On Incompleteness
Simon is enchanted by Gödel’s incompleteness theorem (that he has learned about from Numberphile) and keeps talking about it: “There’re problems that we just can’t solve. But if we prove … Continue reading On Incompleteness
Tag: homeschooling
The Senses: Simulating Taste and Smell
You need 24 bits (3 bytes) to simulate color. That’s 24 ones and zeros. How many bits are necessary to simulate taste? Or smell? Correction: You would need 584 bits … Continue reading The Senses: Simulating Taste and Smell
The Senses: What color is the dress?
A couple of years ago this dress went viral on the internet as some people argued it was blue and black and others saw white and golden. To this day … Continue reading The Senses: What color is the dress?
Physics Experiments: Slime for Science
We had such a genuinely rewarding homeschooling experience yesterday when we took up Physics Girl’s challenge to recreate the Weissenberg effect – a phenomenon that occurs when a spinning rod … Continue reading Physics Experiments: Slime for Science
Physics Experiments: Simon builds a Periscope
How does a periscope work? How does light travel through a periscope? How can you make a periscope yourself? Simon answers these questions in the video: Also tried to trace … Continue reading Physics Experiments: Simon builds a Periscope
Chemistry Experiments: Colors (surface active agents and pH indicator)
Our new MEL Chemistry box arrived, containing tons of color fun! We have already tried two experiments. In the Color changing milk experiment, the soap touches the milk creating a very thin … Continue reading Chemistry Experiments: Colors (surface active agents and pH indicator)
The Sky Track
Simon got a belated birthday present from his Russian grandparents, something he had dreamed about for months: the Magformers Sky Track set, sort of a monorail that allows Simon the … Continue reading The Sky Track
Simon’s whiteboard
The whiteboard always reflects Simon’s current state of mind: On the left are Simon’s notes after reading Physics Girl’s blog about quarks (the colourful stuff is foam clay): Simon showed … Continue reading Simon’s whiteboard
Gelfond’s Constant
Simon spent two days testing out his new Texas TI-84 Plus CE-T calculator. I saw him play with Gelfond’s constant eπon the calculator: He looked up on Wikipedia that the decimal … Continue reading Gelfond’s Constant
Practicing Chinese calligraphy
Simon uses this book for his Mandarin lessons.
Building dinos and looking them up in the encyclopedia
Although Simon doesn’t have the Magformers Dinosaur Set, he does have all the pieces (he collects the set using the pieces from other sets). It’s great fun to be able … Continue reading Building dinos and looking them up in the encyclopedia
Rational Approximations for Phi
“If I get the next two digits right, I’ll be ecstatic!” Simon says, as he hurries on with a φ (Phi) approximation algorithm using Fibonacci numbers. He keeps dividing every following … Continue reading Rational Approximations for Phi
Geeks out of the box 