Tech
What happened An artificially intelligent (AI) gaming system built by a company co-led by Elon Musk took on some of the best human players at a game more complex than chess or Go last week – and lost. AI losing is not something you hear about in the media often because
Life notes
When thoughts turn stale, read a book. I'm reading two at the moment, which is telling. Patriots and Partisans by historian Ram Guha, an accessible narration of the historical roots of modern Indian national politics. Flights by Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, a work of fiction that I noticed
Science
According to Biplab Deb, the chief minister of Tripura, the oxygen content of water will increase if ducks swim in it. [ Satire begins here ] This is a sensational new discovery that has drastic implications for Earth's future. The lawmaker's thinking suggests it might have something to
Op-eds
Do all editors share that excoriating sensation that carves through one’s gut when one sees one’s writer writing for another publication? Of course, “one’s writer” is unjust phrasing because writers don’t belong to editors and are free to write for whoever they please. However, this isotropic
Science
There's only one absolute zero but there are multiple absolute 'hots', depending on the temperature at which various theories of physics break down. This is an interesting conception because, while absolute zero is very well-defined and perfectly understood, absolute hot simply stands for the exact opposite
Scicomm
I asked a friend earlier today if he would be interested in explaining the observation of Lyman-alpha lines in anti-hydrogen to an audience of high-schoolers.But will high-schoolers ever be able to understand what Lyman-alpha lines in anti-hydrogen are? In other words, when will 17-year-olds ever be expected to know
Op-eds
Donald Trump When you criticise a person, you naturally take into account their office and assess whether you know all that you need to to come to your conclusions. For a long time, this 'stop and assess' step prevented mediapersons, who generally like to be careful, from calling
Life notes
Chennai is my favourite city to land in an airplane over. The runway at its Meenambakkam Airport is oriented such that planes often have to land after manoeuvring themselves over the Bay of Bengal, approaching the city over the Marina beach. As a result, especially at night, it becomes evident
Uncategorized
The ISRO homepage has been hijacked by an almost-full-page banner soliciting readers' comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech. A friend was understandably irked by this and wanted to know if it could be discussed in an article. This is annoying for sure. The '
Uncategorized
We are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society. Normally this kind of comment would be a platitude. In fact,
Uncategorized
TL;DR – Journalists are already more accountable than the publishers of scientific journals are. If scientists find journalistic review of the scientific literature to be lacking, help them improve instead of completely disabling them from doing it. *** The recent conversation about preprints, motivated by Tom Sheldon's article in
Life notes
I just got to Delhi from Bangalore. The sendoff in the latter city was great: the skies were overcast, with a darker, wetter layer of clouds looming at the zenith, set at snail's pace by a strong wind. Delhi wasn't too bad either. If there was