Tag Archives: Chaos

The sense of beauty: an art/science film about CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in Vancouver, Canada; art/sci September in Toronto (Canada), a science at the bar night in Vancouver (Canada), and a festival in Calgary (Canada)

Compared to five or more years ago, there’s a lollapalooza of art/sci (or sciart) events coming up in September 2018. Of course, it’s helpful if you live in or are visiting Toronto or Vancouver or Calgary at the right time.  All of these events occur from mid September (roughly) to the end of September. In no particular date order:

Sense of beauty in Vancouver

The September 10, 2018 Dante Alighieri Society of British Columbia invitation (received via email) offered more tease than information. Happily, the evite webpage for “The Sense of Beauty: Art and Science at CERN” (2017) by Valerio Jalongo filled in the details,

The Dante Alighieri Society of British Columbia

Invites you to the screening of the documentary

“The Sense of Beauty: Art and Science at CERN” (2017) by Valerio Jalongo

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2018 at 6:30 pm

The CINEMATHEQUE – 1131 Howe Street, Vancouver

Duration of film: 75’. Director in attendance; Q&A with the film director to follow the screening

Free Admission

RSVP: info@dantesocietybc.ca

Director Jalongo will discuss the making of his documentary in a seminar open to the public on September 24 (1:00-2:30 pm) at UBC  [University of British Columbia] (Buchanan Penthouse, *1866 Main Maill, Block C, 5th floor*, Vancouver).

The Sense of Beauty is the story of an unprecedented experiment that involves scientists from throughout the world collaborating around the largest machine ever constructed by human beings: the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). As the new experiment at CERN proceeds in its exploration of the mysterious energy that animates the universe, scientists and artists guide us towards the shadow line where science and art, in different ways, pursue truth and beauty.

Some of these men and women believe in God, while others believe only in experiment and doubt. But in their search for truth they are all alert to an elusive sixth – or seventh – sense: the sense of beauty. An unmissable opportunity for lovers of science, of beauty, or of both.

Rome-born Valerio Jalongo is a teacher, screenwriter and director who works in cinema and TV, for which he created works of fiction and award-winning documentaries. Among them: Sulla mia pelle (On My Skin, 2003) and La scuola è finita (2010), starring Valeria Golino, on the difficulties facing public schools in Italy.

This event is presented by the Dante Alighieri Society of BC in collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy in Vancouver and in association with ARPICO (www.arpico.ca), the Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada.

RSVP: info@dantesocietybc.ca

I searched for more information both about the film and about the seminar at UBC. I had no luck with the UBC seminar but I did find more about the film. There’s an April (?) 2017 synopsis by Luciano Barisone on the Vision du Réel website,

From one cave to another. In prehistoric times, human beings would leave paintings in caves to show their amazement and admiration for the complexity of the world. These reproductions of natural forms were the results of an act of creation and also of mystical gestures which appropriated the soul of things. In another gigantic and modern den, the immense CERN laboratory, the same thing is happening today, a combination of enthralled exploration of the cosmos and an attempt to control it. Valerio Jalongo’s film tackles the big questions that have fascinated poets, artists and philosophers since the dawn of time. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? The scientists at CERN attempt to answer them through machines that explore matter and search for the origins of life. In their conversations or their words to camera, the meaning of existence thus seems to become a pure question of the laws of physics and mathematical formulae. If only for solving the mystery of the universe a sixth sense is necessary. That of beauty…

There’s also a February 5, 2018 essay by Stefano Caggiano for Interni, which uses a description of the film to launch into a paean to Italian design,

The success of the documentary The Sense of Beauty by Valerio Jalongo, which narrates the ‘aesthetic’ side of the physicists at CERN when faced with the fundamental laws of nature, proves that the yearning for beauty is not just an aspect of art, but something shared by all human efforts to interpret reality.

It is no coincidence that the scientists themselves define the LHC particle accelerator (27 km) as a grand machine for beauty, conceived to investigate the meaning of things, not to perform some practical function. In fact, just as matter can be perceived only through form, and form only if supported by matter (Aristotle already understood this), so the laws of physics can be glimpsed only when they are applied to reality.

This is why in the Large Hadron Collider particles are accelerated to speeds close to that of light, reconstructing the matter-energy conditions just a few instants after the Big Bang. Only in this way is it possible to glimpse the hidden fundamental laws of the universe. It is precisely this evanescence that constitutes ‘beauty.’

The quivering of the form that reveals itself in the matter that conceals it, and which – given the fact that everything originates in the Big Bang – is found everywhere, in the most faraway stars and the closest objects: you just have to know how to prove it, grasp it, how to wait. Because this is the only way to establish relations with beauty: not perceiving it but awaiting it. Respecting its way of offering itself, which consists in denying itself.

Charging the form of an object with this sensation of awaiting, then, means catalyzing the ultimate and primary sense of beauty. And it is what is held in common by the work of the five Italian designers nominated for the Rising Talent Awards of Maison & Object 2018 (with Kensaku Oshiro as the only non-Italian designer, though he does live and work in Milan).

There’s a trailer (published by CERN on November 7, 2017,

It’s in both Italian and English with subtitles throughout, should you need them.

*The address for the Buchanan Penthouse was corrected from: 2329 West Mall to 1866 Main Maill, Block C, 5th floor on Sept. 17, 2018.

Toronto’s ArtSci Salon at Nuit Blanche, Mycology, Wild Bees and Art+Tech!

From a Tuesday, September 11, 2018 Art/Sci Salon announcement (received via email),

Baba Yaga Collective and ArtSci Salon Present:
Chaos Fungorum

In 1747, Carl Linnaeus, known as the “father of taxonomy”, observed
that the seeds of fungus moved in water like fish until “..by a law of
nature thus far unheard of and surpassing all human understanding..,”
they changed back to plant in their adult life.

He proceeded to include fungi in the new genus of “Chaos”. But why
delimiting fungi within categories and boundaries when it is exactly
their fluidity that make them so interesting?

Chaos Fungorum draws on the particular position occupied by fungi and
other hybrid organisms: neither plant nor animal, fungi extend across,
and can entertain, communications and collaborations between animal,
human and industrial realms.

Mixing different artistic practices and media, the artists featured in
this exhibition seek to move beyond rigid comprehensions of the living
by working with, rather than merely shaping, sculpting and manipulating
plants, microorganisms and fungi. Letting the non-human speak is to move
away from an anthropocentric approach to the world: it not only opens to
new rewarding artistic practices, but it also fosters new ideas of
sustainable coexistence, new unusual life collaborations and
adaptations, and new forms of communications and languages.

THE EXHIBITION
September 26 – October 7, 2018

Baba Yaga Collective 906 Queen Street West @Crawford, Toronto

info@babayagacollective.ca

FEATURING

BIO.CHROME COLLECTIVE
Robyn Crouch • Mellissa Fisher • Shavon Madden
Tracy Maurice • Tosca Teran • Alexis Williams

SPECIAL GUEST
Whitefeather Hunter

SPECIAL NUIT BLANCHE OPENING RECEPTION
September 29
6:00 – 9:00 pm

6:30pm: Artsci Salon introduction with Roberta Buiani and Stephen Morris
rethinking categories and the “non-human” in art and science

Followed by artist remarks.
Scientists from the University of Toronto will act as respondent.

9:30pm onward: Tosca Teran & Andrei Gravelle of Nanotopia [emphasis mine]

BIO-SONIFICATIONS: NON-HUMAN COLLABORATIONS Mycelium to MIDI •

Midnight Mushroom music live performance

This Special program is co-presented by The Baba Yaga Collective and
ArtSci Salon. For more information contact artscisalon@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/events/1763778620414561/

 All the Buzz on Wild Bee Club!
Summer Speaker Series

Wed Sept 19 at 7pm
High Park Nature Centre,
All the Buzz on Wild Bee Club! – Summer Speaker Series

The speaker series will feature the club’s biologist/leader SUSAN FRYE.
A major component of this club will use the SONIC SOLITARIES AUDIO BEE
CABINET  – an observable nest site for bees in OURSpace – to encompass a
sensory experience with stem nesting bees and wasps, and to record
weekly activity at the cabinet. Pairing magnified views in tandem with
amplified sound via headphones, the cabinet facilitates an enhanced
perception of its tiny inhabitants: solitary bees and wasps and other
nest biota in action, up close. As citizen scientists, we can gather and
record observations to compile them into a database that will contribute
to our growing understanding of native bees, the native (and non-native)
plants they use for food and nest material sources, their co-evolution,
and how pollination in a park and restored habitat setting is
facilitated by native bees.

Fri, Sept 21, 8pm
Music Gallery, 918 Bathurst (their new location) –
Trio Wow & Flutter
with Bea Labikova, fujara, saxophones,
Kayla Milmine-Abbott, soprano saxophone,
Sarah Peebles, shō, cracklebox, amplifiers.

Call for Participants: Art+Tech Jam

ChangeUp’s Art+Tech Jam
September 21-23

This three days event will unite a diverse group of artists and
technologists in an intensive, collaborative three-day creation period
and culminating showcase (public exhibition and interdisciplinary rave).

ChangeUo is currently accepting applicants from tech and arts/culture
spaces of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels.
Limited spots available.
For more information and to apply
https://tinyurl.com/changeup-artsorg

I looked up Nanotopia and found it on SoundCloud. Happy listening!

Et Al III (the ultimate science bar night in Vancouver) and more

A September 12, 2018 Curiosity Collider announcement (received via email) reveals details about the latest cooperative event/bar night put on by three sciencish groups,

Curiosity Collider is bringing art + science to Vancouver’s Ultimate Bar Science Night with Nerd Nite & Science Slam

Do you enjoy learning about science in a casual environment? This is the third year that Curiosity Collider is part of Et al, the Ultimate Bar Science Night where we bring together awesome speakers and activities. Come and enjoy Curiosity Collider’s segment on quantum physics with Spoken Word Poet Angelica Poversky, Physicist James Day, and CC’s own Creative Director Char Hoyt.

When: Drinks and mingling start at 6:30pm. Presentations start at 7:30pm.
Where: Rio Theatre, 1660 E Broadway, Vancouver, BC V5N 1W1
Cost: $15-20 via Eventbrite and at the door. Proceeds will be used to cover the cost of running this event, and to fund future science bar events.

Special Guest talk by Dr. Carin Bondar – Biologist with a Twist!

Dr. Carin Bondar is a biologist, author and philosopher. Bondar is author of the books Wild Sex and Wild Moms (Pegasus). She is the writer and host of an online series based on her books which have garnered over 100,000,000 views. Her TED talk on the subject has nearly 3 million views. She is host of several TV series including Worlds Oddest Animal Couples (Animal Planet, Netflix), Stephen Hawking’s Brave New World (Discovery World HD, National Geographic) and Outrageous Acts of Science (The Science Channel). Bondar is an adventurer and explorer, having discovered 11 new species of beetles and snails in the remote jungles of Borneo. Bondar is also a mom of 4 kids, two boys and two girls.

Follow updates on twitter via @ccollider or #ColliderCafe. This event is part of the Science Literacy Week celebration across Canada.

Head to the Facebook event page – let us know you are coming and share this event with others!

Looking for more Art+Science in Vancouver?
For more Vancouver art+science events, visit the Curiosity Collider events calendar.

Devoted readers 🙂 will note that the Vancouver Biennale’s Curious Imaginings show was featured here in a June 18, 2018 post and mentioned more recently in the context of a September 11, 2018 post on xenotransplantation.

Finally for this section, special mention to whomever wrote up the ‘bar night’ description on Eventbrite,

Et Al III: The Ultimate Bar Science Night Curiosity Collider + Nerd Nite Vancouver + Science Slam Canada

POSTER BY: Armin Mortazavi IG:@Armin.Scientoonist

Et Al III: The Ultimate Bar Science Night

Curiosity Collider + Nerd Nite Vancouver + Science Slam Canada

Special Guest talk by Dr. Carin Bondar – Biologist with a Twist!

6:30pm – Doors open
6:30-7:30 Drinks, Socializing, Nerding
7:30pm-945pm Stage Show with two intermissions

You like science? You like drinking while sciencing? In Vancouver there are many options to get educated and inspired through science, art, and culture in a casual bar setting outside of universities. There’s Nerd Nite which focuses on nerdy lectures in the Fox Cabaret, Curiosity Collider which creates events that bring together artists and scientists, and Science Slam, a poetry-slam inspired science communication competition!

In this third installment of Et Al, we’re making the show bigger than ever. We want people to know all about the bar science nights in Vancouver, but we also want to connect all you nerds together as we build this community. We encourage you to COME DRESSED AS YOUR FAVOURITE SCIENTIST. We will give away prizes to the best costumes, plus it’s a great ice breaker. We’re also encouraging science based organizations to get involved in the show by promoting your institution. Contact Kaylee or Michael at vancouver@nerdnite.com if your science organization would like to contribute to the show with some giveaways, you will get a free ticket, if you don’t have anything to give away, contact us anyway, we want this to be a celebration of science nights in Vancouver!

BIOS

CARIN BONDAR
Dr. Carin Bondar is a biologist, author and philosopher. Bondar is author of the books Wild Sex and Wild Moms (Pegasus). She is writer and host of online series based on her books (Wild Sex and Wild Moms) which have garnered over 100,000,000 views. Her TED talk on the subject has nearly 3 million views. She is host of several TV series including Worlds Oddest Animal Couples (Animal Planet, Netflix), Stephen Hawking’s Brave New World (Discovery World HD, National Geographic) and Outrageous Acts of Science (The Science Channel). Bondar is an adventurer and explorer, having discovered 11 new species of beetles and snails in the remote jungles of Borneo. Bondar is also a mom of 4 kids, two boys and two girls.

Curiosity Collider Art Science Foundation promotes interdisciplinary collaborations that capture natural human curiosity. At the intersection of art, culture, technology, and humanity are innovative ways to communicate the daily relevance of science. Though exhibitions, performance events and our quarterly speaker event, the Collider Cafe we help create new ways to experience science.

NERD NITE
In our opinion, there has never been a better time to be a Nerd! Nerd Nite is an event which is currently held in over 60 cities worldwide! The formula for each Nerd Nite is pretty standard – 20 minute presentations from three presenters each night, in a laid-back environment with lots to learn, and lots to drink!

SCIENCE SLAM
Science Slam YVR is a community outreach organization committed to supporting and promoting science communication in Vancouver. Our Science Slams are informal competitions that bring together researchers, students, educators, and communicators to share interesting science in creative ways. Every event is different, with talks, poems, songs, dances, and unexpected surprises. Our only two rules? Each slammer has 5 minutes, and no slideshows are allowed! Slammers come to share their science, and the judges and audience decide their fate. Who will take away the title of Science Slam champion?

That’s a pretty lively description. You can get tickets here.

Calgary’s Beakerhead

An art, science, and engineering festival in Calgary, Alberta, Beakerhead opens on September 19, 2018 and runs until September 23, 2018. Here’s more from the 2018 online programme announcement made in late July (?) 2018,

Giant Dung Beetle, Zorb Ball Racers, Heart Powered Art and More Set to Explode on Calgary Streets!

Quirky, fun adventures result when art, science and engineering collide at Beakerhead September 19 – 23, 2018.

In just seven weeks, enormous electric bolts will light up the sky in downtown Calgary when a crazy cacophony of exhibits and events takes over the city. The Beakerhead crew is announcing the official program lineup with tickets now available online for all ticketed events. This year’s extravaganza will include remarkable spectacles of art and science, unique activities, and more than 50 distinct events – many of which are free, but still require registration to get tickets.

The Calgary-born smash up of art, science and engineering is in its sixth year. Last year, more than 145,000 people participated in Beakerhead and organizers are planning to top that number in 2018.

“Expect conversations that start with “wow!” says Mary Anne Moser, President and Co-founder of Beakerhead. “This year’s lineup includes a lot of original concepts, special culinary events, dozens of workshops, shows and and tours.”

Beakerhead events take place indoors and out. Beakernight is science’s biggest ticketed street party and tickets are now on sale.

Highlights of Beakerhead 2018:

  • Light up the Night: Giant electric bolts will light up the night sky thanks to two 10-metre Tesla Coils built by a team of artists and engineers.
  • Lunch Without Light: This special Dark Table dining experience is led by a famous broadcaster and an esteemed neuroscientist.
  • Beakereats and Beakerbar: Dining is a whole new experience when chef and bartender become scientist! Creative Calgary chefs and mixologists experiment with a new theme in 2018: canola.
  • Four to Six on Fourth: Blocks of open-air experimentation including a human-sized hamster wheel, artists, performers, and hands-on or feet-on experiences like walking on liquid.
  • Beacons: This series of free neighbourhood installations is completely wild! There’s everything from a giant dung beetle to a 3.5 metre lotus that lights up with your heart beat.
  • Workshops: Learn the art of animation, understand cryptocurrency, meet famous scientists and broadcasters, make organic facial oil or a vegan carrot cake and much more.
  • Zorbathon: Get inside a zorb and cavort with family and friends in an oversized playground. Participate in rolling races, bump-a-thons, obstacle courses. Make a day of it.

Beakerhead takes place September 19 – 23, 2018 with the ticketed Beakernight on Saturday, September 22 at Fort Calgary.

Here’s a special shout out to Shaskatchewan`s Jean-Sébastien Gauthier and Brian F. Eames (featured here in a February 16, 2018 posting) and their free ‘Within Measure’ Sept. 19 – 23, 2018 event at Beakerhead.

That’s all folks! For now, that is.

Chimera state: simultaneous synchrony and asynchrony

It turns out there’s more than one kind of chimera. (I published a Sept. 7, 2016 post about chimeras that are animal/human hybrids and a US public consultation on the matter.)

The chimera being investigated by researchers at the University of New Mexico (US) is of an altogether different kind. From a Nov. 15, 2016 American Institute of Physics (AIP) news release (also on EurekAlert),

Order and disorder might seem dichotomous conditions of a functioning system, yet both states can, in fact, exist simultaneously and durably within a system of oscillators, in what’s called a chimera state. Taking its name from a composite creature in Greek mythology, this exotic state still holds a lot of mystery, but its fundamental nature offers potential in understanding governing dynamics across many scientific fields. A research team at the University of New Mexico has recently advanced this understanding with work that will be published this week in the journal Chaos, from AIP Publishing.

“A system of oscillators” may sound obscure, but it actually describes, in a very general but fundamental way, all sorts of physical systems.

“Lots of biological systems can be thought of as populations of oscillators. The heartbeat is just oscillating heart cells that a wave propagates on. And neurons in the brain are oscillators as well, and have been treated with these methods,” said Karen Blaha, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of New Mexico working on the project. “But doing experiments on those systems is really, really hard. The cells can die, and if you can manipulate them in a way that you can measure the data, they may not be behaving as they do naturally.”

For this reason, the team, led by Francesco Sorrentino, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of New Mexico, built on previous work done to understand chimera states with mechanical oscillators, in this case a collection of metronomes, resting on coupled platforms.

“The ultimate goal is that these systems are better behaved than the biological systems that we hope eventually they might be good proxies for,” Blaha said.

The team built a system of three coupled platforms, each supporting up to 15 ticking metronomes whose motions were individually tracked. A chimera state in this system consisted of in-phase, or synchronous, motion of a subset of the metronomes, and asynchronous motion of the others. By varying characteristics of the system, such as the strength of coupling between the platforms or the number of metronomes, they could deduce which factors led to more perfect chimera states.

Of particular interest in this experiment was the effect symmetries of the system had on the emergence of chimera states. Sorrentino and his team looked at, for example, the effect of having the same versus different coupling strengths of the outer platforms to the center platform.

“It puts together a new ingredient that kind of makes the whole thing more complex. Basically we are wondering how this type of mixed behavior can occur in systems that have symmetries. And our work is experimental so we see this chimera state in systems with symmetries,” Sorrentino said.

In addition to developing a method for better understanding these important, complex systems, Sorrentino views the effort to be a powerful educational tool. The tabletop scale and visual nature of the measurements and effects offer students more direct involvement with the concepts being investigated.

“It’s a full experience for the student [and] we have a broad authorship,” Sorrentino said, highlighting the collaboration between undergraduates, graduate students and senior researchers. “It’s really a team effort.”

Future work by the diverse team will investigating other symmetries, as well as varying factors such as coupling method. They also plan to add methods of controlling the system and synchrony. “We are working in several directions. Definitely the symmetries are something we will keep in mind and try to generalize to more complex situations,” Sorrentino said.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Symmetry effects on naturally arising chimera states in mechanical oscillator networks by Karen Blaha, Ryan J. Burrus, Jorge L. Orozco-Mora, Elvia Ruiz-Beltrán, Abu B. Siddique, V. D. Hatamipour, and Francesco Sorrentino. Chaos 26, 116307 (2016); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4965993

This paper appears to be open access.

TED 2014 ‘pre’ opening with reclaimed river, reforesting the world, open source molecular animation software, and a quantum butterfly

Today, March 17, 2014 TED opened with the first of two sessions devoted to the 2014 TED fellows. The ones I’m choosing to describe in brief detail are those who most closely fall within this blog’s purview. My choices are not a reflection of my opinion about the speaker or the speaker’s topic or the importance of the topic.

First, here’s a list of the fellows* along with a link to their TED 2014 biography (list and links from the TED 2014 schedule),

Usman Riaz Percussive guitarist
Ziyah Gafić photographer + storyteller
Alexander McLean african prison activist
Dan Visconti composer + concert presenter
Aziza Chaouni architect + ecotourism specialist
Shubhendu Sharma reforestation expert
Bora Yoon Experimental musician
Aziz Abu Sarah entrepreneur + educator
Gabriella Gomez-Mont Creativity Officer, Guest Host
Jorge Mañes Rubio conceptual artist
Bora Yoon Experimental musician
Janet Iwasa molecular animator
Robert Simpson astronomer + web developer
Shohini Ghose quantum physicist + educator
Sergei Lupashin aerial robotics researcher + entrepreneur
Lars Jan director + media artist
Sarah Parcak Space archaeologist, TED Fellow [part of group presentation]
Tom Rielly Satirist [received a 5th anniversary gift, a muppet of himself from group]
Susie Ibarra composer + improviser + percussionist educator
Usman Riaz

Aziza Chaouni is an architect based in Morocco. From Fez (and I think she was born there), she is currently working to reclaim the Fez River, which she described as the ‘soul of the city’. As urbanization has taken over Fez, the river has been paved over as it has become more polluted with raw sewage being dumped into it along with industrial byproducts from tanning and other industries. As part of the project to reclaim the river, i.e., clean it and uncover it, Chaouni and her collaborators have created public spaces such as a playground which both cleanses the river and gives children a place to play which uncovering part of the city’s ‘soul’.

Shubhendu Sharma founded Afforestt with the intention of bringing forests which have been decimated not only in India but around the world. An engineer by training, he has adapted an industrial model used for car production to his forest-making endeavours. Working with his reforestation model, you can develop a forest with 300 trees in the space needed to park six cars and for less money than you need to buy an iPhone. The Afforestt project is about to go open-source meaning that anyone in the world can download the information necessary to create a forest.

Jorge Mañes Rubio spoke about his art project where he creates travel souvenirs, e.g., water from the near a submerged city in China. The city was submerged in the Three Gorges hydro dam project. For anyone not familiar with the project, from the Wikipedia Three Gorges Dam entry (Note: Links removed),

The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW). In 2012, the amount of electricity the dam generated was similar to the amount generated by the Itaipu Dam. [2][3]

Except for a ship lift, the dam project was completed and fully functional as of July 4, 2012,[4][5] when the last of the main turbines in the underground plant began production. Each main turbine has a capacity of 700 MW.[3][6] The dam body was completed in 2006. Coupling the dam’s 32 main turbines with two smaller generators (50 MW each) to power the plant itself, the total electric generating capacity of the dam is 22,500 MW.[3][7][8]

The one souvenir he showed from that project featured symbols from traditional Chinese art festooned around the edges of white plastic bottle containing water from above a submerged Chinese city.

Janet Iwasa, a PhD in biochemistry, professor at the University of Utah and a molecular animator, talked about the animating molecular movement in and around cells. She showed an animation of a clathrin cage (there’s more about clathrin, a protein in a Wikipedia entry; looks a lot like a buckyball or buckminster fullerene except it’s not carbon) which provides a completely different understanding of how these are formed than is possible from still illustrations. She, along with her team, has created an open source software, Molecular Flipbook, which is available in in beta as of today, March 17, 2014.

The next session is starting. I’ll try and get back here to include more about Robert Simpson and Shohini Ghose.

ETa March 17, 2014 at 1521 PST:

Robert Simpson talked about citizen science, the Zooniverse project, and astronomy.  I have mentioned Zooniverse here (a Jan. 17, 2012 posting titled: Champagne galaxy, drawing bubbles for science and a Sept. 17, 2013 posting titled: Volunteer on the Plankton Portal and help scientists figure out ways to keep the ocean healthy.  Simpson says there are 1 million people participating in various Zooniverse projects and he mentioned that in addition to getting clicks and time from people, they’ve also gotten curiosity. That might seem obvious but he went on to describe a project (the Galaxy Zoo project) where the citizen scientists became curious about certain phenomena they were observing and as a consequence of their curiosity an entirely new type of galaxy was discovered, a pea galaxy. From the Pea Galaxy Wikipedia entry (Note: Links have been removed),

A Pea galaxy, also referred to as a Pea or Green Pea, might be a type of Luminous Blue Compact Galaxy which is undergoing very high rates of star formation.[1] Pea galaxies are so-named because of their small size and greenish appearance in the images taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).

Pea Galaxies were first discovered in 2007 by the volunteer users within the forum section of the online astronomy project Galaxy Zoo (GZ).[2]

My final entry for this first TED fellow session is about Shohini Ghose, as associate professor of physics, at Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Canada). She spoke beautifully and you** think you understand while the person’s speaking but aren’t all that sure afterwards. She was talking about chaos at the macro and at the quantum levels. The butterfly effect (a butterfly beats its wings in one part of the world and eventually that disturbance which is repeated is felt as a hurricane in another part of the world) can also occur at the quantum level. In fact, quantum entanglement is generated by chaos at the quantum scale. She was accompanied by a video representing chaos and movement at the quantum scale.

* ‘fellow’ changed to ‘fellows’ March 17, 2013 1606 hours PST
** ‘iyou’ changed to ‘you’ Nov. 19, 2014.

Chaos, brains, and ferroelectrics: “We started to see things that should have been completely impossible …”

Given my interest in neuromorphic (mimicking the human brain) engineering, this work at the US Oak Ridge National Laboratories was guaranteed to catch my attention. From the Nov. 18, 2013 news item on Nanowerk,

Unexpected behavior in ferroelectric materials explored by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory supports a new approach to information storage and processing.

Ferroelectric materials are known for their ability to spontaneously switch polarization when an electric field is applied. Using a scanning probe microscope, the ORNL-led team took advantage of this property to draw areas of switched polarization called domains on the surface of a ferroelectric material. To the researchers’ surprise, when written in dense arrays, the domains began forming complex and unpredictable patterns on the material’s surface.

“When we reduced the distance between domains, we started to see things that should have been completely impossible,” said ORNL’s Anton Ievlev, …

The Nov. 18, 2013 Oak Ridge National Laboratory news release, which originated the news item, provides more details,

“All of a sudden, when we tried to draw a domain, it wouldn’t form, or it would form in an alternating pattern like a checkerboard.  At first glance, it didn’t make any sense. We thought that when a domain forms, it forms. It shouldn’t be dependent on surrounding domains.”  [said Ievlev]

After studying patterns of domain formation under varying conditions, the researchers realized the complex behavior could be explained through chaos theory. One domain would suppress the creation of a second domain nearby but facilitate the formation of one farther away — a precondition of chaotic behavior, says ORNL’s Sergei Kalinin, who led the study.

“Chaotic behavior is generally realized in time, not in space,” he said. ”An example is a dripping faucet: sometimes the droplets fall in a regular pattern, sometimes not, but it is a time-dependent process. To see chaotic behavior realized in space, as in our experiment, is highly unusual.”

Collaborator Yuriy Pershin of the University of South Carolina explains that the team’s system possesses key characteristics needed for memcomputing, an emergent computing paradigm in which information storage and processing occur on the same physical platform.

Memcomputing is basically how the human brain operates: [emphasis mine] Neurons and their connections–synapses–can store and process information in the same location,” Pershin said. “This experiment with ferroelectric domains demonstrates the possibility of memcomputing.”

Encoding information in the domain radius could allow researchers to create logic operations on a surface of ferroelectric material, thereby combining the locations of information storage and processing.

The researchers note that although the system in principle has a universal computing ability, much more work is required to design a commercially attractive all-electronic computing device based on the domain interaction effect.

“These studies also make us rethink the role of surface and electrochemical phenomena in ferroelectric materials, since the domain interactions are directly traced to the behavior of surface screening charges liberated during electrochemical reaction coupled to the switching process,” Kalinin said.

For anyone who’s interested in exploring this particular approach to mimicking the human brain, here’s a citation for and a link to the researchers’ paper,

Intermittency, quasiperiodicity and chaos in probe-induced ferroelectric domain switching by A. V. Ievlev, S. Jesse, A. N. Morozovska, E. Strelcov, E. A. Eliseev, Y. V. Pershin, A. Kumar, V. Ya. Shur, & S. V. Kalinin. Nature Physics (2013) doi:10.1038/nphys2796 Published online 17 November 2013

This paper is behind a paywall although it is possible to preview it for free via ReadCube Access.

The Code; a preview of the BBC documentary being released in Canada and the US

The three episodes (Numbers, Shapes, and Prediction)  of The Code, a BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) documentary featuring Professor Marcus du Sautoy, focus on a ‘code’ that according to du Sautoy unlocks the secrets to the laws governing the universe.

During the weekend (June 16 & 17, 2012) I had the pleasure of viewing the two-disc DVD set which is to be released tomorrow, June 19, 2012, in the US and Canada.  It’s a beautiful and, in its way, exuberant exploration of patterns that recur throughout nature and throughout human endeavours. In the first episode, Numbers, du Sautoy relates the architecture of the Chartres Cathedral (France) , St. Augustine‘s (a Roman Catholic theologian born in an area we now call Algeria) sacred numbers, the life cycle of the periodic cicada in Alabama, US and more to number patterns. Here’s an excerpt of du Sautoy in Alabama with Dr. John Cooley discussing the cicadas’ qualities as pets and their remarkable 13 year life cycle,

In the second episode, Shapes,  du Sautoy covers beehive construction (engineering marvels), bird migrations and their distinct shapes (anyone who’s ever seen a big flock of birds move as one has likely marveled at the shapes the flock takes as it moves from area to another), computer animation, soap bubbles and more, explaining how these shapes can be derived from the principle of simplicity or as du Sautoy notes, ‘nature is lazy’. The question being, how do you make the most efficient structure to achieve your ends, i.e., structure a bird flock so it moves efficiently when thousands and thousands are migrating huge distances, build the best beehive while conserving your worker bees’ energies and extracting the most honey possible, create stunning animated movies with tiny algorithms, etc.?

Here’s du Sautoy with ‘soap bubbleologist’ Tom Noddy who’s demonstrating geometry in action,

For the final episode, Prediction, du Sautoy brings the numbers and geometry together demonstrating repeating patterns such as fractals which dominate our landscape, our biology, and our universe. du Sautoy visits a Rock Paper Scissors tournament in New York City trying to discern why some folks can ‘win’ while others cannot (individuals who can read other people’s patterns while breaking their own are more successful), discusses geographic profiling with criminal geographic profiler Prof. Kim Rossmo, Jackson Pollock’s paintings and his fractals, amongst other intriguing patterns.

I paid special to the Rossmo segment as he created and developed his geographic profiling techniques when he worked for the Vancouver (Canada) Police Department (VPD) and studied at a nearby university. As this groundbreaking work was done in my neck of the woods and Rossmo was treated badly by the VPD, I felt a special interest. There’s more about Rossmo’s work and the VPD issues in the Wikipedia essay (Note: I have removed links from the excerpt.),

D. Kim Rossmo is a Canadian criminologist specializing in geographic profiling. He joined the Vancouver Police Department as a civilian employee in 1978 and became a sworn officer in 1980. In 1987 he received a Master’s degree in criminology from Simon Fraser University and in 1995 became the first police officer in Canada to obtain a doctorate in criminology. His dissertation research resulted in a new criminal investigative methodology called geographic profiling, based on Rossmo’s formula.

In 1995, he was promoted to detective inspector and founded a geographic profiling section within the Vancouver Police Department. In 1998, his analysis of cases of missing sex trade workers determined that a serial killer was at work, a conclusion ultimately vindicated by the arrest and conviction of Robert Pickton in 2002. A retired Vancouver police staff sergeant has claimed that animosity toward Rossmo delayed the arrest of Pickton, leaving him free to carry out additional murders. His analytic results were not accepted at the time and after a falling out with senior members of the department he left in 2001. His unsuccessful lawsuit against the Vancouver Police Board for wrongful dismissal exposed considerable apparent dysfunction within that department.

… he moved to Texas State University where he currently holds the Endowed Chair in Criminology and is director of the Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation. …

Within what appeared to be chaos, Rossmo found order. Somehow Jackson Pollock did the same thing to achieve entirely different ends, a new form of art. Here’s a video clip of du Sautoy with artist and physicist, Richard Taylor,

Intuitively, Pollock dripped paint onto his canvases creating fractals decades before mathematician, Benoit Mandelbrot, coined the phrase and established the theory.  (I wrote previously about Jackson Pollock [and fluid dynamics] in my June 30, 2011 posting.)

I gather that du Sautoy’s ‘code’ will offer a unified theory drawing together numbers, patterns, and shapes as they are found throughout the universe in nature  and in our technologies and sciences.

The DVDs offer three extras (4 mins. each): Phi’s the Limit (beauty and the golden ratio or Phi), Go Forth and Multiply (a base 2 system developed by Ethiopian traders predating binary computer codes by millenia) and Imagining the Impossible: The Mathematical Art of M. C. Escher  (Dutch artist’s [Escher] experiments with tessellation/tiling).

I quite enjoyed the episodes although I was glad to have read James Gleick‘s book, Chaos (years ago) before viewing the third episode, Prediction and I was a little puzzled by du Sautoy’s comment in the first episode, Numbers, that atoms are not divisible. As I recall, you create an atomic bomb when you split an atom but it may have been one of those comments that didn’t come out as intended or I misunderstood.

You can find out more about The Code DVDs at Athena Learning. The suggested retail cost is $39.99 US or $52.99 CAD (which seems a little steep for Canadian purchasers since the Canadian dollar is close to par these days and, I believe, has been for some time).

In sum, this is a very engaging look at numbers and mathematics.