Democrats and Republicans
A friend just referenced a recent New York Times op-ed entitled, Herbert Hoover Lives. I agree with very little of the content of the op-ed, but thought it was worth reading if only because reading it made clear to me why I have so little patience for either of our two major American political parties: [...]
Morality, Ethics and Optimization Problems
We’ve just begun taking a course in ethics here in the Princeton psychology department. I find it hard not to play the devil’s advocate during class by poking fun at the haphazard and half-consistent theories behind much of moral philosophy. My attitude seems always to echo one of my favorite of Nietzsche’s aphorisms: Are we [...]
Algebra and Education
Recently a friend asked me to help her learn enough math to take the GRE’s. My response was to give her the first problem that I thought she should be able to solve before we discussed anything else. It was a very simple problem from the perspective of a mathematician, but one that is not [...]