Archive for the ‘Ideas’ Category
What I Learned from the Crash
Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 8,519. Had you invested $100 in the market 10 years ago, you would now have $101.22, exclusive of dividends. Of course it would be presumptuous–and a bit naive–to say that investing in equities as a method of wealth accumulation is a poor choice. Look at Warren Buffett, you might say, and his ‘snowball’. This line of reasoning has merit: indeed, Buffett started with hundreds of dollars, not the millions that Rockefeller Jr. used to magnify his family’s wealth. But at that point, a distinction should be made. First, it is not possible to make a fortune in equities through investment unless you are entirely devoted to the task (speculators are not included in this statement; they gamble, and their success follows the associated probability curve). Market inefficiencies exist, but those of us who do not devote our days to studying it are highly unlikely to perceive and to exploit those opportunities.
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Resonating with Computers
Donald Knuth spoke to a group of first-year doctoral students last Wednesday. He was the second lecturer in a two-hour seminar designed to expose the students to different areas of ongoing research. The first lecturer interpreted ‘exposure’ to mean trauma with a blunt instrument. The young proselytes tried to follow his 120-slide presentation–with its equations, monographs, and animated images–but within the half-hour, they had conceded defeat. By the time I arrived, many had lost themselves in other diversions.
Presently, the clock, indifferent to the scientific advances being described, compelled the first lecturer to yield the microphone. The angular, bespecaled man who rose from the second row declined this device, however. He carried with him neither computer nor pen. He did not introduce himself. “I can’t do PowerPoint, and I haven’t prepared a talk, so…Look, you people need to come closer so that we can see each other,” he said. The students for once did not consider this a pedantic request, and eagerly arranged themselves in the first few rows. Leaning against a railing, the renowned computer scientist said, “So, what do you want to know?”
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An Inquiry into Inquiry-Based Learning
The Exploratorium in San Francisco’s Presidio district attempts to teach through the presentation of dilemmas. One exhibit, for instance, is constructed from alternating copper coils, one of which is warm and the other chilled. The coils wind around a cylinder, with the warm coil starting on the right and the cool one on the left. A hand placed at each end senses only one of the temperatures, while holding the cylinder’s center combines the two sensations. The result is unexpected. The brain signals a burning pain, and the observer invariably recoils from the exhibit, only to discover his hands unharmed. The exhibit thus asks: you sense searing pain, but without cause. Why?
