One of our greatest astronomers, Galileo Galilei, was born February 15, 1564. His discoveries with the improved telescopes he made changed the way we view the universe – and got him in trouble with the church. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/galileos-birthday-feb-15-1564…
Tag: Mathematics
Machines Are Inventing New Math We’ve Never Seen
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: [A] group of researchers from the Technion in Israel and Google in Tel Aviv presented an automated conjecturing system that they call the Ramanujan Machine, named after the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who developed thousands of innovative formulas in number theory with almost no formal training. The software system has already conjectured several original…
The Highest Resolution Photos Ever Taken of Snowflakes
Photographer and scientist Nathan Myhrvold has developed a camera that captures snowflakes at a microscopic level never seen before. Smithsonian Magazine reports: Myhrvold, who holds a PhD in theoretical mathematics and physics from Princeton University and served as the Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft for 14 years, leaned on his background as a scientist to create the camera. He also tapped…
New Year, New Opportunities for Learners in India!
By Anubhav Chopra, Lead Product Manager Coursera is privileged to support the learning journeys of more than 10 million learners in India, and today, we’re excited to announce new learning opportunities and services for this unstoppable learning community! We know that having a wider array of payment options is critical for Coursera learners in India, […]
The post New Year, New Opportunities…
Brad Cox, Creator of Objective-C Programming Language, Dies At 76
We have learned that Brad Cox, computer scientist known mostly for creating the Objective-C programming language with his business partner Tom Love, died on January 2, 2021 at his residence. He was 76. From a Legacy.com post: Brad was born on May 2, 1944 in Fort Benning, Georgia, to the late Nancy Hinson Cox and Dewey McBride Cox of Lake City,…
Apple Launches First-Generation College Student Mentorship Program
Apple this month announced a new Launch@Apple mentorship program that’s designed for first-generation college students, with the program set to launch in early 2021. From a report: According to a PDF describing Launch@Apple, it is aimed at first-generation college freshmen and sophomores who are majoring in finance, mathematics, economics, business, data analytics, and accounting. It matches college students one-on-one with Apple…
Galaxy’s brightest gamma-ray binary system may be powered by a magnetar
A team of researchers led by members of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) has analyzed previously collected data to infer the true nature of a compact object—found to be a rotating magnetar, a type of neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field—orbiting within LS 5039, the brightest gamma-ray binary system in the…
Quantum magic squares
The magic of mathematics is particularly reflected in magic squares. Recently, quantum physicist Gemma De las Cuevas and mathematicians Tim Netzer and Tom Drescher introduced the notion of the quantum magic square, and for the first time studied in detail the properties of this quantum version of magic squares. …
Efficient production of large-size optical Schrödinger’s cat states
A team of young scientists from the Institute of Natural Sciences and Mathematics of South Ural State University, under the guidance of physicist and mathematician Professor Sergei Podoshvedov, have proposed an algorithmic generator of the nonclassical state of light representing a “Schrödinger’s cat state” of a very large amplitude. This algorithm plays an important role in quantum coupling and quantum computations…
92-Year-Old Songwriter Tom Lehrer Releases All His Lyrics Into the Public Domain
Marketplace reports: Songwriter Tom Lehrer became a star in the 1950s and ’60s writing and performing satirical songs that skewered just about everything… Lehrer, 92, announced Tuesday via his website that he’s effectively putting everything he ever wrote into the public domain. That means his lyrics and sheet music are available for anyone to use or perform, without having to pay…