Lawrence Krauss is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist, professor at Arizona State University, director of its Origins Project and author of bestselling books: “The Physics of Star Trek” and “A Universe from Nothing.” He is an advocate for science based data, public policy based on sound empirical data, and scientific skepticism. His goal is to reduce the influence of superstition and religious dogma in popular culture. His most recent book is “The Greatest Story Ever Told–So Far: Why Are We Here?”
When did Lawrence first discover he was a skeptic, someone who would think outside the box? He was encouraged to think for himself from a very early age. He grew up Jewish but slowly grew out of ideas that surrounded the religion. No real a-ha moment, just gradually decided that religion wasn’t something he could believe in. In 6th grade he also began doing poorly in school. His parents moved him to a different school where he subsequently did much better. Lawrence knew that he wasn’t a different person, but it was other people’s expectations that wavered how he performed. From then on, he was conscious of not letting others opinions of him bring down his performance.
Richard Feynman has played a large role in Lawrence and his studies. He is a great example of someone who did not let other’s hinder him. Feynman was charismatic, intelligent, and excited about all things new – he didn’t rely on other’s opinions. The charisma Feynman possessed, combined with the genius of his science made him the legend.
How does Lawrence describe science? It is a process rather than a collection of facts. Science helps to establish what is true from what is non-sense. It also breaks the sensible from the non-sensible. Lawrence brings this mindset into religion taking a controversial stance saying, “God is completely irrelevant to science.” He fiercely believes that the idea of religion was created as a way to explain how the world worked before we had the technology and science to know how it actually works.
When you made the first offer of a free copy of your Trend Following audio book I was there and get a certificate for a free download. Number of times I read your last Trend Following book = 0 (read the first couple of chapters). Number of times I have listened to Trend Following = 5 and counting. It is my traveling companion. I had my dad’s luxury Buick for the last two weeks and connecting my phone via bluetooth to listen was hit or miss; more miss. Finally today I returned his car and got my old Toyota back and it connected to the phone and the audio book cued up to play, I just had to press play. All is good again.
While Michael was visiting the United States recently, his assistant sent him some inspiring old Time Magazines and Saturday Evening Post Magazines. Some that particularly stood out? A 1959 Time Magazine with a story about Nicolas Darvas and a 1976 Time Magazine profiling Richard Dennis when he was 27 years old. These two men laid so much of trend following thinking and to see some original articles in print was inspiring.
Gabriel Radvansky studies mental model theory for human memory and cognition. He strives to understand how people create, organize, store and retrieve mental models. Also, how younger and older adults differ on their use of mental models.
What triggered Gabriel to study cognition memory? He was hooked from the day he took his first introductory psychology class. His teacher’s description of what a psychologist did instantly caught his attention and from there he knew the path he wanted to go down. His original major in college was physics, he then switched to AI computer science and moved into psychology. Because of his other majors, he comes at psychology from a scientific approach.
Gabriel has done extensive research on how a person’s environment changes ones memory. Why does walking through doors make you lose your train of thought? Moving from one environment to another, your brain naturally wants to leave some things behind and pick up new things. Different rooms represent different memories and your brain has been trained to adapt. Humans have the same type of trigger when it comes to computer windows and stories within a book – when a character goes from one location to another, information gets forgotten and lost.
Memory is not about the past – we have memories so we know what to do now, and to help us know what to do in the future. What helps one memory stick more than another? The more emotion linked to a memory, the more vividly you remember those events. Memories with an emotional consequence trigger better and faster than those with no emotion linked to them. What are some steps you can take to help your memory? Write things down and have as many broad experiences as you possibly can.
