Weekend Thoughts - 3.17.18

Image by Marisa04, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. The great physicist Stephen Hawking passed away this week at the age of 76. If you're not familiar with his work, it's definitely worth looking into. I first learned about Hawking by reading his book, A Brief History of Time back when I was in college. Most people know who Albert Einstein was, and I'd wager that Hawking was as influential to the study of science as Einstein was in his day. Both men changed the world for the better, and with Hawking's recent death we have truly lost one of the great minds of our civilization.

2. People have been losing their jobs to new technologies for a long time, but the frequency of this phenomenon has been increasing since the dawn of the Internet. Now that we have the opportunity to continue our education online, tech companies have poised themselves to essentially retrain the workers that they are replacing via automation. Online courses can prepare beginners for entry-level jobs in the tech industry in just eight to 12 months. This is one step in the right direction, which will hopefully do at least a little bit to deal with the issue that an estimated 75 million to 375 million workers worldwide will be replaced by automation by 2030. At least for now we can see that it may be possible to retrain entry-level workers to work in the tech industry.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 12.3.16

Image by madaise, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. Most modern scientists assume that the speed of light is constant, which is part of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Specifically, this theory plays a role in the conceptualization of what occurred in the very early universe, seconds after the Big Bang. However, some researchers have recently posited that the speed of light may have been much higher in this early universe than it currently is. This is one of many concepts that parapsychology researcher Rupert Sheldrake presented in his research on how the universal gravitational constant varies. These researchers have developed a test that will be able to identify changes in light speed, which would change our understanding of how the universe expanded. One of the issues with the constant light speed theory is that it doesn't allow for enough time for light to have traveled to where it is in the cosmos. However, light traveling at a faster initial speed would fill in that gap and force scientists to rethink their idea of how the early universe was formed.

2. As a former librarian (I worked at a music library for a couple years in college), I would've loved to have seen this recent video from TED-Ed that explains the quickest way to sort books. The technique is borrowed from computer programming language and is able to sort books (or other items) much quicker than other techniques. During the past few moves that I have gone through during the last couple years, I have found myself naturally using this technique to sort my own items—DVDs, CDs, books, etc. However, I'm also in the process of getting rid of nearly all of my physical media. In fact, I no longer have any DVDs or CDs in my house, and have sold/donated/gifted over half of my print book collection within the past year. Regardless, this educational video is a fun watch for anyone interested in learning to sort more efficiently!

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.