Conditional statements (i.e., statements of the form “If p, then q”, where p and q are statements) are staples of logic and are used widely in mathematics, science, philosophy, and everyday life. How do we judge whether such statements are true or not? Normally this is achieved by looking at whether each of the statements p and q are true or not, and whether the consequence follows from the antecedent. But it is not always that simple. [Read more…]

Cory Doctorow tells us more about this prize-winning effort.

The video pretty much explains it all.

Suicide is a disturbing topic that most of us would rather avoid thinking about. Recently I spoke with an old friend of mine. He was shaken up because just the previous day a work colleague and friend, a middle-aged man, had committed suicide. He said he was a cheerful, fun-loving person, hence his death came as a great shock. [Read more…]

The game tic-tac-toe is something only very young children enjoy. Before long one learns that one can always avoid losing and if both players discover this, then you have only drawn games. But via Cory Doctorow I learn of a variation called Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe that is extremely easy to learn but promises a quantum leap in the strategy required as well as in challenge and fun. [Read more…]

As children growing up in Sri Lanka, we were addicted to the game Monopoly. When a bunch of us cousins got together during school vacations, we would play games over and over again late into the night, with a lot of shouting and laughter. [Read more…]

I am definitely not a gourmet when it comes to food and drink. My senses of taste and smell are not highly developed and I do not frequent fancy restaurants. My idea of a good eating experience is to order familiar take out dishes from local Chinese, Thai, Indian, and Mexican restaurants. My reaction to food consists of just three categories: good, okay, or bad. [Read more…]

Thanks to all those who provided excellent comments (and sent private emails) in response to my request for help in understanding the compatibilistic view of free will. I have been reading them carefully and trying to digest them and will be posting a follow-up soon. [Read more…]

Ken Wilson died on June 15. He won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1982 when he was at Cornell University, and then moved to Ohio State University in 1988 which is where I got to know him. [Read more…]

As part of my series on the Higgs boson, I mentioned that it used to be that we thought of objects in the macroscopic (‘classical’) world as consisting of either particles or waves while in the microscopic (‘quantum’) world, we had wave-particle duality, where entities had both properties. Both worlds were governed by different laws. [Read more…]