To Pack Spheres Tightly, Mathematicians Throw Them at Random

Mathematicians like to generalize concepts into higher dimensions. Sometimes this is easy. If you want to efficiently pack squares in two dimensions, you arrange them like a checkerboard. To squeeze together three-dimensional cubes, you stack them like moving boxes. Mathematicians can easily extend these arrangements, packing cubes in higher-dimensional space to perfectly fill it. Packing… Continue reading To Pack Spheres Tightly, Mathematicians Throw Them at Random

What 10 Years of U.S. Meddling in Ukraine Have Wrought (Spoiler Alert: Not Democracy)

 Above, a map of Ukraine in green, with territory occupied or annexed by Russia in light green to the right — i.e., the eastern Donbas and the Crimean peninsula in the southeast. President Biden vows a fight for democracy, but recent history calls that into question. By Aaron Maté, RealClearInvestigationsApril 30, 2024 In successfully lobbying… Continue reading What 10 Years of U.S. Meddling in Ukraine Have Wrought (Spoiler Alert: Not Democracy)

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Cryptography Tricks Make a Hard Problem a Little Easier

What’s the best way to solve hard problems? That’s the question at the heart of a subfield of computer science called computational complexity theory. It’s a hard question to answer, but flip it around and it becomes easier. The worst approach is almost always trial and error, which involves plugging in possible solutions until one… Continue reading Cryptography Tricks Make a Hard Problem a Little Easier

Tornadoes, Floods and Hurricanes Loom, but the Government Is Running Out of Money to Help

Tornadoes, Floods and Hurricanes Loom, but the Government Is Running Out of Money to Help The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster response fund could run out this summer. It dealt with a similar situation last year, which led to a slowdown in rebuilding projects By Thomas Frank & E&E News A destroyed house is seen… Continue reading Tornadoes, Floods and Hurricanes Loom, but the Government Is Running Out of Money to Help

Biden’s Abortion Obsession Reveals Lopsided Priorities

As his list of catastrophic failures mount, including an unprecedented border crisis, growing economic disparities, soaring housing costs, debt and inflation, President Biden has chosen as his singular focus the promise to leverage the full force of the government to shove his extreme abortion goals down Americans’ throats. Actions taken in the last week provide just… Continue reading Biden’s Abortion Obsession Reveals Lopsided Priorities

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Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare

The upshot, Andrews said, is that “we might not need nearly as much equipment as we thought we did” to achieve consciousness. She noted, for example, that even a cerebral cortex — the outer layer of the mammalian brain, which is believed to play a role in attention, perception, memory and other key aspects of… Continue reading Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare

Continuing a Tradition of Civics Excellence

With new institutes emerging at colleges and universities in Florida, Ohio, Utah, Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas, and elsewhere, civics education may be seeing a rebirth. “We need these civics centers at every institution of higher education in America,” says political theory professor Richard Avramenko. Avramenko, a Jack Miller Center faculty fellow, will be taking over… Continue reading Continuing a Tradition of Civics Excellence

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Mathematicians Marvel at ‘Crazy’ Cuts Through Four Dimensions

Back in the 1990s, Mrowka and Kronheimer investigated what happens when you excise a two-dimensional surface from a four-dimensional manifold. If the manifold itself is simply connected, what conditions must surfaces meet to guarantee that their complements must also be simply connected? Kronheimer and Mrowka knew that some kinds of surfaces could have complements that… Continue reading Mathematicians Marvel at ‘Crazy’ Cuts Through Four Dimensions

Adam, Eve, and Early Humans (& More Weird Questions)

Podcast: Download MYS309: It’s a fifth Friday, so Cy Kellett of Catholic Answers Live is asking Jimmy Akin weird questions from listeners, about topics like how Adam and Eve relate to other early human ancestors; could dark matter and energy be angelic or demonic; can you pray for souls in hell; and more weird questions.… Continue reading Adam, Eve, and Early Humans (& More Weird Questions)

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