The Selfish Gene

The idea of culture-evolution via "meme" is interesting. The idea of extended phenotype is also intriguing.

Great Science Talks

1. A talk on how bacteria perform group action.
2. A talk on the scale and contents of our universe.
3. A talk on an interesting topic: "fight against ageing".
4. A talk on visual illusions.
5. A talk providing a bird's eye view of the nature and implications of ideas in String Theory.
6. A talk on the current state of WiTricity or wirelessly transmitted electricity (no wires!).
7. A lucid talk on an idea about the origin of scents.
8. A talk on how we come to possess strange beliefs.

Euler's Mistake

He started with the equation x/(x-1) + x/(1-x) = 0,

rewrote it as 1/( 1-(1/x) ) + x/(1-x) = 0,

found power series for both functions and concluded:

... + 1/x^2 + 1/x + 1 + x + x^2 + ... = 0.

The conclusion is false as taking x = 1 makes it:

... + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + ... = 0.

The mistake is as follows:

1/( 1-(1/x) )'s power series is a geometric series which converges when

abs(1/x) less than 1, or abs(x) is greater than 1.

And, x/(1-x)'s power series is a geometric series which converges when

abs(x) is less than 1.

No value of x let both of them to converge at the same time.

On Evolution

A list of books on Evolution and Creationism:

1. Berra, Tim M. 1990. Evolution and the Myth of Creationism.
2. Eldredge, Niles. 2000. The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism.
3. Futuyama, Douglas J. 1983. Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution.
4. Kitcher, Philip. 1982. Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism.
5. Montagu, Ashley (ed.). 1983. Science and Creationism.
6. Newell, Norman D. 1982. Creation and Evolution.
7. Peacocke, A. R. 1979. Creation and the World of Science.
8. Ruse, Michael. 1982. Darwinism Defended.
9. Young Willard. 1985. Fallacies of Creationism.

A nice set of video lectures on Evolution.

A fabulous video course on Evolution, specially the 2nd (why we should keep evolution and religion separate, at least for now), 4th (simple things can produce remarkably intricate designs without any "understanding"), and 9th (evolution and brain, a great presentation) lectures.