Scales in the Universe

This website, which illustrates the scales — both large and small — of the universe is wonderful!

It reminds me of the 1977 video called Powers of Ten (of which there are also modern versions), except with new stuff that we now know!

(Tip of the cap to Sara Solla.)

Pondering Social Contagions in the 19th Century

If only they knew about social contagions...

The winner of Answers magazine's big Question Competition of 1888 was Mr. E Bond of Bloomsbury, who submitted this entry: pic.twitter.com/0kU0Mwxlqj

— Dr Bob Nicholson (@DigiVictorian) December 28, 2018

And here is the beginning of the thread.

In 1888, Answers magazine ran a prize competition in which readers were challenged to send in 'The Most Interesting Question On Any Subject.' Reading through the results is like looking at Victorian Britain's Google search history...

Thread 👇👇👇: pic.twitter.com/Z4aQDTtM3E

— Dr Bob Nicholson (@DigiVictorian) December 28, 2018

The Final Polishing Step Before Submitting a Manuscript or a Grant Proposal

Naturally. ;)

In the new year, don't forget about this final, very important step when doing the final polishing of your manuscripts and grant proposals just before you submit them. :P

[Note: I clipped this comic years ago from LA Weekly. It fits academia like a clever but frustrating glove.] pic.twitter.com/K2ncYEatya

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) December 27, 2018

A Paper that Rejects Itself

What a conundrum! :P

Amazing. Train a network to classify papers (accept/reject). Then run the network on the paper describing the network, and it classifies the paper as a strong reject. This is why we can't have nice paper classifiers. (h/t @hardmaru) https://t.co/OC2baCI1Za pic.twitter.com/3N9wsKQ374

— Chethan Pandarinath (@chethan) December 21, 2018

(Tip of the cap to Karen Daniels.)

Real-Life Binary Trees!

Here is picture proof that (reasonably) balanced binary trees exist in real life!

[I took this picture about a decade ago in front of @peetscoffee a few blocks from @Caltech.] pic.twitter.com/iwxfYtVSV4

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) December 21, 2018

Tales from the ArXiv: Motto: "Somebody has to Study this Shit!"

Motto: Somebody has to study this shit!

And I mean this literally: the title of the paper is "An Agent-Based Model for Bovine Viral Diarrhea".

Update: Normally, I hate it when papers are full of bullshit. However, I may need to make an exception in this case.

Self-Awareness and the Elephant in the Room

So, in other words, they first needed to see the elephant in the room? :)

Elephants failed the mirror test for self-awareness — until researchers made the mirrors big enough for elephants to see themselves alongside other elephants.https://t.co/GnI2Z1hsi7 pic.twitter.com/SA5oRE65NU

— Quanta Magazine (@QuantaMagazine) December 18, 2018

(Tip of the cap to Steve Strogatz.)

But Are These Data Cookies Reproducible?

I think it's very important to check the reproducibility of these data.

(Tasty, tasty reproducibility.)

Last day of class tomorrow! I baked cookies for my Intro to Data Analytics students, with frosted data plots. Lucky them. #DAatDU pic.twitter.com/j3TCNeDOBe

— Dr. Sarah Supp (@srsupp) December 14, 2018

(Tip of the cap to Javier Buldú.)

Update: Now that I think of it, "Sweet, sweet reproducibility." would have been better phrasing, given its larger set of allusions.

"Variability in Fermi–Pasta–Ulam–Tsingou Arrays Can Prevent Recurrences"

A paper of mine came out in final form today. Here are some details.

Title: "Variability in Fermi–Pasta–Ulam–Tsingou Arrays Can Prevent Recurrences"

Authors: Heather Nelson, Mason A. Porter, and Bhaskar Choubey

Abstract: In 1955, Fermi, Pasta, Ulam, and Tsingou reported recurrence over time of energy between modes in a one-dimensional array of nonlinear oscillators. Subsequently, there have been myriad numerical experiments using homogenous FPUT arrays in the form of chains of ideal, nonlinearly coupled oscillators. However, inherent variations (e.g., due to manufacturing tolerance) introduce heterogeneity into the parameters of any physical system. We demonstrate that such tolerances degrade the observance of recurrences, often leading to complete loss in moderately-sized arrays. We numerically simulate heterogeneous FPUT systems to investigate the effects of tolerances on dynamics. Our results illustrate that tolerances in real nonlinear oscillator arrays may limit the applicability of results from numerical experiments on them to physical systems, unless appropriate heterogeneities are taken into account.

Lee Smith and Harold Baines Elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee

Lee Smith and Harold Baines were elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame today by "Today's Game Era Committee", an incarnation of the Veterans Committee.

These are not good picks, especially the one of Harold Baines. They belong more in the Hall of Very Good, rather than in the Hall of Fame. They had very good careers and compiled large numbers in various stats, but in my opinion they don't belong in the Hall of Fame. One of the things to think about when considering whether a player raises or lowers the standards of the Hall at their position. In my view, Lee Smith is a borderline case and I would put him just below the border, but he was the all-time saves leader for a while (and, in general, I can see the arguments in his favor), and he got many Hall of Fame votes for years. Thus, I only view this as a mildly bad pick. I understand it, but I wouldn't put him in the Hall. Part of the issue with Lee Smith has always been the overrating of saves, and I am not surprised that he got in through the Today's Game Era Committee, given the many votes he got from writers over the years in the regular voting. So I can mostly understand his case. But Harold Baines? He was a very good player, but he really lowers the bar at his position. He never got a sniff from the writers, nor did he deserve it.

I'm looking forward to the regular ballot, which will get us Mariano Rivera (who may break the record for highest voting percentage), Edgar Martínez (finally!), Roy Halladay, and maybe (and hopefully!) Mike Mussina will make it. Those four all richly deserve enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.

Maybe Lee Smith's election will help Billy Wagner's case?

"'C' is for Cookie": Academic Evaluation Edition

Comment: "'C' is for cookie. That's good enough for me!"

Comment 2: Apparently, some of my what we did in mathematics in Somerville was an even better idea than I thought. ;)

'The provision of chocolate cookies had a significant effect on course evaluation. These findings question the validity of (student evaluations of teaching) and their use in making widespread decisions within a faculty.' HT @KStackWhitney (photo: Dschwen) https://t.co/lO1v18tmf5 pic.twitter.com/N6epK3GinU

— Erika Marín-Spiotta (@emsaurios) December 7, 2018

(Tip of the cap to Jacquelyn Gill.)

Does Particle Man Hate Tariff Man?

Does Particle Man hate Tariff Man? And what about Triangle Man?

Jewelry and Differential Equations

I'm sure that many jewel thieves started on the road to crime after failed attempts to solve a differential equation.

Wolfram Alpha thinks that I may want to find jewelry, even though I asked it about a differential equation. pic.twitter.com/PpfoFUbEUb

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) December 4, 2018

Tales from the ArXiv: Laundering Anti-Money

This new paper has the following title: "Scalable Graph Learning for Anti-Money Laundering: A First Look"

Wow! I wonder what happens when laundered anti-money collides with laundered money?