Bayes
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The Measurement Problem
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OK, this is going to be a very long post. About something I don’t pretend to be expert in. But it is science, at least. A couple of weeks ago, Radio 4’s highbrow “In Our Time” tackled the so-called “Measurement Problem”. That is: quantum mechanics predicts probabilities, not definite outcomes. And yet we see a…
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Bayesian Inference in the NY Times
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In today’s Sunday NY Times Magazine, there’s a long article by psychologist Steven Pinker, on “Personal Genomics”, the growing ability for individuals to get information about their genetic inheritance. He discusses the evolution of psychological traits versus intelligence, and highlights the complicated interaction amongst genes, and between genes and society. But what caught my eye…
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Opening the box
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This post is a work in progress, but I’ve decided to post it in its unfinished state. Comments and questions welcome! This week I went to a seminar on the new results from the MiniBooNE experiment given here at Imperial by Morgan Wascko. The MiniBooNE results have been discussed in depth elsewhere. Like MINOS last…
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Logical Proof, Scientific Proof, Religious “Proof”
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With yesterday’s article on “Faith” (vs Science) in the Guardian, and today’s London debate between bioligist Lewis Wolpert and the pseudorational William Lane Craig (previewed on the BBC’s Today show this morning), the UK seems to be the hotbed of tension between science and religion. I’ll leave it to the experts for a fuller exposition,…
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The Shape of the Universe
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The work that I’ve been doing with my student is featured on the cover of this week’s New Scientist. Unfortunately, a subscription is necessary to read the full article online, but if you do manage to find it on the web or the newsstand, you’ll find a much better explanation of the physics than I…
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Probability
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In his most recent post, Cosmic Variance’s Mark Trodden talks about one of the presentations we both saw at last week’s meeting in Ishcia, where he explains one of the hot new techniques for analyzing cosmological data, the (so-called) Bayesian Evidence. Let’s unpack this term. First, “Bayesian”, named after the Reverend Thomas Bayes. The question…
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