Nick @internic@qoto.org

Happy birthday to #GW170817 our first binary neutron star detection, and the first #GravitationalWave with electromagnetic counterparts!

The gamma-ray burst following the merger was spotted by the Fermi and Integral telescopes and later many other telescopes

https://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-GW170817BNS/index.php

#Astrodon

So... my son nerd sniped me! He saw a video on the Fold-and-Cut Theorem by Vsauce and said I should figure out how to fold a piece of paper to cut out the hat and spectre tiles with one cut. Mission accomplished! This blog post has downloadable PDFs: https://divisbyzero.com/2024/08/14/fold-and-cut-hat-and-spectre-tiles/

Don't miss the back-to-school sale at Target.

@pluralistic

"Smart sous vide cooker to start charging $2/month for 10-year-old companion app"

I have this sous vide cooker, this app

Everything moving to 'Subscription Model', absolutely everything

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/smart-sous-vide-cooker-to-start-charging-2-month-for-10-year-old-companion-app/

Whew -- finally finished the last *essential* section for my book draft! (I still have a couple of neat sections I want to add before Monday deadline, but I'm at a comfortable place now.)

The Bernoulli numbers are defined like this:

x/(1 - e⁻ˣ) = B₀ + B₁x + B₂/2! + B₃/3! + ....

and if you grind them out, you get

B₀ = 1
B₁ = 1/2
B₂ = 1/6
B₃ = 0
B₄ = -1/30

and so on. The pattern is sort of strange.

They're connected to hundreds of interesting things. For example if you want to figure out a sum like

1³ + 2³ + 3³ + ... + 10³

or

1⁸ + 2⁸ + 3⁸ + ... + 1,000,000⁸

you can use a formula that involves Bernoulli numbers. The video here explains it.

But where the hell did this function x/(1 - e⁻ˣ) come from?

If D means derivative:

(Df)(x) = f'(x)

then 1 - e⁻ᴰ is a so-called 'difference operator':

((1 - e⁻ᴰ)f)(x) = f(x) - f(x-1)

which you can show using the Taylor series for f. So D/(1 - e⁻ᴰ) is about derivatives versus differences, and its inverse is about integrals versus sums. This lets you reduce sums like those above to integrals... 𝑖𝑓 you know your Bernoulli numbers!

But x/(1 - e⁻ˣ) also shows up when you compute the expected energy of a quantum harmonic oscillator in thermal equilibrium!

Let's work in units where ℏ = 1. Say we have a quantum harmonic oscillator whose allowed energies are 0, 1, 2, 3, ... etcetera. What is its average or 'expected' energy at temperature T? Let x = 1/T. Then its expected energy is

x/(1 - e⁻ˣ)

So the quantum harmonic oscillator secretly knows about Bernoulli numbers.

What does this fact really mean??? I don't know. I once read a book called Triangle of Thought about a conversation between Alain Connes and two other mathematicians, and he said this fact explained a lot of stuff. But he didn't go into any detail, so I'm left looking for clues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw1kRz83Fj0

The American West’s megafires are silencing birds.

@grist reports: "One sound index used to monitor biodiversity fell by as much as 15 percent following particularly smoky days, according to a new study."

https://flip.it/Cec9L-

#Wildfires #Birds #ClimateChange #Climate #Biodiversity #Science

Bernie Sanders: "The time has come to start treating the Long COVID crisis as the public health emergency that it is.

What does that mean?

It means we need to educate medical professionals on how to adequately diagnose Long COVID.

We need to do a much better job at disease prevention. The best way to avoid getting Long COVID is to prevent people from getting COVID in the first place.

We need to do everything we can do to find treatments and cures for Long COVID."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-america-must-confront-its-long-covid-crisis

Ok, so there is a certain criticism that people seem to make about including demographic characteristics in a research study (e.g., the breakdown of gender, or age or race), which is separate from other more meritorious critiques about HOW we measure those things (imperfectly!).

This critique is not only logically flawed, it is a questionable scientific practice that can warp the scientific record, but it seems to be a pervasive misconception in software research so I'm going to break it down

So it looks as if there may not be a "Hubble tension" after all - these new JWST measurements agree well with the Planck CMB value. I'm old enough to remember when the Hubble constant was anywhere between 50 and 100!

https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.06153

“Process Zero: The Anti-Intelligent Camera”

https://www.lux.camera/introducing-process-zero-for-iphone/

> Introducing a process that uses zero AI and zero computational photography to produce beautiful, film-like natural photos. Meet Halide 2.15, with Process Zero.

LOVE this idea. Really want to take a walk later today to test this out, despite the rain. We'll see if I have time 😄

Was thinking the other day for no reason at all about software that I've actually enjoyed using over the years, and I had to think really hard on that. I'm probably showing my age and romanticizing things, but Winamp definitely meets that bar. As does the IRC client mIRC. Probably what I liked most about these programs is while they got frequent updates, their basic functionality remained the same, familiar, and very usable. You know, the opposite trajectory of most modern software. Also, they were so familiar I could use them with my eyes closed.

Is there any software that fills you with positive thoughts/associations? Why?

@cyrilpedia One aspect mentioned is the need to archive research data at the institution. Even though we have this as an official policy at our institute, I find it frustratingly hard to run after team members and get them to archive their raw data post-publication (which is mostly programs and calculations, we are a theory group). Most have to be reminded many many times.

Any thoughts on this? What are your experiences?

Mount Sinai is closing down its post-Covid care center.

This was the first #LongCovid care center in the US.

I guess #covid is over…

I am taking recommendations on alternatives if anyone has experience elsewhere.

#WTF

Nobody should have to agree to a commercial entity's terms of service to access state services or participate in democracy

I follow a great selection of #maths #teachers on twitter, but most are either not jumping ship or they're going to BlueSky or (yuck) Threads.

I lament their loss from my timeline and feel that if I were to find some more excellent people here I might be able to coax a few over, so...

If you're a teacher...
... especially of maths...
... and especially in the #UK...

I'd love it if you'd make yourself known.

[And if you're not any of these things I'd love it if you'd...
a) Let me know what we _do_ have in common (if you're interested in connecting with me)
b) Boost me in case you have some people who are those things in your networks

There's a lot of rhetoric, misinformation and violence that stems from the anti-immigration ideology.

However, there have been *many* studies that show that immigrants don't have a detrimental impact on society. They improve things.

This report links to lots of good, independent analyses.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/debunking-myth-migrant-crime-wave

"But Middle Eastern money has become the most powerful geopolitical force in the tech industry virtually overnight. “The Khashoggi era is over,” said a prominent venture capitalist.

“Everyone I talk to is either going to or coming back from the UAE — the same way we used to swing by Sand Hill Road,” said Feldman, referring to the street that’s home to Silicon Valley’s storied venture capital firms. Feldman will visit Saudi Arabia later this year."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/05/14/middle-east-ai-tech-companies-saudi-arabia-uae/

the debugging manifesto poster I've been talking about is finally available for sale! You can get it here for $20: https://store.wizardzines.com/products/poster-debugging-manifesto

Please check your voter registration at https://www.vote.org/, especially if you are in a state that is purging voter rolls like Florida, Ohio, and Texas.

#uspol #vote #democracy