Playing Themes from Super Mario Brothers on an Ancient Chinese Instrument

This performance is awesome!

Lego Grad Student

I just found out about Lego Grad Student from a Facebook post by Shanti Rao.

I had never heard of Lego Grad Student before, but this brilliantly fills a gap in the online world. I'll include one of LGS's tweets in this blog entry.

Running into a paywall for yet another article, the grad student is pummeled anew by the academic-industrial complex. pic.twitter.com/QnvFhjszPk

— Lego Grad Student (@legogradstudent) April 18, 2017

"Persistent Homology of Time-Dependent Functional Networks Constructed from Coupled Time Series"

One of my papers came out in final form today. Here are the details.

Title: Persistent Homology of Time-Dependent Functional Networks Constructed from Coupled Time Series

Authors: Bernadette J. Stolz, Heather A. Harrington, and Mason A. Porter

Abstract: We use topological data analysis to study "functional networks" that we construct from time-series data from both experimental and synthetic sources. We use persistent homology with a weight rank clique filtration to gain insights into these functional networks, and we use persistence landscapes to interpret our results. Our first example uses time-series output from networks of coupled Kuramoto oscillators. Our second example consists of biological data in the form of functional magnetic resonance imaging data that were acquired from human subjects during a simple motor-learning task in which subjects were monitored for three days during a five-day period. With these examples, we demonstrate that (1) using persistent homology to study functional networks provides fascinating insights into their properties and (2) the position of the features in a filtration can sometimes play a more vital role than persistence in the interpretation of topological features, even though conventionally the latter is used to distinguish between signal and noise. We find that persistent homology can detect differences in synchronization patterns in our data sets over time, giving insight both on changes in community structure in the networks and on increased synchronization between brain regions that form loops in a functional network during motor learning. For the motor-learning data, persistence landscapes also reveal that on average the majority of changes in the network loops take place on the second of the three days of the learning process.

Stunning Drawings of Seaweed

Margaret Gatty drew some gorgeous pictures of seaweed as part of her book on the topic. These pictures are awesome!

An Epic "Slide"

This "slide" by the Toronto Blue Jays' Chris Coghlan is absolutely epic.

(The link goes to a public Facebook post from Major League Baseball.)

Perceptions of the Probability of Ambiguous Statements

You can completely mess up this chart in the UK simply by using the word "quite". That will do quite an ambiguous number on the perceived probabilities.

(More seriously, I really like this visualization.)

Fantastic enumeration/visualization of qualitative statements re probability via @amandacox https://t.co/XtFnHD2Zgp | @rsimmon @johnjhorton pic.twitter.com/DeByHToazi

— Nicholas Christakis (@NAChristakis) April 25, 2017

Conway's Game of Life In Real Life (on an Ocellated Lizard)

Wow! This is amazing!

Here is the blurb on the Facebook post that goes with the Physics Today article (though I added the hyperlink): The ocellated lizard develops an intricate, ever-changing pattern of black and green spots when it matures. Now researchers have determined that the patterns on the animals' backs update according to a well-defined algorithm: Over a period of a month or so, a given scale will change color—from green to black or black to green—with a probability that depends on the colors of the scales around it. In essence, the reptile is the embodiment of a cellular automaton, a type of discretized model made popular by John Conway’s Game of Life and used to simulate the spread of wildfires, the firing of neurons, and other phenomena.

Physics Today's article is about a recent article in Nature called "A living mesoscopic cellular automaton made of skin scales".

What Happens in Berkeley Stays in Berkeley

I am taking a quick trip to Berkeley (with about 20 hours on the ground) to give a talk (on granular crystals) to the condensed-matter theory folks at UC Berkeley.

As one of my friends pointed out on Facebook, I should perhaps be careful about using the terms "quick trip" and "Berkeley" in the same sentence. :)

A Bit More on Our Mathematics Booth at the March for Science Los Angeles

I think our math booth ended up being one of the most popular of all of the booths at the LA March for Science.

We gave away tons of AMS Mathematical Moments, in particular. We brought English, Spanish, and Korean versions of the Mathematical Moments. We also gave away a bunch of SIAM's Math Matters, Apply It!. We also had copies of our networks literacy handbook in each of the 19 languages in which it is available, and we brought copies of our networks outreach materials for school students and talked to a lot of teachers about it. We mostly discussed the outreach efforts themselves, but we also brought copies of the teaching materials with us.

I wonder how much mathematics ending up photobombing the pictures from the LA March?

Also, several people came and took pictures of a differential equation that I wrote down on a flip chart to explain to someone the difference between linear and nonlinear equations.

At different times, our booth also had a comedian and a Fields Medalist show up.

I was really exhausted after the event. An almost-8-hour teaching marathon in the heat is very tiring. (Having a tent and some shade was very helpful, though. Paying for a booth was a very good idea.)

An amusing incident: Yesterday morning, the first person who came to our booth asked us about buying our tangerine juice. Math, damnit! Not tangerine juice. That's for us!

Another amusing incident: One person I know recognized my handwriting on our flip chart before he saw me at our booth.

And some pictures of the action at our booth: one, another one, setting up, and setting up (and a view of one of our neighboring booths)

Update (4/25/17): And here are some pictures from the LA March from Los Angeles Magazine.

Spotting Fake Peer Reviews

This article has a rather juicy line: “When a lot of the fake peer reviews first came up, one of the reasons the editors spotted them was that the reviewers responded on time,” Wager told Ars.

LOL!

(Tip of the cap to Craig Montuori.)

Some Signs from the March for Science

Here are some really cool signs from the March for Science

I'll try to post some more links later. I have been seeing fantastic signs on the March for Science Facebook page for the past several weeks (and I saw some great signs in LA today).

(Tip of the cap to Maria Satterwhite.)

P.S. Some Thomas Dolby got played at the LA March, of course. :) This was the first song blasted as the gathering started on their march after a series of short speeches. Allusions to Thomas Dolby also showed up yesterday on signs, of course.

Update (4/23/17): Here are some more signs. (Tip of the cap to Peter Mucha.)

Update (4/23/17): Naturally, and as expected, people nerded out quite a bit yesterday (just like we people do in venues like Dragon*Con). In some ways, it was also like Coachella for scientists and friends. You can see some more signs in this Motherboard article and this Vox article. (The so-called "Laplace equation" in one of the pictures actually shows a Laplace transform.) Spock, Data, Beaker, and other scientifically-themed fictional characters were also very well represented.

Update (4/23/17): According to this Washington post article, the March for Science was unprecedented. (Tip of the cap to Karen Daniels.)

Update (4/23/17): Here are some signs from the New York march. I am partial to the Oregon Trail one, of course. (I have seen variants of it posted on the Facebook page for March for Science.)

Update (4/25/17): Here are some pictures from the LA March.

Update (4/26/17): Linda Hall Library is developing a digital archive of the March for Science. Very cool! (Tip of the cap to Laci Gerhart-Barley.)

Blinding People with Network Science (at the March for Science Los Angeles)

Puck Rombach and I will be at the March for Science Los Angeles tomorrow to teach people about the science of networks.

Learn about the Science of Networks with us at booth 11 at the @march4sciencela (Los Angeles March for Science) on Saturday 22 April! pic.twitter.com/74e394iPGx

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) April 21, 2017

We'll be drawing from materials here (and hence here) and will also have booklets on essential concepts and core ideas about networks.

Graph Alignment: A Major Open Problem

Graph Alignment is a major open problem in mathematics and computer science. pic.twitter.com/Q8EJDSYLge

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) April 20, 2017

"Wild Thing": Now Pitching for the Rockies

Dodgers broadcaster Joe Davis likes to use the nickname "Wild Thing" for Rockies' relief pitcher Carlos Estévez (for obvious reasons). I love it!

In case you don't remember and don't want to follow a chain of links on Wikipedia, go to this page.

Article of Interest: "What Happens When We Do Not Defend Academic Freedom"

Here is the article, which I suggest reading in its entirety.

(Tip of the cap to David Hu and Michael Szell.)

SMBC: Lifetimes

I think this SMBC came out before I was reading it regularly. It is amazing!

It talks about reinventing yourself, and it expresses the idea in a particularly nice way.

Spectacular Ironic Pictures

Many of these http://eternallysunny.com/funny-coincidences/ (most of them are ironic) are spectacular! Number 4 is my favorite!

(Tip of the cap to George Takei.)

An Old Disney Creation/Merchandising Network

Wow!

LINKING LINES ASPIRE TO BE SENTENCES = graphic links in Disney network with creative talent at center: https://t.co/2pGfS5DdQ4 #dataviz #ddj pic.twitter.com/NpxFCTePN6

— Edward Tufte (@EdwardTufte) December 1, 2016

Eighteenth-Century Rotating Table: I Want One!

Not that this is the most practical and efficient 21st-century method to address this issue... but I want one!

A must for every library: eighteenth-century rotating table allowing readers to view multiple volumes at once. pic.twitter.com/p18X8LRpPo

— NSCM (@LitteraCarolina) April 14, 2017

(Tip of the cap to Gabrielle Birkman.)

"New Textbooks for the New Mathematics"

Here is an article, called "New Textbooks for the New Mathematics", by Richard Feynman that appeared in Caltech's publication Engineering and Science in March 1965.

The article includes a reprint of a cartoon from The New Yorker that reminds me of this song. (The song is relevant to the whole article, actually.)

(Tip of the cap to Ben Rogers.)