Skip to main content

Home/ Advanced Concepts Team/ Group items tagged course

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Alexander Wittig

Calling Bullshit - 2 views

callingbullshit.org/index.html

science

shared by Alexander Wittig on 27 Feb 17 - No Cached
LeopoldS and jcunha liked it
  • Alexander Wittig on 27 Feb 17
     
    A college course at University of Washington on "Calling Bullshit". We should invite them to give a lunch lecture at ESA... Our aim in this course is to teach you how to think critically about the data and models that constitute evidence in the social and natural sciences. While bullshit may reach its apogee in the political domain, this is not a course on political bullshit. Instead, we will focus on bullshit that comes clad in the trappings of scholarly discourse. Our learning objectives are straightforward. After taking the course, you should be able to: * Remain vigilant for bullshit contaminating your information diet. * Recognize said bullshit whenever and wherever you encounter it. * Figure out for yourself precisely why a particular bit of bullshit is bullshit. * Provide a statistician or fellow scientist with a technical explanation of why a claim is bullshit. * Provide your crystals-and-homeopathy aunt or casually racist uncle with an accessible and persuasive explanation of why a claim is bullshit. We will be astonished if these skills do not turn out to be among the most useful and most broadly applicable of those that you acquire during the course of your college education.
  • LeopoldS on 01 Mar 17
     
    love it: "Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Higher education rewards bullshit over analytic thought. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. Advertisers wink conspiratorially and invite us to join them in seeing through all the bullshit - and take advantage of our lowered guard to bombard us with bullshit of the second order. The majority of administrative activity, whether in private business or the public sphere, seems to be little more than a sophisticated exercise in the combinatorial reassembly of bullshit. We're sick of it. It's time to do something, and as educators, one constructive thing we know how to do is to teach people. So, the aim of this course is to help students navigate the bullshit-rich modern environment by identifying bullshit, seeing through it, and combating it with effective analysis and argument."
jmlloren

Exotic matter : Insight : Nature - 5 views

www.nature.com/...index.html

nan phy

shared by jmlloren on 03 Aug 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • jmlloren on 03 Aug 10
     
    Trends in materials and condensed matter. Check out the topological insulators. amazing field.
  • ...12 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 03 Aug 10
     
    Aparently very interesting, will it survive the short hype? Relevant work describing mirror charges of topological insulators and the classical boundary conditions were done by Ismo and Ari. But the two communities don't know each other and so they are never cited. Also a way to produce new things...
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    Thanks for noticing! Indeed, I had no idea that Ari (don't know Ismo) was involved in the field. Was it before Kane's proposal or more recently? What I mostly like is that semiconductors are good candidates for 3D TI, however I got lost in the quantum field jargon. Yesterday, I got a headache trying to follow the Majorana fermions, the merons, skyrnions, axions, and so on. Luzi, are all these things familiar to you?
  • Luzi Bergamin on 04 Aug 10
     
    Ismo Lindell described in the early 90's the mirror charge of what is now called topological insulator. He says that similar results were obtained already at the beginning of the 20th century... Ismo Lindell and Ari Sihvola in the recent years discussed engineering aspects of PEMCs (perfect electro-megnetic conductors,) which are more or less classical analogues of topological insulators. Fundamental aspects of PEMCs are well knwon in high-energy physics for a long time, recent works are mainly due to Friedrich Hehl and Yuri Obukhov. All these works are purely classical, so there is no charge quantisation, no considerations of electron spin etc. About Majorana fermions: yes, I spent several years of research on that topic. Axions: a topological state, of course, trivial :-) Also merons and skyrnions are topological states, but I'm less familiar with them.
  • LeopoldS on 04 Aug 10
     
    "Non-Abelian systems1, 2 contain composite particles that are neither fermions nor bosons and have a quantum statistics that is far richer than that offered by the fermion-boson dichotomy. The presence of such quasiparticles manifests itself in two remarkable ways. First, it leads to a degeneracy of the ground state that is not based on simple symmetry considerations and is robust against perturbations and interactions with the environment. Second, an interchange of two quasiparticles does not merely multiply the wavefunction by a sign, as is the case for fermions and bosons. Rather, it takes the system from one ground state to another. If a series of interchanges is made, the final state of the system will depend on the order in which these interchanges are being carried out, in sharp contrast to what happens when similar operations are performed on identical fermions or bosons." wow, this paper by Stern reads really weired ... any of you ever looked into this?
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    C'mon Leopold, it's as trivial as the topological states, AKA axions! Regarding the question, not me!
  • LeopoldS on 04 Aug 10
     
    just looked up the wikipedia entry on axions .... at least they have some creativity in names giving: "In supersymmetric theories the axion has both a scalar and a fermionic superpartner. The fermionic superpartner of the axion is called the axino, the scalar superpartner is called the saxion. In some models, the saxion is the dilaton. They are all bundled up in a chiral superfield. The axino has been predicted to be the lightest supersymmetric particle in such a model.[24] In part due to this property, it is considered a candidate for the composition of dark matter.[25]"
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    Thank's Leopold. Sorry Luzi for being ironic concerning the triviality of the axions. Now, Leo confirmed me that indeed is a trivial matter. I have problems with models where EVERYTHING is involved.
  • Luzi Bergamin on 04 Aug 10
     
    Well, that's the theory of everything, isn't it?? Seriously: I don't think that theoretically there is a lot of new stuff here. Topological aspects of (non-Abelian) theories became extremely popular in the context of string theory. The reason is very simple: topological theories are much simpler than "normal" and since string theory anyway is far too complicated to be solved, people just consider purely topological theories, then claiming that this has something to do with the real world, which of course is plainly wrong. So what I think is new about these topological insulators are the claims that one can actually fabricate a material which more or less accurately mimics a topological theory and that these materials are of practical use. Still, they are a little bit the poor man's version of the topological theories fundamental physicists like to look at since electrdynamics is an Abelian theory.
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    I have the feeling, not the knowledge, that you are right. However, I think that the implications of this light quantum field effects are great. The fact of being able to sustain two currents polarized in spin is a technological breakthrough.
  • LeopoldS on 04 Aug 10
     
    not sure how much I can contribute to your apparently educated debate here but if I remember well from my work for the master, these non-Abelian theories were all but "simple" as Luzi puts it ... and from a different perspective: to me the whole thing of being able to describe such non-Abelian systems nicely indicates that they should in one way or another also have some appearance in Nature (would be very surprised if not) - though this is of course no argument that makes string theory any better or closer to what Luzi called reality ....
  • Luzi Bergamin on 04 Aug 10
     
    Well, electrodynamics remains an Abelian theory. From the theoretical point of view this is less interesting than non-Abelian ones, since in 4D the fibre bundle of a U(1) theory is trivial (great buzz words, eh!) But in topological insulators the point of view is slightly different since one always has the insulator (topological theory), its surrounding (propagating theory) and most importantly the interface between the two. This is a new situation that people from field and string theory were not really interested in.
  • Dario Izzo on 04 Aug 10
     
    guys... how would you explain this to your gran mothers?
  • jmlloren on 05 Aug 10
  • LeopoldS on 07 Aug 10
     
    *you* tried *your* best .... ??
Ma Ru

Dark Matter or Black Hole Propulsion? - 1 views

www.newscientist.com/...s-for-interstellar-travel.html

NRG propulsion star travel space PHY

shared by Ma Ru on 25 Nov 09 - Cached
  • Ma Ru on 25 Nov 09
     
    Anyone out there still doing propulsion stuff? Two more papers just waiting to get busted... http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1429v1 http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803
  • ...5 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 26 Nov 09
     
    What an awful bunch of complete nonsense!!! But I don't think anybody wants to hear MY opinion on this...
  • pacome delva on 26 Nov 09
     
    wow, is this serious at all...!?
  • Luzi Bergamin on 26 Nov 09
     
    Are you joking?? The BH drive propses a BH with a lifetime of about an year, just 10^7 tons, peanuts!! Then you have to produce it, better not on Earth, so you do this in space, with a laser that produces an equivalent of 10^9 tons highly foucussed, even more peanuts!! Reasonable losses in the production process (probably 99,999%) are not yet taken into account. Engineering problems... :-) The DM drive is even better, they want to collect DM and compress it in a propulsion chamber. Very easy to collect and compress a gas of particles that traverse the Earth without any interaction. Perhaps if the walls of the chamber are made of artificial BHs?? Who knows??
  • LeopoldS on 26 Nov 09
     
    WRONG!!! we are all just WAITING for your opinion on this ....!!!
  • pacome delva on 27 Nov 09
     
    well, yes my remark was ironic... I'm surprised they did a magazine on these concepts...! But the press is always waiting for sensational. They do not even wait for the work to be peer-reviewed now to make an article on it ! This is one of the bad sides of arxiv in my opinion. It's like a journalist that make an article with a copy-paste in wikipedia ! Anyway, this is of course complete bullsh..., and I would have laughed if I had read this in a sci-fi book... but in a "serious" article i'm crying... For the DM i do not agree with your remark Luzi. It's not dark energy they want to use. The DM is baryonic, it's dark just because it's cold so we don't see it by usual means. If you believe the in the standard model of cosmology, then the DM should be somewhere around the galaxies. But it's of course not uniformly distributed, so a DM engine would work (if at all...) only in the periphery of galaxies. It's already impossible to get there...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 27 Nov 09
     
    One reply to Pacome, though the discussion exceeds by far the relevance of the topic already. Baryonic DM is strictly limited by cosomology, if one believes in these models, of course. Anyway, even though most DM is cold, we are constantly bombarded by some DM particles that come together with cosmic radiation, solar wind etc. etc. If DM easily interacted with normal matter, we would have found it long ago. In the paper they consider DM as neutralinos, which are neither baryonic nor strongly or electromagnetically interacting.
  • pacome delva on 27 Nov 09
     
    well then I agree, how the fu.. they want to collect them !!!
LeopoldS

Finding the Source of the Pioneer Anomaly - IEEE Spectrum - 0 views

spectrum.ieee.org/...-source-of-the-pioneer-anomaly

NPS RPS RTG nuclear pioneer

shared by LeopoldS on 08 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 08 Dec 12
     
    The article came out some time ago of course and was posted here, though the story here is still well written. If you are lazy to read the rel long article, here the summary explanation: The team found that a good half of the force came from heat from the RTGs, which bounced off the back of the spacecraft antenna. The other half came from electrical heat from circuitry in the heart of the spacecraft. Most of that heat was radiated through louvers at the back of the probes, which weren't as well insulated as the rest of their bodies, further contributing to the deceleration.
Lionel Jacques

Laser-wielding satellite swarm to deflect asteroids - 2 views

www.gizmag.com/...21965

space science

shared by Lionel Jacques on 28 Mar 12 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Lionel Jacques on 28 Mar 12
     
    "The latest idea comes from engineers at Glasgow's University of Strathclyde who suggest that a swarm of laser-wielding satellites could nudge Earth-bound asteroids off their collision course.... One proposed deflection technique involves using lasers to pulverize the surface of the asteroid, ejecting tiny bits of rock that would act as a propellant and push it onto a different course."
LeopoldS

On creative machines and the physical origins of freedom : Scientific Reports : Nature ... - 4 views

www.nature.com/...srep00522.html

AI quantum

shared by LeopoldS on 20 Jul 12 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • LeopoldS on 20 Jul 12
     
    For all the AI guys (Christos, Marek, Ed, Markus and co ...) and of course Luiz, Sante ... You will like this one :-)
  • Luzi Bergamin on 21 Jul 12
     
    Quite a lot of blabla, some usual misconceptions (like QT the source of randomness in nature), but a -- from my point of view -- very true (though in the text somehow hidden) conclusion: Free will, creativity etc. from the point of view of fundamental physics are just randomness! Many physicists won't like this conclusion, though, and in this respect also the title is rather misleading!
Dario Izzo

Femto-Photography - 7 views

web.media.mit.edu/...trillionfps

PHY photography

shared by Dario Izzo on 08 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Dario Izzo on 08 Aug 12
     
    A new imaging technique able to make movies of light moving!!! There is a trick, of course, but is a rather clever one and does not preclude innovative applications .....
Tom Gheysens

Sea Sapphire: the Most Beautiful Animal You've Never Heard Of - 3 views

www.thefeaturedcreature.com/...-animal-youve-never-heard.html

sea sapphire animal BIO science

shared by Tom Gheysens on 06 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Tom Gheysens on 06 Mar 14
     
    this is what I call truly cloaking!...of course only found in and made by nature :) (video at the bottom of the page)
  • Thijs Versloot on 06 Mar 14
     
    Definitely beautiful, even psychedelic maybe.. but technically its not really cloaking, you wouldn't call your window a cloaking device right? :)
  • Beniamino Abis on 07 Mar 14
     
    The video looks surreal!
LeopoldS

Sex differences in the structural connectome of the human brain - 0 views

www.pnas.org/...1316909110

brain BIO neuro

shared by LeopoldS on 02 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 02 Dec 13
     
    it seems that there are indications that we are differently wired .... Sex differences in human behavior show adaptive complementarity: Males have better motor and spatial abilities, whereas females have superior memory and social cognition skills. Studies also show sex differences in human brains but do not explain this complementarity. In this work, we modeled the structural connectome using diffusion tensor imaging in a sample of 949 youths (aged 8-22 y, 428 males and 521 females) and discovered unique sex differences in brain connectivity during the course of development. Connection-wise statistical analysis, as well as analysis of regional and global network measures, presented a comprehensive description of network characteristics. In all supratentorial regions, males had greater within-hemispheric connectivity, as well as enhanced modularity and transitivity, whereas between-hemispheric connectivity and cross-module participation predominated in females. However, this effect was reversed in the cerebellar connections. Analysis of these changes developmentally demonstrated differences in trajectory between males and females mainly in adolescence and in adulthood. Overall, the results suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes.
  • johannessimon81 on 03 Dec 13
     
    I like this abstract: sex, sex, sex, sex, SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX...!!! I wonder if the "sex differences" are related to gender-specific differences...
nikolas smyrlakis

How siestas help memory: Sleepy heads | The Economist - 3 views

www.economist.com/...displaystory.cfm

siestas nap memory economist

shared by nikolas smyrlakis on 01 Mar 10 - Cached
Ma Ru liked it
  • nikolas smyrlakis on 01 Mar 10
     
    How much more proof do we need.... and of course "It may be that those who have a tendency to wake up groggy are choosing not to siesta in the first place. Perhaps, though, as in so many things, it is practice that makes perfect."
  • Ma Ru on 01 Mar 10
     
    Come on guys, be innovative and make at least an Ariadna...
LeopoldS

http://www.springerlink.com/content/9476j57g1t07vhn2/fulltext.pdf - 1 views

www.springerlink.com/...fulltext.pdf

NRG climate-change modelling SPS

shared by LeopoldS on 06 Dec 09 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 06 Dec 09
     
    interesting approach ... though don't like the GDP link, but this is subjective of course ...
Juxi Leitner

InfoQ: A Crash Course in Modern Hardware - 3 views

www.infoq.com/...k-crash-course-modern-hardware

technology computer architectures programming

shared by Juxi Leitner on 23 Jan 10 - Cached
  • Juxi Leitner on 23 Jan 10
     
    for francesco ;) though i guess he knows it all already so for the others who wanna know too
  • Francesco Biscani on 25 Jan 10
     
    Cool, lots of useful info in there. Though, never having programmed in Java before, I wonder if one can go that low-level in Java?
  • Juxi Leitner on 25 Jan 10
     
    oh I don't think so but it is interesting for the JVM I guess
santecarloni

[1105.1293] Eigengestures for natural human computer interface - 1 views

arxiv.org/1105.1293

bio technology

shared by santecarloni on 10 May 11 - No Cached
  • santecarloni on 10 May 11
     
    We present the application of Principal Component Analysis for data acquired during the design of a natural gesture interface. We investigate the concept of an eigengesture for motion capture hand gesture data and present the visualisation of principal components obtained in the course of conducted experiments. We also show the influence of dimensionality reduction on reconstructed gesture data quality.
LeopoldS

Play on Moonshield - 0 views

www.moonshield.com/play

game online web public

shared by LeopoldS on 15 Jul 09 - Cached
  • LeopoldS on 15 Jul 09
     
    online game developed by Thales as part of improving their recruitment!! who want's to give it a try (in your spare time in the nights of course ....) reminds me of the idea that we have been bouncing around since some time on the use of games for engaging students in our scientific research ...
Nina Nadine Ridder

AEI - Geoengineering: A Revolutionary Approach to Climate Change - 0 views

www.aei.org/1728

Geoengineering

shared by Nina Nadine Ridder on 09 Sep 09 - No Cached
  • Nina Nadine Ridder on 09 Sep 09
     
    video of presentation and discussion about scienctific background of geoengineering in course of the series of AEI conferences
ESA ACT

Japanese consortium disguises solar cells as leaves - Engadget - 0 views

www.engadget.com/...isguises-solar-cells-as-leaves

solar photovoltaic PV energy NRG

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    remember that I wanted to do this at a University lab course! ...LS
ESA ACT

For those who don't know - what is money? - 0 views

video.google.pl/videoplay

money future futurist finance economy

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - No Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    When you finally get bored asking "what is love?", ask: "what is money?" There's of course a bit of propaganda, but one thing seems to be true - one day, the system *will* collapse.
ESA ACT

iTunes U - 0 views

www.apple.com/...itunesu.html

INF education

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    Tunes U puts the power of the iTunes Store to work for colleges and universities, so users can easily search, download, and play course content just like they do music, movies, and TV shows.
pacome delva

A Physics Paradox: Holes That Block Light -- Fox 2009 (1113): 3 -- ScienceNOW - 0 views

sciencenow.sciencemag.org/...3

phy photonics

shared by pacome delva on 18 Nov 09 - Cached
  • Make holes in a film of gold so thin that it's already semitransparent, and less light gets through.
  • pacome delva on 18 Nov 09
     
    A good example of "Can we use it for space.com"... For shielding of course !
1 - 20 of 112 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page