December 2020 – Spinor Info

To all of us on the Good Earth…

Dec 242020

Tonight, this view of earthrise from the historical Christmas flight around the Moon by Apollo 8 seems and feels especially profound.

We are all in this together on our tiny blue marble. For now, hunkered down, but not beaten. As a result of 21st century science and an incredible push by researchers, we now have working vaccines that will soon be distributed to millions, starting with health care workers and the most vulnerable. Who could ask for a better Christmas present? And even amidst all this, we can still share a joke, as people from Romania to New Zealand, from Canada to Iran erect copycat versions of the famous Utah monolith.

[G]ood night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.
– Frank Borman, Apollo 8 mission commander

There is hope for us in 2021 on this good Earth.

Podcast interview (in Hungarian)

Calculators, Computer Games, Hungary, MUD, Personal, Physics, Programming, Space No Responses »

Dec 222020

I was recently interviewed by a Hungarian podcaster, mostly about my participation in the early days of game development in Hungary, but also about my more recent work, including my scientific contributions.

I just listened to the interview and thankfully, I didn’t say anything colossally stupid.

Monoliths of hope

Art No Responses »

Dec 202020

The year 2020 was certainly not… nice.

But there is a ray of hope. It arrived in the form of the mysterious metal monoliths that popped up all over the globe, most recently even here in our relative neighborhood, on Sherbrooke street in Montreal.

Similar monoliths appeared all over the planet, from British Columbia to Romania, from Iran to New Zealand.

And that makes me feel optimistic.

If, in a year like 2020, humanity can share a joke like this: people on all continents, from different cultures, can happily participate in a shared prank, a harmless diversion, making fun of it all… then, perhaps, there is hope for us yet.

What the bleeping devil is Google trying to sell me?

Internet No Responses »

Dec 202020

In the last several days, until I asked Google not to show it anymore, this ad appeared on just about every other Web page that I visited:

As near as I can tell, it is inviting me to visit a clickbait site with some brainless list of “amazing inventions”. (Yes, I blurred out the address on purpose, because I have no desire to offer them free publicity.)

But what’s with this picture? It is… horrifying to be honest. If it is supposed to be an amazing invention, I wonder if it is an unusually gross sex toy or perhaps some quack medicine device.

Well, whatever it is… Google, please stop. This thing is… gross. (The machine-generated human face that seems to hit the bullseye in the middle of the uncanny valley doesn’t help either.)

Featured on Universe Today

Astronomy, Personal, Physics No Responses »

Dec 152020

A very nice article about our work on the Solar Gravitational Lens was published a few days ago on Universe Today, on account of our recent preprint, which shows quantitative results assessing the impact of image reconstruction on signal and noise.

Because the SGL is such an imperfect lens, the noise penalty is substantial. However, as it turns out, it is much reduced when the projected image area is large, such as when an exoplanet in a nearby star system is targeted.

While this is good news, the Sun’s gravitational field has other imperfections. We are currently working on modeling these and assessing their impact on noise. Next comes the problem of imaging a moving target: an exoplanet that spins, which is illuminated from varying directions, and which may have varying surface features (clouds, vegetation, etc.) Accounting for all these effects is essential if we wish to translate basic theory into sound scientific and engineering requirements.

So, the fun continues. For now, it was nice to see this piece in Universe Today.

Happy Hanukkah

Politics, Religion No Responses »

Dec 132020

I am watching an almost surreal (but beautiful) video.

In this video, ambassadors to the United States from Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates appear, exchanging warm greetings on account of the third night of Hanukkah.

The year 2020 is memorable mostly for all the wrong reasons, but if this remains one of the lasting legacies of 2020 and the Trump presidency, then perhaps it wasn’t a wasted year after all. After all, normalization of relations between Israel and Arab nations has been a decades long dream and until recently, very few people thought we’d live to see any meaningful results.

Yet here it is: the ambassador of a Gulf Arab state, lighting three candles on a menorah. What an astonishing sight.

God’s final message to His creation

Astronomy, Religion No Responses »

Dec 022020

According to the immortal Douglas Adams, God’s final message to His creation is simple: “We apologize for the inconvenience.”

But there’s also another final message of sorts, the answer to the Ultimate Question about Life, Universe, and Everything: 42.

Recently, a researcher by the name of Michael Hippke analyzed the seemingly random bits that are contained in minute fluctuations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. His conclusion: there is no discernible pattern, no appearance of constants of nature, no detectable statistical autocorrelation. The message is random.

I beg to respectfully disagree. In the 512-bit segment published by Hippke, the bit sequence 101010 appears no fewer than ~~eight~~, er, nine times (one occurrence split between two lines).

Now if we only knew the question to which the answer is 42…

End of an era

Astronomy, History No Responses »

Dec 012020

The giant Arecibo radio telescope is no more.

Damaged by a broken cable just a few weeks ago, the telescope completely collapsed today.

Incredibly sad news.

Completed in 1963, the telescope was 57 years old, just like me. I hope I will last a few more years, though.