Tessera
Folgen

W. Ethan Duckworth

@weduckworth.bsky.social

Mathematician, d̶e̶p̶a̶r̶t̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ c̶h̶a̶i̶r̶, husband, father, follower of news and sports.

4111 Posts756 Follower1138 Folgt
Ruha Benjamin@ruha9.bsky.social · 3d ago

Instead of the talk I spent hours preparing, they urged me to switch to a fireside chat and talk about my professional “journey.” But… this is the journey. And walking away is also movement.

Ruha Benjamin@ruha9.bsky.social · 3d ago

I’m in DC scheduled to give this talk today. But the organizers flagged slides in my deck that mention racism, structural gaslighting, New Jim Code and other themes that are off limits in the Land of the Free.

APA Women’s Leadership Institute event flyer with “keynote speaker” crossed out with a red X
Petra Schwer@petraschwer.bsky.social · 4d ago

Interested in what members of the mathematical community think on the recent release of hundreds of preprints on openproblems? I recommend reading the snapshot of immediate reactions collected on proofs and prompts! proofsandprompts.com/2026/10/08/1... #math #mathAndAI #mathsky #mathematics

100+ reactions to 100+ solutions

“We are all grappling with the announcement of 6 October. We think that it is useful to have a snapshot of the community’s gut feeling today, and this is what you see below. We will keep it o…

proofsandprompts.com

Yael Schacher@yaelschacher.bsky.social · 4d ago

I am in Cap Haitien interviewing people deported from the United States. I have been doing this kind of work for almost a decade and it literally does not get more dire than this. People have lost everything they built in the U.S. and are terrified and have no place to go or way to live.

Corey@kh0rish.bsky.social · 5mo ago

This is why AGI isnt happening. Sense perception, movement, and memory are chemistries coupled to each other and all coupled to direct matter exchange with the environment, like a centrifugal governor. Nothing is representation, interpretation, “info processing”, or math.

There is another, radically different way to solve this problem, that is to couple the opening of the valve to something that necessarily varies in response to steam pressure and workload in a way that results in constant flywheel speed. By ‘necessarily’ I mean that the physical properties of this thing respond to changes in steam pressure and workload in a particular way. Such a solution responds in one step and does not require measurement. Thus, there is no time lag problem or concomitant source of error. Nor does it require an executive. In our current example, the thing that responds to both steam pressure and workload is the speed of the engine itself. Hitching the valve control to the flywheel couples the thing you want to control (the valve opening) directly to the thing that embodies the relevant sources of variance (the flywheel speed). So far, so good. The remaining problem is connecting these objects with the proper relation. In this case, we want a negative relation between flywheel speed and valve opening - increased flywheel speed should close the valve, while decreased speed should open it. The solution is to attach weighted arms to flywheel-driven spindle and to link the valve control to these arms (see pic). As the spindle turns, the arms raise and lower according to the centrifugal force generated by the speed of rotation. Faster spinning raises the arms, which pulls the valve closed. Slower spinning lowers the arms, which allows the valve to open. The degree of valve opening / closing varies continuously in response to the height of the arms. The result is uniform flywheel speed linked to oscillating pistons. This beautiful solution is implemented in the Watts centrifugal governor, and 18th century piece of technology that still works brilliantly.Diagram of bacterial chemotaxis. The stimulus ligand is environmental material. The MCP is a sensory receptor that interacts/bonds with environmental material, which triggers a change in rotation of the motor and thus changes the movement behavior of the cell. The “adaptation” mechanism on the left is the memory, it modifies the sense receptor to make it less responsive over time so that it will more likely stay in the area with all the good material instead of flying right through it. All these systems have feedback mechanisms to reset the processes. All things coupled together in an intricate dance of molecular activity, directly doing things and not measuring, interpreting, or representing.
Corey@kh0rish.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We understand a scene because we can distinguish between the molecules and electromagnetic radiation within it. We can do that because we create molecules that REACT differently to everything in it. No one feeds us “training data“ about all the matter and energy in the universe

Rachel Parris@rachelparris.bsky.social · 6d ago

Hey folks. In total honesty my tour is NOT selling well. I’ve sold 30 tickets in a 400 seater in Birmingham, and not much more elsewhere. If you like musical comedy, if you like standup, then please come see my show! And spread the word! The Rachel Parris Songbook tour starts in Nov! Link in bio! 🎶

Bild
Monica Byrne@monicabyrne13.bsky.social · 6d ago

In FOUR DAYS: There are only a few spots left in my brand-new writing workshop, “3 Weeks, 3 Worlds: A Crash Course in Worldbuilding,” which uses the tools of improv to worldbuild rapidly (and joyfully).

Aaron Hertzmann@aaronhertzmann.com · last wk.

I agree with the conclusions (see linked piece) but this article uses unconvincing strawman arguments. All of the supposedly human-only procedures he describes can be formulated in a computational manner with computational motivations. aaronhertzmann.com/2026/07/13/b...

The Brain Is Not Just A Computer, and Cannot Be Simulated by One

Digital computers perform fixed logical operations on clock cycles; brains are biological systems of staggering complexity.

aaronhertzmann.com