From the category archives:

Wrong!

How many minds produce knowledge
(and how they don’t)

December 11, 2009

A review of Infotopia
I’ve been discussing problems with public information and ways to improve it with Michael Nielsen, and on this topic, he recommended Infotopia: how many minds produce knowledge by Cass Sunstein. Having just finished reading it, I recommend it too.
With a solid grounding in experiments and studies of group behavior (and enlightened common [...]

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Great Science, Great Scientists, and Icons

November 27, 2009

Working as a young, self-funded, independent investigator, Charles Darwin formulated the theory of evolution by variation and natural selection.
Modern science funds independent investigators differently:

It has become increasingly difficult for young U.S. researchers to win funding for their ideas.
(See also: “More about less opportunity for young scientists”)
Unfortunately, our iconic images of great scientists distort perceptions of [...]

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Flat graphene is stable, even in theory

November 23, 2009

Many scientific papers suggest that the mere existence of free-standing graphene sheets violates theoretical expectations, that it is an anomaly that demands an explanation because flat graphene sheets would somehow destroy themselves. A paper in the current Nature describes “Ultraflat graphene”, but this graphene resides safely on mica surfaces. The paper mentions the numerous observations [...]

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Followup discussion
of quantum information and science hype

November 17, 2009

My recent post on quantum computation drew comments from quantum information scientist Robert Tucci, which led us into a discussion of hype in science, the pervasive mistake of equating quantum parallelism with parallel computing, and then to Bayesian quantum networks (see Robert’s wide-ranging blog on developments in quantum information science and technology).
You can read the [...]

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Quantum Computing:
Sorry, no speedup in solving linear systems

November 10, 2009

In the science press, Big News often turns out to be hyped trivia, but the current Big News in quantum computing is something else — a self-hyping mutant of genuine big news, the discovery of an algorithm that promises exponential speedup in a class of problems where the result depends on the solution to a [...]

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First Anniversary
(and the scientific method revisited)

October 25, 2009

Metamodern is one year old today, and I wish I’d started a blog years earlier. I have some notes on popular posts in the last year — there are some interesting patterns that I’ve been pleased to see — but here, today, it seems fitting to revisit the first.
My 25 October 2008 post, “The Data [...]

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Reflections on nanotechnology
(in a curved mirror)

October 23, 2009

Earlier today, Nanowerk.com posted an article I wrote. It begins like this:
Yesterday, an article in Nanowerk presented yet another description — by someone else — of what I think about nanotechnology. Since I am a leading expert on that topic, perhaps I can offer a more direct and reliable statement of my actual views, together [...]

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What is simple?
Polyethylene, molecular modeling,
and molecular machines

July 8, 2009

A scientist recently remarked to me that molecular modeling techniques cannot accurately predict the mechanical properties of typical polymers, even one as simple as polyethylene, a hydrocarbon consisting of long chains of –(CH2)– units. He was, I think, suggesting that molecular modeling may tell us little about molecular technologies based on structures that would be [...]

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Myths through mythquotation

June 18, 2009

When Slashdot runs the slightly misleading headline, “Real Nanotechnology Getting Closer, Says Drexler” (with a link to the technology roadmap — lots of downloads!), the Tech Talk blog at IEEE Spectrum quite naturally reports this as “Eric Drexler has just been quoted as saying ‘Real nanotechnology is getting closer’”… and thus inadvertently reinforces the myth [...]

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Homo floresiensis, Crows,
and the Baldwin Effect

May 30, 2009

Some scientists have expressed surprise that Homo floresiensis made and used stone tools despite having remarkably small brain. I can see two reasons why this should be no cause for astonishment: One is the intelligence of crows, the other is the Baldwin Effect.
Crows
An adult H. sapiens brain typically weights well over a kilogram. H. floresiensis [...]

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Machines Evolving to the Brink of Failure

April 30, 2009

While writing a post on molecular engineering for the Macromolecular Modeling Blog, I came across an EMBO Reports paper that provided new guidelines for protein engineering; It also illustrates a general principle that should be taken to heart by anyone thinking about molecular engineering from a biomolecular perspective:
Molecular machines tend to evolve toward the [...]

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The Casimir Effect and Nanomachines

April 20, 2009

The Casimir effect can be viewed as a manifestation of the quantum-mechanical zero-point energy of the vacuum, and has recently been hyped as if it were something new and mysterious that will assist or maybe ruin advanced nanomechanical systems. It has inflamed the minds of something-for-nothing energy enthusiasts, too.
In reality, what Casimir described is a [...]

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