Model of physics, such as the origin of mass, the strong CP problem, neutrino mass, matterβantimatter asymmetry, and the nature of dark matter and dark energy. Another problem lies within the mathematical framework of the Standard Model itselfβthe Standard Model is inconsistent with that of general relativity, to the point that one or both theories break down under certain conditions (for example within known spacetime singularities like the Big Bang and the centers of black holes beyond the event horizon).
Discussed on
- "List of unsolved problems in physics" | 2016-08-13 | 119 Upvotes 39 Comments
- "List of Unsolved Problems in Physics" | 2015-01-22 | 105 Upvotes 21 Comments
- "Unsolved problems in physics" | 2009-05-07 | 21 Upvotes 27 Comments
π List of stories set in a future now past
This is a list of fictional stories that, when written, were set in the future, but the future they predicted is now present or past. The list excludes works that were alternate histories, which were composed after the dates they depict, alternative futures, as depicted in time travel fiction, as well as any works that make no predictions of the future, such as those focusing solely on the future lives of specific fictional characters, or works which, despite their claimed dates, are contemporary in all but name. Entries referencing the current year may be added if their month and day were not specified or have already occurred.
Discussed on
- "List of stories set in a future now past" | 2019-02-06 | 186 Upvotes 140 Comments
π The Two Cultures
The Two Cultures is the first part of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow which were published in book form as The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution the same year. Its thesis was that science and the humanities which represented "the intellectual life of the whole of western society" had become split into "two cultures" and that this division was a major handicap to both in solving the world's problems.
Discussed on
- "The Two Cultures" | 2023-05-11 | 40 Upvotes 8 Comments
- "The Two Cultures" | 2013-10-16 | 149 Upvotes 80 Comments
π Wronger Than Wrong
Wronger than wrong is a statement that equates two errors when one of the errors is clearly more wrong than the other. It was described by Michael Shermer as Asimov's axiom. The mistake was discussed in Isaac Asimov's book of essays The Relativity of Wrong as well as in a 1989 article of the same name in the Fall 1989 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer:
When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
Asimov explained that science is both progressive and cumulative. Even though scientific theories are later proven wrong, the degree of their wrongness attenuates with time as they are modified in response to the mistakes of the past. For example, data collected from satellite measurements show, to a high level of precision, how the Earth's shape differs from a perfect sphere or even an oblate spheroid or a geoid.
Shermer stated that being wronger than wrong is actually worse than being not even wrong (that is, being unfalsifiable).
According to John Jenkins, who reviewed The Relativity of Wrong, the title essay of Asimov's book is the one "which I think is important both for understanding Asimov's thinking about science and for arming oneself against the inevitable anti-science attack that one often hears β [that] theories are always preliminary and science really doesn't 'know' anything."
Discussed on
- "Wronger Than Wrong" | 2023-04-03 | 137 Upvotes 86 Comments
π Allen Curve
In communication theory, the Allen curve is a graphical representation that reveals the exponential drop in frequency of communication between engineers as the distance between them increases. It was discovered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Thomas J. Allen in the late 1970s.
A related and highly significant finding of Allen's was his identification of the key role of information gatekeepers. Often such interlocutors were poorly recognized by management and yet conveyed vital concepts from just the right people to just the right other people in the organization.
Discussed on
- "Allen Curve" | 2015-07-18 | 72 Upvotes 18 Comments
π Salmon Protocol
The Salmon Protocol is a message exchange protocol running over HTTP designed to decentralize commentary and annotations made against newsfeed articles such as blog posts. It allows a single discussion thread to be established between the article's origin and any feed reader or "aggregator" which is subscribing to the content. Put simply, that if an article appeared on 3 sites: A (the source), B and C (the aggregates), that members of all 3 sites could see and contribute to a single thread of conversation regardless of site they were viewing from.
Discussed on
- "Salmon Protocol" | 2017-09-14 | 63 Upvotes 27 Comments
π Aztec Diamond
In combinatorial mathematics, an Aztec diamond of order n consists of all squares of a square lattice whose centers (x,y) satisfy |x| + |y| β€ n. Here n is a fixed integer, and the square lattice consists of unit squares with the origin as a vertex of 4 of them, so that both x and y are half-integers.
The Aztec diamond theorem states that the number of domino tilings of the Aztec diamond of order n is 2n(n+1)/2. The Arctic Circle theorem says that a random tiling of a large Aztec diamond tends to be frozen outside a certain circle.
It is common to color the tiles in the following fashion. First consider a checkerboard coloring of the diamond. Each tile will cover exactly one black square. Vertical tiles where the top square covers a black square, is colored in one color, and the other vertical tiles in a second. Similarly for horizontal tiles.
Knuth has also defined Aztec diamonds of order n + 1/2. They are identical with the polyominoes associated with the centered square numbers.
Discussed on
- "Aztec Diamond" | 2022-07-28 | 70 Upvotes 19 Comments
π Tree Shaking
In computing, tree shaking is a dead code elimination technique that is applied when optimizing code written in ECMAScript dialects like JavaScript or TypeScript into a single bundle that is loaded by a web browser. Often contrasted with traditional single-library dead code elimination techniques common to minifiers, tree shaking eliminates unused functions from across the bundle by starting at the entry point and only including functions that may be executed. It is succinctly described as "live code inclusion".
Discussed on
- "Tree Shaking" | 2021-08-01 | 36 Upvotes 33 Comments
π Scientism
Scientism is the promotion of science as the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values. The term scientism is generally used critically, implying a cosmetic application of science in unwarranted situations considered not amenable to application of the scientific method or similar scientific standards.
Discussed on
- "Scientism" | 2024-07-31 | 10 Upvotes 16 Comments
- "Scientism" | 2012-09-20 | 19 Upvotes 19 Comments