The Power and Beauty of the Insightful Statistical Prediction

Hans Rosling [1] have for some years now inspired me and many others in his enchanting way of presenting statistics and future prediction. This talk, describing the rise of Asia as the dominant force in the world is his best ever:

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_asia_s_rise_how_and_when.html

Look at his humble intro and natural approach throughout.
Look at the elegant way of using dynamics in the graph to prove the prediction.
Look at how well he matches and lifts his audience and their final reaction to his presentation.

Great people project great ideas.




[1] http://www.gapminder.org/

Ten Greatest Thinkers of All Time

One of the great 20th century historians Will Durant, made in some of his assays rankings of what from his perspective were The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time. The essays are summed up in the book with the same name.



The book is a fun read, and is recommended as a reference for further study. Here I list his "Ten Greatest Thinkers of all Time". I think he is pretty close to a perfect list, but some of them might be more controversial than others - depending on your favorites:

1. Confucius
2. Plato
3. Aristotle
4. St. Thomas Aquinas
5. Copernicus
6. Sir Francis Bacon
7. Sir Isaac Newton
8. Voltaire
9. Immanuel Kant
10. Charles Darwin

The whole essay can be read under chapters published in a blog with entries for each person on the list here and here.

I'll come back with his list of The Greatest Ideas of all time.

The Wonder and Paradoxes of Penrose's World Projections

I am a big fan of Roger Penrose, and his work is absolutely brilliant reads, if you have the time and energy to truly concentrate on his writings (for my favorites see [1] and [2]).

One model that is introduced in his work is the "the three worlds" and its relations, mysteries and paradox. The idea is depicted below (taken directly from [1] ) and describes how the physical world of existance is governed by the laws of the platonic/mathematical world, while the mental world is a part of our mental world, while our mental world is a small part of physical existance!



If you - as I do - see the model as relevant notice the following 3 mysteries and one paradox:

1. Why is it that only a small part of the world of mathematics have relevance to the workings of the physical world?
2. Why does the mental world come about in association with only certain physical structures - healthy, wakeful human brains.
   
3. Why does only a small fraction of our mental minds concerns itself with mathematical/platonic truth?
4. Finally the paradox - how come the three worlds appear to encompass the next one in its entirety?
   

In Penrose's own words : "Maybe the three worlds are not separate at all, but merely reflect, individually, aspects of a deeper truth about the world as a whole which we have little conception of at the present time.

Whatever your standpoint, the model is so powerful and creates a reflection and controversy it deserves to be called a great idea.


[1] The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics (Popular Science)


[2] The Road to Reality : A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe