Short posts from Andrew Jaffe
Five-star review by Brian Clegg of The Random Universe:
Probably the best book I’ve ever read on what the scientific method really is, how scientists build models, how they deal with randomness, uncertainty and the pitfalls of induction. Engaging stuff.
There are still tickets available to hear me answer the question “Is Everything We Know About The Big Bang Wrong?” and talk about The Random Universe tomorrow, Tuesday, 16 June at The Blues Kitchen in Brixton (London). The late show is sold out, but you can still get in for some early Pints of Knowledge at 5:45.
Newest PhD student giving his first science talk to our group… (They are all much better at this stuff than we were at the same stage in our careers!)
Shocked but not surprised.
Trump Keeps Immunity from I.R.S., a Victory in a Long-Running Feud
Of course he doesn’t really care about the $1.8bn slush fund — that’s about helping other people (albeit maga criminals). Let’s see about the IRS deal.
The heat has broken just in time for us to have forgotten two of our sleeping bags on our camping trip.
Articles like these arguing that LLMs can’t be conscious simply because they are “mere formulas” are just a version of Searle’s (debatable!) “Chinese Room” argument. (I don’t think they’re conscious either, but that’s not why.)
The Mekons on how they made “Where Were You?” | The Guardian
Well, my Pints of Knowledge talk next month in Brixton on 16 June, is sold out! — so they’ve added an earlier (5:45pm) show. Please come if you want to hear — or ask — about The Random Universe, how we know what we know, and the state of Big Bang as a model for the cosmos.
@andrewhickey.500songs.com, only 3/4 of the way through the Dark Star episode, you’ve managed what none of my Deadhead friends, nor years of reading Xgau, have done: made me wish I had seen the Grateful Dead (possibly with appropriate psychedelic enhancement) when I had the chance 40 years ago.
@siracusa@mastodon.social @atpfm@mastodon.social For me, terminal session restore works — it keeps scrollback & restores directories. Sometimes the tab/window title stops tracking. And there’s a (longstanding, unfixed, race condition) bug in the interaction between the shell and the terminal.
Happy to find myself on a bookshelf with Damian Hirst, Nick Cave and Manolo Blahnik.
Claude is helping me run some code, preparing inputs, monitoring outputs, &c. It kept making badly wrong predictions about how long the run would take, and told me that it was “doing it in my head”, by which it meant it “was computing the estimate inline as part of generating text”.
Thanks to some local heroes, the only officially designated river bathing spot in London is a short walk away. Let’s hope Thames Water can keep it clean enough to actually use.
River Thames in London gets first official bathing spot — The Guardian
The Random Universe reviewed in Nature Astronomy:
The book works. It takes you from the reliability of London buses to the Big Bang in a circuitous but continuous path, leaving you with an accomplished feeling of having slotted parts of the Universe and parts of our understanding into their logical places.
Home state in London.
Invigilating (good British word) for the first time in a couple of years — year 4 Information Theory. Good luck!
Canvas Down! A hacker group has taken down the Canvas “Virtual Learning Environment” across many higher-ed institutions. Great: Imperial will be using Canvas starting next year…
Another London pub talk! Come hear me discuss The Random Universe and the Big Bang at Pints Of Knowledge on 16 June at The Blues Kitchen in Brixton.
Follow-up to my scientific colleagues: I did this project with Claude code under a Claude Pro subscription, but should I prefer (or try) purchasing API access instead (or in addition)?
First proper vibe-coding science/data project with Claude. Hardly looked at the code at all. A lot of plumbing between pre-existing codebases, but also helped me actually understand what was going on. (References to come!)
“Workers of the world &c!…”
If you’ve read my book The Random Universe—about how scientists use models and probability to make sense of the cosmos—a short Goodreads review really increases the probability that other readers will find it. Even a sentence or two makes a difference.
Azaleas in bloom. Isabella plantation, Richmond Park, London.
Still time to come see me talk about The Random Universe in Oxford tomorrow night, Tuesday, 21 April! Epistemology! Probability! Physics! Cosmic tensions!
Failed sourdough. Icarus-like, it rose too high and fell too fast.
(Tasted ok, but a bit dense.)
There will be a “70 Up”, completing Michael Apted’s magnificent series of 7 Up documentaries! Watch them ASAP, if you haven’t already. (From The Guardian: Asif Kapadia to direct 70 Up, last chapter of influential ITV documentary series)
As someone who owes his passion for science, and his career, to early glimpses of the Apollo launches, I hope that Artemis II is just as inspiring today.
Discussing The Random Universe on The Resonance FM Science Show.