Octonions, C. Elegans, Mystery, and More...

Replacing the usual meditative musical interlude this Friday with a lovely (meditative in its own way) 13-minute clip that Cliff Pickover passed along on Twitter last weekend, of Eric Weinstein 'explaining' octonions to Joe Rogan. Enjoy:



[this clip actually comes from a recent 3-and-1/2 hr. Rogan episode]

Chaos Versus the Multiverse

“Science predicts only the predictable….It is only the way we look at the universe that gives us the illusion of structure.”

Dr. Noson Yanofsky authored my favorite book of 2013, “The Outer Limits of Reason” (and in fact one of my favorite books of all time!), and now has a new provocative Nautilus article out weaving together more interesting topics, including number systems, the octonions, multiverse theory, and the way our perception acts as a sieve for the patterns we recognize and structure that may be an illusion. I recommend both physicists and mathematicians give it a whirl:

http://nautil.us/issue/49/the-absurd/chaos-makes-the-multiverse-unnecessary

Wednesday Math Miscellany

There are plenty of mathematical blog posts that are so advanced and beyond my comprehension they simply leave me in their dust. Then, for some reason, there are other posts, equally incomprehensible to me, that nonetheless catch my fancy and somehow capture my interest. Here is one such recent post from Peter Woit (centered around "octonions"):

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3665

On a different subject, here is a recent article on Millenium Prize winner/refuser Grigori Perelman:

http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/28-04-2011/117727-Grigori_Perelman-0/