Author Archives: Andrea

What does Gauß have to do with the nuclear arms race?

Veritasium: How An Algorithm Could Have Stopped The Nuclear Arms Race. (YouTube, 26:32min)

“The Fast Fourier Transform is used everywhere but it has a fascinating origin story that could have ended the nuclear arms race. […]
Thanks to Grant Sanderson of 3Blue1Brown for his helpful feedback on the script. His great video on the Fourier Transform is here”

3Blue1Brown: But what is the Fourier Transform? A visual introduction. (YouTube, 21min)

It blew my mind that Carl Friedrich Gauß found the discrete Fourier transform – 150 years earlier that Fourier.

“Plump up the cartilage”

The Washington Post: Does running really wreck your knees? “Contrary to popular opinion, distance running rarely causes knee problems in runners, and often leaves joints sturdier and less damaged.” By Gretchen Reynolds.

“Hart and his colleagues believe running strengthens the major leg muscles supporting the knee, allowing them to take on and offload more of the strains involved in repeatedly striking the ground.

The knee’s cartilage probably also bulks up, thanks to the repeated squishing it receives during running, Esculier said. “For a long time, we thought that cartilage could not adapt” to running or other activities, he said, because it lacks blood supply and nerves. “But in fact, cartilage does adapt,” he said, “by becoming stronger and more tolerant to compression.”

In a 2022 review of past MRI studies he co-wrote, he and his colleagues found evidence that the knee’s cartilage flattens immediately after a run, but then bounces back into shape within a few hours. With long-term recreational running, he said, the cartilage probably thickens, although that possibility still needs to be studied.

“Bottom line is that cartilage does become more robust” with running, Esculier said.”

Alles gesagt?

In den letzten Wochen habe ich zwei höchst interessante Podcast-Folgen gehört, und zwar vom unendlichen Zeit-Podcast Alles gesagt?

Richert Socher, was denken Maschinen? (26. November 2020, gute acht Stunden lang)

“Einer der meistzitierten jungen KI-Forscher spricht im Podcast darüber, wie Computer die Welt verstehen, über sein Leben im Silicon Valley und seine Kindheit in der DDR.”

Thomas Zurbuchen, wann findet die Nasa Leben im Weltall? (22. August 2022, fünf Stunden lang)

“Er ist der wohl einflussreichste Forscher der Welt. Im unendlichen Podcast spricht der Astrophysiker über die Magie der Sterne, Elon Musk und Science-Fiction-Filme.”

Weitere Folgen der Serie, die ich hörenswert fand:

  • Uli Wickert, was ist das Geheimnis Ihres reichen Lebens? (24. Mai 2019, 5 Stunden)
  • Alice Hasters, was sollten weiße Menschen über Rassismus wissen? (3. Juni 2020, 6,5 Stunden)
  • Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim, rettet Wissenschaft die Welt? (23. Juli 2020, 4 Stunden)
  • Joachim Gauck, warum braucht Deutschland einen Bundespräsidenten? (9. Juni 2022, 6 Stunden)
  • “HomöopaTEA – Wirkung ist, was du draus machst!”

    MaiThink X: Das Ende der Homöopathie. (YouTube, 31:57min)

    “Der vielleicht größte Abwasserskandal aller Zeiten – ausgerechnet mit der angeblich so sanften Homöopathie. Und ein Eistee, der mit Globuli gesüßt wird, obwohl die sonst nur in der Apotheke verkauft werden. Wir führen euch durch die Abgründe der deutschen Arzneimittelregelungen – holt euch einen Eistee, macht es euch gemütlich!”

    Fourth State of Matter: Time Crystals

    Physics Girl: BREAKING: New Phase of Matter. (YouTube, 15:34min) “What are time crystals? How do scientists make one on a quantum computer.”

    See also these scientific papers:

    Stanford News: Stanford physicists help create time crystals with quantum computers. “A team of researchers including ones from Stanford and Google have created and observed a new phase of matter, popularly known as a time crystal.” (Published November 30, 2021)

    “In research published Nov. 30 in Nature, a team of scientists from Stanford University, Google Quantum AI, the Max Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems and Oxford University detail their creation of a time crystal using Google’s Sycamore quantum computing hardware.

    “The big picture is that we are taking the devices that are meant to be the quantum computers of the future and thinking of them as complex quantum systems in their own right,” said Matteo Ippoliti, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford and co-lead author of the work. “Instead of computation, we’re putting the computer to work as a new experimental platform to realize and detect new phases of matter.””

    Phys.org, University of Hamburg: Researchers observe continuous time crystal. (Published June 10, 2022)

    “Researchers from the Institute of Laser Physics at Universität Hamburg have succeeded for the first time in realizing a time crystal that spontaneously breaks continuous time translation symmetry. They report their observation in a study published online by the journal Science on Thursday, 9 June, 2022.”