The paper that I’m going to be reviewing today is A Topological Look at the Quantum Hall Effect. It explains an amazing coming together of topology and quantum physics, of all things, and provides a review of very important, Nobel prize winning work in Physics. The Hall Effect We all learned in high school thatContinue reading “The science of going in circles on doughnuts”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Alcohol Use and Burden: Lancet
Alcohol consumption is a loaded topic. Most people know that it is probably not very good for your health, but how bad can it be? We know that some people die due to alcohol consumption, but that probably happens only to drunkards in old age. Moderation is the key. Moreover, there’s been a notion inContinue reading “Alcohol Use and Burden: Lancet”
So how does Google work, exactly?
How do we decide which movie to watch on a given weekend? We could google “latest movies”, and then take a random pick. However, that throws up both good and bad results. How do we pick a “good movie” from this list? We go to Rottentomatoes, IMDB or the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, and seeContinue reading “So how does Google work, exactly?”
Gravitational Wave Detection with LIGO
The paper that I’ll be reviewing today is the famous Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger by B.P. Abott et al. This paper records the detection of gravitational waves for the first time in human history, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2017. Introduction What are gravitational waves, and howContinue reading “Gravitational Wave Detection with LIGO”
Effective Altruism- May and June
I’m attaching screenshots below for May and June. I donated to soup kitchen relied in West Bengal, cyclone relief efforts in West Bengal, and the State College fund for Covid relief. My relief efforts have been a little off the cuff, and not studied. Hence, this has been more like virtue signaling than actual laboredContinue reading “Effective Altruism- May and June”
The Bitcoin Revolution
The paper that I’ll be discussing today is perhaps the most famous that has come out in recent years- Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, by Satoshi Nakamoto. It was a surprisingly short paper packed with the most amazing ideas for creating an alternate banking system. This paper has gone a long way in upendingContinue reading “The Bitcoin Revolution”
Google’s Quantum Supremacy
The paper that I’m going to talk about today is the famous Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Conducting Processor. This was published in Nature in 2019, and demonstrated Quantum supremacy for the first time in human history. It is one of the best-written papers I’ve ever read, and is more helpful for understanding the definitionsContinue reading “Google’s Quantum Supremacy”
Origins of Astrology in India
The paper that I will be discussing today is On the Philosophical and Cosmological Foundations of Indian Astrology, by Audrius Beinorius. I’ve always been fascinated with Astrology, and am glad that I got the time and opportunity to study it. This article is not paywalled. The Bible says that God created man in his image.Continue reading “Origins of Astrology in India”
Of mountain passes and migration in the olden days
The paper that I read today is Why Mountain Passes are Higher in the Tropics by Daniel H. Janzen. I found this paper by browsing the paper “100 articles every ecologist should read”, which was published in Nature in 2017. What were the obstructions to the migration of species of animals in the ancient world,Continue reading “Of mountain passes and migration in the olden days”
Capacitors and making complicated shapes simpler
The paper that I intend to blog about is: Parallel-Plate Capacitor by the Schwartz-Christoffel Transformation by Harlan B. Palmer. I intend to read some research papers in various academic fields, and, perhaps amateurishly, blog about them. We could all be better about what is happening outside of our narrow fields of interest. Although I hopeContinue reading “Capacitors and making complicated shapes simpler”
