Links for 2023-01-03
Serotonin Deficiency Directly Linked With Depression in Groundbreaking Study [also check the comments] https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1000nte/serotonin_deficiency_directly_linked_with/
Mushrooms might be highly effective against depression. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2206443
Solar-powered cells: Light-activated proton pumps generate cellular energy, extend life https://scienmag.com/solar-powered-cells-light-activated-proton-pumps-generate-cellular-energy-extend-life/
“Foundation models are going to be the intermediary between you and computers.” [The Economist] https://archive.is/OfWOO
Do DALL-E and Flamingo Understand Each Other? https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.12249
Engineering your prompts so LLMs like GPT-3 give you the correct output https://ofir.io/self-ask.pdf
Predicting price/make/model/etc from a photo of a car. https://blog.aqnichol.com/2022/12/31/large-scale-vehicle-classification/
People who report being good-looking also report having a more meaningful life. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2022.2155222
Did We Just Witness The Death Of SRAM? https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/7343/iedm-2022-did-we-just-witness-the-death-of-sram/
A thread on the geographical influences upon France https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1532463050216857618.html
Some really nice recursive visualizations https://www.instagram.com/kineticgraphics/
John von Neumann
You know, Herb, Johnny can do calculations in his head ten times as fast as I can. And I can do them ten times as fast as you can, so you can see how impressive Johnny is.
— Enrico Fermi (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1938)
One had the impression of a perfect instrument whose gears were machined to mesh accurately to a thousandth of an inch.
— Eugene Wigner (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1963)
I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann’s does not indicate a species superior to that of man.
— Hans Bethe (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1967)
The theoretical physicist Edward Teller said of von Neumann that he “would carry on a conversation with my 3-year-old son, and the two of them would talk as equals, and I sometimes wondered if he used the same principle when he talked to the rest of us.”
— https://razib.substack.com/p/applying-iq-to-iq
Smart people: You're not dumb, the education system failed you.
Also: John von Neumann taught himself Ancient Greek at age 6.
“Von Neumann is compelling evidence, I think, that individual genius is important and influential” https://unherd.com/2021/11/the-genius-of-john-von-neumann/
The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann https://www.cantorsparadise.com/the-unparalleled-genius-of-john-von-neumann-791bb9f42a2d
A new biography explains the genius of John von Neumann https://archive.is/iZDKm
How gods fail: “What couldn’t von Neumann do .. hated sports .. bad driver, had little musical ability, was not terribly interested in hearing about the feelings of the women in his life, & was an enthusiastic but mediocre chess player. .. poor poker player” https://www.takimag.com/article/math-appeal/
Related:
The Test That Terence Tao Aced at Age 7
Terence got 60/60 on the Operations Test...Although I had given the test to many very bright primary-school-age children before, none of them had ever got more than 57/60 - and Terence was probably the youngest person I had ever asked to do the test.
Not only did he have an astounding grasp of algebraic definitions, for someone who was still seven years old, but I was amazed at how he used sophisticated mathematical language freely.
...Terence had taught himself BASIC language (by reading a book) and had written many programs on mathematics problems...Also, it is fascinating to observe that Terence wrote many of his programs...when he was 6 years old.
[It's also amazing how much progress he made over the next five weeks.]
...Terence, at age 6 years and 4 months, is said to have gained maximum or near maximum scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for children...His overall Mental Age was 14 years...
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_IFTN2Toak
The full report (PDF): http://math.fau.edu/yiu/Oldwebsites/MPS2010/TerenceTao1984.pdf