Two flies are placed in a quart jar. Each day the number of flies doubles. At the end of 30 days, the jar was full of flies. When was the jar half full? Answer: Each day the fraction of the jar filled by flies is double the fraction filled on the previous day. When the …
Recent research in epigenetics is suggesting that the way in which genes express themselves depends on the environment in which they operate. Evidence for this appeared in 1797 when three hunters near Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance in France sighted a young pre-pubescent male sprinting through the woods. They gave chase and captured him when he attempted to escape …
Years ago, when I was an undergraduate, specializing in mathematics and physics at the University of Toronto, my colleagues and I were filled with an inflated sense of our abilities and were inclined to dismiss anyone outside our realm as irrelevant. However, as time unfolded, life taught us lessons in humility. Two years ago, I …
Answer: The three people were a grandfather, his son, and his grandson. The grandfather’s son is both a father and a son.
In 1651, Thomas Hobbes described the life of man as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Indeed, the average life expectancy in England in the 17th century was 35 years (before adjusting for infant mortality). Throughout most of human history, life has been as Hobbes described it. However, today, most citizens in the Western cultures …
What may be Thanksgiving’s greatest Intellectual Challenge? Read More »
Many people ask how we can identify intelligence. Chapter 1 of this book provides some answers.
The war of words on giftedness rages on. Many who subscribe to an egalitarian ideology argue that, except for the mentally challenged, we all have roughly the same intelligence. They claim that those who demonstrate prowess in academics, athletics or creative invention are no more capable than anyone else–they merely work harder and longer. In …
What Personality Traits Distinguish the Gifted from the Rest? Read More »
From our earliest beginnings, we humans have been mystified by our dreams, investing considerable effort into interpreting their meaning and their purpose. A dream’s clandestine existence below our level of consciousness, engages us during sleep and then melts away like a snowflake when we awake and attempt to recover it. The Poincaré-Hadamard model for discovery …
What can we Learn about a person from a question they pose? When people submit questions for inclusion on the Quora site: Intelligence & IQ, the first question I ask myself is, “Is this something that would be of interest to a large number of our followers?”; if so I’ll search for an answer already …
In recent times, an egalitarian ideology has prompted many to argue that, except for the mentally challenged, we all have roughly the same intelligence. Those who demonstrate prowess in academics, chess or creative invention are no more capable than anyone else–they merely work harder and longer. In 1993, psychologist Anders Ericsson challenged the concept of …
