Steve Wesselingh: the wizard of Oz

Magical thinking encompasses the belief in assumptions that defy logical reasoning yet appear intuitively convincing. It is a common psychological phenomenon that persists across various cultural and individual contexts. While these assumptions contradict empirical evidence and scientific laws, they often serve meaningful psychological roles in promoting emotional resilience and a sense of control, especially under stress or uncertainty.Thought-Action Fusion and the Law of SimilarityA key...

In the macroscopic world, objects that are large enough to be seen by the naked eye follow the rules of classical physics. A billiard ball moving on a table will behave like a particle; it will continue traveling in a straight line unless it collides with another ball, or it is acted on by some other force, such as friction. The ball has a well-defined position and velocity or well-defined momentum, p = mv, which is defined by mass m and velocity v at any given moment. This is the typical...

Van de Graaff generators (or Van de Graaffs) are devices used to demonstrate high voltage due to static electricity that can also be used for research. Robert Van de Graaff first built one in 1931 (based on original suggestions by Lord Kelvin) for use in nuclear physics research.
Van de Graaff uses both smooth and pointed surfaces, conductors, and insulators to generate large static charges and, hence, large voltages. A substantial excess charge can be deposited on the sphere because it moves...

Electrocyclic reactions, cycloadditions, and sigmatropic rearrangements are concerted pericyclic reactions that proceed via a cyclic transition state. These reactions are stereospecific and regioselective. The stereochemistry of the products depends on the symmetry characteristics of the interacting orbitals and the reaction conditions. Accordingly, pericyclic reactions are classified as either symmetry-allowed or symmetry-forbidden. Woodward and Hoffmann presented the selection criteria for...

The property of Accumulation in signal processing is derived by analyzing the accumulated sum of a discrete-time signal and using the time-shifting property to determine its z-transform. This principle reveals that the z-transform of the summed signal is related to the z-transform of the original signal by a multiplicative factor.
Moreover, the convolution property indicates that the convolution of two signals in the time domain corresponds to the product of their z-transforms in the frequency...

The z-transform is a fundamental tool in digital signal processing, enabling the analysis of discrete-time systems through its various properties. It is an invaluable tool for analyzing discrete-time systems, offering a range of properties that simplify complex signal manipulations. One fundamental property is linearity. For any two discrete-time signals, the z-transform of their linear combination equals the same linear combination of their individual z-transforms. This property is essential...