Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
The mathematician and philosopher Gian-Carlo Rota spent much of his career at MIT, where students adored him for his engaging, passionate lectures. In 1996, Rota gave a talk entitled “Ten Lessons I …
We all get lucky. Once in a while we do something really stupid that could have resulted in death, but didn’t. Just the other day, I saw someone who was texting walk out into oncoming traffic, …
Previously on Farnam Street, we covered the idea of Redundancy — a central concept in both the world of engineering and in practical life. Today we’re going to explore a related concept: Margin of …
Science pursues answers to questions, but not always the questions that engineering must ask. The founding father of nanotechnology, Eric Drexler, who aptly described the difference between science …