All About Lego

And if you’re wondering why Lego, of all things – it is because I and my daughter are learning about Democritus and atoms:

Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world?

For a start, Sophie was not at all sure she agreed that it was. It was years since she had played with the little plastic blocks. Moreover she could not for the life of her see what Lego could possibly have to do with philosophy.

But she was a dutiful student. Rummaging on the top shelf of her closet, she found a bag full of Lego blocks of all shapes and sizes.

For the first time in ages she began to build with them. As she worked, some ideas began to occur to her about the blocks.

They are easy to assemble, she thought. Even though they are all different, they all fit together. They are also unbreakable. She couldn’t ever remember having seen a broken Lego block. All her blocks looked as bright and new as the day they were bought, many years ago. The best thing about them was that with Lego she could construct any kind of object. And then she could separate the blocks and construct something new.

What more could one ask of a toy? Sophie decided that Lego really could be called the most ingenious toy in the world. But what it had to do with philosophy was beyond her.

Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy (p. 42). Orion. Kindle Edition

.

Aswath Damodaran on Adani

Self-recommending!

I’m outsourcing today’s post to Prof. Damodaran, to everybody’s undisputed advantage 🙂

Culture, Technology, Economics and Subtitles

Signal, Noise and Glenn McGrath

Don’t miss Tony Greig’s explanation at the end.

Accuracy is awesome – accuracy with minor variations is terrifying!

What’s a Tensor, By Dan Fleisch

Not just because it is worth your while understanding what tensors are, but also because this (to me) is a great example of how to teach well on YouTube – a topic that I want to get better at this year:

The Physics of Entropy and the Origin of Life

The Central Limit Theorem with StatQuest

I’ve been explaining what the Central Limit Theorem is (and why it matters) a fair few times these past few weeks, and this video is a good summary. But also, please take a look at the other videos on this channel as well!

Pick Up A Bottle of Rice With a Chopstick

And a bonus, on a related topic:

Barcelona’s Superblocks

And if you’re curious about how it all turned out, considering this video is six years old

Veritasium on FFT’s and Nuclear Testing