I had the chance to help my friend Sylvie to get scanning electron microscope pictures of the MRI contrast agent she synthesizes, and we collected gorgeous data thanks to my colleague Farhad.
He told me that he had TONS of failed experiments that still yielded great pictures…
We should start a journal of the failed experiments… art+science mag !:)
SEM picture that looks like an aerial view of Dog Island (Anguilla)…
I guess there is some wabi-sabi in science…
Continue readingDear English-speaking readers :
I wrote a piece in French about upcoming consumer technologies
Je viens de publier un article sur les avancées technologiques à surveiller (sur silicon-valley.fr)
Bien que ces derniers temps la tendance dans la Silicon Valley était plutôt du coté des applications, des API et de réseau sociaux, nous avons très récemment eu droit a un regain de créativité en terme de hardware, et je vous propose ici de faire un petit tour de ce qui fait friser les neurones des ingénieurs du cru.
On s’intéressera essentiellement aux innovations qui sont susceptibles de déboucher sur des produits de consommation, laissant de coté pour le moment d’autres secteurs très actifs comme celui des énergies renouvelables et les biosciences.
Recent events in the scienfic community – I’m thinking of the detection of primordial B-mode signal in the CMB polarization by BICEP2 (probable), the discovery of Higgs Boson (Nobel-prized) and of the faster-than-light neutrinos (ruled out as an experimental error) – invite us to draw a line between what is reasonable science and what is not.
Saul Perlmutter talking about exotic theories in astrophysics
Hi peeps !
Dear English-speaking readers :
this post is about a French translation of Hamming’s
“The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics“
You can readily enjoy this text in English language!
C’est ainsi qu’il y a des odeurs que les chiens peuvent sentir et que nous ne pouvons sentir, des sons que les chiens peuvent entendre et que nous ne pouvons entendre, et encore des couleurs que nous nous ne pouvons voir et de saveurs dont nous ne pouvons nous délecter.Des lors pourquoi, compte tenu de la façon dont nos cerveaux sont câblés, la remarque “Peut-être y a-t-il des pensées que nous ne pouvons pas concevoir” vous surprendrait-elle ? L’évolution, jusqu’à présent, pourrait nous avoir empêché de penser suivant certaines directions ; il se pourrait qu’il y ait des pensées impensables.
Pas si efficaces, les mathématiques…. Démonstration en logique formelle de “1+1=2” par Russell.
I’ve discovered a new language for scientific computation : Julia.
A quaternion Julia fractal
Here’s a description :
Scientific computing has traditionally required the highest performance, yet domain experts have largely moved to slower dynamic languages for daily work. We believe there are many good reasons to prefer dynamic languages for these applications, and we do not expect their use to diminish. Fortunately, modern language design and compiler techniques make it possible to mostly eliminate the performance trade-off and provide a single environment productive enough for prototyping and efficient enough for deploying performance-intensive applications. The Julia programming language fills this role: it is a flexible dynamic language, appropriate for scientific and numerical computing, with performance comparable to traditional statically-typed languages.
Among other things, it is very computationally efficient (it beats Matlab and Python by a large margin) and the syntax is very close to Matlab, making the transition very easy. And it is free !
I’ll let you know if I find it to be a viable alternative to commercial solutions…Here are three algorithms that I found pretty funny, and that make you think, while I was trying to find elegant solutions to some problem I faced.
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Now that I have lived for over a year near the Silicon Valley, I have a better view of the local culture which is a strange mix of lefty utopian libertarian, lefty vegan liberals and all things that might seem contradictory in general, but not here.
Atlas Shrugged, in the liberal California
I want to address here what I’ve learned in these months, so that European newcomers can sharpen their learning curve !
Continue readingToday, I was lucky enough to go to the screening of “How I Came to Hate Maths” in Berkeley, where I had the occasion to ask Jean-Pierre Bourguigon and Cedric Villani for a drawing.
Here’s what came out of it.First, I asked Cedric for a drawing of a spider in a truck, for he his well known for his work on optimal transport, and because he has the habit of wearing a spider broach. He added his signature, a marsupilami– not bad for a Fields medal recipient !Then, I asked Jean-Pierre to draw me a spectrum, since it is, to me, what relates physics and mathematics the most
A spectrum, by Jean-Pierre Bourguigon and a spider in a truck by Cedric Villani
Cela fait longtemps que
1) je n’ai pas écrit en français
2) je n’ai pas ajouté de matériel nouveau sur l’Art et la Science.
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I’ve been working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab for a year now, and I wanted to get drawings from the two Nobel prizes that are still active in the lab : George Smoot (N2006) and Saul Perlmutter (N2011).
They both proved very difficult to find, since they are often travelling. But today, the day before Thanksgiving, I was particularly in luck : I spotted these two guys at the cafeteria !The time I came back to my office to grab my notebook, Saul Perlmutter was gone, but George Smoot was still here !
Smoot’s drawing
However, Saul Perlmutter had left. But… I knew where his office was. I went there; we talked a little bit.
A little earlier on, my friend Josquin told me that I would rather ask him a picture of a Supernova, probably easier to draw that the idea of universe expansion. Saul told me that this picture wouldn’t be personal, since his mind has been infused by the commonly accepted picture, and proposed to draw me a chart of the accelerating universe :
Perlmutter’s drawing
There we go ! (You can check my collection of noble drawings here)
Last month, I had the occasion to attend Uncharted, advertised as the local SXSW, thanks to a scholarship. Continue reading