This week I am attending the every-two-years DOE Experimental Condensed Matter Physics PI meeting. Previously I have written up highlights of these meetings (see here, here, here, here, here), though two years I was unable to do so because I was attending virtually. I will do my best to hit some high points (though I will restrict myself to talking only about already published work, to avoid any issues of confidentiality).
In the meantime, here are a couple of topics of interest from the last couple of weeks.
- I just learned about the existence of Mathos AI, an AI product that can function as a math solver and calculator, as well as a tutor for students. It is pretty impressive.
- I liked this historical piece about Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (he of the “Chandrasekhar limit”, which describes the degeneracy physics + gravitation that limits the upper size of compact stellar objects like white dwarfs and neutron stars before they collapse into black holes) and his interactions with Stephen Hawking. It's pretty humanizing to see an intellectual giant like Chandra sending a brief letter to Hawking in 1967 asking for advice on what to read so that Chandra can understand Hawking’s work on singularities in cosmology. Hawking’s handwritten response is clear and direct.
- In an online discussion about what people will do if Google decides to stop supporting Google Scholar, I was introduced to OpenAlex. This seems like an interesting, also-free alternative. Certainly worth watching. There is no obvious reason to think that Google Scholar is going away, but Alphabet has retired many free products, and it’s far from obvious how they are making any money on this. Anyone from Google who reads the blog, please chime in. (Note to self: keep regularly backing up this blog, since blogger is also not guaranteed future existence.)
