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Vocabulary:
touch base (idiom)

-establish communication with someone
Synonyms: get in touch, connect

-to talk to someone in order to find out how they are or what they think about something.
Exp: I had a really good time in Paris. I touched base with some old friends and made a few new ones. (usually + with)

-touch base (with someone): to talk briefly to someone. I'll touch base with him later today to tell him about the meeting.
(Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms © Cambridge University Press 1998)

Thinking

Design thinking is a creative process based around the 'building up' of ideas. There are no judgments in design thinking. This eliminates the fear of failure and encourages maximum input and participation. Wild ideas are welcome, since these often lead to the most creative solutions.

Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hypothesizing, and critiquing.

Lateral thinking is a term coined by Edward de Bono, a Maltese psychologist, physician and writer. It first appeared in the title of his book The Use of Lateral Thinking, published in 1967. De Bono defines lateral thinking as methods of thinking concerned with changing concepts and perception. Lateral thinking is about reasoning that is not immediately obvious and about ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic. Techniques that apply lateral thinking to problems are characterized by the shifting of thinking patterns away from entrenched or predictable thinking to new or unexpected ideas.

Creative thinking involves creating something new or original. It involves the skills of flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative thinking, attribute listing, metaphorical thinking, forced relationships. The aim of creative thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergence.

--wiki, eduscapes

Major groups of religions

The major religions of the world can be considered to fall into logical groupings, as can be be found in various articles here and elsewhere.

Abrahamic religions are by far the biggest group, and these consist primarily of the Bahá'í Faith, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism religions. All the religions in this group are related by their belief in Abraham and their strict belief in a monotheistic divine entity. Today, around 3.4 billion people are followers of Abrahamic religions and are spread widely around the world apart from the regions around the Middle-East, South-East Asia and China.

Dharmic religions are a family of religions having a theology and philosophy centered on the concept of Dharma. All Dharmic religions have their roots in India, and they are of the most influence across the Indian subcontinent, East Asia and South East Asia. The main Dharmic religions are Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, and there is a close interrelationship between them.

Src wiki

Largest religions or belief systems by number of adherents

Christianity: 2.1 billion (Began: ca. 27 AD/CE)

• Roman Catholic: 1.05 billion
• Orthodox/Eastern Christian: 240 million
• African Indigenous Sects: 110 million
• Pentecostal: 105 million
• Reformed/Presbyterian/Congregational/United: 75 million
• Anglican/Episcopal: 73 million
• Baptist: 70 million
• Methodist: 70 million
• Lutheran: 64 million
• Jehovah's Witnesses: 15 million
• Latter-Day Saints: 12.5 million
• Adventists: 12 million
• Apostolic/New Apostolic: 10 million
• Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement: 5.4 million
• New Thought (Unity, Christian Science, etc.): 1.5 million
• Brethren (incl. Plymouth): 1.5 million
• Mennonite: 1.25 million
• Friends/Quakers: 300,000
  

Islam: 1.3 billion (Began: ca. 622 AD/CE)

• Sunnism: 940 million
• Shi'ism: 120 million
• Ahmadiyya: 10 million
• Druze: 450,000

Secular/irreligious/agnostic/atheist/antitheistic/antireligious: 1.1 billion

• Category includes a wide range of beliefs, without specifically adhering to a religion. The category also includes humanism, deism, pantheism, freethought, and Juche.
  

Hinduism: 900 million (Began: approximately 1500 BC/BCE or 15th century BC/BCE however some aspects of it trace its history to 2600 BC/BCE or 26th century BC/BCE)

• Vaishnavism: 580 million
• Shaivism: 220 million
• Neo-Hindus and Reform Hindus: 22 million
• Veerashaivas/Lingayats: 10 million
  

Chinese folk religion: 394 million

• Not a single organized religion, includes elements of Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and traditional nonscriptural religious observance (also called "Chinese traditional religion").

Buddhism: 376 million (Began: 6th century BC/BCE)

• Mahayana: 185 million
• Theravada: 124 million
• Lamaism (Vajrayana/Tibetan): 20 million

Primal indigenous: 300 million

• Not a single organized religion, includes a wide range of primarily Asian traditional or tribal religions, including Shamanism and Paganism.

African traditional and diasporic: 100 million

• Not a single organized religion, this includes several traditional African beliefs and philosophies such as those of the Yoruba, Ewe (vodun) and the Bakongo. These three religious traditions (especially that of the Yoruba) have been very influential to the diasporic beliefs of the Americas such as condomble, santeria and voodoo. The religious capital of the Yoruba religion is at Ile Ife.

Sikhism: 23 million (Began: 1500s AD/CE)
Spiritism: 15 million (Began: mid-19th century AD/CE)

• Not a single organized religion, includes a variety of beliefs including some forms of Umbanda.

Judaism: 14 million (Began: 13th century BC/BCE)

• Conservative: 4.5 million
• Unaffiliated and Secular: 4.5 million
• Reform: 3.75 million
• Orthodox: 2 million
• Reconstructionist: 150,000

Bahá'í Faith: 7 million (Began: 19th century AD/CE)
Jainism: 4.2 million (Began: 6th century BC/BCE)

• Svetambara: 4 million
• Sthanakvasi: 750,000
• Digambara: 155,000

Shinto: 4 million (Began: 300 BC/BCE)

• This number states the number of actual self-identifying practicing primary followers of Shinto; if everyone were included who is considered Shinto by some people due to ethnic or historical categorizations, the number would be considerably higher — as high as 100 million.

Cao Dai: 4 million (Began: 1926 AD/CE)
Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million (Began: ca. 6th century BC/BCE)

• Parsis: 110,000
• Gabars: 20,000

Falun Gong: 2.1 million* (Began: 1992 AD/CE)

• Not necessarily considered a religion by adherents or outside observers. No membership or rosters, thus the actual figure of practitioners is impossible to confirm.

Tenrikyo: 2 million (Began: 1838 AD/CE)
Neopaganism: 1 million (Began: 20th century AD/CE)

• A blanket term for several religions like Wicca, Asatru, Neo-druidism, and many reconstructionist religions

Unitarian Universalism: 800,000 (Began: 1961 AD/CE)
Rastafari: 600,000 (Began: early 1930s AD/CE)
Scientology: 500,000 (Began: 1952 AD/CE)

Src wikipedia, adherents.com

Reviews

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Knowledge | Special Relativity

Tôi bắt đầu lọat bài đi tìm hiểu lại về Thuyết Tương Đối của Einstein. Hồi năm 1 đại học, tôi tự cho là mình hiểu và tôi đã từng có những ví dụ rất thuyết phục (chính tôi) để chứng tỏ sự hiểu biết đó. Lâu lắm rối tôi không tự hỏi về Thuyết Tương Đối nữa, có lẽ do chắc mẩm là mình hiểu rồi. Đến bây giờ, sau 12 năm, tự nhiên tình cờ nghĩ về Thuyết Tương Đối, tôi chợt nhận ra là mình chưa hiểu gì hết. Tôi bắt đầu đi tìm hiểu lại Thuyết Tương Đối, đơn giản nhất là từ Google.

Tôi biết có 2 Thuyết Tương Đối theo cách dịch ở Việt Nam: Thuyết Tương Đối hẹp (Special Relativity) và Thuyết Tương Đối Rộng (General Relativity).

Tôi bắt đầu với Special Relatvity

Một cái link từ University Stanford nói về Special relativity rất thú vị.

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Newton's laws of motion give us a complete description of the behavior moving objects at low speeds. The laws are different at speeds reached by the particles at SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center)

Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity describes the motion of particles moving at close to the speed of light. In fact, it gives the correct laws of motion for any particle. This doesn't mean Newton was wrong, his equations are contained within the relativistic equations. Newton's "laws" provide a very good approximate form, valid when v is much less than c. For particles moving at slow speeds (very much less than the speed of light), the differences between Einstein's laws of motion and those derived by Newton are tiny. That's why relativity doesn't play a large role in everyday life. Einstein's theory supercedes Newton's, but Newton's theory provides a very good approximation for objects moving at everyday speeds.

Einstein's theory is now very well established as the correct description of motion of relativistic objects, that is those traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

Because most of us have little experience with objects moving at speeds near the speed of light, Einstein's predictions may seem strange. However, many years of high energy physics experiments have thoroughly tested Einstein's theory and shown that it fits all results to date.

Theoretical Basis for Special Relativity

Einstein's theory of special relativity results from two statements -- the two basic postulates of special relativity:

1. The speed of light is the same for all observers, no matter what their relative speeds.
2. The laws of physics are the same in any inertial (that is, non-accelerated) frame of reference. This means that the laws of physics observed by a hypothetical observer traveling with a relativistic particle must be the same as those observed by an observer who is stationary in the laboratory.

Given these two statements, Einstein showed how definitions of momentum and energy must be refined and how quantities such as length and time must change from one observer to another in order to get consistent results for physical quantities such as particle half-life. To decide whether his postulates are a correct theory of nature, physicists test whether the predictions of Einstein's theory match observations. Indeed many such tests have been made -- and the answers Einstein gave are right every time!

The Speed of Light is the same for all observers.

The first postulate -- the speed of light will be seen to be the same relative to any observer, independent of the motion of the observer -- is the crucial idea that led Einstein to formulate his theory. It means we can define a quantity c, the speed of light, which is a fundamental constant of nature.

Note that this is quite different from the motion of ordinary, massive objects. If I am driving down the freeway at 50 miles per hour relative to the road, a car traveling in the same direction at 55 mph has a speed of only 5 mph relative to me, while a car coming in the opposite direction at 55 mph approaches me at a rate of 105 mph. Their speed relative to me depends on my motion as well as on theirs.

Physics is the same for all inertial observers.

This second postulate is really a basic though unspoken assumption in all of science -- the idea that we can formulate rules of nature which do not depend on our particular observing situation. This does not mean that things behave in the same way on the earth and in space, e.g. an observer at the surface of the earth is affected by the earth's gravity, but it does mean that the effect of a force on an object is the same independent of what causes the force and also of where the object is or what its speed is.

Einstein developed a theory of motion that could consistently contain both the same speed of light for any observer and the familiar addition of velocities described above for slow-moving objects. This is called the special theory of relativity, since it deals with the relative motions of objects.

Note that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is a separate theory about a very different topic -- the effects of gravity.

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Failed Predictions

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
Charles H. Duell, GO IGCommissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march ofscience, 1949

“Television will never be a medium of entertainment”
David Sarnoff, the General Manager of RCA corporation, 1955

“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you - that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.”
The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

From http://www.answers.com/topic/failed-predictions