Open peer commentary on the article “Building Bridges to Algebra through a Constructionist Learning Environment” by Eirini Geraniou & Manolis Mavrikis. Upshot: In their article, Geraniou and Mavrikis describe an environment to help children explore algebraic relationships through pattern building. They report on transfer of learning from the computer to paper, but also implicit is transfer from concrete to abstract contexts. I make the case that transfer from abstract to concrete contexts should complement such approaches.

Glava 1. Bazovye poni︠a︡tii︠a︡ i metodologii︠a︡ transgumanisticheskoĭ religioznoĭ init︠s︡iativy -- Glava 2. Organizat︠s︡ionnyĭ urovenʹ transgumanisticheskogo dvizhenii︠a︡ -- Glava 3. Avtorskie proekty -- Glava 4. Nauchnye proekty transgumanistov -- Glava 5. Religioznye analogi konfessii︠a︡m i uchenii︠a︡m v transgumanizme.

Predvaritelʹnye zamechanii︠a︡ -- Konformizm, ili Spasenie zdesʹ i seĭchas -- Soprotivlenie, ili Risk -- Nasilie, ili Nakazannai︠a︡ smertʹ -- Gedonizm, ili Poisk utrachennoĭ realʹnosti -- Tradit︠s︡ii︠a︡, ili Prisposablivai︠u︡shcheesi︠a︡ soprotivlenie -- Bessoznatelʹnoe, ili Aksiologicheskai︠a︡ mashina mozga.

L. Vervoort claims to have found a model which “can violate the Bell inequality and reproduce the quantum statistics, even if it is based on local dynamics only”. This claim is false. The proposed model contains global elements. The physics behind the model is local, but would not allow the explanation of violations of Bell inequalities for space-like separated events, if superluminal causal influences are forbidden. To use it for this purpose, one has to introduce a preferred frame where information (...) can be send faster than light. As a cause of the misunderstanding we identify the unfortunate convention to use “local” as a synonym for Einstein-local, so that theories which are local in every physically relevant sense have to be named “non-local”, and argue that this convention should be abandoned. (shrink)

A countably infinite relational structure M is called absolutely ubiquitous if the following holds: whenever N is a countably infinite structure, and M and N have the same isomorphism types of finite induced substructures, there is an isomorphism from M to N. Here a characterisation is given of absolutely ubiquitous structures over languages with finitely many relation symbols. A corresponding result is proved for uncountable structures.