Free Republic

On Plato, the Early Church, and Modern Science: An Eclectic Meditation By Jean F. Drew God, purposing to make the universe most nearly like the every way perfect and fairest of intelligible beings, created one visible living being, containing within itself all living beings of the same natural order. Thus does Plato (d. 347 B.C.) succinctly describe how all that exists is ultimately a single, living organism. At Timaeus20, he goes on to say: “There exists: first, the unchanging form, uncreated and indestructible, admitting no modification and entering no combination … second, that which bears the same name as the...

Gravitational anomalies An invisible hand?An unexplained effect during solar eclipses casts doubt on General Relativity “ASSUME nothing” is a good motto in science. Even the humble pendulum may spring a surprise on you. In 1954 Maurice Allais, a French economist who would go on to win, in 1988, the Nobel prize in his subject, decided to observe and record the movements of a pendulum over a period of 30 days. Coincidentally, one of his observations took place during a solar eclipse. When the moon passed in front of the sun, the pendulum unexpectedly started moving a bit faster than...

Newton vs. The Clockwork Universe By Jean F. Drew As Wolfhart Pannenberg observes in his Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and Faith (1993), the present-day intellectual mind-set assumes that there is no relation or connection between the God of the Christian faith and the understanding of the world in the natural sciences. Ironically this separation of God from the world is commonly credited to Sir Isaac Newton, the father of classical mechanics, whose ground-breaking work on the laws of motion and thermodynamics seemed to posit a purely mechanistic, deterministic, “clockwork universe” that was not dependent on God...

Where Have You Gone, Isaac Newton? By David Harriman          More and more today, we are inundated with foolishness masquerading as science. Psychic hotlines proliferate, politicians consult astrologers, and people reject their doctor's advice in favor of "alternative healing" dispensed by quacks. In the past, defenders of real science could be relied upon to expose and debunk such nonsense. So where are these defenders today?         Unfortunately, they are too busy dreaming up foolishness of their own.         This is not, of course, the first time in history that people have believed their fates could be read in the stars and their diseases...

Sir Isaac Newton, Britain's greatest scientist, predicted the date of the end of the world - and it is only 57 years away. His theories about Armageddon have been unearthed by academics from little-known handwritten manuscripts in a library in Jerusalem. The thousands of pages show Newton's attempts to decode the Bible, which he believed contained God's secret laws for the universe. Newton, who was also a theologian and alchemist, predicted that the Second Coming of Christ would follow plagues and war and would precede a 1,000-year reign by the saints on earth - of which he would be one....

If Newton saw today's astronomical evidence, would he come up with a different law of gravity? A growing number of people think so, says Marcus Chown There's something wrong with our understanding of spiral galaxies such as our own Milky Way. The stars in their outer parts are being whirled around far too fast. Like children on a speeded-up roundabout, they should be flung into intergalactic space. To explain why this does not happen, astronomers have been forced to propose that the visible stars and nebulae are supplemented by at least 10 times more invisible stuff. The gravity of this...

A New Jersey law that removes a requirement for teachers to pass a reading, writing and mathematics test for certification will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2025. The law, Act 1669, was passed by Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy as part of the state’s 2025 budget in June in an effort to address a shortage of teachers in the state... Individuals seeking an instructional certificate will no longer need to pass a “basic skills” test ... Just months earlier, Murphy signed a similar bill into law that created an alternative pathway for teachers to sidestep the testing requirement....

I am getting a lot of people who say the answer is 9, but you can get 9 from 6/2(1+2) if you separate the 2 from the 2(1+2), which seems incorrect to me. I view the 2(1+2) as a complete phrase within the mathematical question, so I think it needs to be solved before you move left to right. 6/2(1+2) = 6/2(3) = 6/6 = 1 But there are a lot of people who want to write the question as 6/2 x (1+2), which is the only way you will get 9.

It’s an idea straight out of the schoolyard: that you might one day accidentally count so high that you break the laws of math. A new preprint (that has not yet been peer-reviewed) seems to have done just that, however – and it could have huge ramifications for how we ought to understand infinity. It’s fitting that such a baffling result would have come from set theory: it’s an area with a reputation for being abstract and often counter-intuitive; it has its own esoteric alphabet and language; and it’s famous for results that seem either too basic to have even...

Fox News host Sean Hannity said Monday on “Fox & Friends” that Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has a “math problem” going into Election Day. Co-host Brian Kilmeade asked, “What is your take of the state of the race right now? Everyone’s got their opinion. I want yours.” Hannity said, “Look, let’s start out with where we are with early voting. Going into tomorrow, we’ve got to keep this in mind, everyone at home, please keep this in mind, we have 80 to 90 million more Americans that will vote tomorrow. That’s a lot of votes that have...

Malcolm Gladwell in his book "The Outliers" states that the reason Asian kids consistently outperform western kids in international math tests is because of the cultural attitude these kids have towards solving a math problem, or any task that requires patience and effort for a long period of time. In China and other Asian cultures, there is a logical pattern to learning math based on a confidence and expectation that if we apply enough effort the problem is solvable while in the West, kids believe their ability is innate and can't be changed or influenced. Malcolm's theory is that the...

The Asahi Shimbun reports that scientists from Japan's Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties have identified the function of a six-inch strip of wood unearthed in 2001 at a government workers' office in the ancient capital of Fujiwara-kyo. Infrared imaging of the object revealed that the fragment is part of a 1,300-year-old multiplication table written in kanji. The entire multiplication table with all of the equations written out was likely about 13 inches long, explained team member Kuniya Kuwata. In this section, which was likely from the upper-right corner of the document, the equations were written in five rows...

Researchers have created a revolutionary network flow algorithm that enables ultra-fast computations for dynamic networks, transforming how problems in theoretical computer science are approached and solved.In a breakthrough that brings to mind Lucky Luke – the man who shoots faster than his shadow – Rasmus Kyng and his team have developed a superfast algorithm that looks set to transform an entire field of research. The groundbreaking work by Kyng’s team involves what is known as a network flow algorithm, which tackles the question of how to achieve the maximum flow in a network while simultaneously minimising transport costs.Imagine you are...

Teaching was my second career. I enjoyed teaching high school and college English, but there were frustrations. Among them were college teachers and administrators complaining about how unprepared incoming freshmen were. I know what you’re thinking: plenty of high school teachers are awful. It’s their fault when kids entering college can’t read or write or do math. Without question, there are some poor teachers out there. After all, 50% of people in every endeavor are below average. However, there are two arguably more important factors to consider. The first is the effort of each student. The greatest teacher in the...

Chandler public schools are asking parents to sign off on teaching their kids things like "integers" and "geometric figures."Is it OK if your child is taught the probability of a coin flip landing on heads? What about who crossed the Delaware River during the American Revolution? Or how to order breakfast in Spanish? Before it shares such controversial knowledge, the Chandler Unified School District wants to make sure. That’s according to forms sent to parents of Chandler public school students, which were shared on social media Wednesday by Save Our Schools Executive Director Beth Lewis. Parents are asked to sign...

The Stanford Education professor who inspired the elimination of 8th grade Algebra I in San Francisco public schools (now repealed) and who was the impetus for the equity-based California Mathematics Framework (CMF) has been accused of numerous instances of “reckless disregard for accuracy” in her research supporting these initiatives. As reported by Susannah Luthi at the Free Beacon:The anonymous complaint [filed with Stanford’s provost and the dean of research], backed by a California-based group of math-and-science focused professionals, alleges that Professor Jo Boaler—the most prominent influence on California’s K-12 math framework that nudges schools away from accelerated math pathways—has in...

I don’t have a mathematics background, but have done well in math generally, understand some of the concepts. I’ve been interested in this problem since seeing a YouTube video from the science channel Veritasium on the subject. After going over it for a time, I noticed some patterns in the numbers that are most divisible by 2. Here’s a summary of what I found, and I wonder how it fits into the picture. 1. Starting from 0: 3(0)+1=1. 2. Next, starting from 1: 3(1)+1=4. That’s the initial “4>2>1.” 3. Then, substitute 2: 3(2)+1=7. And 3: 3(3)+1=10. And 4: 3(4)+1=13. 4....

"This is the third coin of this type found in excavations in Jerusalem, and one of the few ever found in archeological excavations," said the researchers.During the Great Revolt against Rome, the Jews in Jerusalem minted bronze and silver coins. Most of the silver coins featured a goblet on one side, with ancient Hebrew script above it noting the year of the Revolt. Depending on its denomination, the coins also included an inscription around the border noting either, "Israel Shekel," "Half-Shekel," or "Quarter-Shekel." The other side of these coins showcased a branch with three pomegranates, surrounded by an inscription in...

Do odd perfect numbers exist?...A massive thank you to Prof. Pace Nielsen for all his time and help with this video.A big thank you to Dr. Asaf Karagila, Pascal Ochem, Prof. Tianxin Cai, and Prof. William Dunham for their expertise and help. The Oldest Unsolved Problem in Math | 31:32Veritasium | 15.2M subscribers | 6,120,035 views | March 7, 2024

The United States must focus on helping American children to develop an understanding, appreciation, and love for math.. The most recent results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) highlight a concerning trend for U.S. students in the field of math. In comparison to their counterparts in other industrialized nations, American students are falling behind. The rather sobering results revealed a 13-point decline for U.S. students when compared to the 2018 exam. In stark contrast, 28 countries and economies managed to either maintain or improve their 2018 math scores, with countries such as Switzerland and Japan leading the way—and...