Oh yes, please.

There is a method to the madness, described here but any system which produces this outcome is worse than broken.

This paper, “More Really is Different,” may be one of the most important papers of the last half-millenium. It argues that P.W. Anderson’s concept of “emergence” is provable. It may have even proved it.

The idea of emergence, from whence this blog gets its name is the opposite of reductionism. It is the idea that a complex system acquires properties that the underlying parts cannot predict. It’s nothing more and nothing less than a formalization of the adage, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

The authors, Mile Gu, Christian Weedbrook, Alvaro Perales, and Michael A. Nielsen, argue directly that this may mean that a “Theory of Everything” may therefore be impossible.

This is big, big news. Read the paper. Read the commentary in The New Scientist, “Why nature can’t be reduced to mathematical laws.”

If they are right, this goes to the core of the philosophical underpinnings of the way we understand the world. It may help explain everything from weather prediction to the origins of life to whether souls exist. I might even be engaging in understatement rather than hyperbole on that last bit. You may think it’s a long way down to the chemist’s, but this is big.

While you’re at it, expect some highly entertaining debate, and pseudo-scientific whackos of every stripe to start quoting this. Maybe the next Kuhnian revolution has begun.

I am not a (series of) numbers, I am a free man.

[PS. New Scientist seems to be behind a paywall, alas.]

Here’s how it starts,

Reading the recent news about melamine contamination of foods produced in China, and remembering how friends with pets dealt with last year’s pet food melamine contamination problem, I wonder how worried to be. A story which began with problems in infant formula spread to other products made with milk as an ingredient. For example, White Rabbit candy, which, according to the Wikipedia entry has been marketed as a healthy product, is one of the products affected. In deciding how worried to be I would like some data on the risks. The FDA website has a reassuring press release. This morning, the Europa website’s press release page showed a release from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) with a link to a detailed statement assessing the risks (unfortunately, since I first saw the press release it has been pushed off the front page by other news). I’d far rather have details than platitudes, even where the details don’t in the end help me very much.

It doesn’t help that this administration probably isn’t capable of telling if there’s a danger or not, much less leveling with us about it.

there is an RSS feed for hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com.

And, indeed, the entry for “Monday, September 08, 2008 11:25 AM” reads, in full, as follows:

NOPE.

The Internet is good.

(But I wonder how often they update?)

Amazing, and strangely believable.

The death of coral — the lungs of the ocean — is one of the big environmental tragedies of the age. And up to now, maybe, something of a puzzle.

Since so many of members of our class of 1982 are in academia, I thought I would make you aware of a new, free resource to assist you in working with students with Asperger Syndrome, a form of high functioning autism (and the type that my son has) that is particularly common among those skilled in math and science.

The brief video (available at the website or on DVD) explains the social and educational challenges these students face in the college, and how accommodations to the learning environment can help such students to benefit from college classes. The website also has a link to download a free publication, “Understanding Asperger Syndrome: A Professor’s Guide.”

Please feel free to circulate this information to your professional colleagues who may have students with Asperger’s in their classes.

The text of his attachment is below. Or skip straight to the free download. Stan is a hero.

Arlington, VA, April 18— The Organization for Autism Research (OAR) released Understanding Asperger Syndrome: A Professor’s Guide, a 12-minute video for use by college students with Asperger Syndrome as a tool to educate their professors, teaching assistants, and others about the disorder. OAR produced the DVD in cooperation with the Global Regional Asperger Syndrome Project (GRASP) and Pace University in New York thanks to a grant from the Schwallie Family Foundation. The video is available now for viewing and download at no cost on OAR’s Web page, www.researchautism.org/resources/AspergerDVDSeries.asp.

“The idea behind this series,” said Peter Gerhardt, Ed.D., OAR’s president, “is to have adults with Asperger Syndrome in effect teach what it means to be an adult with the disorder.”

Slashdot, Newly Discovered Fungus Threatens World Wheat Crop (a variety of the rust fungus originally detected in Uganda in 1999 has already spread as far north as Iran; is the subcontinent next?)