Author: Nicholas Knisely

Toy Universe implies Entanglement creates Time and Space

May 9, 2019
by Nicholas Knisely
SOSc

I’ve been reading various papers and reports on something that is being called the “Holographic Universe.” It’s an idea that the three dimensional (four with time a la Einstein) universe in which we live is actually the projection of a two-dimensional surface. Sometimes I’ve heard this mixed up with the idea of the “Simulation Universe” which is the idea that (a la the movie The Matrix) we are living in a computer simulation instead of […]

Fresh water from salt water. This is likely a big deal.

May 8, 2019
by Nicholas Knisely
SOSc

Sometimes you see something posted in the news, and you think, wow. This morning is one of the moments as far as I’m concerned. A team at Columbia has come up with a strikingly new way to desalinate water. It appears to be easily manageable and requires less energy than existing methods. From Columbia’s website: TSSE utilizes a low-polarity solvent with temperature-dependent water solubility for the selective extraction of water over salt from saline feeds. […]

Remarks at the Providence Jewish Community Vigil following the Tree of Life Shootings in Pittsburgh

October 30, 2018
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs / Religion / Rhode Island

It is written in the Book of Proverbs (Chapter 16) that:     The mind of the wise makes their speech judicious, and adds persuasiveness to their lips.     Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. And a little further it is written that:     Scoundrels concoct evil, and their speech is like a scorching fire.     A perverse person spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends.     The violent entice their […]

Please join in prayer for those murdered in Pittsburgh

October 27, 2018
by Nicholas Knisely
Reconciliation / Religion / Rhode Island / Sermons and audio

Today we are reeling from the news of the senseless and evil violence done to the innocent worshipers at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Our elder sisters and brothers in Judaism are God’s Chosen people and nothing will separate them from the Covenant their ancestors made with Holy and Living One. I ask Episcopalians across Rhode Island to please add this prayer to God asking for rest for the departed (El Maleh Rachamim) to […]

Jesus, the Parables and social media. “Is Facebook evil? Everything bad about Facebook is bad for the same reason — Quartz”

August 2, 2018
by Nicholas Knisely
SOSc / Web/Tech

In an article that examines the root cause of the problem with most of all of social media, but particularly about Facebook, Nichil Sonnad makes the following observation: Arendt [the Israeli psychologist who analyzed Nazi Adolf Eichman] concludes that it was neither sadism nor hatred that drove Eichmann to commit these historic crimes. It was a failure to think about other people as people at all. A “decisive” flaw in his character, writes Arendt, was […]

Artificial Intelligence Shows Why Atheism Is Unpopular – The Atlantic

July 27, 2018
by Nicholas Knisely
SOSc

Fascinating article in the Atlantic that shows the key factors that control the rate of societal secularization: Using a separate model, Future of Religion and Secular Transitions (forest), the team found that people tend to secularize when four factors are present: existential security (you have enough money and food), personal freedom (you’re free to choose whether to believe or not), pluralism (you have a welcoming attitude to diversity), and education (you’ve got some training in […]

The Faustian bargain of a cyber connected world

July 24, 2018
by Nicholas Knisely
SOSc / Web/Tech

Our hyper-networked world has given us super-human powers. Sometimes this has been beneficial. But of late, there is a dangerous side to being able to communicate quickly and without the need to reflect. At least two dozen people have been killed in mob lynchings in India since the start of the year, their deaths fueled by rumors that spread on WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging service. In Brazil, messages on WhatsApp falsely claimed a government-mandated yellow-fever […]