What is the abbreviation for “pounds”? Did you say “lbs”? Congratulations, you are correct. Now, where does the abbreviation come from? It’s rather curious. None of the letters (l-b-s) appear in the word “pound.” What should be more curious is why you have never inquired into the matter (provided that is you don’t know the…

“How do you know God,” asked the child. “When you know Him as unknowable,” replied the traveler. “That’s the dumbest thing I think I’ve ever heard,” said the child. “Is it?” “Yes.” “Let me ask you this,” continued the traveler, “Can a circle be a straight line?” “Of course not,” replied the child. “Really? If…

In 1899, just a few years before the Wright brothers achieved their historic accomplishment, Lord Kelvin—then one of the world’s brightest men and most accomplished scientists—declared heavier than air machines to be “impossible.” He was wrong. To add insult to injury, Lord Kelvin was proved wrong by a pair of bicycle repairmen from Dayton, Ohio….

I have just started reading Marshall McLuhan's book, "The Gutenberg Galaxy" and early in the book I stumbled this nugget which, to paraphase, suggests that Thomas the Aquinas believed that Jesus did not commit this teachings to writing because his "type of teaching was not possible by means of writing." In other words, in keeping with…

Richard Dawkins shows us a map of the world’s many religions and then asks us to imagine a similar world map of a specific scientific theory. It is a wonderful thought exercise and should leave all of us questioning the idea that any religion is the “one” true religion.

Imagine you won the lottery. Now imagine you lost the use of your legs in a car accident. In a year’s time under which event would you experience more happiness? It seems like an idiotic question. The answer is obvious: the lottery will make us happier. The only problem is that this isn’t true. I…

I first studiedElisabeth Kubler-Ross' "five stages of grief" in high school. Since then, I have accepted her theory. As Michael Shermer suggests in this articlein Scientific American there is little evidentiary support for her thesis. Part of the problem, I believe, is that people like to make life more tidy than it actually is. For…

The Internet, the real estate market, fuel cell technology, nanotechnology and, now, "clean tech" have all experienced an investing "bubble." In retrospect, it is easy to point to signs that the market was inflating to dangerous levels. It is even easier to suggest that such bubbles are a bad thing — precisely because so many…