asymptotes

My chemistry teacher one time came to class with her daughter. She said, "Class I want you to meet my daughter, Chlorine." My classmates and I began to snicker. We wondered whether her other children are named Fluorine, Bromine, Iodine and Astatine, and that, in fact, their family name is actually "Halogen". In college, I found out that one physics professor named his children after atomic particles and subparticles. At least I'm sure that one of his children is named Atom. It's quite amusing how some people name their children after things related to their field of work. With this blog entry, I would like to suggest names for babies, depending on the field of interest or work of the parents. The list is not exhaustive (of course!). Feel free to give your own suggestions. Is your field not here? Well, why not make a comment and add your suggestions! ***** Like Asymptotes on Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/Asymptotes Follow Asy...

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In a previous blog post, I have posed the question " Has Stephen Hawking Killed God? "  and have answered it with an emphatic  “ No! ”.  In this follow up post, I discuss the appropriateness of Hawking’s choice of title and subtitle for his book. I would like to suggest to Hawking that he change the title of his book “T he Grand Design ”  because it betrays the book’s grand claim- the irrelevance of God in creation.  If he really wanted to take God out of the creation picture, he should not have associated the word “design” with his book, because this word implies “purpose” and “intelligence”.  And an idea as big and complex as creation would call for a Great Purpose and a Great Intelligence, thus reminding many of a Great Being.  He should have, instead, called his book “ The Grand Chance ” or “ The Grand Coincidenc e” because he suggests that human life is a product of mere chance. I also suggest that he change the subtitle of his b...

Stephen Hawking argues that God is not needed for creation in his new book, “ The Grand Design ” (co-authored with Lleonard Mlodinow). He writes, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” Has Hawking killed God? No, I certainly do not think so. Hawking explains that “because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” but he does not explain why there is gravity in the first place. He argues that “spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing” but he does not give a reason why spontaneous creation should necessarily happen. His axiomatic acceptance of the law of gravity and spontaneous creation seems to me as dogmatic as a theist’s acceptance of the...

I began my graduate studies in computer science in 2003. After 3 years of part time study, I started groping for a thesis topic in Artificial Intelligence (AI). The experience was fun (and torturing- I had to change topics 3 times, but it was still fun… and torturing). I learned a couple of things along the way. I outline these things in this article. 1.Error feedback leads to perfection Neural Networks (NN) is an AI technique that mimics how a brain learns through billions of neurons and their interactions with each other. One of the most popular training (or learning) method for Neural Networks rely on informing other (digital) neurons about the error levels of the current output of the network. This is called the Back Propagation Algorithm. Lesson Many times we dread facing our faults, whether we discover them ourselves or others inform us about them. But come to think of it, knowing about our faults is one of the best ways to improve. I...

People tend to think that exams would be much easier if they're in multiple-choice format. But does having more choices really make them easier? Consider the test item below: Who among the following scientists contributed to the atomic theory? A.) John Dalton B.) Charles Darwin C.) J.J.Thompson D.) Albert Einstein ... ... ... S.) All of the above T.) All letters above that are valid Roman Numerals U.) All letters above that correspond to a Fibonacci number V.) All letters above which are valid symbols of an element in the periodic table W.) All letters above which are elements of the union of the sets in U and V X.) All letters above which are elements of the intersect of the sets in V and W Y.) None of the above Z.) Sirit (Filipino word for ¨I give up¨)   Post Script A few lessons we can gather from the above post: * Having a lot of choices may not be good all the time. * No matter how many choices you have, you always have to choose the right one. * ...

I've  set up a web notebook on faith, science and reason.   I also call it Asymptotes . I collected some articles (personal and otherwise), quotations and notes on the topics mentioned above.  It's a continuous project. I intend to continue adding items as I progress in my readings. I used TiddlyWiki , an amazing tool that allows one to keep notes, organize them through tags, and retrieve them by searching- and all of that done by editing just one file! It's pretty amazing.   I'm in the process of developing a TiddlyWiki flavor customized for basic note-taking. I hope to be able to share it soon. Here's the link to my web notebook . Here's the link to TiddlyWiki's homepage .