Okay, this is my Amherst supplement...The prompt is:
1. "Rigorous reasoning is crucial in mathematics, and insight plays an important secondary role these days. In the natural sciences, I would say that the order of these two virtues is reversed. Rigor is, of course, very important. But the most important value is insight--insight into the workings of the world. It may be because there is another guarantor of correctness in the sciences, namely, the empirical evidence from observation and experiments."
Kannan Jagannathan, Professor of Physics, Amherst College
"I just don't like you," she scoffed and turned back to face the board. I simply stood there, the vacuous expression on my face belying the inner turmoil raging inside of me. How could my reasoning have been flawed? Hadn't Newton himself claimed that all bodies having mass are naturally attracted to each other? How was it, then, that the female body of mass in front of me had been more repulsed, than attracted, to me, a fellow body of mass? Eventually, I was forced to conclude that Newton, busy as he had been musing over the ways of the universe, hadn't ever bothered to experiment his hypothesis on girls and was thus woefully unaware of its glaring flaw. The insight I had just been given into the cruel workings of the world certainly seemed to suggest that things aren't quite as rosy as Newton had imagined them to be.
Ever since that first failed experiment, I have carried out numerous others (and failed equally badly at them), and have thus come to appreciate the predominant role that insight plays in the sciences. As I have had the misfortune to learn, even when reasoning seems to point stoutly towards one direction, insight might reveal the answer to lie along a completely different one. For instance, I recall being appalled once upon discovering that the straight twig that had been floating down the stream was, in fact, considerably bent. Fearing for my eyesight, I was immensely relieved upon learning that the strange phenomenon I had witnessed was a result of the refraction of light underwater.
Wherever the sciences are concerned, reasoning without insight is tantamount to playing a game of golf with blinds on. And strangely, it is this very aspect of the sciences that leaves me so enthralled; I cannot help but marvel at a world where our minds can so easily deceive/bamboozle us whenever we commit the indiscretion of arming them with insufficient knowledge. Determined never to be duped again, I have made it my life's purpose to gain as much insight as I can into the workings of the enigma that is our world.
What do you guys think?? I chose to answer only the sciences bit of the supplement because that's what i am most interested in and i don't feel as though there is any strict requirement specifying what the essay has to be on. Also, i couldn't decide as to whether DECEIVE or BAMBOOZLE was a better word to put there, so i would really appreciate any suggestions as to this...Finally, do u guys think seeing a twig in a stream, and reasoning from the visonary input that it's straight, can be called an adequate case of false reasoning?? Or is it just a case where my eyes have deceived me and thus cannot be considered as reasoning??? THANKS A LOT FOR ANY HELP AND I WUD BE HAPPY TO LOOK OVER YOUR ESSAYS...
1. "Rigorous reasoning is crucial in mathematics, and insight plays an important secondary role these days. In the natural sciences, I would say that the order of these two virtues is reversed. Rigor is, of course, very important. But the most important value is insight--insight into the workings of the world. It may be because there is another guarantor of correctness in the sciences, namely, the empirical evidence from observation and experiments."
Kannan Jagannathan, Professor of Physics, Amherst College
"I just don't like you," she scoffed and turned back to face the board. I simply stood there, the vacuous expression on my face belying the inner turmoil raging inside of me. How could my reasoning have been flawed? Hadn't Newton himself claimed that all bodies having mass are naturally attracted to each other? How was it, then, that the female body of mass in front of me had been more repulsed, than attracted, to me, a fellow body of mass? Eventually, I was forced to conclude that Newton, busy as he had been musing over the ways of the universe, hadn't ever bothered to experiment his hypothesis on girls and was thus woefully unaware of its glaring flaw. The insight I had just been given into the cruel workings of the world certainly seemed to suggest that things aren't quite as rosy as Newton had imagined them to be.
Ever since that first failed experiment, I have carried out numerous others (and failed equally badly at them), and have thus come to appreciate the predominant role that insight plays in the sciences. As I have had the misfortune to learn, even when reasoning seems to point stoutly towards one direction, insight might reveal the answer to lie along a completely different one. For instance, I recall being appalled once upon discovering that the straight twig that had been floating down the stream was, in fact, considerably bent. Fearing for my eyesight, I was immensely relieved upon learning that the strange phenomenon I had witnessed was a result of the refraction of light underwater.
Wherever the sciences are concerned, reasoning without insight is tantamount to playing a game of golf with blinds on. And strangely, it is this very aspect of the sciences that leaves me so enthralled; I cannot help but marvel at a world where our minds can so easily deceive/bamboozle us whenever we commit the indiscretion of arming them with insufficient knowledge. Determined never to be duped again, I have made it my life's purpose to gain as much insight as I can into the workings of the enigma that is our world.
What do you guys think?? I chose to answer only the sciences bit of the supplement because that's what i am most interested in and i don't feel as though there is any strict requirement specifying what the essay has to be on. Also, i couldn't decide as to whether DECEIVE or BAMBOOZLE was a better word to put there, so i would really appreciate any suggestions as to this...Finally, do u guys think seeing a twig in a stream, and reasoning from the visonary input that it's straight, can be called an adequate case of false reasoning?? Or is it just a case where my eyes have deceived me and thus cannot be considered as reasoning??? THANKS A LOT FOR ANY HELP AND I WUD BE HAPPY TO LOOK OVER YOUR ESSAYS...