MATHEMATICIANS AND THE NSA
THE FEDERAL government’s National Security Agency is charged with devising cryptologic systems for protecting U.S. information while, at the same time, exploiting weaknesses in the information systems of other countries. … Continue reading
IS PRIVACY GONE FOR GOOD?
SCIENCE MAGAZINE, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has part of its January 30, 2015, issue devoted to “The End of Privacy.” A dozen essays present … Continue reading
THE HUM
I CAME upon the Hum only recently while researching ”Sounds Like…” Maybe you’ve heard of the Hum, within the context of the Auckland Hum, Bristol Hum, Kokomo Hum, Taos Hum, Windsor … Continue reading
THE EXOPLANET TRAVEL BUREAU
NASA AND Cal Tech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have devised a wonderfully artful means of describing exoplanets, planets that are extrasolar, orbiting stars other than the Sun. The two organizations have … Continue reading
PASSING A TURING TEST
CAN YOU outthink a 13-year-old Ukrainian kid? Or, more accurately, can you outthink an artificial intelligence, a chatbot, programmed to imitate him? This has become a cause célèbre, not without … Continue reading
BAD NEWS FOR BIOFUELS
RECENT ANALYSES by the World Resources Institute question the contribution of biofuels to the sustainability of food and climate. The paper “Avoiding Bioenergy Competition for Food Crops and Land,” http://goo.gl/A8mt2m, … Continue reading
COMBED COCONUTS HAVE COWLICKS
I FIND comfort in fixed point theorems. Briefly, these mathematical verities say that, under certain conditions, some things don’t change: They are fixed. A comforting thought. The more general the … Continue reading
FUN (AND UTILITY) WITH SCIENCE
PUNCH CARD Programmable Microfluidics holds the promise of bringing more science out of the research lab and into the developing world. It could also be a lot of fun encouraging … Continue reading
THE FUTURE AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE
FUTURISTS HAVE a real challenge: Aim too high, and people ridicule their “Tomorrow everyone will helicopter to work.” Aim too low, “Speaker phones will be all the rage!,” and their … Continue reading
THE EARTH’S MOST ABUNDANT MINERAL
THE MINERAL bridgmanite got its name only recently. Despite this, specialists in Earth science have long known that the stuff is Earth’s most abundant mineral. I gleaned this, and other … Continue reading
