The Daily Nerd (January 14th, 2014)
Table of Contents
The Daily Nerd (January 14th, 2014) #
Why Einstein Will Never Be Wrong
One of the benefits of being an astrophysicist is your weekly email from someone who claims to have “proven Einstein wrong”. These either contain no mathematical equations and use phrases such as “it is obvious that..”, or they are page after page of complex equations with dozens of scientific terms used in non-traditional ways. They all get deleted pretty quickly, not because astrophysicists are too indoctrinated in established theories, but because none of them acknowledge how theories get replaced.
LEDs: Light Pollution Solution or Night Sky Nemesis?
You may have noticed a change underway in your city lighting. High pressure sodium lights, with their familiar orange glow, are quickly being replaced by new, energy efficient blue-white LED (light emitting diode) lighting. Is this the beginning of a new assault on the night or an opportunity to use light more wisely? Many of us first became aware of LEDs in amplifiers, computers and the flashlights we use for seeing our star charts at night. More recently, LEDs became a big hit with Christmas lighting. And why not? Although they cost considerably more, the bulbs last much longer, use a fraction of the energy compared to incandescent and sodium lighting and don’t contain materials like mercury — common in fluorescent lighting — that can harm the environment. A typical incandescent bulb lasts about 750 hours while an LED bulb can glow for up to 50,000 hours. What’s not to like?
n 2001, Edsger W. Dijkstra wrote a letter to the Budget Council of The University of Texas. A PDF is available here, I’ve typed it up so that everyone can read it. Sadly, the curriculum was changed to Java. Relatedly, the algorithmic language Scheme was replaced by Python in MIT’s The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs version 6.01.
A very practical reason for preferring functional programming in a freshman course is that most students already have a certain familiarity with imperative programming. Facing them with the novelty of functional programming immediately drives home the message that there is more to programming than they thought. And quickly they will observe that functional programming elegantly admits solutions that are very hard (or impossible) to formulate with the programming vehicle of their high school days.