Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Einstein made thought experiments famous. But he wasn’t the man who invented the concept. So what is a thought experiment? Based on certain assumption(s), you go over the logical consequences it would lead to. As Shane Parrish wrote : “The purpose is to encourage speculation, logical thinking and to change paradigms. Thought experiments push us outside our comfort zone by forcing us to confront questions we cannot answer with ease.” So who came up with the first recorded instance of a thought experiment? Not surprisingly, it was the Greek Zeno back in 430 BC. He used it to “prove” that motion is an illusion. Huh? His logic was this: assume the tortoise is 100 m ahead of the hare. When the hare covers the 100 m gap, the tortoise would have moved a bit ahead. When the tortoise covers that second gap, the tortoise would have moved a little bit ahead. And so on it goes. How then could the hare ever catch up with the tortoise, asked Zeno. What was the flaw in his reasoning? Galil

Edward Snowden, the guy who let everyone know about the snooping that the US government was doing, had at one stage tried to negotiate a return to the US. It doesn’t look like the US responded (obviously). But the possible why’s behind that non-negotiation make for interesting reading. Take Scott Adams’ take on how messy this whole situation must be for the US government. First off, if and when Snowden is brought back to the US, he would stand trial. A jury trial, to be specific. And therein, argues Adams , lies the problem: “I'm wondering how you find a jury that would convict Snowden. On the first day of the trial his lawyer will explain to all twelve jurors how the government spied on them personally. Every potential juror is also a victim. Good luck getting the victims to side with the perpetrator, which in this case is the government.” Further, Adams feels that the jurors may feel the law is an ass: “Jury nullification is when jurors agree that the accused broke th