TED talks declined from ‘must-see-every-single-one’ to less interesting than liveleak.com, even from a science and technology perspective - seen a chicken plugger? Superfast slot cars? Bubble Vortices anybody? So it is worthwhile to point out interesting TED talks whenever one happens to still come along.

Solitons, also called solitary waves, are an intriguing topic. They are waves which behave much like particles, yet not in the sense of the quantum physical particle-wave-duality, but in a purely classical sense: They travel much like particles, meaning they do not change their shape for example, and they even bump against each other and can annihilate with their anti-solitons. On the oceans, solitons can appear as rogue waves (not bore, which is a different phenomenon), and many an ocean faring vessel has succumbed to them. They do not just lift the ship like usual waves. They smash it – again, much like one would expect from a solid particle.

 

The universe expands. The galaxies, as they depart ever further from one another, are classically and even in Einstein’s special theory of relativity, described as dust particles: The universe as a cloud of dust expanding through space. However, in Einstein’s general theory of relativity, this same expansion is described as the universe itself expanding. There is no locally observable difference between these descriptions whatsoever – at least as far as we know. Classical expansion through space and Einstein’s general relativity describing expansion of space both fit together seamlessly.

Precognition is under scientific investigation, though often with the aim to obtain null-results in order to discredit such ideas. In fact, “extra-sensory perception” (ESP) and “precognition”, “premonition”, “presentiment”, and so on are misleading terms, as was discussed in detail in “The Science of Precognition: Cosmic Habituation versus Decline Effect”. A better term is “paranormal”, which implies that the effect, if it exists, requires mechanisms outside of what is known. “Precognition” is at most “paranormal prediction”. If it exists at all, it will become normal after we figured out how it works.

The main observation here is that rationalization on the social level is rationalization on the personal level performed by macro-systems (social systems from our point of view). Scientism is the ultimate religion. Calling this a dangerous anti-science position is natural and expected at this point in evolution.