(Thought I scheduled this to post last week, but apparently I didn’t)

To Save Drowning People, Ask Yourself “What Would Light Do?”

I’ve seen a discussion of the lifeguard dilemma before, but there’s some added value here. Especially the disavowal of the “dog doing calculus” bit

Tim was impressed enough by Elvis’s trick to write a paper called “Do Dogs Know Calculus?” In it he reassures the reader that “Elvis does not know calculus…In fact,” Tim adds, “he has trouble differentiating even simple polynomials. More seriously, although he does not do the calculations, Elvis’s behavior is an example of the uncanny way in which nature often finds optimal solutions.”

I’m glad to see this, as opposed to the “animal of some sort does calculus” headlines I’ve run across a few times.