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Spherical Cow
Comic of a spherical cow as illustrated by a 1996 meeting of the American Astronomical Association, in reference to astronomy modeling The spherical cow is a humorous metaphor for highly simplified scientific models of complex phenomena. Originating in theoretical physics, the metaphor refers to physicists' tendency to reduce a problem to the simplest form imaginable in order to make calculations more feasible, even if the simplification hinders the model's application to reality. The metaphor and variants have subsequently been used in other disciplines. History The phrase comes from a joke that spoofs the simplifying assumptions sometimes used in theoretical physics. It is told in many variants, including a joke about a physicist who said he could predict the winner of any race provided it involved spherical horses moving through a vacuum. A 1973 letter to the editor in the journal ''Science'' describes the "famous story" about a physicist whose solution to a poultry far ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonard Hofstadter
Leonard Leakey Hofstadter, Ph.D., is a fictional character portrayed by Johnny Galecki in the CBS sitcom ''The Big Bang Theory.'' Leonard is an experimental physicist, who shares an apartment with colleague and best friend Dr. Sheldon Cooper. For his portrayal, Galecki was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award in 2011. Penny is Leonard's next-door neighbor (across the hall) and main love interest, and the teasing of romance between the two of them is a major force driving the series. In season 9, " The Gorilla Dissolution", they get engaged and married in Las Vegas. Creation and casting Leonard is named after actor/producer Sheldon Leonard, and Nobel Prize in Physics Laureate Robert Hofstadter. Macaulay Culkin was originally offered the part but he turned it down as he didn’t like the pitch. Johnny Galecki was originally asked to play the role of Sheldon Cooper, but thought he would be "better suited" for the character of Leonard. Leonard is one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humour In Science
Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: ', "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion. People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. Most people are able to experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny (such as a pun or joke)—and thus are considered to have a ''sense of humour''. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by personal taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, intelligence and context. For example, young children may favour slapstick such as Punch and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphors Referring To Cattle
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared with other types of figurative language, such as antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and simile. One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the "All the world's a stage" monologue from '' As You Like It'': All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances And one man in his time plays many parts, His Acts being seven ages. At first, the infant... :—William Shakespeare, '' As You Like It'', 2/7 This quotation expresses a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage, and most humans are not literally actors and actresses playing roles. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Modelling
Scientific modelling is a scientific activity, the aim of which is to make a particular part or feature of the world easier to understand, define, quantify, visualize, or simulate by referencing it to existing and usually commonly accepted knowledge. It requires selecting and identifying relevant aspects of a situation in the real world and then developing a model to replicate a system with those features. Different types of models may be used for different purposes, such as conceptual models to better understand, operational models to operationalize, mathematical models to quantify, computational models to simulate, and graphical models to visualize the subject. Modelling is an essential and inseparable part of many scientific disciplines, each of which has its own ideas about specific types of modelling. The following was said by John von Neumann. There is also an increasing attention to scientific modelling in fields such as science education, philosophy of scie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In-jokes
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke whose humour is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It is, therefore, an esoteric joke, only humorous to those who are aware of the circumstances behind it. In-jokes may exist within a small social clique, such as a group of friends, or extend to an entire profession or other relatively large group. An example is: ::Q: What's yellow and equivalent to the axiom of choice? ::A: Zorn's lemon. Individuals not familiar with the mathematical result Zorn's lemma are unlikely to understand the joke. The joke is a pun on the name of this result. Ethnic or religious groups may also have in-jokes. Philosophy In-jokes are cryptic allusions to shared common ground that act as selective triggers; only those who share that common ground are able to respond appropriately. An in-joke can work to build comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naïve Physics
Naïve physics or folk physics is the untrained human perception of basic physical phenomena. In the field of artificial intelligence the study of naïve physics is a part of the effort to formalize the common knowledge of human beings. Many ideas of folk physics are simplifications, misunderstandings, or misperceptions of well-understood phenomena, incapable of giving useful predictions of detailed experiments, or simply are contradicted by more thorough observations. They may sometimes be true, be true in certain limited cases, be true as a good first approximation to a more complex effect, or predict the same effect but misunderstand the underlying mechanism. Naïve physics can also be defined as an intuitive understanding all humans have about objects in the physical world. Certain notions of the physical world may be innate. Examples Some examples of naïve physics include commonly understood, intuitive, or everyday-observed rules of nature: * What goes up must come down * A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homo Economicus
The term ''Homo economicus'', or economic man, is the portrayal of humans as agents who are consistently rational and narrowly self-interested, and who pursue their subjectively defined ends optimally. It is a word play on ''Homo sapiens'', used in some economic theories and in pedagogy. In game theory, ''Homo economicus'' is often modelled through the assumption of perfect rationality. It assumes that agents always act in a way that maximize utility as a consumer and profit as a producer, and are capable of arbitrarily complex deductions towards that end. They will always be capable of thinking through all possible outcomes and choosing that course of action which will result in the best possible result. The rationality implied in ''Homo economicus'' does not restrict what sort of preferences are admissible. Only naive applications of the ''Homo economicus'' model assume that agents know what is best for their long-term physical and mental health. For example, an agent's u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fermi Problem
In physics or engineering education, a Fermi problem, Fermi quiz, Fermi question, Fermi estimate, order-of-magnitude problem, order-of-magnitude estimate, or order estimation is an estimation problem designed to teach dimensional analysis or approximation of extreme scientific calculations, and such a problem is usually a back-of-the-envelope calculation. The estimation technique is named after physicist Enrico Fermi as he was known for his ability to make good approximate calculations with little or no actual data. Fermi problems typically involve making justified guesses about quantities and their variance or lower and upper bounds. In some cases, order-of-magnitude estimates can also be derived using dimensional analysis. Historical background An example is Enrico Fermi's estimate of the strength of the atomic bomb that detonated at the Trinity test, based on the distance traveled by pieces of paper he dropped from his hand during the blast. Fermi's estimate of 10 kilot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assume A Can Opener
"Assume a can opener" is a catchphrase used to mock economists and other theorists who base their conclusions on unjustified or oversimplified assumptions. The phrase derives from a joke which dates to at least 1970 and possibly originated with British economists. The first book mentioning it is likely ''Economics as a Science'' (1970) by Kenneth E. Boulding: There is a story that has been going around about a physicist, a chemist, and an economist who were stranded on a desert island with no implements and a can of food. The physicist and the chemist each devised an ingenious mechanism for getting the can open; the economist merely said, "Assume we have a can opener"! The phrase was popularized in a 1981 book and has become sufficiently well known that many writers on economic topics use it as a catchphrase without further explanation. Examples of usage The joke and its application to economists were taken up in the 1981 book ''Paper Money'' by George Goodman (under the pseudo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization
The first season of the American sitcom ''The Big Bang Theory'' was originally aired on CBS from September 24, 2007, to May 19, 2008, over 17 episodes. An unaired pilot also exists. The Season 1 DVD came without a gag reel and is, so far, the only ''Big Bang Theory'' DVD set not to have one. The reissued Blu-ray, was released July 10, 2012, and includes a gag reel that is exclusive to the set. The episodes on Blu-ray are all in remastered surround sound, whereas the DVD version had stereo. Two of the main cast, Sheldon and Leonard, are named after actor, director, and producer Sheldon Leonard. Johnny Galecki and Sara Gilbert both selected the episode "The Hamburger Postulate" as a Primetime Emmy Award submission for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series, respectively, at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards, but both ended up not receiving a nomination. Jim Parsons selected the episode "The Pancake Batter Anomaly" as a Primetime Emm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Big Bang Theory
''The Big Bang Theory'' is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom served as executive producers on the series, along with Steven Molaro, all of whom also served as head writers. It premiered on CBS on September 24, 2007, and concluded on May 16, 2019, having broadcast 279 episodes over 12 seasons. The show originally centered on five characters living in Pasadena, California: Leonard Hofstadter ( Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper ( Jim Parsons), both physicists at Caltech, who share an apartment; Penny ( Kaley Cuoco), a waitress and aspiring actress who lives across the hall; and Leonard and Sheldon's similarly geeky and socially awkward friends and coworkers, aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali ( Kunal Nayyar). Over time, supporting characters were promoted to starring roles, including neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler ( Mayim Bialik), microbiologist Bernadette Rostenkowski (Mel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
