Category Archives: Computer Science
Equations built giants like Google. Wholl find the next billion-dollar bit of maths? – The Guardian
In 1998, a computer science PhD student called Larry Page submitted a patent for internet search based on an obscure piece of mathematics. The method, known today as PageRank, allowed the most relevant webpages to be found much more rapidly and accurately than ever before. The patent, initially owned by Stanford, was sold in 2005 for shares that are today worth more than $1bn. Pages company, Google, has a net worth of well over $1tr.
It wasnt Page, or Googles cofounder Sergey Brin, who created the mathematics described in the patent. The equation they used is at least 100 years old, building on properties of matrices (mathematical structures akin to a spreadsheet of numbers). Similar methods were used by Chinese mathematicians more than two millennia ago. Page and Brins insight was to realise that by calculating what is known as the stationary distribution of a matrix describing connections on the world wide web, they could find the most popular sites more rapidly.
Applying the correct equation can suddenly solve an important practical problem, and completely change the world we live in.
The PageRank story is neither the first nor the most recent example of a little-known piece of mathematics transforming tech. In 2015, three engineers used the idea of gradient descent, dating back to the French mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy in the mid-19th century, to increase the time viewers spent watching YouTube by 2,000%. Their equation transformed the service from a place we went to for a few funny clips to a major consumer of our viewing time.
From the 1990s onwards, the financial industry has been built on variations of the diffusion equation, attributed to a variety of mathematicians including Einstein. Professional gamblers make use of logistic regression, developed by the Oxford statistician Sir David Cox in the 50s, to ensure they win at the expense of those punters who are less maths-savvy.
There is good reason to expect that there are more billion-dollar equations out there: generations-old mathematical theorems with the potential for new applications. The question is where to look for the next one.
A few candidates can be found in mathematical work in the latter part of the 20th century. One comes in the form of fractals, patterns that are self-similar, repeating on many different levels, like the branches of a tree or the shape of a broccoli head. Mathematicians developed a comprehensive theory of fractals in the 80s, and there was some excitement about applications that could store data more efficiently. Interest died out until recently, when a small community of computer scientists started showing how mathematical fractals can produce the most amazing, weird and wonderful patterns.
Another field of mathematics still looking for a money-making application is chaos theory, the best-known example of which is the butterfly effect: if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon, we need to know about it in order to predict a storm in the North Atlantic. More generally, the theory tells us that, in order to accurately predict storms (or political events), we need to know about every tiny air disturbance on the entire planet. An impossible task. But chaos theory also points towards repeatable patterns. The Lorenz attractor is a model of the weather that, despite being chaotic, does produce somewhat regular and recognisable patterns. Given the uncertainty of the times we live in, it may be time to revive these ideas.
Some of my own research has focused on self-propelled particle models, which describe movements similar to those of bird flocks and fish schools. I now apply these models to better coordinate tactical formations in football and to scout players who move in ways that create more space for themselves and their teammates.
Another related model is current reinforced random walks, which capture how ants build trails, and the structure of slime mould transportation networks. This model could take us from todays computers which have central processing units (CPUs) that make computations and separate memory chips to store information to new forms of computation in which computation and memory are part of the same process. Like ant trails and slime mould, these new computers would benefit from being decentralised. Difficult computational problems, in particular in AI and computer vision, could be broken down in to smaller sub-problems and solved more rapidly.
Whenever there is a breakthrough application of an equation, we see a whole range of copycat imitations. The current boom in artificial intelligence is primarily driven by just two equations gradient descent and logistic regression put together to create what is known as a neural network. But history shows that the next big leap forward doesnt come from repeatedly using the same mathematical trick. It comes instead from a completely new idea, read from the more obscure pages of the book of mathematics.
The challenge of finding the next billion-dollar equation is not simply one of knowing every page of that book. Page spotted the right problem to solve at the right time, and he persuaded the more theoretically inclined Brin to help him find the maths to help them. You dont need to be a mathematical genius yourself in order to put the subject to good use. You just need to have a feeling for what equations are, and what they can and cant do.
Mathematics still holds many hidden intellectual and financial riches. It is up to all of us to try to find them. The search for the next billion-dollar equation is on.
David Sumpter is professor of applied mathematics at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and author of The Ten Equations that Rule the World: And How You Can Use Them Too
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Equations built giants like Google. Wholl find the next billion-dollar bit of maths? - The Guardian
Ardagh Group advances STEM education grants in the US – PRNewswire
As part of its $50 million program, Ardagh committed approximately $4 million to 154 PreK-12 schools in 2021 and will provide an additional $2.9 million this year to 122 PreK-12 schools to support STEM education expansion in the U.S. To date, Ardagh has partnered with PLTW to help fund 276 PreK-12 schools in 47 school districts across the following Ardagh communities: Bishopville, South Carolina; Bridgeton, New Jersey; Chicago, Illinois; Dolton, Illinois; Dunkirk, Indiana; Elk Grove, Illinois; Fairfield, California; Henderson, North Carolina; Houston, Texas; Huron, Ohio; Olive Branch, Mississippi; Pevely, Missouri; Port Allegany, Pennsylvania; Ruston, Louisiana; Sapulpa, Oklahoma; Seattle, Washington; Valparaiso, Indiana; Whitehouse, Ohio; Winchester, Indiana; Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
It is expected that, during the 10-year period of this investment program, Ardagh-sponsored education grants will benefit more than 500,000 PreK-12 students. In addition, the program will deliver best-in-class teacher training to more than 5,000 teachers across 2,000 schools in Ardagh's U.S. communities.
"As we think about preparing students for their future careers, the importance of employers engaging with students at an early stage cannot be underestimated," said PLTW President and CEO Dr. Vince Bertram. "We are grateful for Ardagh's continued commitment to partner with PLTW to provide PreK-12 students across the country with transformative, real-world learning experiences that equip them with the subject matter and transportable skills to thrive in life beyond the classroom."
Our education investments, which align to Sustainable Development Goal 4 Quality Education, are just the beginning. Ardagh is delighted to also announce a global extension of education grant funding to Ardagh communities in Europe and Brazil, with plans to be finalized and implemented this year. "We believe in the power of education to change lives, particularly in valued but underserved STEM fields," said John Sadlier, Chief Sustainability Officer, Ardagh Group. "This is why we will be extending STEM education funding to Europe and Brazil, another clear step in our sustainability strategies which include leveraging the capabilities of our people and our organization to strengthen the communities in which we operate."
To read more about Ardagh's sustainability initiatives and to view its latest sustainability reports, click here.
Further information
Jennifer Cumbee, Chief Sustainability Officer, Ardagh Group, Metal North America, [emailprotected], 773.251.9710
Notes to the editor
Ardagh Group is a global supplier of sustainable, infinitely recyclable metal and glass packaging for brand owners around the world. Ardagh operates 57 metal and glass production facilities in 12 countries, employing more than 16,000 people with sales of approximately $7bn.
Project Lead The Way (PLTW) is a mission-driven organization that is transforming the learning experience for millions of PreK-12 students and thousands of teachers across the U.S. PLTW empowers students to develop in-demand, transportable knowledge and skills through pathways in computer science, engineering, and biomedical science. PLTW's teacher training and resources support teachers as they engage their students in real-world learning. Approximately 12,200 elementary, middle, and high schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia offer PLTW programs. For more information on PLTW, visit pltw.org.
SOURCE Ardagh Metal Packaging
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Ardagh Group advances STEM education grants in the US - PRNewswire
Brave Behind Bars: Prison education program focuses on computing skills for women – MIT News
A programming language textbook might not be the first thing youd expect to see when walking into a correctional facility.
The creators of the Brave Behind Bars program are hoping to change that.
Founded in 2020, Brave Behind Bars is a pandemic-born introductory computer science and career-readiness program for incarcerated women, based out of The Educational Justice Institute at MIT (TEJI). Its taught both online and in-person, and the pilot program brought together 30 women from four correctional facilities across New England to study web design.
A pilot program based out of The Educational Justice Institute at MIT, and taught both online and in-person, brought together 30 women from four correctional facilities across New England.
One of the co-founders, Martin Nisser, a PhD student from MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), explains the digital literacy and self-efficacy focused objectives: Some of the women haven't had the opportunity to work with a computer for 25 years, and arent yet accustomed to using the internet. Were working with them to build their capabilities with these modern tools in order to prepare them for life outside, says Nisser. Even for the students who became incarcerated more recently, it can be difficult to keep up with the fast pace of technological advances, since technical programs in correctional facilities are few and far-between.
This scarcity of preparatory programs undoubtedly contributes to high and rising recidivism rates: More often than not, those who are released from prison eventually return.
While working at TEJI, Nisser had a fortuitous meeting with his two co-founders, Marisa Gaetz (a PhD student from MITs Department of Mathematics) and Emily Harburg (co-founder of Brave Initiatives, a nonprofit that develops coding bootcamps for young women). This meeting led to the birth of the program, and they were later joined by eight MIT affiliates who instruct and coach students.
Educational programs are one of the few tools to help recidivism theyve been shown to reduce recidivism by 43 percent and the nascent curriculum the team deployed emphasizes practical skills that can be readily utilized in the workplace. It was explicitly built around three foundational teaching modules that supported Nisser, Gaetz, and Harburgs hope of situating a traditional web design course in a digital literacy program that would foster success in a modern workplace after a completed sentence. The main parts are core technical skills, career-readiness skills, and a capstone project. Through this, the students learn the fundamentals of web programming and the building blocks of digital literacy.
On the technical side, the introduction to web programming teaches students to build websites, with core skills in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The course is based around a capstone project, where the incarcerated students are free to pick an issue that they feel passionate about, and then create a website that addresses that problem.
For example, a number of the women in the pilot program chose to construct websites that center on domestic violence. As Nisser relays, this is an issue that many of the students have struggled with personally, and students built websites that could serve as forums that featured not only their personal stories, but links to emergency hotlines, and information about resources for others seeking help.
The career-readiness portion of the curriculum centers on presenting the acquired skills to employers: CV writing, presentation, and public speaking, with an emphasis on relevant technology-facing career paths.
Integrating more traditional methods of instruction has not come without challenges. Nisser notes the dizzying task of trying to find a class time that works for all students across the four facilities. Whats more, different students are subject to different security constraints, with some having access to WiFi, some not; some having personal laptops most of the day, some only during class hours. Still, the logistical barriers far from deter the students. And like with every educational program, theres a vast variability in the level of subject-specific preparedness across the students, but according to Nisser thats far from a deterrent.
Many of the concepts we teach are completely new to many of the students. Theres definitely a steep learning curve for the material, but theres an equally big appetite for it, and these women are some of the most engaged students I've worked with. It was the first time this course was offered, and they worked tirelessly to overcome the technical and logistical challenges they faced, says Nisser.
Beyond imbuing students with a newfound confidence and understanding of technical concepts, Martin sees the potential of imbuing future courses with the physical sides of computing. One of our goals with the program was to instill confidence in the students that there exists a range of careers open to them that they might never previously have had the opportunity to consider for themselves. In the future, I think teaching the foundations of a tangible discipline like robotics is a great way to catalyze interest in other technical careers as well, says Nisser. In the more immediate future, wed like to focus on computing skills that students can go out and utilize to secure employment directly too. Well spend the next few months thinking about what exactly those skills could be.
The programis sponsored by CSAIL, MIT'sInstitute Community and Equity Office, The Harbus Foundation, The COOP, and the PKG Center at the MIT Innovation Initiative.
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Brave Behind Bars: Prison education program focuses on computing skills for women - MIT News
Angela Arnold sworn in as member of Orange Board of Education – cleveland.com
PEPPER PIKE, Ohio -- New Orange Board of Education member Angela Arnold was administered the oath of office at a special meeting of the board Wednesday (Jan. 19).
The school board approved Arnolds appointment Jan. 10. She was one of 18 applicants for the open seat.
Arnold, of Moreland Hills, will fill the unexpired term of Melanie Weltman, who resigned from the board after being elected to Pepper Pike City Council in November.
Arnold will serve on the board through Dec. 31, 2023. To continue serving beyond that date, she must run in the November 2023 election.
A native of Michigan, Arnold has lived in the Orange City School District for 14 years and has been active with the Orange Elementary and Middle School PTA. She and her husband, Sean, have two children who attend the Orange Schools.
Orange High School senior Jordyn Zucker (Photo Courtesy of Orange City Schools)
Senior of the Month
Orange High School senior Jordyn Zucker has been named the Kiwanis Club of Lander Circle Senior of the Month for January.
Jordyn is a Leadership Board teen volunteer at Friendship Circle in Pepper Pike, where she has dedicated more than 300 service hours in the last seven years. She also has volunteered in the Book Buddies program as a room leader, dedicating another 35 service hours to that program.
Jordyn has been actively involved in dance for most of her life. She has competed across the country as a company member dancer with Jordan Center Dance, a member of the National Honor Society of Dance Arts and as a squad leader and performer with the Orange High School Lionettes varsity drill team.
The National Honor Society member also has served as president of Amnesty International at the high school and for the Trending Topics Club and Personal Wellness Club, both of which she was an original member.
Additional leadership roles include lead chief editor of sales for the ORAN (Orange High School yearbook), Leadership Board member of the Spanish Club and leading club officer for the Israeli Culture Club. She also has been a participant in Akiva for Teens and the OHS Environmental Club.
In addition, Jordyn founded and runs the Comfygirlz clothing line, teaches private dance lessons, works at the Pepper Pike Club and interned this past summer with Northeast Ohio Parent Magazine.
Every school year, the Kiwanis Club of Lander Circle recognizes six seniors for their leadership, integrity and academic achievements.
Orange High School earns award
Orange High School has earned the College Board AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award for achieving high female representation in Advanced Placement Computer Science A.
Schools honored with this award are recognized for expanding girls access in AP computer science courses and closing the gender gap. Orange was one of only four high schools in Ohio recognized in the category of AP Computer Science A.
Were thrilled to congratulate our female AP computer science students and their teachers on this step toward gender parity in computer science education, Dominic Favazzo, guidance department chairman, said in a news release.
Were honored that our school earned this distinction, and look forward to seeing these young women and others pursue and achieve success in computer science education and careers.
Favazzo added, We are very proud of our Orange counseling department for fostering female participation in the math and science fields, along with teachers Erin Cingel and Ryan McMonigle for all of their hard work in making computer science a success and option for all.
Stefanie Sanford, College Board chief of global policy and external relations, said in the release, By encouraging young women to study advanced computer science coursework, Orange is closing the gap in computer science education and empowering young women to access the opportunities available in STEM career fields.
Computer science is the foundation of many 21st-century career options, and young women deserve equal opportunities to pursue computer science education and drive technological innovation.
AP Computer Science A students learn to design and implement computer programs that solve problems relevant to todays society.
The program, which debuted in 1988, continues to grow, and female participation has increased 33 percent since 2017. Overall, AP computer science course participation has increased 79 percent since 2017.
Mask mandate for indoor events
The community is reminded that face masks are required for all indoor events taking place on the Orange Schools campus. This includes athletic events, concerts, plays, shows and all other indoor events.
The mask mandate helps to maintain a safe and healthy environment for everyone in attendance, according to a news release from the school district.
Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun.
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Angela Arnold sworn in as member of Orange Board of Education - cleveland.com
Eckerd computer science professors ‘think outside’ to boost wildlife research – Eckerd College News
That collaboration is on full display at Eckerd College, where two computer science professors are helping to make animal research quicker, easier and more precise. Kelly Debure, Ph.D., professor of computer science, is the driving force behind software used in research on marine mammals and, most recently, Alaskan brown bears.
And Mike Hilton, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science, has developed software used in research on gopher tortoises and frogs. He has released it as an open source, so other wildlife researchers can work with him.
Over the past 20 years, Debure has supervised scores of Eckerd students who have maintained and enhanced DARWIN (Digital Analysis and Recognition of Whale Images on a Network). That software, initially implemented under the direction of former Eckerd faculty member John Stewman, has been downloaded thousands of times. It is designed to help researchers identify bottlenose dolphins, but it also has been used by research groups on spinner dolphins, fin whales, basking sharks and other related species.
Nicks and notches along the edge of a dolphins dorsal fin, along with scratches and other markings that an animal acquires, are features that can be used to uniquely identify an individual dolphin, Debure says. DARWIN uses the edge markings to compare the dorsal fin outlines for similarity.
The software can help wildlife scientists do something vital to their researchidentify individual animals. Debure says researchers who are monitoring certain animal species need to identify specific individuals in order to perform tasks such as making population estimates, determining home ranges and modeling association patterns.
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Eckerd computer science professors 'think outside' to boost wildlife research - Eckerd College News
Could artificial intelligence help predict Louisiana floods better? This LSU prof thinks so. – The Advocate
Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, LSU professor Hartmut Kaiser is joining up with a team of scientists to help communities near the coast better prepare for flooding.
Kaiser, an adjunct professor in the Division of Computer Science, is working with scientists from three other universities on a project titled 'MuSiKAL' that will help predict coastal flooding with better accuracy.
Kaiser said the Gulf of Mexico is ideal for research on protecting coastal watershed parishes and counties. More than half the U.S. population lives in those areas, and they generate about 58 percent of the country's gross domestic product, he said.
The Gulf of Mexico coast along Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi is home to important U.S. energy hubs but is also home to socially vulnerable populations, Kaiser said in a statement. This proposed effort contributes to bringing science and knowledge discovery toward minimizing flood damage exposure and improving socioeconomic stability in the region.
MuSiKAL, which stands forMultiphysics Simulations and Knowledge discovery through AI/ML,is one of three projects funded by the Department of Energys Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research.
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Each of the projects will bereceiving $15.1 million over three years from the Department of Energy.
Collaborations between scientific disciplines like those created through this program pave the way for the future of scientific discovery by combining diverse knowledge, skills and tools in new ways to approach a variety of critical problems, DOE Associate Director of Science for Advanced Scientific Computing Research Barbara Helland said in a statement. These projects can revolutionize the scientific productivity of our facilities while working towards solving some of Americas big problems.
Kaiser is collaborating with scientists Clint Dawson fromthe University of Texas, Austin, Joannes Westerink from the University of Notre Dame and Ruby Leung of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The team will couple the DOE's Earth physics model with a model measuring coastal circulation to develop more specified ways to predict flood behavior and solidify plans to mitigate damage.
The well-being of all Americans depends on the environmental integrity and sustainable productivity of the ocean, our coasts and coastal watersheds, Kaiser said.
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CAMEO Project Manager, UCD School of Computer Science job with UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN (UCD) | 277887 – Times Higher Education (THE)
Applications are invited for a temporary post of a CAMEO Project Manager within UCD School of Computer Science.
University College Dublin has secured funding under the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment's (DETE) Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund (DTIF) to establish a new Earth Observation platform designed for non-specialist users.
The CAMEO (Creating an Architecture for Manipulating Earth Observation data) project seeks to democratise access to an ever-increasing volume of Earth Observation data with the aim of developing a sustainable internationally trading Earth Observation services sector in Ireland.
CAMEO will provide a new means of accessing international EO/UAV/Land-based sensor data and mechanisms for combining this with national climate, agriculture, and marine databases to unlock real, tangible potential for Irish industry, the public sector, researchers, establishing Ireland as an international leader in the use of EO data for economic and societal benefit.
The members of this project consortium, led by UCD include: Vertice Integration Services Ltd T/A Vertice Cloud, BCC Risk Advisory Ltd T/A Edgescan, The Icon Group Ltd, Treemetrics Ltd, TechWorks Marine Ltd, Dell Technologies. The Project Manager will work with the Principal Investigator (PI) and Funded Investigators (FIs), UCD Research and Innovation, Industry Partners, Public Sector agencies, Technology Partners, Enterprise Ireland, and various committees to develop, deliver, and evaluate the research project as set out in DTIF the work-plan.
The successful candidate will report to the Lead PI (Prof Michela Bertolotto) at UCD and the Programme Steering Committee, providing leadership in all aspects of financial planning, administration, and management of the project. The Project Manager will be a key member of the management team and support the PIs in adhering to the work-plan, its associated work packages, tasks, deliverables, and milestones over the three years of the programme. They will oversee R&D activities, identify new collaborative research and future business development opportunities with partners, coordinate research personnel and stakeholders, and review/update the research work-plan and risk register as appropriate.
Key responsibilities include acting as the main contact point with project partners, the management of the project budget, producing reports, and liaising with Enterprise Ireland. This role requires someone with a proactive approach to manging a complex programme of work, under minimal direction and on their own initiative. This is a very exciting opportunity for the right person, providing the opportunity to work closely with Ireland's leaders in Earth Observation from across the private and public sectors, and having a key role in the development of a highly innovative new disruptive EO platform.
Salary Range: 65,000 - 84,000, per annum*
Appointment on the above range will be dependent upon qualifications and experience.
Closing date: 17:00hrs (local Irish time) on the 28th of January 2022.
Applications must be submitted by the closing date and time specified. Any applications which are still in progress at the closing time of 17:00hrs (Local Irish Time) on the specified closing date will be cancelled automatically by the system. UCD are unable to accept late applications. UCD do not require assistance from Recruitment Agencies. Any CV's submitted by Recruitment Agencies will be returned.
Prior to application, further information (including application procedure) should be obtained from the Work at UCD website: https://www.ucd.ie/workatucd/jobs/.
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CRCs appointed at UBC Science in ecology, computer science, and astrophysics – UBC Faculty of Science
3 new Canada Research Chairs appointed and 1 renewed at UBC Science.
UBC Science receives funding for research in ecology, computer science, astrophysics, and microbiology through the appointment of three new Canada Research Chairs and one renewal.
This honour is shared with a total of 188 new and renewed Canada Research Chairs across 43 institutions in Canada for a total of $151 million.
The Canada Research Chairs announced this week comprise the full diversity of Canada, both in terms of their backgrounds and training, as well as the broad range of disciplines they represent, says Ted Hewitt, Chair of the Canada Research Chairs Program Steering Committee.
This, in turn, helps to drive the research excellence we have come to expect from these outstanding scholars, as well as their contributions to the well-being and prosperity of Canadians.
Kai ChanCanada Research Chair in Re-Wilding and Social-Ecological Transformation, Tier 1
Kai Chan works in modeling and using empirical research to improve the management and governance of social-ecological systems. This also includes special interests in ecosystem services, evolutionary ecology of pest control, applied environmental ethics, and ecosystem-based management.
Karon MacLeanCanada Research Chair in Interactive Human Systems Design, Tier 1
Computer Scientist Karon MacLeans research is focused on the study and design for human perception and affect, considering both interface usage and the process of designing them. This research applies to multiple areas of technology including mobile devices, robots, and furniture.
Jessica McIverCanada Research Chair in Gravitational Wave Astrophysics, Tier 2
Jessica McIvers work involves working with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in measuring the ripples in spacetime produced by gravitational waves.
Lindsay EltisCanada Research Chair in Microbial Catabolism and Biocatalysis, Tier 1
Lindsay Eltis research involves studying bacterial catabolic enzymes. His primary research is focused bacterial enzymes and pathways responsible for the degradation of aromatic compounds and steroids.
The Canada Research Chairs program supports researchers and universities across the country in accomplishing globally competitive research and building the foundations for future academic discovery. The new CRCs join a total of 19 new and 3 renewed CRCs across UBC and a total of 40 other chairs at UBC Science.
The new CRCs join a total of 19 new and 3 renewed CRCs across UBC and a total of 40 other chairs at UBC Science.
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The Lies that Powered the Invention of Pong – IEEE Spectrum
Now comes a report on a quantum gas, called a Bose-Einstein condensate, which scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first stretched into a skinny rod, then rotated until it broke up. The result was a series of daughter vortices, each one a mini-me of the mother form.
The research, published in Nature, was conducted by a team of scientists affiliated with the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms and MITs Research Laboratory of Electronics.
The rotating quantum clouds, effectively quantum tornadoes, recall phenomena seen in the large-scale, classical world that we are familiar with. One example would be so-called Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds, which look like periodically repeating, serrated cartoon images of waves on the ocean.
These wave-shaped clouds, seen over an apartment complex in Denver, exhibit whats called Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.Rick Duffy/Wikipedia
The way to make quantum cloud vortices, though, involves more lab equipment and less atmospheric wind shear. We start with a Bose-Einstein condensate, 1 million sodium atoms that share one and the same quantum-mechanical wave function,, says Martin Zwierlein, a professor of physics at MIT.
The same mechanism that confines the gasan atom trap, made up of laser beamsallows the researchers to squeeze it and then spin it like a propeller. We know what direction were pushing, and we see the gas getting longer, he says. The same thing would happen to a drop of water if I were to spin it up in the same waythe drop would elongate while spinning.
What they actually see is effectively the shadow cast by the sodium atoms as they fluoresce when illuminated by laser light, a technique known as absorption imaging. Successive frames in a movie can be captured by a well-placed CCD camera.
At a particular rotation rate, the gas breaks up into little clouds. It develops these funny undulationswe call it flaky, then becomes even more extreme. We see how this gas crystalizes in a chain of dropletsin the last image there are eight droplets.
Why settle for a one-dimensional crystal when you can go for two? And in fact the researchers say they have done just that, in as yet unpublished research.
That a rotating quantum gas would break into blobs had been predicted by theorythat is, one could infer that this would happen from earlier theoretical work. We in the lab didnt expect thisI was not aware of the paper; we just found it, Zwierlein says. It took us a while to figure it out.
The crystalline form appears clearly in a magnified part of one of the images. Two connections, or bridges, can be seen in the quantum fluid, and instead of the single big hole youd see in water, the quantum fluid has a whole train of quantized vortices. In a magnified part of the image, the MIT researchers found a number of these little holelike patterns, chained together in regularly repeating fashion.
Its similar in what happens when clouds pass each other in the sky, he says. An originally homogeneous cloud starts forming successive fingers in the Kelvin-Helmholtz pattern.
Very pretty, you say, but surely there can be no practical application. Of course there can; the universe is quantum. The research at MIT is funded by DARPAthe Defense Research Advanced Project Agencywhich hopes to use a ring of quantum tornadoes as fabulously sensitive rotation sensors.
Today if youre a submarine lying under the sea, incommunicado, you might want to use a fiber optic gyroscope to detect slight rotational movement. Light travels in both one way and the other in the fiber, and if the entire thing is spinning, you should get an interference pattern. But if you use atoms rather than light, you should be able to do the job better, because atoms are so much slower. Such a quantum-tornado sensor could also measure slight changes in the earths rotation, perhaps to see how the core of the earth might be affecting things.
The MIT researchers have gone far down the rabbit hole, but not quite to the bottom of it. Those little daughter tornadoes can be confirmed as still being Bose-Einstein condensates because even the smallest ones still have about 10 atoms apiece. If you could get down to just one per vortex, youd have the quantum Hall effect, which is a different state of matter. And with two atoms per vortex, youd get a fractional quantum Hall fluid, with each atom doing its own thing, not sharing a wave function, Zwierlein says.
The quantum Hall effect is now used to define the ratio of Plancks constant divided by the charge of the electron squared (h/e2)a number called the von Klitzing constantwhich is about as basic as basic physics gets. But this effect is still not fully understood. Most studies have focused on the behavior of electrons, and the MIT researchers are trying to use sodium atoms as stand-ins, says Zwierlein.
So although theyre not all the way to the bottom of the scale yet, theres plenty of room for discovery on the way to the bottom. As Feynman also might have said (sort of).
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Maryland Today | Two Terps Named 2022 Churchill Scholars – Maryland Today
Naveen RamanRaman, a computer science and mathematics double major, has authored or co-authored seven conference papers on topics at the intersection of computer science, economics and social good.
The Churchill Scholarship will allow him to work on his M.Phil. in computer science in the University of Cambridge Computer Lab, where hell focus on the fairness of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms in critical fields such as criminal justice, job markets and health care. After that, Raman plans to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science.
AI and ML have the potential to revolutionize health care through improvements in clinical prognosis, but predicting patient outcomes and diseases is especially challenging for patients from marginalized communities due to data sparsity and bias, he said. I plan to combat these problems by developing robust learning algorithms that work in the presence of data perturbations and minimize error rates.
Raman began using intelligent computing with Distinguished University Professor of Computer Science Aravind Srinivasan and former computer science Assistant Professor Max Leiserson. He then worked with computer science Assistant Professor John Dickerson to develop policies that balance fairness and profit in ride-pooling systems, and now works with computer science Associate Professor Jordan Boyd-Graber to improve question answering systems by leveraging data from trivia competitions.
Naveen is working at the forefront of a broad portfolio of fieldssoftware engineering with his CMU colleagues, natural language processing with Jordan Boyd-Graber here at UMD, computer vision with his MIT Lincoln Labs colleagues, and EconCS meets fairness in AI with me, Dickerson said.
Raman, who attended Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Maryland, is a member of the Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students program in the Honors College and the Global Fellows program. He is also a Goldwater Scholar, Presidents Scholar, Philip Merrill Presidential Scholar and a Computing Research Association Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher finalist. He has been awarded the Brendan Iribe Endowed Scholarship, Capital One Bank Deans Scholarship in Computer Science and Corporate Partners in Computing Scholarship.
Ramans team won the National Academy Quiz Tournaments Division 2 Intercollegiate Championship Tournament during his freshman year. In 2020, he and two classmates received an honorable mention award in the 72-hour Mathematical Contest in Modeling.
He has been a teaching assistant for a programming languages class and the lead student instructor for a class on algorithms for coding interviews.
Off campus, Raman teaches math skills to underprivileged elementary school students in the Maryland Mentor Program and volunteered at the College Park Academy charter school helping students improve their math skills.
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Maryland Today | Two Terps Named 2022 Churchill Scholars - Maryland Today