Category: Education

Dark Matter

Not really understanding but knowing it’s important!

I recently read a glowing review of the latest book by Sir Roger Penrose, the eminent mathematical physicist, called The Road To Reality. Having previously read his book The Emperors’ New Mind and just understanding it, I thought

Roger Penrose

his next one would be a welcome companion for long winter evenings.  Wrong!

I managed to the bottom of the third page of the preface before “According to the mathematician’s “equivalence class” notion …..” had me grasping for meaning.  Well over a 1,000 pages of content was destined to gather dust on the bookshelf.

But wrong again!

The idea of matter out there in the universe that is essential to the universe as we know it but is unseen has been sufficiently fascinating for the popular media to refer to it from time to time.  Most people are familiar with the term even if like me don’t really have a clue as to what dark matter is all about.

So a recent press release in a popular English newspaper suggesting that dark matter has been ‘discovered’, if discover is the appropriate term, had me reaching out for Penrose’s book again.  There under the chapter headed Speculative theories of the early universe was, on page 773, a few sentences that almost made sense.  Let me quote them:

For many years, it had become clear that the dynamics of stars within galaxies does not make sense, according to standard theory unless there is a good deal of more material in the neighbourhood of the galaxy than is directly seen in stars.  A similar comment applies to the dynamics of individual galaxies within clusters.  Overall, there seems to be about 10 times more matter than is perceived in ordinary baryonic form.  This is the mysterious dark matter whose actual nature is still not agreed upon by astronomers, and which may even be of some material different from any that is definitely known to particle physicists – though there is much speculation about this at the present time.

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An Overview of the Study of Macroeconomics

A primer from Prof. Jarrell on this important subject

Macroeconomics is the study of aggregate supply and demand, and looks both internally to the workings of the economy and externally to how a domestic economy interacts with others worldwide.

Macro builds on the principles of microeconomics, which is the study of prices and quantities of individual goods and the markets where these goods are produced and sold.

In macro, “price” refers to some index of the prices of domestic goods and services, and “quantity” refers to some measure of the value of domestic production or “output.”  One common measure of output is gross domestic product (“a measure of the productive activity of a country computed on the basis of the ownership of the factors of production”). A country’s standard of living is usually directly correlated with its real output, or the value of total output corrected for inflation.

J M Keynes
John M Keynes

Unlike microeconomics, macroeconomics started with the idea that prices and markets do not continuously resolve all of the coordination requirements of a modern economy.   Such “failures of coordination” (Keynes) seem likely when one views the economy as the collective sum of thousands of microeconomic markets.

For example, although most economies around the world have experienced generally positive trends in their gross domestic product, short run positive and negative deviations (recessions and, in more dramatic examples of the failure of coordination, depressions) around the trend line, or “business cycles,” are common.

Inflation is the rate of change of the average level of prices, where the price level is usually measured as a price index.  Inflation rates are typically quoted in annualized percentages.  In normal times, the inflation rate is procyclical: it rises in periods of high growth and declines in periods of slow growth.  Unemployment, by contrast, is usually countercyclical.  The U. S. inflation rate was as likely to be negative as it was positive before World War II; since then, price levels have risen fairly consistently.

Read more about this important topic

Greg Craven and his message

How to approach the global warming dilemma.

Yesterday, a Post was published a Post about Greg Craven.  It made the point that social media was becoming a very real force in influencing opinions and how that threatened traditional politics.  Here’s an extract:

I was doing some research for an earlier Post about Copenhagen and came across a YouTube video created by Greg.  More details and links later after making a more fundamental point.

This video of Greg’s has had 2,704,000 viewings! The information on that YouTube ‘page’ has had over 7,500,000 viewings. Greg has now written a book and so on, and so on.

Now I want to return to the core subject of how we deal with very complex issues that have the power to decimate humanity, e.g. global warming.

The fact is that the majority of people who think about such issues as global warming don’t have the skills and knowledge to determine what to do for the best.  It comes down to determining risks, which was the theme of an earlier Post acknowledging the work of Peter L Bernstein.

That’s also the theme of Greg Craven’s video on YouTube.  It’s a noble effort by a concerned citizen of Planet Earth.  Watch it.

By Paul Handover

Copenhagen – the unspoken issue

It’s getting crowded down here!

For those readers who are not regular BBC television viewers, the Beeb has for many years run an excellent factual/science & nature series under the name of Horizon.  Just recently there was a programme with the title of How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?

Sir David Attenborough

It was presented by that familiar face on the BBC in terms of the natural world, Sir David Attenborough.  It was an appropriate and worthy person to present the information.

But before getting into some of the details underpinning the programme, there seems to been an enormous and unspoken omission at Copenhagen – why no debate about global population trends?

Luckily the media noticed the rather obvious exclusion.  Here’s the UK Daily Telegraph newspaper (online version) of the 8th December, 2009. An extract:

Population growth is the one issue accused of causing driving climate change that no one at the Copenhagen climate summit dares to talk about.

The argument is that more people consume more resources, therefore producing more greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

The global population is currently at 6 billion and could rise to 11 billion by 2050 if fertility rates continue, not only threatening the climate, but food shortages and conflict as well.

Organisations like the Optimum Population Trust, that is backed by Sir Jonathan Porritt, Dame Jane Goodall and Sir David Attenborough, advocate birth control as a way of slowing climate change.

As Sir David has said: “I’ve never seen a problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more.”

A study by the London School of Economics found contraception is almost five times cheaper as a means of preventing climate change than conventional green solutions such as investing in green technology.

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Greg Craven and the power of social media

There’s a new power on the streets and it may make politicians feel very uncomfortable!

The Rt Hon Gordon Brown

Like me, you probably haven’t heard of Greg Craven.  I hadn’t until about 24 hours before starting to write this Post (that would be Friday afternoon, Mountain Time, on the 11th December).

I was doing some research for an earlier Post about Copenhagen and came across a YouTube video created by Greg.  More details and links later after making a more fundamental point.

This video of Greg’s has had 2,704,000 viewings! The information on that YouTube ‘page’ has had over 7,500,000 viewings. Greg has now written a book and so on, and so on.

In other words, the personal message that Greg is conveying has reached an unbelievable number of people.  That would have been impossible without the power and reach of modern social media software systems: YouTube, Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, at al.

In the past, information has flowed outwards in a much more ‘top down’ way.  Hierarchical, as it is called.   That has suited those that wish, in some way, to control the message.  While individuals would always chatter and gossip with their peers, there was a finite limit to that before “Send reinforcements, we are going to advance” morphed into “Send three and fourpence, we are going to a dance”!

The example of Greg Craven shows only too well how information can now flow.  Out of anyone’s control, spreading virally.

Having made my point, I want to return to the subject matter that Greg is championing – but will include that in a separate Post.

Politicians!  Be very careful what you say.  We are all listening now, in one way or another, and ready to pounce if we don’t trust your words!

By Paul Handover

Natural selection, at work?

I want to be like you!

Recently there was an event at which Bill Gates and Warren Buffett answered questions from students of the Columbia Business School in New York. I referred to the event recently when writing about Warren Buffett.

So why were these students interested in Messrs Gates and Buffett? It is, of course, because they are successful.

While different people define success in many different ways, we can be reasonably sure that, in the context of a business school, most of those business students would categorise Gates and Buffett as being among the most successful people alive.

So what did the students ask about? Well, of course, they asked about success! The questions were of two main types.

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Are you there, but not present?

Communicating effectively means being totally mentally connected.

I have been working with a client recently through a very tough performance improvement plan.

As part of the plan, my client had to be videoed working with people in his workplace. I had to observe the video and then give feedback on it.

He seemed very efficient and made notes whilst he worked with each person. Occasionally though, something didn’t seem to be quite right. When I watched more closely I realised what was wrong. He wasn’t present. He wasn’t really connecting with the people he was working with.

It made me reflect on how much more effective he would have been if he had been able to connect with these people? I wondered if he was even able to understood about being present and what that meant?

By Jon Lavin

Remarkable people: Tim Smit

The Eden Project in Cornwall, England

To lead the project which took an old clay pit in a remote corner of the UK and converted it into a world class environmental visitor attraction is a tremendous achievement.

Homo sapiens? A game show!

Tim Smit had some fun with the business community at the 2009 Annual Convention of the UK Institute of Directors. Everyone, including he, was in their best business attire, but very few people could get away with crumpled shirt and jeans!

However, he has a serious message about the environment (1:55) and he knows a thing or two about people as well!

Monty Python: is there intelligent life on earth?

For fun, and on an Australian tack, Eric Idle is not so sure.

By John Lewis

The Power of Words

Never give up is so much more than just a cliché.

Regular readers will know that fellow LfD author, John Lewis, has been posting regularly on the subject of remarkable people.  I have found them inspiring, to the extent that I’m going to depart from my usual safe area of economics and tell a personal story.  It’s a story of family dynamics, the power of sibling bonds and why hope and trust in the future, especially for young people, is so, so important.  I have called my story the Power of Words.

—–oooOOOooo—–

I can hear it like it was yesterday, resonating in my head, crowding out the doubts and negative thoughts, filling my mind with possibilities:  yes, I CAN do it!

Then ....

I was in my junior year of college and had no idea what I was going to do with my life.  It was becoming quite a burden.

Because I had always been good in school, i.e., the “smart one,” everyone had expected so much of me when I went to school.  I really envied my older sister; she had always been the pretty one, the popular one, the one who got invited to the prom by not one, but three young men.

And, it seemed to me at the time, she was so lucky because no one expected her to go out and conquer the world after high school.   She didn’t go to college; she went to secretarial school and studied to become an airline attendant instead.

I envied her in every way possible!  But at least I had something: I was “the smart one,” or so I thought!  Years later, my sister went back to school to study psychology.  She earned a 4.0 [four straight ‘A’s. Ed] and was invited to continue on to earn her Ph.D.  I’ll be darned if she wasn’t the smart one, too! And she is a wonderful and thoughtful person to boot! But I digress.

Read more of my story

What makes “a good school”?

A very obvious explanation of good schooling from a British perspective.

There is frequent reference in the media to “good schools”, usually concerning how to create one or get one’s children into one. It is clearly assumed by writers that use this phrase that everyone understands what it means. I am not so sure ….

So what exactly IS “a good school” as far as a parent who wants the best for his children is concerned?

Do the teachers make “a good school”?
Well, teachers are clearly an important contributor to the quality of a school, but are they the critical factor? I think not ….

The premises, facilities, equipment and environment?
The answer is for me the same as for the first question.

The relevance, logic, variety and quality of the curriculum?
Once again, we have the same answer ….. and in truth, it is not too difficult to work out a curriculum that corresponds to these criteria.

So, what IS the critical factor then?

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