What an excellent and thought-provoking set of slides!

Elizabeth Lopatto@lopatto.bsky.social · 2d ago

I found this, from Terence Tao, useful as a way of framing what mathematics is for, what AI is for, and how to evaluate knowledge: teorth.github.io/tao-web/slid...

For the academics out there who are wondering about how to deal with rejection (and aren’t we all):

Why do so many progressives want this? I just don't get it.

Al@btown85.bsky.social · 2d ago

The pressure on kids too! In Berlin they get divided after the 6th class (12). My eldest already under so much pressure (despite us trying to remove it) to do well in exams etc to ensure she’s at the gymnasium. Parents going nuts in regards to it. They’re 9!

This post makes some interesting and correct points that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else.

Will Davies@will-davies.bsky.social · 3d ago

New post: those wanting Jason Arday to face 'justice' of some kind are not going to get what they want willd10.substack.com/p/how-the-ja...

UEFA spokesperson Dietmar Fumm said to reporters "This decision effectively signals that Gianni Infantino is an enemy of world football". tl;dr: FIFA "foe" - Fumm

At Arundel today with a group of lads from my cricket club, watching Sussex v Essex. Very good turnout, in the 4000s I'd say. Festival atmosphere. Essex got 316/6, probably a good score but they looked on course for much more at one point!

Earlier this year UKRI launched a funding call to invest £40M in ONE AI lab. www.ukri.org/opportunity/... For some unknown reason they decided to fund TWO AI labs at the cost of £60M. An extra £20M. Just found. That's the equivalent of 7 more years of Jodrell Bank. www.ukri.org/news/ukri-la...

UKRI launches two AI research labs to stay ahead in global race

Two new labs will back British researchers to develop next generation artificial intelligence (AI) systems, helping secure the UK’s position as a global leader.

ukri.org

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · last wk.

I'm absolutely devastated for colleagues at Jodrell Bank who found out this morning that funding for the UK's e-MERLIN radio telescope array will be terminated. This is a short-sighted move, to save a tiny fraction of the overall UK science budget. #SaveJodrellBank 🔭🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It’s official: UKRI has defunded the LHCb upgrade, which would have run at the High Luminosity LHC (currently under construction). This is a disaster for UK physics. We’ve rightly invested heavily in the HL-LHC but without LHCb, we’re throwing away crucial science that can’t be done anywhere else.

Short-sighted, stupid cuts to the UKRI budget include shutting down Jodrell Bank, the icon of British astronomy. (Many other cuts too, including 20% to our brand new @vrubinobs.bsky.social). Interesting politically to shut down a major facility in...um..Manchester 🔭 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

bbc.co.uk

While the Fields Medal celebrates the under-40s, the mathematician Joan Birman has, at the age of 99, solved a major open problem in representations of the Braid groups, a topic she has worked on for more than 60 years.

Well, that was quite good www.maptap.gg July 26 99🎯 96🔥 99🎯 99🎯 100🎯 Final score: 990

Talk about a cosmic glow-up✨📸 This progression of images of galaxy group RSCG 55 shows the evolution of ground-based sky surveys spanning more than three decades🤯, ending with NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's view. 🔭🧪

Graduation ceremony day for my former PhD student Dr Nathan Findlay! Nathan's (excellent) thesis was titled "Novel clustering methods for cosmology with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument" and he defended it a few weeks ago.

Well that was quite a fun game. And really a great day of sport all round.

A reminder when Gary Sobers hit six sixes in an over h/t @jderbyshire.ft.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u7A...

Sir Garfield Sobers hits 6 Sixes in an over

YouTube video by Kalyan Verma

youtube.com

What a man he was.

Nottinghamshire CCC@trentbridge.co.uk · 3w ago

Cricket's greatest-ever all-rounder, and an iconic figure in Nottinghamshire history. We are extremely saddened to hear of the passing of Sir Garfield Sobers. https://f.mtr.cool/hkzezavgyc

Very sorry to see this. He was a great actor and, from what I could tell from his social media, a lovely and funny guy.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 3w ago

Sam Neill, star of Jurassic Park films, Peaky Blinders and The Piano, dies aged 78

On the train to Durham, where, if the weather reports are to be believed, it is only 21 degrees. Can't remember the last time I experienced that kind of temperature!

No. I'm afraid he's only got a second class degree in basic pedantry. They had oars! FFS Probably used during still weather and/or maneuvering in port.

A Norway fan has gone viral for not taking part in their Row celebration after matches and won't do it if they win the World Cup "It’s factually wrong; they didn’t row, they sailed over the Atlantic”

A new Indian colleague in our department just asked me rather plaintively "when does it usually rain in England?"

Marie Le Conte@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 4w ago

have we considered just shooting a gun at the sun

This is a good write up of the Nature anisotropy paper debacle. But while Sawala is right that it's unfair to the referees to expect them to have caught the big "elemental" mistake in the paper, he's also being very generous - there is another important error that the referees *should* have caught.

Lee Billings@leebillings.bsky.social · 4w ago

Now on @sciam.bsky.social: A recent paper in the high-profile journal Nature claimed what would've been an epochal revision to our understanding of the cosmos. Instead, independent follow-up work suggests the claim is wrong via a subtle-but-basic mistake. www.scientificamerican.com/article/phys...

I have to say, even as someone who doesn't really care that much about football, I'm very pleased about the results from the last day and a half.

Last week a paper in Nature claimed a detection of Gpc-scale anisotropic cosmic structures, violating the basic principle on which all #cosmology is based: www.nature.com/articles/s41... This week, a preprint says they made an elementary coordinate mistake: arxiv.org/pdf/2607.01172 🔭🧪 🧵 1/? ⬇️

Detection of anisotropic cosmic structures on a gigaparsec scale - Nature

Using the parameter-free Angular Distribution of Pairwise Distances for measuring directional correlations, evidence is found for coherent anisotropic structures extending over gigaparsec scales,...

nature.com

A very general point: large-scale structure and #cosmology is now such a mature field that papers which – a. have a very new/exciting result, b. can be concisely written for a general audience, and c. are correct are vanishingly rare. But only the first 2 are non-negotiable for Nature papers! 🔭🧪

Sesh Nadathur@seshnadathur.bsky.social · last mo.

Last week a paper in Nature claimed a detection of Gpc-scale anisotropic cosmic structures, violating the basic principle on which all #cosmology is based: www.nature.com/articles/s41... This week, a preprint says they made an elementary coordinate mistake: arxiv.org/pdf/2607.01172 🔭🧪 🧵 1/? ⬇️

Last week a paper in Nature claimed a detection of Gpc-scale anisotropic cosmic structures, violating the basic principle on which all #cosmology is based: www.nature.com/articles/s41... This week, a preprint says they made an elementary coordinate mistake: arxiv.org/pdf/2607.01172 🔭🧪 🧵 1/? ⬇️

Detection of anisotropic cosmic structures on a gigaparsec scale - Nature

Using the parameter-free Angular Distribution of Pairwise Distances for measuring directional correlations, evidence is found for coherent anisotropic structures extending over gigaparsec scales,...

nature.com

It’s also just a basic point about decency. Either calls for murdering minorities are a dealbreaker for you in using someone’s product or they aren’t. For Labour (and the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems, and Greens) they should be.

Today is an important day for the future of UK science - I hope the decisions made are not short-sighted. Read the excellent piece by Hiranya Peiris below to see what is at stake.

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · last mo.

At today's UKRI board meeting, the fate of UK particle physics and astronomy will likely be decided. Have we done enough to convince the powers-that-be to halt the proposed funding cuts? 🤞 Read Prof. Hiranya Peiris in Nature today eloquently explaining why these cuts are wrong.🧪🔭⚛️ 📖: rdcu.be/friwM

I hate that this — urgent pleas to save prestigious departments from drastic cuts — is becoming a regular occurrence. A program like this takes decades to build and a few strokes of a pen to destroy.