Ken Karakotsios

To get a handle on probability’s slipperiness, consider how the concept is used in modern weather forecasts. Meteorologists make predictions of temperature, wind speed and quantity of rain, and often also the probability of rain — say 70% for a given time and place. The first three can be compared with their ‘true’ values; you can go out and measur... See more

Ask for things that feel unreasonable, to make sure your intuitions about what’s reasonable are accurate (try not to be a jerk in the process). If you’re only asking for things you get, you’re not aiming high enoug

Over the years, as I’ve aged and made smarter friends, I’ve gradually grown dumber relative to my pee

too strong a sense of continuity with one’s past self might hamper efforts in the present to abandon “sunk costs” — investments already made in a doomed plan or projec

In terms of the other constants known at the time, α = e²/(4πε_0)ħc, where:

e is the electron’s charge,

ε_0 is the electromagnetic constant for the permittivity of free space,

ħ is Planck’s constant,

and c is the speed of light.

Unlike these other constants, which have units associated with them, α is a truly dimensionless constant

why is our Universe the precise way it is, rather than any other way we could’ve imagined? There are only three things that make it so:

the laws of nature themselves,

the fundamental constants governing reality,

and the initial conditions that our Universe was born with.