de l'influence de la lune sur les barreaux des grilles
Timo Lemmetti
#moon #science #sky #freedom #photography
science
#OTD in 1905.
Albert Einstein publishes the third of his Annus Mirabilis papers, introducing the special theory of relativity, which used the universal constant speed of light c to derive the Lorentz transformations.
There are some controversies on the question of the extent to which Mileva Marić contributed to the insights of Einstein's annus mirabilis publications
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_mirabilis_papers#
On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66944
![Einstein, Albert (30 June 1905). "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper" [On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies] (PDF). Annalen der Physik (in German). 17 (10): 891–921.](/proxy/post_attachment/390325/9da374cdab.png "Einstein, Albert (30 June 1905). \"Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper\" [On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies] (PDF). Annalen der Physik (in German). 17 (10): 891–921.")
#OTD in 1846.
Astronomers Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.
There is evidence that Neptune was seen and recorded by Galileo Galilei in 1613, Jérôme Lalande in 1795, and John Herschel in 1830, but none are known to have recognized it as a planet at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_Neptune
Neptune at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=neptune&submit_search=Search
Meet the Forgotten Woman Who Revolutionized Microbiology With a Simple Kitchen Staple
Fanny Angelina Hesse introduced agar to the life sciences in 1881. A trove of unpublished family papers sheds new light on her many accomplishments.
By Corrado Nai via @smithsonianmag
I’ve heard it said that if you don’t vote with whichever party then you are a coward. I think that’s exactly backwards, and even reflects poorly all the person making that argument. It doesn’t take much courage to go with the group.
Instead I go the other way: no matter which party you might prefer in general, it takes courage to say they nominated a moron, and fortunately the other party also nominated a loser, so no matter what the US is going to slog through these next few years.
In my opinion the courageous position is to say no, you nominated a moron, and I’m not going to give you my vote. We’re going to be okay I guess, whether you win or not, but I’m not going to let you assume that you have my vote if you insist on nominating a moron. You should have nominated someone better. You should have nominated someone worthy of my vote. Do better next time.
That’s the state of #USPolitics . As South Park said, big douche versus turd sandwich. So screw both #Democrats and #Republicans. Neither of you managed to nominate someone worth voting for, so I’m voting for my dog.
To give either party our votes is to sign on to their nomination of garbage people. Let’s not. Let’s say that they need to actually nominate worthwhile administrators.
But more practically, let’s focus on #Congress. No matter who wins this election, they’re going to suck, but we can still express ourselves through our representation in Congress, and that’s honestly how it should be anyway.
Check out your representatives. See how they have actually been voting, and vote them out if they have been letting you down. That’s really where our focus should be anyway.
Not on which jerk ends up in the Oval Office.
(But thank God #Biden is on his way out, as he has been terrible for #science in the US, which has not gotten nearly enough attention from the press.)
Will the toughest problem in maths ever be solved?
For many, not just mathematicians, the Riemann hypothesis is the very definition of a supremely difficult problem that might be forever beyond our intellect. Most mathematicians had given up on it, being pessimistic about making any headway. But recently, the first progress – although not a solution – in more than 50 years has been made.
By David Whitehouse via @spectator
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/will-the-toughest-problem-in-maths-ever-be-solved/
Edited 1y ago
#OTD in 1822.
French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, in a "note" read to the Academy of Sciences, reports a direct refraction experiment verifying David Brewster's hypothesis that photoelasticity (as it is now known) is stress-induced birefringence.
What Is Botanical Illustration? Learn About the History of This Scientific Art Form
By Emma Taggart and My Modern Met Team via @mymodernmet
#OTD in 1889.
The General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) defines the length of a metre.
The history of the metre starts with the Scientific Revolution that is considered to have begun with Nicolaus Copernicus's publication of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543. The Mètre des Archives & its copies were replaced from 1889 at the initiative of the International Geodetic Association by 30 platinum-iridium bars kept across the globe.
British astronomer and meteorologist Isis Pogson was born #OTD in 1852.
Pogson worked as an assistant to her father, Norman Pogson, who was an eminent astronomer known for his work on variable stars and the discovery of several asteroids. Over time, she gained recognition for her own work, despite her initial role as an unpaid assistant. She became highly knowledgeable in astronomical calculations, observations, and meteorology.
NASA’s Curiosity rover conducted its first successful wet-chemistry experiment on Mars, revealing a diverse array of ancient organic molecules in a 3.5-billion-year-old rock. Nathalie Cabrol, Director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute, examines what the results mean and why they are important (even though they are #NotAliens).
Learn more: https://www.seti.org/news/rethinking-organics-on-mars/
Russian chemist Vera Yevstafievna Popova was born #OTD in 1867.
Popova became known for her work in organic chemistry, a field that was rapidly developing in the late 19th century. She contributed to research on the synthesis of chemical compounds, particularly focusing on organic substances. One of her most significant areas of study was the preparation of peroxides. It was her work on these compounds that led to her untimely death.
Look at little Mercury transiting in front of the Sun! This scene wasn't visible from Earth, but NASA's STEREO A spacecraft caught it on April 7.
(The video is greatly sped up; the actual event took several hours.)
Introducing my latest project: Very Specific Numbers!
Inspired by sports jerseys with numbers on them, I've always thought about making shirts with very specific (or nerdy) numbers common in mathematics and science but not on clothes.
Until now!
Now you can walk around sporting Avogadro's constant, the largest known prime, or an utterly huge number like TREE(3). Enjoy!
(Edit: Fixed “Kaprekar” typo on items)
Edited 288d ago
Massive compute power applied to massive data sets can produce outcomes that are worse at the task they’re (ostensibly) intended for than much simpler, easier to understand, less wasteful, and less intrusive data-light methods. It requires an extreme form of bias to believe that big compute + big data is always better.
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #tech #dev #DataScience #science #ComputerScience #EcologicalRationality
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #tech #dev #DataScience #science #ComputerScience #EcologicalRationality
Edited 285d ago
The present perspective outlines how epistemically baseless and ethically pernicious paradigms are recycled back into the scientific literature via machine learning (ML) and explores connections between these two dimensions of failure. We hold up the renewed emergence of physiognomic methods, facilitated by ML, as a case study in the harmful repercussions of ML-laundered junk science. A summary and analysis of several such studies is delivered, with attention to the means by which unsound research lends itself to social harms. We explore some of the many factors contributing to poor practice in applied ML. In conclusion, we offer resources for research best practices to developers and practitioners.
In other words ML--which includes generative AI--is smuggling long-disgraced pseudoscientific ideas back into "respectable" science, and rejuvenating the harms such ideas cause.
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #MachineLearning #ML #AIEthics #science #pseudoscience #JunkScience #eugenics #physiognomy
Edited 285d ago
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
-- Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" (1995)
#America #government #economy #science #religion #CarlSagan #Sagan #prognostication #foreboding #ignorance #books
Edited 116d ago
Mel Andrews on the connections between a naive belief in scientific objectivity (facts and data are "real" and "correct" and "neutral") and eugenics:
I've lost the reference, but I suspect it was Meredith Whittaker who's written and spoken about the big data turn at Google, where it was understood that having and collecting massive datasets allowed them to eschew model-building.
The core idea being critiqued here is that there's a kind of scientific view from nowhere: a theory-free, value-free, model-free, bias-free way of observing the world that will lead to Truth; and that it's the task of the scientist to approximate this view from nowhere as well as possible.
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #science #DataScience #ScientificObjectivity #eugenics #ViewFromNowhere
Francis Galton, pioneering figure of the eugenics movement, believed that good research practice should consist in “gathering as many facts as possible without any theory or general principle that might prejudice a neutral and objective view of these facts” (Jackson et al., 2005). Karl Pearson, statistician and fellow purveyor of eugenicist methods, approached research with a similar ethos: “theorizing about the material basis of heredity or the precise physiological or causal significance of observational results, Pearson argues, will do nothing but damage the progress of the science” (Pence, 2011). In collaborative work with Pearson, Weldon emphasised the superiority of data-driven methods which were capable of delivering truths about nature “without introducing any theory” (Weldon, 1895).
I've lost the reference, but I suspect it was Meredith Whittaker who's written and spoken about the big data turn at Google, where it was understood that having and collecting massive datasets allowed them to eschew model-building.
The core idea being critiqued here is that there's a kind of scientific view from nowhere: a theory-free, value-free, model-free, bias-free way of observing the world that will lead to Truth; and that it's the task of the scientist to approximate this view from nowhere as well as possible.
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #science #DataScience #ScientificObjectivity #eugenics #ViewFromNowhere
On our latest #SETILive #podcast, Beth asked Dr. Eric Boyd to explain what it means when he says a microbe breathes in two ways. Listen to the full episode at https://feeds.libsyn.com/462636/rss
In a recent #SETILive episode, host Beth Johnson spoke with UC Santa Cruz postdoctoral researcher Dr. Artem Aguichine about his work modeling the interiors and atmospheres of steam worlds, a class of water-rich exoplanets wrapped in thick, high-temperature water vapor. Thanks to new spectra from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), these once-theoretical worlds are rapidly becoming an observational reality.
Learn more: https://www.seti.org/news/where-water-boils-the-sky-steam-worlds-and-the-search-for-life/
Who really won when Bergson and Einstein debated time?
Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein fundamentally disagreed about the nature of time and how it can be measured. Who was right?
By Evan Thompson via @aeonmag
https://aeon.co/essays/who-really-won-when-bergson-and-einstein-debated-time
#EPA Scientists Said They Were Pressured to Downplay Harms From #Chemicals. A Watchdog Found They Were Retaliated Against.
Three reports issued by the agency’s inspector general detailed personal attacks suffered by the scientists — including being called “stupid,” “piranhas” and “pot-stirrers” — and called on the EPA to take “appropriate corrective action” in response.
#News #Science #Retaliation #Government #Environment #Safety #Whistleblower #Trump #Project2025
This is the country that wants to compete with China. Two-thirds of voters now believe a college degree is a financially ruinous trap, a complete reversal from a decade ago. The US is actively dismantling its own pipeline for advanced skills and knowledge while complaining about falling behind. The self-sabotage is frankly impressive.
Tesla’s Pigeon
An inventor, a bird, and a plan to connect all the minds in the world.
By Amanda Gefter via @NautilusMag
Nikola Tesla's Obsession with Pigeons, Electricity, and a Plan to Wirelessly Connect the World
Ultra-thin nanomembrane device forms soft, seamless interface with living tissue