Tag: science

Ames room

As a result of the optical illusion, a person standing in 1 corner appears to the observer to be a giant, while a person standing in the other corner appears to be a dwarf. The illusion is convincing enough that a person walking back and forth from the left corner to the right corner appears to grow or shrink.

Max Flow Improvement

The maximum-flow problem, or max flow, is one of the most basic problems in computer science: First solved during preparations for the Berlin airlift, it’s a component of many logistical problems and a staple of introductory courses on algorithms. For decades it was a prominent research subject, with new algorithms that solved it more and more efficiently coming out once or twice a year. But as the problem became better understood, the pace of innovation slowed. Researchers have demonstrated the first improvement of the max-flow algorithm in 10 years.

improving max flow, even by minute amounts, has huge implications for logistics

The Future Of Astronomy

Fundamental changes are taking place in the way we do astronomy. In 20 years time, it is likely that most astronomers will never go near a cutting-edge telescope, which will be much more efficiently operated in service mode. They will rarely analyse data, since all the leading-edge telescopes will have pipeline processors. And rather than competing to observe a particularly interesting object, astronomers will more commonly group together in large consortia to observe massive chunks of the sky in carefully designed surveys, generating petabytes of data daily.
We can imagine that astronomical productivity will be higher than at any previous time. PhD students will mine enormous survey databases using sophisticated tools, cross-correlating different wavelength data over vast areas, and producing front-line astronomy results within months of starting their PhD. The expertise that now goes into planning an observation will instead be devoted to planning a foray into the databases. In effect, people will plan observations to use the Virtual Observatory.

Foldit

Today’s issue of Nature contains a paper with a rather unusual author list. Read past the standard collection of academics, and the final author credited is… an online gaming community. Scientists have turned to games for a variety of reasons, having studied virtual epidemics and tracked online communities and behavior, or simply used games to drum up excitement for the science. But this may be the first time that the gamers played an active role in producing the results, having solved problems in protein structure through the Foldit game.

or more accurately, a combined approach leads to the best results.