Humans are animals (in the sense that they are members of the biological kingdom “Animalia”), but in English, they can be animals in a different sense: “John’s a chicken, he won’t dare say something against me” is quite clear to a native speaker. In Hebrew, by the way, saying that someone is “a chicken” makes … More If you can be an animal, why can’t you be math?
I recently stumbled across a nice word game called “Doublets”, invented by Lewis Carroll. It goes like this. Player 1 writes two words with the same number of letters, say “cone” and “hoof”. Player 2 must then find a chain of words, each of them differing by one letter, which starts at the first word … More Doublets: From amok to updo in 14 easy steps
Observation: in English, there are several countries whose name and language are similar. Unfortunately, there is no clear way to construct the appropriate suffix from the stem. For example: In Hungary they speak Hungarian. In Germany they speak German. In Turkey they speak Turkish. In China they speak Chinese. In Corsica they (spoke) speak Corsican. … More In X they speak f(X)
The coolest thing about the following text is that you can read it. Indeed, it has been known for quite a while that people hardly read individual letters. Familiar words are instantly recognized, and idioms, common phrases, and logical extensions from context all make reading much faster than if we had read words letter by … More Top English is more readable than Bottom English
Maybe it’s because I recently read Contact and 2001: A Space Odyssey; perhaps it’s the glorious recent exoplanet reports from analysis of Kepler data; or it could just be random fluctuations; but lately I’ve been thinking about how lovely it would be to finally establish first contact with an alien civilization. As fun as intergalactic … More Whatshisname’s Theorem
Fæder úre, ðú ðe eart on heofonum, Sí ðín nama gehálgod. Tó becume ðín rice. Gewurde ðín willa On eorþan swá swá on heofonum. Urne dægwhamlícan hlaf syle ús tódæg. And forgyf ús úre gyltas, Swá swá wé forgyfaþ úrum gyltendum. And ne gelæd ðu ús on costnunge, Ac álýs ús of yfele. Sóþlice. There … More A Reason For Preserving Current Language
As some of you might know, I wanted to take biology during high school, but instead chose physics, for various reasons. However, this does not mean that my interest in biology lessened, and I still find the topic quite fascinating, especially when related to microbiology or physics. During the weekend, I have written two short … More Of Mark and of Biology
Sarcastic Resonance 