English | Dr. Goulu

numbers are correct, but there is no deforestation since long :In total, between...

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

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numbers are correct, but there is no deforestation since long :

In total, between 1985 and 2018, they increased by 589 km2 (+5%), which roughly corresponds to the extent of Lake Geneva. These increases relate almost exclusively to mountain regions, where trees have grown back onto unused alpine pastures and where we are also beginning to observe a rise in the tree line due to climate change.

(source : Federal Office of Statistics)

actually we had banking secrecy instead of trusts ;-)Some rich people create Fou...

Wed, 18 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

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actually we had banking secrecy instead of trusts ;-)

Some rich people create for non-profit or charity and live on managing it, but certainly not 3%

I guess your 3% are mostly retired people who saved their money on private trust funds. In Switzerland we have a mixed state/private that is a good comprise as we like them here.

From what I see here ( ) about a third of swiss taxpayers (i.e. almost all citizens) have no private “third pillar”, so their retirement depends only on social (first pillar) and mandatory (second pillar) provisions.

Said otherwise, 66% of swiss people have some money on a private pension fund.

Alas, you pictured probably the most deadly place in Switzerland.Matterhorn is o...

Fri, 13 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

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Alas, you pictured probably the most deadly place in Switzerland.

Matterhorn is one of the , with about 12 persons killed every year, twice the number of murders in our largest city, Zürich.

Besides, there is a long standing controversy about the accident that occurred during the Some believe a guide cut the rope between him and Lord Francis Douglas to save his life…

So please don’t go there unless you are a trained mountaineer, with a good guide and a good rope.

in Switzerland, people can raise “Popular initiatives” to modify the Constitutio...

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

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in Switzerland, people can raise “ ” to modify the Constitution. A referendum is organized to accept the modification, or not.

proposed to replace ) by a voluntary civil service.

This proposal was rejected by 73% (so the compulsory military service remains), while 27% thought the voluntary civil service was a “viable alternative”.

it is a “failure” for those who organized the popular initiative. Of course they didn’t reach 50%, but even worse they didn’t reach 40%, which would be a political signal meaning “there’s something important here”. And not even 30% meaning “this is a topic”. With 27%, the subject if now “out of the political scope” for decades.

actually when I looked for a graph I found this one, but not its source. As I wr...

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

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actually when I looked for a graph I found this one, but not its source. As I wrote, I used it because it looks fair, but I’ll gladly replace it with a better one when I find one.

About the smartvote method, it may apply to distinct states, or a whole country. Actually, in the example shown, the small dots are the position of the cantonal (State) parties , and the big spot is the federal level.

All you need is data. Many politicians answering the same questions. What’s nice and surprising at first is that the questions don’t need to be politically situated on the map. Just ask any politically related questions and the maths do the rest.

the question was about US and Switzerland only. The graph shows the position of ...

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

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the question was about US and Switzerland only. The graph shows the position of the “Social Democratic Party” of Switzerland I’m talking about in the answer, that’s all.

In Switzerland we have a very reliable mathematically based way of measuring the left/right positioning of parties and politicians thanks to . it produces maps like these that can even be “animated” to show the political changes across time

the methodology is described (in german only, sorry…) here :

I just noticed Australia has adopted this approach :

(and I started to apply the method to France here : )

Use the same approach in the US and we will have an objective way to compare ;-)

Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland - Wikipedia ??? It has invalided some popul...

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

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??? It has invalided some popular initiatives, which are modifications of the Constitution issued by the ultimate legislative power in Switzerland : the people.

The European Court on Human Rights is a court we decided to accept as one more supreme court for some special cases, like La Haye or …

Well, if I have to choose between a “ where a few politically elected judges can overrule the majority of people and the (semi-) direct democracy we have, I’d chose the (semi-)direct democracy. EU chose the former, which is precisely my point.

Research and development (R&D) - Gross domestic spending on R&D - OECD Data show...

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

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shows Switzerland is 3d after Israel and Korea. Finland is 11th (Sweden is 4th) (figures from 2017)

Public organisations (CERN, ICAN, Red Cross…) and private research center surch as IBM Research in Rüschlikon certainly also play a role.

found interesting also. Maybe it’s the combination of all the above. Or maybe just luck.

Check Pi might look random but it's full of hidden patterns .I don’t see why “a ...

Mon, 02 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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Check .

I don’t see why “a sphere of say 1 meter in diameter and place it in a 1 meter cube it would be exactly 52.3598775598298 percent of the cube”

the volume of the sphere is V=4pi(1/2)^3/3 which is pi/6, so it has also an infinite number of decimals so it is not “exactly 52.3598775598298 percent of the cube”

gives

0.5235987755982988730771072305465838140328615665625176368291574320513027343810348331046724708903528446636913477522137177745156407682584303719542265680214135195750473504503230868509266074371581591550636607381351626109889076880792747056311305275452003181909414278205767247684090544413688989345433748568789540978344343859313624802534868271382090152858940613154317266685550884248034110868973578253235852682388428783942932653255153643528969887686321841864246790770633271249278919809587874818713230305019915216389455604067761071810035658243992041228651170299768239504617565361960488627920641124697446115675220000946878575439268046309618904596316015289395297869114068168708255716910915975618417987132815431539236699926853548369934773390696933022716291285516600864512018916666663954963416585099552888026827197658374099092244847171070870513755574475058769885313618350005229731254810979222013969034361962781912172663755817381259114551932604773137256312656253262969762967553618711344355003213127685326515360700332

just made a small python scripts that counts the occurrences (second column) of numbers (first column) :

0 93

1 105

2 97

3 106

4 83

5 115

6 111

7 95

8 107

9 89

10 10

11 8

12 10

13 18

14 5

15 16

16 9

17 9

18 10

19 10

20 9

21 6

22 8

23 8

24 9

25 10

26 14

27 12

28 10

29 9

30 10

31 13

32 15

33 6

34 12

35 12

36 13

37 8

38 8

39 9

40 8

41 9

42 6

43 14

44 7

45 8

46 9

47 9

48 10

49 2

50 12

51 12

52 14

53 12

54 12

55 13

56 13

57 7

58 11

59 7

60 8

61 12

62 9

63 13

64 5

65 11

66 11

67 6

68 21

69 12

70 8

71 15

72 6

73 9

74 9

75 12

76 12

77 8

78 10

79 5

80 7

81 13

82 12

83 7

84 8

85 12

86 10

87 14

88 10

89 13

90 10

91 12

92 10

93 7

94 5

95 8

96 10

97 10

98 9

99 7

would need to make some stats, but looks “normal”.

just checked. my bank buys and sells banknotes of the following :AED - UAE Dirha...

Tue, 05 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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just checked. my bank buys and sells banknotes of the following :

AED - UAE Dirham,United Arab Emirates

AUD - Australian Dollar,Australia

BRL - Brazilian Real,Brazil

CAD - Canadian Dollar,Canada

CHF - Swiss Franc,Switzerland

CNY - Yuan Renminbi,China

CZK - Czech Koruna,Czech Republic

DKK - Danish Krone,Denmark

EGP - Egyptian Pound,Egypt

EUR - Euro,Euro

GBP - Pound Sterling,Great Britain

HKD - Hong Kong Dollar,Hong Kong

HUF - Forint,Hungary

ILS - New Israeli Sheqel,Israel

ISK - Iceland Krona,Iceland

JPY - Yen,Japan

MXN - Mexican Peso,Mexico

NOK - Norwegian Krone,Norway

NZD - New Zealand Dollar,New Zealand

PLN - Zloty,Poland

RUB - Russian Ruble,Russia

SAR - Saudi Riyal,Saudi Arabia

SEK - Swedish Krona,Sweden

SGD - Singapore Dollar,Singapore

THB - Baht,Thailand

TRY - New Turkish Lira,Turkey

USD - US Dollar,USA

ZAR - Rand,South Africa

You’re right, ARS and BSF are not in the list, but if you have billions of them, maybe we can do something for you…

Oh yes I get it on Device to Harness Cosmic Energy Claimed by Tesla from the Tes...

Mon, 21 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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Oh yes I get it on , thanks.

(a direct link is always better as a Google search, which gives different results depending on your history, location etc.)

I like this quote very much “… the absurd report which has got about that I have perfected a portable engine which by extricating atomic energy will drive the largest steamship across the ocean. I have smashed probably trillions of atoms, and have definitely determined that they contain no available energy. The theory that they do is a futile dream.”

It is extremely EASY for citizens of EU countries to obtain a work and residence...

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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It is extremely EASY for citizens of EU countries to obtain a work and residence permit in Switzerland.

I know, I am Swiss and live in Switzerland ;-)

and also I read the news :

“almost 2.1 million foreigners – more than two-thirds of them from the EU and EFTA countries – lived in Switzerland at the end of 2018 (of these, some 400,000 were ). The total population is 8.4 million.”

Well, I don’t know Lauterbrunnen specifically, but you have to be aware of the (...

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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Well, I don’t know Lauterbrunnen specifically, but you have to be aware of the (high) cost of living in Switzerland, especially in touristic places. Check to have an idea.

PLUS : selling to foreigners is limited to 1500 homes/year for whole Switzerland (“Lex Kohler”) and selling for secondary home (=if you don’t live there …) is forbidden in places with over 20% of secondary homes (“Lex Weber”), which is the case in Berner Oberland. So believe me : the hardest is to find a home that you are allowed to buy (and can afford.) Renting is much less of a problem.

Switzerland is a small country, or rather a wide city : you have pretty much the same facilities everywhere. You can go anywhere by train, so Lauterbrunnen is 20 mins from Interlaken, 1h20 from Bern and 3h from Zürich airport.

Thank’s not perfectly correct:( source Tax rates in Europe - Wikipedia )As you c...

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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Thank’s not perfectly correct:

( source )

As you can see, there are countries where taxes are lower, and countries when employer pays no taxes at all (Denmark ?).

Of course, one should compare apples to apples : mandatory health insurance is not considered a tax in switzerland, while it is included in the “social security” package in many countries listed here. Add about 5% blue to swiss “taxes” to make things a bit more comparable…

IMHO is the key of swiss wealth : we just export for about $20 BN / year more than we import. That’s about $3000 per inhabitant… For example our exports of medical drugs (Novartis, Roche…) amount about the same as the national budget for health,..

you just don’t know what Inflation is (why have Zimbabwe and Venezuela record in...

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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you just don’t know what is (why have Zimbabwe and Venezuela record inflation, then ?) and have no idea of the either. Switzerland makes $2bn per MONTH of exports of medical drugs, watches, machines, coffee, chocolate more than imports.

For the rest, well, just try to open a bank account in Switzerland and you’ll see by yourself … But if you succeed, your money will indeed be safer here at 0% interest rate than in your own country, because of YOUR inflation…

“Pure democracy by its nature devolves into dictatorship of the majority.”Which ...

Sat, 06 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

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“Pure democracy by its nature devolves into dictatorship of the majority.”

Which majority? Living in Switzerland I can tell you : it precisely works because the majority changes on each vote. When we vote on taxes on cars, subsidies to farmers, kindergardens or buying aeroplanes, the majority is not the same people.

With 4 parties sharing the government, there is no way to make any law pass the referendum unless you really understand direct democracy works by compromise and agreement.

Or in other words it works by respecting the minorities, because we all belong to several.

I agree that political systems should be adapted to each country's specificities...

Sat, 06 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

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I agree that political systems should be adapted to each country’s specificities. Switzerland is indeed a semi direct democracy : representatives are elected, but each of their decisions may be challenged by a referendum.

We had direct democracy at the local level ( ) but we had to drop it when population rose, especially when women were allowed to vote… BTW if didn’t become a “dictatorship of the majority” otherwise men wouldn’t have shared their power…

So right, size is a problem, at least at federal level for USA, but I’m pretty sure it might be applied at local level, especially with Internet voting.

(Semi-) direct democracy is also decentralized, so it can be applied at the loca...

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

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(Semi-) direct democracy is also decentralized, so it can be applied at the local / state level too.

I happened to work for the e-voting system in Canton Geneva, and this question was raised. Some (conservative) parties were “worried” that more young, uneducated persons would vote, possibly not taking it seriously. So a demographics study was made in the test phase ( report is here, in french: )

The results didn’t show this effect : the age distribution of the voters remained pretty much the same, simply more young voters moved from postal vote to e-vote than elderly. The study further showed that e-voters were on average more (computer) educated, which is not a surprise.

But for “progressists” people, it is essential to empower young electors, and on the long term e-politics may replace old “ ” that had to be dropped as the population raised.

You can see a TEDx conference of the (former) Chancellor of State in Geneva who shares her views (that I share too) about this :

Finally, as I often say to my foreigner fellows : “we all have the democracy we deserve.”

From your reference “The German-speaking Swiss(Deutschschweizer), i.e. Alemannic...

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

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From your reference “The German-speaking Swiss(Deutschschweizer), i.e. , historically amalgamated from the population and the and , including subgroups such as the ” (and “Alemannic German” is a pleonasm : in their own language its )

So you must go back about one millenia to find connections between Swiss German and modern Germany, and it’s not related to emigration or colonisation

“You say:Swiss-German is language spoken by swiss citizens who happen to be desc...

Mon, 05 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

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“You say:Swiss-German is language spoken by swiss citizens who happen to be descendant of Germany right,like Swiss-french and swiss-italian is spoken by descendant of both France and Italy respectively who are part of the country.” No I never said that, on the contrary, and that’s why ther is no identity crisis at all.

The languages have common roots, but german speaking swiss (aka swiss german) are NOT descendants of Germans, nor are french speaking swiss (aka swiss french) descendants of french, nor the (I’m one of them) former italians.

Switzerland formed much before our modern neighbors formed. Check

Nice try, but the number of planets in observable Universe should be something l...

Wed, 03 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

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Nice try, but the number of planets in observable Universe should be something like 10^{11 galaxies x 10}11 stars x 10 planets/star = 10^23 (with an unknon fraction of it having water ice on them, but let’s drop this) so its the same order of magnitude as the Avogadro number, which is the number of molecules in a single glass of water …

Plus I suspect a logic failure in your argument (see ) but it’s late … :-)

well, on average my total income is about the GDP/capita isn’t it ? Then the fra...

Wed, 20 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

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well, on average my total income is about the GDP/capita isn’t it ? Then the fraction of my income going directly (as insurance premium) or indirectly (through taxes) to healthcare is the same as the fraction of GDP going to healthcare…

In Switzerland, the fraction of the health costs paid directly to health insurances is about 40% (twice the European average, but half the US …) . So for my family of 4 we indeed pay about 40% of 11% x 4, so about 18% of our total income in health insurance premiums, and I believe we pay about the same through taxes, VAT etc. The last 20% is indirectly paid by employers through taxes. Since they could have paid this money to me as a salary, I consider it also impacts my income.

It’s very difficult to compare different health systems, I think the OECD does a great job, but there is no miracle : citizens pay ALL the costs of their health system, which can be more or less social, more or less efficient, and more or less “responsibilizing” depending if you see the bills or not.

Intersting. Thinking a bit more about it, maybe a proportional executive also re...

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

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Intersting. Thinking a bit more about it, maybe a proportional executive also requires that no party has an absolute majority, otherwise it could rule as with a majority system. It was the case in Switzerland before 1943.

Now we have 4 parties large enough to be represented in the Federal Council, the largest one having less than 30% seats in the National Council (legislative) and 2 seats of 7 in the Federal Council.

Maybe a good democracy has no majority : if everyone feels belonging to a minority, proportionality and consensus becomes natural.

no, that’s definitely not how it is done. Say you want to find a prime of 512 bi...

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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no, that’s definitely not how it is done. Say you want to find a prime of 512 bits for a RSA key. Using the form on you get for example 7695569724472218968357329983247783518365587380788656749355931322901061644229490935790270202575436100837766691896209961622963876832779623061869802179230227 which has 154 decimals. So its square root has 77 decimals, which means your method consists in trying to divide the number above by all primes up to 10^{77 . Now if you use a
you’ll find there are about 5.67*10}74 such primes. No supercomputer can try the divisions in the lifetime of the Universe.

Sorry, but I downvote you because you should “know” your answer is good, not “believe” it.

What ? Russell’s proof ? No. He precisely developed formal logic to circumvent i...

Mon, 11 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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What ? Russell’s proof ? No. He precisely developed formal logic to circumvent imprecisions of human language ;-)

But if I try to explain the first line (the following are the formal demonstration that this line is logically true), it might be translated to English as “let’s define alpha and beta as two sets that contain each 1 item, such that the intersection of alpha and beta is empty (i.e the two items are not the same) then the union of the two sets contains 2 items”

The formalism here allows to put limits to the cases where addition is allowed, or rather, clearly defined. For example this forbids to “add a thing to itself” : when you add 2 oranges, they must be different : you cannot add an orange to itself with this rule (you might, if you define the addition differently in this case as I explained in the answer). When you add 1+1, Russell says that you have to consider the “1”s as different : in formal logic they are sets that contain each 1 different item (orange). This is important when you add things that are not simple numbers, such as infinites…

“Democracy is a political system in which democratically elected delegates are r...

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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“Democracy is a political system in which democratically elected delegates are representing their voters in a room called parliament” : No. This is a !

Democracy is “a system of government in which all the PEOPLE of a state are involved in making decisions about its affairs, typically by voting to elect representatives to a parliament or similar assembly", as defined by the and wikipedia.

Many people don’t see the difference but it’s huge ! In a Democracy, the PEOPLE has the power, which might be partly delegated to representatives, which are often elected with a proportional system, not a majority because every citizen wants to be represented.

In a Republic (such as the USA at Federal level), politicians need more money than their opposnent because of “the winner takes it all”. In a democracy (such as Switzerland for exemple), with 15% of the votes you may become President.

I believe the source of the figure is Max Tegmark, "On the dimensionality of spa...

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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I believe the source of the figure is Max Tegmark, “ « , 1997, , DOI . BTW I blogged (in french) about this here :

Not yet, but the fact is The LHC’s latest results deliver another blow to supers...

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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Not yet, but the fact is and String Theory wasn’t confirmed either . But even if we find “more dimensions”, coiled or not, maybe they don’t deserve to be called “spatial”. maybe they’re something “orthogonal” to space and time, which would a third dimension to the table above …

The figure comes from On the dimensionality of spacetime« , 1997, arXiv:gr-qc/97...

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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The figure comes from « , 1997, , DOI , which states “the hyperbolicity property (that) enables observers to make predictions”, where observers belong to that universe. So if there is no time, timeless creatures can’t make any assumption about the future…