January 2010
6 posts
Mirror Neurons: I Feel What You Feel
A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires (activates) both when an animal/human acts and when the animal/human observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron “mirrors” the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting.
V.S. Ramachandran believes they might be very important in imitation and language acquisition.
The most astonishing discovery is that...
1 always comes first: Benford's Law
Imagine spending an entire day cataloguing every available number which has some sort of real world representation (meaning that they can’t just be random, made-up numbers – they actually have to have some sort of meaning). This means street addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, heights of various trees, lengths of rivers, numbers of gumballs in a jar, populations of various towns and...
Three Degrees of Influence
Almost everybody has hared about the concept of “Six Degrees of Separation”. Today I want to talk about an even more interesting but related concept: “The Three Degrees of Influence”.
To recapitulate, people are all connected by an average of “Six Degrees of Separation” (your friend is one degree from you, your friend’s friend is two degrees, and so on)....
La Ola "The Wave"
La Ola “The Wave” first gained worldwide notice during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. In this phenomenon, sequential groups of spectators leap to their feet and raise their arms, then quickly drop back to a seated position. Interestingly, the massive wave usually rolls in a clockwise direction and consistently moves at a speed of twenty (20) “seats per second”.
Why Chinese are better in Math?
Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4,8,5,3,9,7,6. read them out loud. Now look away and spend twenty seconds memorizing that sequence before saying them out loud again. If you speak English, you have a 50% of chance of remembering that sequence perfectly (if you speak Spanish you have even less chance, I’ll explain later). If you’re Chinese, though, you’re almost...
The 10,000 Hour Rule
I’ll start my blog with this great idea. It’s been said many times but it is definitely worth sharing.
The ONLY way you could become a world expert at something, is by practicing 10,000 hours. From piano experts to professional sport players and Nobel Prize writers. There is innate talent; however all have practiced at least 10,000 hours to achieve their level of expertize.
I quote...