I have always had a weakness for history lessons. Although very different from the standard optimal control problems and differential equations I am solving in my studies, I find that the lessons we can learn from great previous minds are both insightful and...
An Unsolved Murder Mystery From before the Hype: The Princes in the Tower
Many people nowadays are mad about true crime stories, even more so if the crimes are unsolved. Most of the mysteries take place in the last century, however, there is one rather unknown, unsolved, and even unconfirmed murder of two young princes, dating back to the...
Humans: A Multiplanetary Species
I have been intrigued recently by a documentary I saw on Netflix called “Return to Space”. This documentary tells the story of SpaceX, the company founded by Elon Musk with the aim of making mankind a multiplanetary species. The documentary focuses on the launch of...
Alien life on Earth
When we search for alien life, we tend to look into the vastness of space for planets that have conditions similar to our planet. But instead of looking in all three dimensions in space, there is another dimension one can look into, when searching for aliens, namely,...
The Legacy of Frank Ramsey
In history, there have been numerous influential scholars in the field of economics and econometrics. Think for instance of John Maynard Keynes, who is known for his influence in macroeconomics through the Keynesian School. Or think of Adam Smith, who introduced the...
The influence of the Austrian School in Economics
If you are a student in Econometrics or Economics, the concept of marginal utility should ring a bell. From your first-year course in microeconomics to the more advanced courses later in your bachelor, the concept plays an important role in understanding...
The conundrum of perpetual motion
It is no surprise that the 19th century was a time of scientific breakthroughs and wondrous inventions. However, for the people of Philadelphia, this meant that for only one dollar they could admire the most amazing machine in the world: a machine that stayed in...
Stop the Democracy
The liberal democracy. For long, we have been led (or rather misled) to believe that the liberal democracy is the ideal system of governance. On one hand, it is true that democracies tend to give their subjects great freedom and prosperity. However, on the other hand,...
Is life a video game?
Reality is probably not what it seems. The simulation hypothesis proposes that all of reality, including the earth and the universe, is in fact, a computer simulation. This proposition is, in fact, based on fundamental principles of human reasoning. Billions of years...
Doomsday Argument
Het einde van de mensheid, heb jij enig idee wanneer dat zal zijn? Nee, ik ook niet. Brandon Carter heeft in 1983 een poging gedaan om dit te bepalen met behulp van kansrekening. Echter wordt zijn theorie ook wel een van de meest betwiste toepassingen van de...
De val van Srebrenica
In Servië is ex-generaal Ratko Mladić opgepakt. Dat heeft de Servische president Boris Tadić op een persconferentie bekendgemaakt. Mladić zal worden uitgeleverd aan het Joegoslavië-tribunaal. Het is nog onduidelijk waar Mladić is gearresteerd. De 69-jarige Mladić had...
Approximating pi: think like Archimedes!
Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 BC) was a Greek physicist and mathematician best known for a very famous and amusing anecdote: the king of Syracuse had a golden crown made by a blacksmith. He distrusted the blacksmith and suspected him of not having used pure gold for...
Venezuela: from South-America’s powerhouse to the world’s least safe country
About one year ago, Venezuela’s neighbour Colombia was repetitively claiming headlines concerning the termination of decades of war with guerrilla groups. Consequently, Colombia’s history was scrutinized to put these headlines into context. Currently, Venezuela has...
Memes: een korte geschiedenis
In een drieluik van artikelen zullen Tim van Schaick en Lasse Vuursteen de illustere wereld van de internetmemes induiken. Het doel: de culturele, maatschappelijke en politieke relevantie verkennen. In dit eerste deel: wat zijn memes, waarom zie je er zoveel tegenwoordig en op wat voor manier zijn memes relevant voor de zeitgeist in het informatietijdperk?
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