Posted by: Rajan Sambandam in Economics on
Sep 28, 2008
This question has been asked for millennia and before any research was done there were three possible answers: yes, no, maybe so. After some research was done in the 70's, we had what was called as the Easterlin paradox which seemed to show that money and happiness were not related. More recent research from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with data from many countries around the globe seems to indicate that people with more money are, in fact, happier.
Posted by: Rajan Sambandam in Physics, Genius, Books on
Sep 21, 2008
Richard Feynman was one of the pre-eminent physicists of the 20th century. The leader of the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer, had described him as the most brilliant young physicist, even among the elite group that came together to work on the bomb. While his primary contribution was to help physicists understand and think about physics in a new way, he also had several other noteworthy contributions such as pioneering the thinking on superconductivity and nanotechnology. Ultimately what made him famous to people outside physics were exploits in a wide range of fields and a quirkily unconventional personality. Considering the other things he has dabbled in, contributed to or mastered, it is very hard to imagine that he was also a Nobel prize-winning physicist for whom the word genius was considered acceptable even in the rarified air of particle physics. Two very different books provide insight into the personality and science of Richard Feynman. If you want an easy, funny read, go with "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!" that he himself wrote. For a much more comprehensive immersion into the Feynman biography it's hard to beat James Gleick's account Genius - The Life and Science of Richard Feynman.
Posted by: Rajan Sambandam in Polls, Politics, Markets on
Sep 12, 2008
A question that is of great interest now and the common response tends to be "who's leading in the polls?". You often hear people say that the latest poll from some reputable organization shows one candidate with a 3 point lead. Is that the best measure we have of predicting who will win the Presidential election? I submit that it is not and will walk you through the different measures available and what is most likely the best one. I say most likely because nothing predicts the future with complete certainty. Further, the aim here is not to examine the political strategies used by the candidates or speculate on who has a better ground game. We just want to see what is the best way to predict the winner, using all publicly available information.
Do you form judgments of others based on how they look? Very likely. These judgments are not just about commonly understood features such as skin color, but also about more subtle ones like the shape of a person's face. Research has shown that babyfaced people are seen as kinder, warmer and physically weaker than maturefaced people, as well as more honest and naive. Given this, are there consequences for a company that has a babyface CEO (or spokesperson) in a time of crisis? Will the shape of the person's face affect how the company is perceived and will these considerations have an effect on the hiring of a new CEO? These questions were investigated by some researchers in a series of experiments.
Posted by: Rajan Sambandam in Genius on
Sep 05, 2008
Susan Polgar is a chess pioneer as the first female chess Grandmaster in the world. Born in Hungary, she and her sisters have been a force in the world of chess for more than two decades.
Less known is that her father was a psychologist who believed that genius could be developed, and used his children in a real life experiment to prove that. This National Geographic video shows how her brain
Insightology