Ergodicity is the condition wherein a sample is representative of the whole vis-a-vis some statistical parameter. An ergodic system is one that visits all possible states of its existence as it evolves. Axiomatically, a non-ergodic system is one that does not. Stuart A. Kauffman, a scientist at the University of Calgary, wrote on Edge a …
Monthly Archives: July 2018
A new discrimination
An article in KurzweilAI begins, Plants could soon provide our electricity. Why would anyone take this seriously? More than excitement, this line rouses a discerning reader to suspicion. It is bound to be centred on the word “soon”, implying in the near-future, imminently. You’re not sure which timescales people are thinking on but I’m sure …
Preprints don’t promote confusion – so taking them away won’t fix anything
In response to my Twitter thread against Tom Sheldon’s anti-preprints article in Nature, I received more responses in support of Sheldon’s view than I expected. So I wrote an extended takedown for my blog and, of course, The Wire, pasted below. In 1969, Franz J. Ingelfinger articulated a now-famous rule named after him in an …
Continue reading “Preprints don’t promote confusion – so taking them away won’t fix anything”
Preprints don’t promote confusion – so taking them away won't fix anything
In response to my Twitter thread against Tom Sheldon’s anti-preprints article in Nature, I received more responses in support of Sheldon’s view than I expected. So I wrote an extended takedown for my blog and, of course, The Wire, pasted below. In 1969, Franz J. Ingelfinger articulated a now-famous rule named after him in an …
Continue reading “Preprints don’t promote confusion – so taking them away won't fix anything”
A detector for electron ptychography
Anyone who writes about physics research must have a part of their headspace currently taken up by assessing a new and potentially groundbreaking claim out of the IISc: the discovery of superconductivity at ambient pressure and temperature in a silver nanostructure embedded in a matrix of gold. Although The Hindu has already reported it, I …
Redshift and eclipse
I am thoroughly dispirited. I had wanted to write today about how it is fascinating that we have validated Einstein’s theory of general relativity for the first time in an extreme environment: in the neighbourhood of a black hole. The test involved the detection of an effect called the gravitational redshift, whereby light that is …
Silly arguments to restrict access to preprints
Tom Sheldon, a senior press manager at the Science Media Centre (SMC), London, had an interesting proposition – at least at first – published in Nature on July 24. The journal’s Twitter handle had tweeted it thus: “Do you think publishing on preprint servers is good or bad for science?” Though the question immediately set …
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The Tooth
I went to the most terrifying place in the world today: the dental clinic. I’d woken up this morning with a sharp pain under my right lower jaw and, soon enough, I realised it was time to get rid of the wisdom tooth – a divorce I’d been putting off for a few months for …
The surprises
https://twitter.com/notrueindian/status/1021302944992407553 “Nature is Lovecraftian” … is it? The literature of H.P. Lovecraft in freaky, at odds with the more conventional, less morally degenerate canon of English literary fiction irrespective of the period from which the latter is selected. To say “nature is Lovecraftian” is to extend to zoologia the out-of-place characteristic we associate with Lovecraft’s …
‘Black Panther’ – Two thoughts
I watched Black Panther again today. Two things came to mind. First: When by the end of the film T’Challa and Wakanda realise that they can’t keep their technology a secret anymore, it is – among many things – an act of taking charge of their nation’s narrative. By doing so, T’Challa and his advisers ensure …
Gallium’s dance
A wide swath of fundamental physics and chemistry is defined by the pursuit of the ground state. Since we began elucidating the structure of the atom in the 1910s, much of what we know about how particles, quasiparticles and molecules behave can be described by a desire among each of these entities to lose all …
That monthly reminder…
(I can speak only for myself here) I certainly seem to be needing a monthly reminder that to focus on pure science as a journalist is not in any way an abdication of one’s responsibilities as a citizen of India. The more forceful the reminder – i.e. the stronger the argument made – the longer …