Hunting the Snark
A while ago I wrote about zero-player games, including the famous Game of Life created by mathematician John Conway. If you are confused because you thought the Game of Life was a board game where you put a tiny peg character in a car and drive it around a board, here is a quick reminder of how the mathematical Game of Life works. Weiterlesen
Die seltsamen Fehlleistungen neuronaler Netze
Die Großtat, für die Adi Shamir berühmt wurde, ist schon eine ganze Weile her. Im Jahr 1977 erfand er, gerade mal 25 Jahre alt, gemeinsam mit Ron Rivest und Leonard Adleman das asymmetrische Kryptosystem, das nach den Anfangsbuchstaben seiner Erfinder RSA-Chiffre heißt und bis heute, wenn auch mit Modifikationen, beim Verschlüsseln von Nachrichten eine – jawohl – Schlüsselrolle spielt. Weiterlesen
The 10th Heidelberg Laureate Forum in Sketchnotes
Illustrator Constanza Rojas-Molina
summarizes the week of the 10th Heidelberg Laureate Forum, which once a year brings together bright young mathematicians and computer scientists with the most prominent scientists in the field, in sketch notes! Weiterlesen
Kann ChatGPT sich in die Gedanken anderer einfühlen?
In den alten Zeiten, als von den elektrostatischen Kopierern noch nicht die Rede war und von Laserdruckern schon gar nicht, wurden Dokumente in kleiner Auflage – Arbeitsblätter in der Schule, Aufgabenzettel für die Anfängervorlesung und …
Posters of Progress: All Eyes on the Young Researchers Taking the Stage
While the laureates are the main attraction of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), the young researchers are the heart and soul of the event. It is only fitting that during the first day of this year’s 10th HLF, young researchers took to the stage to present some of their own work. Weiterlesen
The Man Who Wired the World: Robert Metcalfe and Connectivity
The 10th Heidelberg Laureate Forum kicked off with a captivating lecture by Robert Metcalfe, the 2022 ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient and the inventor of Ethernet. In his engaging style, Metcalfe took the audience on a journey through the past, present, and future of connectivity. Weiterlesen
HLFF Spotlight: 10th HLF
A Weaver of Virtual Worlds – Rachel Masters
Hiking and fishing in the Rocky Mountains were part and parcel of 10th HLF attendee Rachel Masters’ childhood. Nowadays, she taps into these experiences while developing the best possible immersive and therapeutic nature-based virtual reality (VR) experiences – forest landscape escapes through which people can take quick mental breaks. Weiterlesen
HLFF Spotlight: 10th HLF
A Champion for Change – Francis Saa-Dittoh
Ghanaian PhD student Francis Saa-Dittoh is a ferocious reader of sci-fi books. His reading habits have taught him that technology-wise almost anything imaginable is possible. However, his practical involvement in the field of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) has taught him that what is possible isn’t always appropriate. Weiterlesen
HLFF Spotlight: 10th HLF
Deepfakes and Open Science – Shifani Dilrukshi Gamage
Dilrukshi Gamage, a postdoctoral fellow from Sri Lanka who studies how society is influenced by technology, is already an HLF ‘veteran’. She attended the 5th HLF in 2017, midway through her PhD in Computer Science. Since then, she has carried with her the following advice offered by ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient and cryptologist, Martin Hellman: “The interesting thing in research is to be curious rather than furious.” Weiterlesen
HLFF Spotlight: 10th HLF
Enjoying the Beauty of Maths – Matias Palumbo
To Matias Palumbo, mathematics is beautiful, and even artistic; rigorous and complex, yet also simple – and often-times all these descriptions at once. He is one of the 200 young mathematicians and computer scientists from across the world who will have the opportunity at the 10th Heidelberg Laureate Forum to learn from recipients of some of the most prestigious prizes in their respective fields.
Matias hails from Argentina – the same country as Luis A. Caffarelli, who in 2023 became South America’s first ever Abel Prize winner.
Weiterlesen
HLFF Spotlight: 10th HLF
The Physicist Embracing Opportunities – Victoria Sánchez Muñoz
Interested in community outreach projects? Then make sure to brainstorm a few ideas at the 10th HLF with upcoming attendee Victoria Sánchez Muñoz over a round of tic-tac-toe. Community engagement is one of the (many) aspects about her PhD studies on quantum games at the University of Galway (UoGalway) in Ireland that the 29-year-old Spanish physicist enjoys the most. Weiterlesen
Potenzreihen und Konvergenzkreise
Nach längerer Pause will ich mich jetzt beeilen, dem Lobpreis der komplexen Zahlen und der holomorphen Funktionen das dritte wesentliche Teilstück hinzuzufügen: die Sache mit der unendlichfachen Differenzierbarkeit, mehr noch: der Entwickelbarkeit in eine Potenzreihe.Diesmal …
The „Dismal” State of Mathematics Textbooks and How to Improve It
For most students, mathematics and computer science can be difficult, daunting subjects. That may be hard to grasp if you have dedicated your career to one of the two, but surveys from several countries show …