Today I Learned #4: Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

[Comrade Ceasefire]

TIL that authorship order in some philosophical papers is not just about who contributed most, or who is the primary contact for the paper, etc. See the footnote.

The paper itself is a very influential one and made the 2nd author, an Australian surfie mathematician
turned philosopher quite famous. It has had a profound impact on AI research in particular.

Why we have co-evolved with technology
...
Their paper predated the rise of the smartphone, and the thesis was so radical at the time that they had trouble finding a publisher, but it has now come to seem almost like common sense. If your phone batteries run out, you feel like a little bit of your mind is missing.

Why we have co-evolved with technology

Our relationship with technology has a far deeper history than it seems, argues the philosopher and author Tom Chatfield in his book Wise Animals.

www.bbc.com

I'd love to read about the discussions of "belief" when physics, astronomy or genetics papers have > 100 authors.

 

[Birdjaguar]

made the 2nd author, an Australian surfie mathematician
turned philosopher quite famous.

I first read that as "an Australian sufie mathematician," personal bias I guess.

The authors seemed to miss the fourth option: give them physical items that they have to actually handle and find out if they can be fit together. It would be interesting to see how that kind of brain activity was the same or different from the other three.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

That 'Andalusia' comes from 'Vandals'

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781056182313971953

 

[EgonSpengler]

That 'Andalusia' comes from 'Vandals'

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781056182313971953

They got around, those Vandals.

 

[Gori the Grey]

The paper itself is a very influential one and made the 2nd author, an Australian surfie mathematician
turned philosopher quite famous.

When he's the one who believed it less!?!

That has to be tongue in cheek. A few months back I noted a footnote that I found hilarious. I'll track it back down.

What Book Are You Reading XV - The Pile Keeps Growing!

And yet we have a St. Ursula.

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

When he's the one who believed it less!?!

That has to be tongue in cheek. A few months back I noted a footnote that I found hilarious. I'll track it back down.

What Book Are You Reading XV - The Pile Keeps Growing!

And yet we have a St. Ursula.

forums.civfanatics.com

My favourite is a mathematics article that cited some of T. E. Kaczynski's papers with a footnote saying:
Best known for other work.

 

[EgonSpengler]

TIL that the number of possible combinations of cards in a regular 52-card deck is 8.06e+67. That means that every time you shuffle a deck, it's unlikely that particular combination of cards has ever occurred before, and it probably won't happen ever again.

 

[EgonSpengler]

TIL that Maya Erskine's father is Peter Erskine, drummer for the 1970s jazz band Weather Report (Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, and others).

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I just ran across this video about the recent eclipse, discussing a short-term comet that was noticed ("sun-grazers" are hard to spot unless an eclipse is happening), animal behavior, and various views from satellites, telescopes, and the International Space Station: