Surprising Science — May 8, 2010

Guestimate

“Rigor leads to rigor mortis,” says MIT’s Sanjoy Mahajan who teaches his students to use common sense and best guessing to arrive at practical solutions problems great and small.

bigthinkeditor

“Rigor leads to rigor mortis,” says MIT’s Sanjoy Mahajan who teaches his students to use common sense and best guessing to arrive at practical solutions problems great and small. “The world is messy, so do the best you can. You know more than you think you do. Use whatever tools are available to do the job. It’s as much an attitude as a technique. And it’s an attitude that isn’t the norm in mathematics classes, where down-to-the-decimal accuracy is prized.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

“Love” In Arabic

The answer to religious extremism cannot be secularism because familial and cultural roots run too deep in the Middle East, writes Rima Merhi. A more inclusive religious education is needed.