Data Driven - Experience, by Econsultancy

Many of today’s businesses find themselves overwhelmed by data. 

They are dealing with multiple data sets which are often collected separately, run in silos, and with huge levels of duplication. 
This data is mined on an ad-hoc basis by communications teams operating under antiquated marketing strategies, leading to loss of patience from consumers, as well as a lack of growth and differentiation in the business. 
Marketers are struggling to find the signal among the noise.
Resolving this mess requires a significant shift in both data and marketing strategy.
Unlocking the right data and making it available across your organisation gives you the opportunity to engage with your customers in a more meaningful way than ever before. 
It allows websites to move away from a one-size fits all, homepage-led website, to an individually tailored experience that responds directly to an individual’s specific circumstances, regardless of their point of entry.
The shift to data driven experiences is easier to make than you might think. 
The technological changes required are time consuming, but relatively straight forward. Surprisingly, the greatest challenge is not in new technology, but in the shift of mindset and business processes required to make the most of the data on hand.

Think people, not users

 
It’s not enough to think of customers any more, you must understand your customers as individuals.
But individual identity is a complicated, ever-evolving thing. 
Identities are personal, social, public and private all at once. They frequently resist definition, and although they seem knowable at first glance, they break apart with further inspection.

Getting to know someone well takes time and effort. Whenever a first meeting takes place, a lot of questions are asked to understand who this new person is and how best to relate to them. 
Social context provides many cues for us, but it is only as a relationship deepens and shared experiences are created that the nuance of individual personalities reveal themselves to us.
In our personal lives, our identities coalesce around our names. We might know something about who John is, but if we work with him, do we really know who he is when he's at home, at a bar with his friends, or what’s really going on in his mind?
The digital world gives us a new way in which we can play with, explore, and share our identities. 
The main way we do this is by way of our active digital identities. These are distinguished from passive digital identities in that we control what we put out there. 
 
We actively display our digital identity to the world in a variety of ways:

• Our profile and posts on social networks such as Facebook
• Our tweets
• Professional networking sites such as LinkedIn
• Blogs
• The photos we choose to share on photo-sharing sites such as Instagram
• Selfies
• The fantasy identities we take up in gaming and virtual realities

However, we are also passive bystanders, producing a conglomeration of information about ourselves, discoverable through search engines. This acts to create a passive online identity.
 
Examples of passive online identities include:

• The results that arise alongside our names in Google searches
• Photographs and comments that others post about us on social networks
• Information about us (accurate or not) that is collected and compiled by online aggregators
• Information about us that is placed online without our knowledge or consent
• Personal information outside our control that appears online in a variety of ways 

Active interrogation and passive observation

 
It is critical that a relationship offers the right level of intimacy for the known identity of the individual. Knowing too little will result in wasted effort and misguided messages, knowing too much risks alienation.
In many respects, the level of individual understanding which is achievable through data is directly analogous to the information perceived when a customer walks into a store. 
The shopkeeper profiles the individual. They may know them from previous visits, sees who they spend time with and may even count them as a friend.
Now imagine that the same shopkeeper followed you out of their store and down the street. And that they then stood outside of your house with a pair of binoculars, looking in through your windows, or went door to door asking your friends and neighbours about your interests, likes and dislikes.
You’d find that more than a little creepy. In fact you’d probably call the police.
The difference here is between active interrogation and passive observation. Observing how an individual engages with your product and acting accordingly is very different to actively mining their complete data set. 
A permissive, transparent approach is needed, where by you take steps towards a more complete understanding of the individual, only on the back of deeper user engagement.
Once you have established the right approach to data collection and use, you will need to ensure real time availability. 
This means real time data processing and an approach to infrastructure that places both content and user data on an equal footing at the heart of your business.
If you can do this, you’ll be in a position to deliver on the promise of data driven experiences. 

Πηγή: http://goo.gl/N7tkVp 

Γύρω από το Παιχνίδι της Ζωής!

Αγαπητοί μου φίλοι, σήμερα θα ήθελα να γράψω για το Παιχνίδι της Ζωής, μία πραγματικότητα που βρίσκει γόνιμο ενδιαφέρον σε επιστήμονες υπολογιστών, φυσικούς, βιολόγους, βιοχημικούς, οικονομολόγους, μαθηματικούς, φιλόσοφους, επιστήμονες και άλλους οι οποίοι παρατηρούν τον τρόπο με τον οποίο πολύπλοκα συστήματα μπορούν να αναδυθούν μέσα από την εφαρμογή εξαιρετικά απλών κανόνων. Κάποιοι θα πουν ότι έτσι ο Δαρβινισμός περνάει κρίση. Ζωή πολύπλοκη να προέρχεται από απλούστερες μορφές ζωής μέσω της μεθόδου της φυσικής επιλογής.. Αυτή ακριβώς όμως η φυσική επιλογή μπορεί να ολοκληρώσει κάποιες πτυχές που δεν μπορούν να ολοκληρωθούν μόνες τους με βάση το Conway’s Game Of Life! Πρόκειται για την υποκειμενική μου αντίληψη. Σας παραθέτω κάποια αρχικά με βάση τη Wikipedia:

“The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead. Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent. At each step in time, the following transitions occur:
1.    Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.
2.    Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
3.    Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
4.    Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.
The initial pattern constitutes the seed of the system. The first generation is created by applying the above rules simultaneously to every cell in the seed—births and deaths occur simultaneously, and the discrete moment at which this happens is sometimes called a tick (in other words, each generation is a pure function of the preceding one). The rules continue to be applied repeatedly to create further generations.”

Με μία προσεκτική ανάγνωση των παραπάνω δίνοντας έμφαση στους απλούς κανόνες, μπορούμε να βγάλουμε συμπεράσματα για το κατά πόσο το Παιχνίδι της Ζωής με τα μέχρι εδώ, μπορεί όπως γράφεται να λειτουργήσει ως συστημική σκέψη αλλά και ως διδακτική αναλογία σε μηχανισμούς μεγαλύτερης κλίμακας. Αν με βάση την κοινή λογική η απάντηση είναι καταφατική, τότε οδηγούμαστε στα παρακάτω συμπεράσματα:

Α. Το παιχνίδι της ζωής εξαρτάται από τον τρόπο με τον οποίο εξελίσσονται οι γειτνιάσεις και αυτό γιατί ο διχοτομικός στην περίπτωση πληθυσμός {0,1} είναι που δίνει ή δεν δίνει μέτρο στην κάθε κυψέλη και κατεπέκταση μεταβάλλει το αρχικό κυψελικό αυτόματο.
Β. Ο δημιουργός ή επιστημονικός συγγραφέας που εμπνέεται από το Παιχνίδι της Ζωής θα πρέπει να βρει μεθόδους και τρόπους εφικτούς αλλά και δόκιμους, αν θέλει να εφαρμόσει το παιχνίδι σε μία μεγαλύτερη σε όγκο και δεδομένα πραγματικότητα. Μέχρι τώρα βλέπουμε πώς η συγκεκριμένη προσομοίωση, μπορεί να επιστρέφει στον αρχικό της κύκλο ή απλά να μεταφέρεται πχ από τα αριστερά στα δεξιά. Όχι όμως πώς εξαπλώνεται. Έτσι λοιπόν ο επιστήμονας ή ο συγγραφέας που λειτουργούν με βάση ένα αρχικό δίκτυο από τελεστές, κυψέλες, κόμβους, θα πρέπει να αποφύγουν την επιστροφή στο αρχικό δίκτυο μιας και αυτό σημαίνει ότι σφυγμομετρούν αντιδράσεις. Η σφυγμομέτρηση αντιδράσεων με δεδομένο ότι το παιχνίδι έχει μία χρονική αρχή, είναι άριστη και απόλυτα θεμιτή σε πρώτο χρόνο, όχι όμως σε εξελιγμένες μορφές του συστήματος.
Γ. Το Παιχνίδι της Ζωής με βάση τις κυψέλες, κόμβους που ενεργοποιούνται, εκδηλώνει μία σχέση έσω-έξω στο δίκτυο. Ο δημιουργός ή ο επιστημονικός συγγραφέας παίζοντας στην ουσία ένα παιχνίδι με μηδενικούς παίκτες καθώς προκαλούν ένα αρχικό configuration και στη συνέχεια παρακολουθούν την εξέλιξη, πρέπει να ξεκαθαρίσουν με βάση τη δομή των αρχικών input κατά πόσο το παιχνίδι, η ζωή, παύουν να επιστρέφουν στον αρχικό κύκλο. Το παιχνίδι για να έχουμε Big Data πρέπει να εκδηλώνει φαινόμενα  colonialism (αποικιοκρατίας).
Δ. Αν το παιχνίδι είναι σχεδιασμένο για να εξαπλωθεί, κρύβει το ρίσκο του ότι ο δημιουργός, ο παίκτης, ο συγγραφέας, πάνε να εμπλακούν σε κάτι που δεν θα αντιμετωπίσουν. Το τι συμβαίνει 5 κυψέλες παρακάτω δεν αφορά τις αρχικές σχετικές γειτνιάσεις, θεωρώντας απαράδεκτη ξανά τη σφυγμομέτρηση αντιδράσεων.
Ε. Όλα τα παραπάνω καθιστούν ξεκάθαρη για παραπλήσιους λόγους τη μέθοδο αλληλεπίδρασης ανθρώπου-υπολογιστή. Πρόκειται για μία συνεχή εξωτερίκευση των σημάτων, προτύπων συμπεριφοράς, είτε έχουμε να κάνουμε με εφαρμογές οικονομικών, επιστημών, υπολογιστών, είτε με το systems’ thinking και τη δραστηριότητα, του δημιουργού, του επιστημονικού συγγραφέα.

«Conway chose his rules carefully, after considerable experimentation, to meet these criteria:
1.    There should be no explosive growth.
2.    There should exist small initial patterns with chaotic, unpredictable outcomes.
3.    There should be potential for von Neumann universal constructors.
4.    The rules should be as simple as possible, whilst adhering to the above constraints.» (Source Wikipedia)

Ο Συμπαντικός Κατασκευαστής Von Neumann είναι και το μήλο της έριδος στο παιχνίδι του Conway. Πρόκειται για μία μηχανή που αναπαράγεται αυτόνομα χρησιμοποιώντας πρώτες ύλες του περιβάλλοντος! Πρόκειται για μία μέθοδο αυτό-αναπαραγωγής με τρόπο ανάλογο με αυτό που συναντάμε στη φύση! Μία κασέτα από κυψέλες, κύτταρα, κωδικοποιεί την ακολουθία των δράσεων που θα υλοποιήσει η μηχανή. Πρόκειται για γενετικές οδηγίες που μπορούν να υποστούν μετάλλαξη και έτσι το παραγόμενο αντίγραφο μηχανής να είναι πολυπλοκότερο του αρχικού, πχ να πάρετε και μία ζωγραφιά με ένα λουλούδι. Η φυσική επιλογή της μετάλλαξης είναι αυτή που θεμελιώνει και το Δαρβινισμό, τόσο ως προς την εξέλιξη της ζωής όσο και ως προς την ανάπτυξη της πολυπλοκότητας.

«The concept of a universal constructor is non-trivial because of the existence of garden of eden patterns. But a simple definition is that a universal constructor is able to construct any finite pattern of non-excited (quiescent) cells.»

«Conway’s game can also serve as a didactic analogy, used to convey the somewhat counter-intuitive notion that "design" and "organization" can spontaneously emerge in the absence of a designer.» (Source Wikipedia)

Αυτά είναι και τα μήλα της έριδος του Von Neumann Universal Constructor. Δεν μας ενδιαφέρουν απλώς τα αντίγραφα και η μετάλλαξη αλλά η εξάπλωση και η αποικιοκρατία. Δεύτερον, μία εκδοχή εξαιρετικά πολυπλοκότερη της αρχικής, από τη στιγμή που μιλάμε για αυτό-αναπαραγωγή θα δημιουργούσε κάτι απλά ανέφικτο. Αν δεχτούμε όμως ποιοτικές αναλογίες με όρους κοινωνικής δικτύωσης, με όρους καθαρά gaming, συγγραφικούς, επιστημονικούς και άλλα, αυτό σημαίνει ότι υπάρχει εξωτερικό χέρι που κάνει το configuration με τον κατάλληλο τρόπο. Παγκοσμίως, δεν νοούνται υπολογιστές χωρίς άτομα που κάνουν το Data Entry.. Από την πιο απλή μέχρι την πιο προχωρημένη επιχειρηματική τεχνολογία και αν αγοράσετε, κάποιοι πρέπει να κάνουν εισαγωγή στοιχείων. Ή αν θέλουμε να έχουμε συζήτηση με τους όρους του conflict και των interactions ανάμεσα στους replicators, ή ο Von Neumann Universal Constructor είναι εξαιρετικά εύθραυστος όπως γράφεται ή κάποιοι σκόπιμα (configuration τώρα) εισάγουν παραποιημένα στοιχεία.

Αν μπορούσαμε όμως να απεμπλακούμε από τον Von Neumann και τους υπολογιστές και βλέπαμε την αρχή της συζήτησης, μιλώντας για το Παιχνίδι της Ζωής, ένα zero player game με αρχικό configuration, στην πραγματικότητα μπορούμε να δημιουργήσουμε διαφορετικά versions σε ολόκληρο το content management, όπου τώρα σημασία θα είχε το version control!

Έτσι θα πρέπει να δίνεται η δυνατότητα, η δυναμική στο παιχνίδι, κριτήριο 3, όχι απλά να δημιουργήσει κάτι που προηγήθηκε της ανακάλυψης της δομής του μορίου του DNA, δηλαδή έναν Von Neumann Universal Constructor, αλλά μία πύλη στην προσομοίωση του Σύμπαντος και νέων μαθηματικών προτάσεων γύρω από τον Κώδικα της Φύσης, που ούτως ή άλλως θα μπορούν να παρουσιαστούν είτε ως game simulations, είτε ξεκάθαρα ως επιστημονικές ιδέες με βάση την πραγματικότητα του 21ου αιώνα. Με άλλα λόγια πρόκειται για τη δημιουργία μίας νέας πλατφόρμας για την επιστήμη. Καλή εβδομάδα σας εύχομαι!

The story of John Forbes Nash

John Forbes Nash, Jr. (born June 13, 1928) is an American mathematician whose works in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations have provided insight into the factors that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life. His theories are used in market economics, computing, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, accounting, politics and military theory. Serving as a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University during the latter part of his life, he shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with game theorists Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi.

Nash is the subject of the 2001 Hollywood movie A Beautiful Mind. The film, loosely based on the biography of the same name, focuses on Nash's mathematical genius and also his schizophrenia.

Youth

Nash was born on June 13, 1928, in Bluefield, West Virginia. His father, after whom he is named, was an electrical engineer for the Appalachian Electric Power Company. His mother, born Margaret Virginia Martin and known as Virginia, had been a schoolteacher before she married. He had a younger sister, Martha, born November 16, 1930.

Education

Nash attended kindergarten and public school. His parents and grandparents provided books and encyclopedias that he learned from. Nash's grandmother played piano at home, and Nash had positive memories of listening to her when he visited. Nash's parents pursued opportunities to supplement their son's education, and arranged for him to take advanced mathematics courses at a local community college during his final year of high school. Nash attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) with a full scholarship, the George Westinghouse Scholarship, and initially majored in Chemical Engineering. He switched to Chemistry, and eventually to Mathematics. After graduating in 1948 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Master of Science in Mathematics, he accepted a scholarship to Princeton University, where he pursued further graduate studies in Mathematics.

Nash's advisor and former Carnegie Tech professor R. J. Duffin wrote a letter of recommendation consisting of a single sentence: "This man is a genius." Nash was accepted by Harvard University, but the chairman of the mathematics department of Princeton, Solomon Lefschetz, offered him the John S. Kennedy fellowship, which was enough to convince Nash that Harvard valued him less. Nash also considered Princeton more favorably because of its location closer to his family in Bluefield. He went to Princeton where he worked on his equilibrium theory.

Personal life

In 1951, Nash went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a C. L. E. Moore Instructor in the mathematics faculty. There, he met Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Lardé (born January 1, 1933), a naturalized U.S. citizen from El Salvador. De Lardé graduated from M.I.T., having majored in physics. They married in February 1957 at a Catholic ceremony, although Nash was an atheist. Nash experienced the first symptoms of mental illness in early 1959, when his wife was pregnant with their child. He resigned his position as member of the M.I.T. mathematics faculty in the spring of 1959. Nash's wife admitted Nash to the McLean Hospital for schizophrenia in 1959; their son, John Charles Martin Nash, was born soon afterward, but remained nameless for a year because his mother felt that her husband should have a say in the name.

Nash and de Lardé divorced in 1963, though after his final hospital discharge in 1970, Nash lived in de Lardé's house. They remarried in 2001.

Before his marriage, Nash also had a son named John David Stier from a relationship with Eleanor Stier, a nurse he met while she was caring for him as a patient. The film based on Nash's life, A Beautiful Mind, was criticized during the run-up to the 2002 Oscars for omitting this supposedly unsavory aspect of his life, given that he was alleged to have declined to marry Eleanor based on her social status, which he thought to have been beneath his.

In 1954, Nash was arrested for indecent exposure in a police trap in Santa Monica, California. Although the charges were dropped, he was stripped of his top-secret security clearance and fired from RAND Corporation where he had spent a few summers as a consultant.

Nash has been a longtime resident of West Windsor Township, New Jersey.

Mental illness

Nash began to show signs of extreme paranoia, and his wife later described his behavior as erratic, as he began speaking of characters like Charles Herman and William Parcher who were putting him in danger. Nash seemed to believe that all men who wore red ties were part of a communist conspiracy against him. Nash mailed letters to embassies in Washington, D.C., declaring that they were establishing a government.

He was admitted to the McLean Hospital, April–May 1959, where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The clinical picture is dominated by relatively stable, often paranoid, fixed beliefs that are either false, over-imaginative or unrealistic, usually accompanied by experiences of seemingly real perception of something not actually present — particularly auditory and perceptional disturbances, a lack of motivation for life, and mild clinical depression.

In 1961, Nash was admitted to the New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton. Over the next nine years, he spent periods in psychiatric hospitals, where, aside from receiving antipsychotic medications, he was administered insulin shock therapy.

Although he sometimes took prescribed medication, Nash later wrote that he only ever did so under pressure. After 1970, he was never committed to a hospital again, and he refused any further medication. According to Nash, the film A Beautiful Mind inaccurately implied that he was taking the new atypical antipsychotics during this period. He attributed the depiction to the screenwriter (whose mother, he notes, was a psychiatrist), who was worried about the film encouraging people with the disorder to stop taking their medication. Others, however, have questioned whether the fabrication obscured a key question as to whether recovery from problems like Nash's can actually be hindered by such drugs. Nash has said they are overrated and that the adverse effects are not given enough consideration once someone is deemed mentally ill. According to Sylvia Nasar, author of the book A Beautiful Mind, on which the movie was based, Nash recovered gradually with the passage of time. Encouraged by his then former wife, de Lardé, Nash worked in a communitarian setting where his eccentricities were accepted. De Lardé said of Nash, "it's just a question of living a quiet life".

Nash dates the start of what he terms "mental disturbances" to the early months of 1959 when his wife was pregnant. He has described a process of change "from scientific rationality of thinking into the delusional thinking characteristic of persons who are psychiatrically diagnosed as 'schizophrenic' or 'paranoid schizophrenic'" including seeing himself as a messenger or having a special function in some way, and with supporters and opponents and hidden schemers, and a feeling of being persecuted, and looking for signs representing divine revelation. Nash has suggested his delusional thinking was related to his unhappiness and his striving to feel important and be recognized, and to his characteristic way of thinking, saying, "I wouldn't have had good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally." He has also said, "If I felt completely pressureless I don't think I would have gone in this pattern". He does not see a categorical distinction between terms such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Nash reports that he did not hear voices until around 1964, later engaging in a process of rejecting them. He reports that he was always taken to hospitals against his will, and only temporarily renounced his "dream-like delusional hypotheses" after being in a hospital long enough to decide to superficially conform – to behave normally or to experience "enforced rationality". Only gradually on his own did he "intellectually reject" some of the "delusionally influenced" and "politically oriented" thinking as a waste of effort. However, by 1995, although he was "thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists," he says he also felt more limited.

Writing in 1994, Nash stated:

    "I spent times of the order of five to eight months in hospitals in New Jersey, always on an involuntary basis and always attempting a legal argument for release. And it did happen that when I had been long enough hospitalized that I would finally renounce my delusional hypotheses and revert to thinking of myself as a human of more conventional circumstances and return to mathematical research. In these interludes of, as it were, enforced rationality, I did succeed in doing some respectable mathematical research. Thus there came about the research for "Le problème de Cauchy pour les équations différentielles d'un fluide général"; the idea that Prof. Hironaka called 'the Nash blowing-up transformation'; and those of 'Arc Structure of Singularities' and 'Analyticity of Solutions of Implicit Function Problems with Analytic Data'.

    "But after my return to the dream-like delusional hypotheses in the later 60's I became a person of delusionally influenced thinking but of relatively moderate behavior and thus tended to avoid hospitalization and the direct attention of psychiatrists.
    "Thus further time passed. Then gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort. So at the present time I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists."

Recognition and later career

At Princeton, campus legend Nash became "The Phantom of Fine Hall"  (Princeton's mathematics center), a shadowy figure who would scribble arcane equations on blackboards in the middle of the night. The legend appears in a work of fiction based on Princeton life, The Mind-Body Problem, by Rebecca Goldstein.

In 1978, Nash was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize for his discovery of non-cooperative equilibria, now called Nash equilibria. He won the Leroy P. Steele Prize in 1999.

In 1994, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (along with John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten) as a result of his game theory work as a Princeton graduate student. In the late 1980s, Nash had begun to use email to gradually link with working mathematicians who realized that he was the John Nash and that his new work had value. They formed part of the nucleus of a group that contacted the Bank of Sweden's Nobel award committee and were able to vouch for Nash's mental health ability to receive the award in recognition of his early work.

As of 2011 Nash's recent work involves ventures in advanced game theory, including partial agency, which show that, as in his early career, he prefers to select his own path and problems. Between 1945 and 1996, he published 23 scientific studies.

Nash has suggested hypotheses on mental illness. He has compared not thinking in an acceptable manner, or being "insane" and not fitting into a usual social function, to being "on strike" from an economic point of view. He has advanced evolutionary psychology views about the value of human diversity and the potential benefits of apparently nonstandard behaviors or roles.

Nash has developed work on the role of money in society. Within the framing theorem that people can be so controlled and motivated by money that they may not be able to reason rationally about it, he has criticized interest groups that promote quasi-doctrines based on Keynesian economics that permit manipulative short-term inflation and debt tactics that ultimately undermine currencies. He has suggested a global "industrial consumption price index" system that would support the development of more "ideal money" that people could trust rather than more unstable "bad money". He notes that some of his thinking parallels economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek's thinking regarding money and a nontypical viewpoint of the function of the authorities.

Nash received an honorary degree, Doctor of Science and Technology, from Carnegie Mellon University in 1999, an honorary degree in economics from the University of Naples Federico II on March 19, 2003, an honorary doctorate in economics from the University of Antwerp in April 2007, and was keynote speaker at a conference on Game Theory. He has also been a prolific guest speaker at a number of world-class events, such as the Warwick Economics Summit in 2005 held at the University of Warwick. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

(Source Wikipedia)

Galileo Galilei, Times & Accomplishments

By The Galileo Project

Galileo's Early Life

Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564. His father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a musician. Galileo's mother was Giulia degli Ammannati. Galileo was the first of six (though some people believe seven) children. His family belonged to the nobility but was not rich. In the early 1570's, he and his family moved to Florence.

The Pendulum

In 1581, Galileo began studying at the University of Pisa, where his father hoped he would study medicine. While at the University of Pisa, Galileo began his study of the pendulum while, according to legend, he watched a suspended lamp swing back and forth in the cathedral of Pisa. However, it was not until 1602 that Galileo made his most notable discovery about the pendulum - the period (the time in which a pendulum swings back and forth) does not depend on the arc of the swing (the isochronism). Eventually, this discovery would lead to Galileo's further study of time intervals and the development of his idea for a pendulum clock.

On Motion

At the University of Pisa, Galileo learned the physics of the Ancient Greek scientist, Aristotle. However, Galileo questioned the Aristotelian approach to physics. Aristotelians believed that heavier objects fall faster through a medium than lighter ones. Galileo eventually disproved this idea by asserting that all objects, regardless of their density, fall at the same rate in a vacuum. To determine this, Galileo performed various experiments in which he dropped objects from a certain height. In one of his early experiments, he rolled balls down gently sloping inclined plane and then determined their positions after equal time intervals. He wrote down his discoveries about motion in his book, De Motu, which means "On Motion."

Mechanical Devices

In 1592, Galileo was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Padua. While teaching there, he frequently visited a place called the Arsenal, where Venetian ships were docked and loaded. Galileo had always been interested in mechanical devices. Naturally, during his visits to the Arsenal, he became fascinated by nautical technologies, such as the sector and shipbuilding. In 1593, he was presented with the problem involving the placement of oars in galleys. He treated the oar as a lever and correctly made the water the fulcrum. A year later, he patented a model for a pump. His pump was a device that raised water by using only one horse.

Family Life

Galileo was never married. However, he did have a brief relationship with Marina Gamba, a woman he met on one of his many trips to Venice. Marina lived in Galileo's house in Padua where she bore him three children. His two daughters, Virginia and Livia, were both put in convents where they became, respectively, Sister Maria Celeste and Sister Arcangela. In 1610, Galileo moved from Padua to Florence where he took a position at the Court of the Medici family. He left his son, Vincenzio, with Marina Gamba in Padua. In 1613, Marina married Giovanni Bartoluzzi, and Vincenzio joined his father in Florence.

Telescope

Galileo invented many mechanical devices other than the pump, such as the hydrostatic balance. But perhaps his most famous invention was the telescope. Galileo made his first telescope in 1609, modeled after telescopes produced in other parts of Europe that could magnify objects three times. He created a telescope later that same year that could magnify objects twenty times. With this telescope, he was able to look at the moon, discover the four satellites of Jupiter, observe a supernova, verify the phases of Venus, and discover sunspots. His discoveries proved the Copernican system which states that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun. Prior to the Copernican system, it was held that the universe was geocentric, meaning the sun revolved around the earth.

The Inquisition

Galileo's belief in the Copernican System eventually got him into trouble with the Catholic Church. The Inquisition was a permanent institution in the Catholic Church charged with the eradication of heresies. A committee of consultants declared to the Inquisition that the Copernican proposition that the Sun is the center of the universe was a heresy. Because Galileo supported the Copernican system, he was warned by Cardinal Bellarmine, under order of Pope Paul V, that he should not discuss or defend Copernican theories. In 1624, Galileo was assured by Pope Urban VIII that he could write about Copernican theory as long as he treated it as a mathematical proposition. However, with the printing of Galileo's book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo was called to Rome in 1633 to face the Inquisition again. Galileo was found guilty of heresy for his Dialogue, and was sent to his home near Florence where he was to be under house arrest for the remainder of his life. In 1638, the Inquisition allowed Galileo to move to his home in Florence, so that he could be closer to his doctors. By that time he was totally blind. In 1642, Galileo died at his home outside Florence.

Source (http://galileo.rice.edu/)

Disruptive Innovation by Wikipedia!

A disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology. The term is used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically first by designing for a different set of consumers in a new market and later by lowering prices in the existing market.
In contrast to disruptive innovation, a sustaining innovation does not create new markets or value networks but rather only evolves existing ones with better value, allowing the firms within to compete against each other's sustaining improvements. Sustaining innovations may be either "discontinuous" (i.e. "transformational" or "revolutionary") or "continuous" (i.e. "evolutionary").
The term "disruptive technology" has been widely used as a synonym of "disruptive innovation", but the latter is now preferred, because market disruption has been found to be a function usually not of technology itself but rather of its changing application. Sustaining innovations are typically innovations in technology, whereas disruptive innovations change entire markets. For example, the automobile was a revolutionary technological innovation, but it was not a disruptive innovation, because early automobiles were expensive luxury items that did not disrupt the market for horse-drawn vehicles. The market for transportation essentially remained intact until the debut of the lower priced Ford Model T in 1908. The mass-produced automobile was a disruptive innovation, because it changed the transportation market. The automobile, by itself, was not.
The current theoretical understanding of disruptive innovation is different from what might be expected by default, an idea that Clayton M. Christensen called the "technology mudslide hypothesis". This is the simplistic idea that an established firm fails because it doesn't "keep up technologically" with other firms. In this hypothesis, firms are like climbers scrambling upward on crumbling footing, where it takes constant upward-climbing effort just to stay still, and any break from the effort (such as complacency born of profitability) causes a rapid downhill slide. Christensen and colleagues have shown that this simplistic hypothesis is wrong; it doesn't model reality. What they have shown is that good firms are usually aware of the innovations, but their business environment does not allow them to pursue them when they first arise, because they are not profitable enough at first and because their development can take scarce resources away from that of sustaining innovations (which are needed to compete against current competition). In Christensen's terms, a firm's existing value networks place insufficient value on the disruptive innovation to allow its pursuit by that firm. Meanwhile, start-up firms inhabit different value networks, at least until the day that their disruptive innovation is able to invade the older value network. At that time, the established firm in that network can at best only fend off the market share attack with a me-too entry, for which survival (not thriving) is the only reward.
The work of Christensen and others during the 2000s has addressed the question of what firms can do to avoid oblivion brought on by technological disruption.

A 48 hour computer simulation of Typhoon Mawar using the Weather Research and Forecasting model!

 

(Source Wikipedia)

Kepler's Solar System!

Παρουσίαση του βιβλίου "Μαθηματικά Μοντέλα"

Το βιβλίο αυτό αποτελεί μία πρωτότυπη ιδέα, με πολλαπλούς στόχους:

• να αναδείξει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο συγκεκριμένα μαθηματικά εργαλεία χρησιμοποιούνται για τη μελέτη εξειδικευμένων εφαρμογών
• να προωθήσει την ανεξάντλητη ποικιλία των θεμάτων στην οποία βρίσκουν εφαρμογή τα μαθηματικά μοντέλα
• να διακριθεί για την αθωράκιστη αλλά και πειθαρχημένη αποκαλυπτικότητά του

Στο βιβλίο αναπτύσσονται θέματα οικονομικών εφαρμογών, φυσικής, εφαρμοσμένων μαθηματικών αλλά και βιολογίας. Δόθηκε έμφαση στην προσέγγιση των παραπάνω ενοτήτων με τη βοήθεια του μαθηματικού μόντελινγκ. 'Ενα βιβλίο προορισμένο για να δηλώνει διαχρονικά την παρουσία του στο ευρύτερο κοινό, στο οποίο και απευθύνεται.

Το DNA ως γενετικό υλικό! 1944.

Οι βιοχημικοί είχαν αντιληφθεί εδώ και σαράντα περίπου χρόνια ότι τα χρωμοσώματα φέρουν το γενετικό υλικό κάθε οργανισμού. Γνώριζαν επίσης ότι τα χρωμοσώματα έχουν νουκλεοπρωτεϊνικό χαρακτήρα, δηλαδή περιέχουν τόσα μόρια πρωτεϊνης όσο και μόρια δεσοξυρίβονουκλεϊνικού οξέος (DNA!). Εκείνη την εποχή επικρατούσε η αντίληψη ότι το σημαντικότερο τμήμα του γενετικού υλικού των χρωμοσωμάτων ήταν η πρωτεϊνη, αφού σε όλες τις περιπτώσεις οι πρωτεϊνες είχαν αποδειχθεί σημαντικές για τους ζωντανούς ιστούς. Οι πρωτεϊνες είναι γιγαντιαία μόρια, με τεράστια ποικιλία και πολυμορφία. Τα ένζυμα, τα οποία ελέγχουν τις χημικές διεργασίες του οργανισμού, είναι πρωτεϊνες. Έτσι, οι βιοχημικοί πίστευαν ότι το νουκλεϊκό οξύ αποτελείται από σχετικώς μικρά μόρια που λειτουργούν κατά βοηθητικό τρόπο, όπως η αίμη της αιμοσφαιρίνης ή τα συνένζυμα των ενζύμων. Ωστόσο, δεν γνώριζαν ποια μπορεί να είναι αυτή η βοηθητική λειτουργία του νουκλεϊκού οξέος. Οι έρευνες όμως άρχισαν να αποκαλύπτουν ότι τα μόρια των νουκλεϊκών οξέων δεν είναι καθόλου μικρά. Απλώς, οι μέθοδοι που είχαν χρησιμοποιηθεί για την απομόνωση του DNA ήταν πολύ δραστικές, με αποτέλεσμα να εντοπίζονται μικρά μόνο τμήματα των μορίων. Όταν χρησιμοποιήθηκαν πιο ήπιες μέθοδοι, απομονώθηκαν μεγαλύτερα μόρια (!). Διαπιστώθηκε επίσης ότι στα γεννητικά κύταρρα, όπου τα χρωμοσώματα είναι συμπυκνωμένα στο ελάχιστο δυνατό μέγεθος, το πρωτεϊνικό τους τμήμα εμφανίζεται ασυνήθιστα απλό, ενώ το DNA υπάρχει στη συνήθη ποσότητα και πολυπλοκότητα. Παρόλα αυτά, η πίστη των βιοχημικών στην σπουδαιότητα των πρωτεϊνών παρέμενε ακλόνητη. Εκείνη την εποχή ο Όσβαλντ Έιβερυ (1877-1955), Αμερικάνος βακτηριολόγος γεννημένος στον Καναδά, έκανε πειράματα με πνευμονιοκόκους, βακτήρια που προκαλούν την πνευμονία. Υπήρχαν δύο διαφορετικά στελέχη των βακτηρίων, ένα με λείο περίβλημα που αποτελείται από ένα πολύπλοκο μόριο υδατάνθρακα, και ένα με τραχύ περίβλημα. Τα στελέχη, ονομάζονταν αντίστοιχα S (από το αρχικό γράμμα της λέξης smooth!! που σημαίνει λείο) και R (από το αρχικό γράμμα της λέξης rough!! που σημαίνει τραχύ). Ήταν εμφανές ότι το στέλεχος R δεν είχε το γονίδιο για το σχηματισμό της λείας υδατανθρακικής επιφάνειας. Επιπλέον ήταν δυνατόν να ληφθεί ένα εκχύλισμα από το στέλεχος S (που δεν περιείχε κύταρρα και ήταν σαφώς άβιο!) το οποίο με την προσθήκη του στο στέλεχος R, το μετέτρεπε σε στέλεχος S (!). Επομένως το εκχύλισμα πρέπει να περιείχε το γονίδιο (ή την μεταλλακτική αρχή όπως ονομάστηκε) που καταλύει την παραγωγή του υδατάνθρακα. Αλλά ποια ήταν η φύση της μεταλλακτικής αρχής? Το 1944, ο Έιβερυ και οι συνεργάτες του υπέβαλαν σε καθαρισμό το γονίδιο της μεταλλακτικής αρχής, σε όσο μεγαλύτερο βαθμό μπορούσαν χωρίς να διαταράξουν την λειτουργική του ικανότητα, και απέδειξαν ότι αποτελείται από DNA και τίποτε άλλο. Δεν περιείχε καθόλου πρωτεϊνη! Ήταν η πρώτη ένδειξη ότι το γενετικό υλικό των κυττάρων είναι το DNA και όχι η πρωτεϊνη! Η ανακάλυψη αυτή έφερε επανάσταση στη γενετική και οδήγησε σε ταχύτατη πρόοδο. Ο Έιβερυ άξιζε σαφώς να τιμηθεί με το βραβείο Νόμπελ για την ανακάλυψή του, αλλά πέθανε πολύ γρήγορα μετά την επίτευξή της και δεν πρόλαβε να βραβευθεί.

Το Χρονικό των Επιστημονικών Ανακαλύψεων. ISAAC ASIMOV. Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης.