What Is Science Anyway?
It is a curious but widely ignored fact that, despite the undeniable success of science, we have no accepted definition of it. I can’t say that this bothers me much, as there are a lot of things that we talk about without defining them: life, love, lollapalooza, you name it. That said, it has been interesting to see Elon Musk and Meta’s AI chief Yann LeCun – and several thousand other people – getting into an argument over this. If you want to chime in, you can find summaries here and here and the offensive tweet here.
Details about Google’s Search Algorithm Leaked by Anonymous Source
A recent leak on GitHub spilled the beans about the details of Google’s Search Algorithm, though it’s unclear how old the code is. That is, it is possible – likely even – that the modules are no longer used or no longer used in that particular way. Still, it confirms some of our suspicions, including that Google tracks clicks on search results and how quickly people hit the back button, likely still uses some version of page rank, on occasion white-lists pages (e.g. for election results), and uses human evaluation to assess website quality. More here and here.
New Lens Is Only Three Atoms Thick
Image: Guarneri et al, Nano Lett. 24, 21, 6240 (2024)
A group of scientists from Stanford and the University of Amsterdam have created the world's thinnest lens. It’s made from tungsten disulphide and just three atoms thick, with a pattern of concentric rings. When the layer absorbs light, it creates excitons (that are excited electrons bound to positively charged holes) that re-emit the light in different directions. While most light passes through unaffected, the red light that’s redirected by excitons forms a bright focal point. It’s a proof of principle for ultra-thin lens designs that could one day be used in smartphones or VR glasses. Press release here, paper here.