Everyone should be required to sign up for a year of being followed around by an inquisitive child who will pockmark the landscape of their knowledge with exploratory boreholes.
I have multiple environment and science degrees and feel generally knowledgeable and my oldest will put on his best Feynman face and be entirely unsatisfied when I offer and explain “Rayleigh scattering.”
I love it. I love it so much. I love how curious he is. I love how there is so much to not know. I would hate to know it all because I love exploring it with him.
On a somewhat related point, a lifestyle blogger & parent had coined the "fourth question" theory of sorts a few years ago - that, the fourth follow-up question a young child asks generally requires the parent to attempt to explain the meaning of existence, universe, and the like. I have also found this to be true.
100 percent can relate on the relentless curiosity of a child. I was dumbfounded yesterday by this question -> if cars go at high speed, and breaks stop it suddenly, how come the friction doesn't generate enough heat to start a spark?
They generate enough energy to, I mean have you seen racing brake discs?
It's just that the energy is spread out over a larger area (brake discs/pads as opposed to a tiny spark) that is also constantly being cooled by air movement, so the energy in any one point is not enough to ignite any of the materials involved. It's why they used to put asbestos in the brake pads, but they now use ceramics and other heat-resistant materials.
I'd approach it by looking at the definition of a "spark", and the things we can change to avoid tripping that definition.
For a visual spark, it has to be something thrown off which is the right size, material, and a temperature to glow visibly to the human eye under normal light.
For a spark that starts a fire, it has to be something thrown off which has a certain temperature by the time it lands or travels to some other surface.
In both cases, hot very fine particles will cool quickly just by hitting the ambient air. If the underlying surface (e.g. brake disk) gets glowy-hot, we wouldn't call that a spark--it's too big, and fixed.
In my experience sparks are generally generated when quite small metal surfaces get in contact at high speeds, meaning they can generate a lot of friction in a very small point, and thus not have enough braking effect despite the local friction in one small point (think rail wheels squeeking in curves).
Brakes OTOH are designed to spread out the friction on a somewhat larger area, which allows more material to take up the friction and the heat, and spread it around.
I know brakes can get extremely hot too though, and after a really hard braking you might have to worry about deformed brakes sometimes.
Race cars tend to have really large breaks (and brake pads) for this reason.
Car brakes can get hot enough to start a fire (wood, paper, maybe even gasoline - see race cars) but a spark is a hot piece of material that is large enough so it can keep its heat for a while.
Brakes generate very fine dust that cools off almost immediately.
The concentration of energy is vital. Sort of like how if you fire a gun it will only push the person back a few centimeters but that energy condensed into a very small spot and fly through a car.
I would answer that heat is a form of energy. A horse pulling a carriage a 1000 yards requires more energy than pulling 30 yards.
When a car slams on the brakes the distance is too short to generate enough heat to deform. I would also suspect the treads would partially melt and deform before it catches on fire.
Here's an example making the rounds, originally from 2022: there is systemic bias in Americans' understanding of US national statistics about all kinds of subgroups:
I suspect mainly because you don't and can't understand the world; you understand whatever simplified model of the world is inside your head and by default it's real unobvious just how simplified exactly.
There needs to be more "prediction depth", vs. explanatory depth. If you can explain something but can't predict what's going to happen, you don't have an understanding of it sufficient for engineering.
This is why economics is not much of a science. Not enough predictive power.
You have to be careful with the "Explanation(Understanding) vs. Prediction" dichotomy. They are related but Explanations should always have precedence since they are fundamental to creating a Theory in the first place that then can make Predictions.
David Deutsch actually argues for Understanding/Explanations over Predictions.
Here he points out that "good explanations" should be "hard-to-vary". What does he mean by this?
It means that "a good explanation" cannot be arbitrarily modified without unraveling its internal coherent structure or contradicting the very facts that it seeks to explain. The evidence and the internal logic that holds up the explanation are tightly coupled together as one organic whole thing.
I'm only here to first say I'm not like everyone else I do know things and can explain how things work. And computers work by making rocks think by putting magic smoke in them.
I feel like its human psychology that as we get exposed to the world and we learn it, we feel like we form an understanding of the world around us at a sufficient level to survive in our current circumstances. Then we have all sorts of stimuli and feedback that tell us whether our understanding is correct or not overtime. Sometimes we challenge that understanding and realise that we were wrong. Life is an iterative process of that.
Then as we move into building a career, we essentially need to understand a topic or field to a degree that we're useful enough to sell it or provide it as a service compared to others.
Do I understand some things more than others? Perhaps. Do I need to understand everything about a particular thing to be knowledge on it, perhaps not.
> Unfortunately, when information is not directly in front of us, our memories and conceptions of it are shaky at best―but our egos are still intact.
I have often found this when as part of my job I have been exposed to a particular area of my field. But years later when presented with questions about it, whilst I can't extract all of the information I have learnt, but if my memory is jogged the information comes back. For example, lets say you learnt a particular skill 5 years ago, but now you struggle to perform it. Egotistically you know you've been able to do it, but your lack of training in recent years prevents you from doing it.
> Why do we think we understand the world more than we actually do?
To repurpose a quote originally about believing in good-versus-evil:
> Lord Vetinari gave [Vimes] a friendly smile.
> “Of course, of course,” he said. “You have to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you’d go quite mad. Otherwise you’d think you’re standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of Hell. Otherwise existence would be a dark agony and the only hope would be that there is no life after death. I quite understand.” He looked at his desk, and sighed.
"As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."
An excellent quote from Donald Rumsfeld, despite being an absolute cunt.
A toilet's operation wouldn't be too hard to explain to an alien who has enough science for interstellar travel. A siphon mechanism works the same way for them as for us (although they'd likely wonder at how primitive we are to be using such a wasteful mechanism).
Generally, it is people with a lower ability to understand the world that overestimate their own intelligence because they are unable to imagine anyone being smarter than them, and those on the smarter end who underestimate their own intelligence because they believe everyone else must be able to see what they are able to see.
There was a paper, quite famous now, on the topic titled "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments"
I feel like hearing this is dangerous in itself - even if you overestimate yourself, surely you yourself don't overestimate yourself as much as others?
Personally, I ran against a closed glass door yesterday. All I hope for is that I was entertaining to onlookers at least.
> On the whole, people far too often hold strong opinions about topics for which they have limited information. This can cause social and political movements to have plenty of people behind them with limited ideas of what they are even fighting for.
What I commonly see is people take a mental model that worked in the past and apply it in another context assuming it will work again. Irregardless of different constraints, people, or technologies. Agile cult members are the worst offenders. Second on my list are the HR pop psychology fads like Myers Briggs and Fish!
Everyone should be required to sign up for a year of being followed around by an inquisitive child who will pockmark the landscape of their knowledge with exploratory boreholes.
I have multiple environment and science degrees and feel generally knowledgeable and my oldest will put on his best Feynman face and be entirely unsatisfied when I offer and explain “Rayleigh scattering.”
I love it. I love it so much. I love how curious he is. I love how there is so much to not know. I would hate to know it all because I love exploring it with him.
On a somewhat related point, a lifestyle blogger & parent had coined the "fourth question" theory of sorts a few years ago - that, the fourth follow-up question a young child asks generally requires the parent to attempt to explain the meaning of existence, universe, and the like. I have also found this to be true.
100 percent can relate on the relentless curiosity of a child. I was dumbfounded yesterday by this question -> if cars go at high speed, and breaks stop it suddenly, how come the friction doesn't generate enough heat to start a spark?
They generate enough energy to, I mean have you seen racing brake discs?
It's just that the energy is spread out over a larger area (brake discs/pads as opposed to a tiny spark) that is also constantly being cooled by air movement, so the energy in any one point is not enough to ignite any of the materials involved. It's why they used to put asbestos in the brake pads, but they now use ceramics and other heat-resistant materials.
Also, engineering.
I'd approach it by looking at the definition of a "spark", and the things we can change to avoid tripping that definition.
For a visual spark, it has to be something thrown off which is the right size, material, and a temperature to glow visibly to the human eye under normal light.
For a spark that starts a fire, it has to be something thrown off which has a certain temperature by the time it lands or travels to some other surface.
In both cases, hot very fine particles will cool quickly just by hitting the ambient air. If the underlying surface (e.g. brake disk) gets glowy-hot, we wouldn't call that a spark--it's too big, and fixed.
They actually might spark if the materials of the brakes weren't purposefully chosen to avoid a mini firework show when you suddenly brake.
Oof, the guy who went into the definition of sparks actually makes me realize this question branches off into so many different rabbitholes.
I think it is simply designed that way.
In my experience sparks are generally generated when quite small metal surfaces get in contact at high speeds, meaning they can generate a lot of friction in a very small point, and thus not have enough braking effect despite the local friction in one small point (think rail wheels squeeking in curves).
Brakes OTOH are designed to spread out the friction on a somewhat larger area, which allows more material to take up the friction and the heat, and spread it around.
I know brakes can get extremely hot too though, and after a really hard braking you might have to worry about deformed brakes sometimes.
Race cars tend to have really large breaks (and brake pads) for this reason.
Car brakes can get hot enough to start a fire (wood, paper, maybe even gasoline - see race cars) but a spark is a hot piece of material that is large enough so it can keep its heat for a while.
Brakes generate very fine dust that cools off almost immediately.
The concentration of energy is vital. Sort of like how if you fire a gun it will only push the person back a few centimeters but that energy condensed into a very small spot and fly through a car.
I would answer that heat is a form of energy. A horse pulling a carriage a 1000 yards requires more energy than pulling 30 yards.
When a car slams on the brakes the distance is too short to generate enough heat to deform. I would also suspect the treads would partially melt and deform before it catches on fire.
It's ironic that AI today may give curious kids answers quicker if not better than asking humans or searching the web did.
May being the operative word, for now anyway for certain.
Brake pads?
Here's an example making the rounds, originally from 2022: there is systemic bias in Americans' understanding of US national statistics about all kinds of subgroups:
https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/41556-americans-misestimat...
(Although, apparently the poll didn't ask how uncertain they were. The question was, "If you had to guess, what percentage of American adults...")
I suspect mainly because you don't and can't understand the world; you understand whatever simplified model of the world is inside your head and by default it's real unobvious just how simplified exactly.
Pretty much. We just make the assumption that we can hold a model of the world in out head.
But like that old axiom about models goes 'All models are wrong, but some are useful.'
The taoists would argue that you shouldn't try to define everything because it will not help out after a certain point.
"Science is prediction, not explanation" - Hoyle.
There needs to be more "prediction depth", vs. explanatory depth. If you can explain something but can't predict what's going to happen, you don't have an understanding of it sufficient for engineering.
This is why economics is not much of a science. Not enough predictive power.
You have to be careful with the "Explanation(Understanding) vs. Prediction" dichotomy. They are related but Explanations should always have precedence since they are fundamental to creating a Theory in the first place that then can make Predictions.
David Deutsch actually argues for Understanding/Explanations over Predictions.
Here is a nice Reddit thread on this; David Deutsch argues that explanation, not prediction, is the primary goal of science. How widely accepted is this view? - https://old.reddit.com/r/PhilosophyofScience/comments/1trw2n...
David Deutsch: A New Way To Explain Explanation - (TED talk) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=folTvNDL08A and (Transcript of the previous) https://medium.com/dorothyknows/david-deutsch-a-new-way-to-e...
Here he points out that "good explanations" should be "hard-to-vary". What does he mean by this?
It means that "a good explanation" cannot be arbitrarily modified without unraveling its internal coherent structure or contradicting the very facts that it seeks to explain. The evidence and the internal logic that holds up the explanation are tightly coupled together as one organic whole thing.
I'm only here to first say I'm not like everyone else I do know things and can explain how things work. And computers work by making rocks think by putting magic smoke in them.
I can confirm that I've let the magic smoke out of multiple electronics parts, and they almost always stop working, afterward.
Sounds delightfully like something the Chongqing Punk would say
It would be interesting to explore how this bias affects decision-making in workplaces and technical teams.
I feel like its human psychology that as we get exposed to the world and we learn it, we feel like we form an understanding of the world around us at a sufficient level to survive in our current circumstances. Then we have all sorts of stimuli and feedback that tell us whether our understanding is correct or not overtime. Sometimes we challenge that understanding and realise that we were wrong. Life is an iterative process of that.
Then as we move into building a career, we essentially need to understand a topic or field to a degree that we're useful enough to sell it or provide it as a service compared to others.
Do I understand some things more than others? Perhaps. Do I need to understand everything about a particular thing to be knowledge on it, perhaps not.
> Unfortunately, when information is not directly in front of us, our memories and conceptions of it are shaky at best―but our egos are still intact.
I have often found this when as part of my job I have been exposed to a particular area of my field. But years later when presented with questions about it, whilst I can't extract all of the information I have learnt, but if my memory is jogged the information comes back. For example, lets say you learnt a particular skill 5 years ago, but now you struggle to perform it. Egotistically you know you've been able to do it, but your lack of training in recent years prevents you from doing it.
> Why do we think we understand the world more than we actually do?
To repurpose a quote originally about believing in good-versus-evil:
> Lord Vetinari gave [Vimes] a friendly smile.
> “Of course, of course,” he said. “You have to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you’d go quite mad. Otherwise you’d think you’re standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of Hell. Otherwise existence would be a dark agony and the only hope would be that there is no life after death. I quite understand.” He looked at his desk, and sighed.
-- Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
It's the unknown unknowns:
"As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."
An excellent quote from Donald Rumsfeld, despite being an absolute cunt.
A toilet's operation wouldn't be too hard to explain to an alien who has enough science for interstellar travel. A siphon mechanism works the same way for them as for us (although they'd likely wonder at how primitive we are to be using such a wasteful mechanism).
Same reason we think we’re smarter than we actually are?
Generally, it is people with a lower ability to understand the world that overestimate their own intelligence because they are unable to imagine anyone being smarter than them, and those on the smarter end who underestimate their own intelligence because they believe everyone else must be able to see what they are able to see.
There was a paper, quite famous now, on the topic titled "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments"
I feel like hearing this is dangerous in itself - even if you overestimate yourself, surely you yourself don't overestimate yourself as much as others?
Personally, I ran against a closed glass door yesterday. All I hope for is that I was entertaining to onlookers at least.
Don’t be so hard on yourself; the poorly designed glass door did that for you already.
> On the whole, people far too often hold strong opinions about topics for which they have limited information. This can cause social and political movements to have plenty of people behind them with limited ideas of what they are even fighting for.
We are so full of ourselves we called ourselves Homo sapiens, wise man, but wise we don't seem to be.
I recently faced this feeling of overconfidence in knowledge trying to think about how seasons work or why rainbows have a curved or arcing shape.
You might think seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth, but why? Exercise left for the reader.
Same reason you can look at a sunset but not the noonday sun
What I commonly see is people take a mental model that worked in the past and apply it in another context assuming it will work again. Irregardless of different constraints, people, or technologies. Agile cult members are the worst offenders. Second on my list are the HR pop psychology fads like Myers Briggs and Fish!
If all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail...
Also see;
Wikipedia on Illusion of explanatory depth - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_explanatory_depth
The misunderstood limits of folk science: an illusion of explanatory depth - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3062901/
How you can learn in a world of information overload - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbiyPOn-__M
The structure and function of explanations - https://cognition.princeton.edu/publications/structure-and-f...
The Science of a Good Explanation with Tania Lombrozo - https://www.annieduke.com/the-science-of-a-good-explanation-...