Scientists of the future

About a couple of percent of the population has what it takes to be a scientist, but lately we are having trouble meeting this quota. There are many thorny issues regarding underrepresentation in science, so let me focus on the most fragile and threatened group - the US born male. For some reason, USBMs are missing in action! I know, becoming a scientist means financial ruin in the near-term and a low probability of actually joining the scientific workforce in the long-term; the educational system is driven by greed; your future colleagues are a pack of wolves, and so on: there are multiple reasons to stay away. Therefore, rather than trying to figure out what drives USBMs away from universities and research labs, I decided to find out where are they are running to. And this brings me to the second topic, which is

Nerdy bartenders

Have you been to a bar lately? I am not talking about a place where you get respite from the challenges in your life in the company of equally miserable people,  but rather a place where you go to explore and study. Bars like The Passenger, The Aviary or The Dead Rabbit to name just a few.

My induction into alcohol drinking followed a path of blackouts and humiliations,  and only recently under the patient guidance of my daughter's boyfriend have I started recognizing the finer aspects of mixology and visiting establishments where this art is performed. Needless to say this is where I solved the puzzle of the missing scientific workforce. For when you enter one of those bars, you are entering a modern science lab. There are hundreds of bottles containing tinctures, extracts, infusions, elixirs and so on, liquid gases, centrifuges, and of course the Higgs field that makes it all possible. These are not places where drinks are made, but also invented, discussed and studied. Honestly, if Newton had frequented any of these bars he would have manufactured the philosopher's  stone and left the  calculus for  Leibnitz. A modern bar is a stimulating place to be. This is where USBMs would excitedly discuss the virtues of lime zest versus lemon peel, kinds of cherries that go into your Manhattan, essential oils that are squirted onto the rim of your glass, shaken versus stirred, the morphology of ice cubes, and so on: the list is nearly endless. All the paradigms of the scientific method are observed: careful repetition of successful experiments (e.g. multi-layer validation), blind-testing, random sampling, etc.  The parallels with universities are plentiful, as the modern bar is a place for being imaginative and creative in the most collaborative spirit.  Many of the miseries of academic life (boring meetings, vengeful colleagues, administrators that make your life living hell) are pushed into the background.  Bars used to cater predominantly to USBMs but this is changing and modern bar is beating academia in building a more gender-balanced environment. Very often investigators work in teams of two involving both genders. Focused research groups are also common, and research training groups are a dominant mode to get people up to speed. Clearly, the modern bar takes the best practices from academia and funding agencies and tries to leave the junk behind. Administration is reduced to a minimum. Indeed,  your bartender is your teacher, mentor, administrator, and a person that can police the environment if the need arises. And yes, they can be as nerdy as you are.

If mixology is science and the bar is where it is done, then they set an example of a stimulating intellectual environment that really works. USBMs are voting with their feet by offering their scientific talents there.

Nevertheless, as with every new idea, the scientific yield so far is not great and the work is still somewhat narrow. Hanging out in a bar is often viewed as more of a hobby, and frankly some of it lacks rigor and discipline. Like  modern statistics, there is strong emphasis on  data analysis over theory development, and occasionally there is a "big data" problem - this is when investigators collect more data in a short amount of time than they can handle. There is apparent fragility and the bar, as a new research frontier and incubator of scientific talent, needs more nurturing and care.

Scottish Cafe Project

As always, our organization is on top of things, and we are ready to follow the talent where it may lead. A new program called "Excursions in Education" intends to explore non-academic environments rich in scientific talent, and these newly discovered pockets of excellence are ripe for a more thorough study. Yet, the puritan roots of our organization make the exploration difficult, as our relationship with alcohol is highly regulated. Just when the solution to scientific workforce issues seem to be in sight, this is one excursion in education that we are forbidden to take! Eventually, the Office of Inspector General came up with a drink escrow scheme that allows one to store drinks in a bucket to be consumed when off-duty, but this solution was widely viewed as impractical. Malaise and depression followed: many units of our organization are already shrouded in misery caused by lack of leadership and the erosion of their guiding principles.

But then a miracle happened - the mathematics unit, hardest hit by  dwindling resources and condemned to irrelevance by the upper management, started  Scottish Cafe Project, an informal initiative named after the bar where a sizeable chunk of modern mathematics was born seventy years ago. One by one, mathematicians offered their vacation time, sick leave and free time to hang around in bars for as long as it is needed. After fulfilling their daily obligations in record time they would serve on the "bar beat" and retreat there to keep tabs on the members of the scientific workforce frequenting these establishments. USBMs were initially the primary focus, but in short time the program became  all-inclusive. This valiant service and willingness to sacrifice were exemplary and boosted morale tremendously. Many felt that they were interacting with "the greatest minds of our generation", "having the best time of their life", or simply "finally doing something important and relevant." These are exact quotes from the employee satisfaction survey conducted soon after Scottish Cafe Project began.

Colleagues were challenging each other to do more "bar time," some got into a habit of taking the lunch break in their favorite watering hole, and most gave countless hours to this service. In the end, the Scottish Cafe Project turned out to be the glue that kept our unit together in these trying times, building the synergy necessary to carry on. Suddenly hanging out with mathematicians became cool and fashionable and the Scottish Cafe initiative became a model that others are aching to imitate.
Things are looking up....

Fairy tales redux

Education is a battleground where the future of our society is being determined. Scientists are there in the trenches fighting for the minds of the new generation. It is clear that in this fight, kindergarten emerges as a strategically important position of crucial significance. The scientific community established itself there early on (in part because so many of its members have never moved past these first attempts at socialization),  but in hindsight these efforts were too subtle. While every child knows the story of  Red Riding Hood, only a handful of them know that the story depicts the troubled history of how the Superconducting Super Collider  was wolfed down by the  US Congress. How many of you know that the  story of Rapunzel is part of an effort to make children aware of the  amazing physical properties of carbon nanotubes?  and what about Snow White and crystallography? Examples abound, but it is safe to say that literary connections with science are not always straightforward, and others have appropriated and twisted fairy tales for their not always pure needs.

Consequently, scientists needs to retell these folk tales in a more direct manner, and with a clear goal of delivering an uncluttered message. To illustrate, I will lead with  a new version of The Three Little Pigs. The message of the story is simple - life without science is not worth living, and science without external funding is not worth doing. A strong message, a modern setting, good character development and an early introduction to the vocabulary of funding agencies and proposal writing will channel children's thinking in the correct direction. Without further ado, let's begin!

Three Little Pigs apply for a grant

Scene: a well lit living room. Bookshelves in the background, issues of Scientific American and New Yorker lying around. An old copy of Feynman's lectures in physics and a Rubik's cube on the coffee table. In one word - a pigsty. The three little pigs repose and chew on acorns.

But wait a moment! they are not that little anymore … they are big, raging with hormones and restless.

Blimpie, the oldest,  jumps up and down and tries to do somersaults. "We've got to get our research funded!" he yells way too loudly. Tummy glances at him and murmurs "Yeah, the tenure clock is ticking," and Plumpie, the youngest, as usual does not say anything. The die is cast: the pigs are stuck in an academic rut, and struggling. Their research is moderately successful, but without external funding they will soon find themselves working at a state school or even a community college. Furthermore, Plumpie suffers from Swineburger Syndrome - absent mindedness and aloofness combined with acute fear of cookbooks.   He was like that from the day he was born but it has gotten  worse since their parents went to a Korean restaurant and never came back. Blimpie and Tummy are worried about Plumpie's teaching evaluations, of which he is blissfully unaware. Yet, as is often the case in the pig family, it is Plumpie who sets things in motion, "Call the wizard," he says.

"What a great idea!" exclaims Tummy, the most level-headed of the lot, and goes looking for the phone.

A week later the wizard appears at the doorstep. He is a young strapping lad covered in tattoos. A tat on his left bicep says "Moo" and one on the right  "Oink," and this makes Plumpie nervous. But otherwise the wizard is a charmer who knows his job. He plops on the couch and explains that he will begin with a simple aptitude test. At this point Blimpie starts jumping up and down yelling "Aptitude, altitude, test, test, test" louder and louder. "He needs Ritalin," says the wizard to nobody in particular, and  pulls from his bag a small container with a little plant and presents it to the pigs. "Plant it in the yard and take a good care of it. In a month's time I will come and we will talk again." And in a blink he is gone.

The plant does not look like anything although it must have some magical properties. For the next month, the pigs check on it several times a day and try not to pee in the vicinity. The plant first sprouts a lot of green leaves and then produces pale white flowers. The end of semester is coming, the tenure clock is ticking and there is a lot of anxiety in the air.

The wizard comes one month later. He has a new shiny truck and a fresh suntan. "Overhead," he says somewhat cryptically.

The fam sits in the living room in a circle looking at the wizard. Blimpie is gnawing on his hooves and brimming with excitement, Tummy has a notebook in his hand and a printout of all active solicitations of GSF (Government Science Foundation) by his side and Plumpie's mind is thousands of miles away.

"I will start with you" says the wizard pointing at Blimpie, "what part of the plant do you like the best?" Blimpie is so psyched that he looks like he is going to have a coronary in a second. He takes a big breath and roars "Flowers, FLOWERS!!!! preeetttty" while jumping at least three feet in the air.

The wizard is pleased, "I have something just for you," he says. "GSF has a new program called ASPIRE, all you need is a lot of ideas and two pairs of friendly ears." Blimpie's excitement is overflowing, he starts chanting rapidly "aspire, inspire, aspire, inspire" while running around, and then he suddenly changes the direction, exclaims "I am Schroedinger's cat!" and runs full speed into the closed door. Apparently he is trying  to demonstrate the quantum tunneling effect but it is not successful because  the value of Planck's constant is at least twenty orders of magnitude smaller than what he thought.  It is a neat idea though, and as if for a consolation the lock breaks and he rolls outside half conscious  "He definitely needs Ritalin," murmurs the wizard and turns his attention to Tummy.

"How about you? Which part of the plant do you like best?" Tummy puts on his glasses and opens a PowerPoint presentation on his laptop. He has accumulated a lot of data, rate of growth and such, taken pictures, and surreptitiously biopsied the plant on few occasions. In the end he concludes that "the plant's leaves offer useful biomass and have tremendous utility value. This is what I like best."

The wizard is very pleased. "Engineering" he pronounces, "this is where you apply for your grant!" "Your colleagues will not be the coolest or the brightest but you will fit in just fine and you will be doing useful things." Tummy, who already knows the GSF's administrative layout by heart, is pleased with the choice, but a bit taken aback by the wizard's condescending attitude towards his future colleagues and collaborators. Furthermore, he thinks that there is a great deal more to his ideas of biomass than just being useful. He also feels that the hours that he spent plant watching have not been fully appreciated. His ego is buoyed by these self-promotional thoughts and he decides to become a computer scientist. A tad cooler than an engineer and you get to publish every paper twice!

At this moment the door bursts open and Blimpie runs in. He jumps on the sofa, yells "watch me now" and tries to paint Maxwell equations on his belly using mud that covers most of his body. "You forgot the speed of light constant" mumbles Tummy, irritated by his brother's attention-grabbing attitude.

"It is time for you Plumpie, what part of the plant you like best?" asks the wizard rather hopelessly as it is clear that Plumpie's mind is  drifting on the outskirts of the solar system. Luckily at this moment Blimpie bites his leg ferociously and for a second Plumpie focuses on the wizard's question. He pauses awkwardly and says in a Yoda-like voice, "good is hidden. What is seen is not important."  As often, neither Blimpie nor Tummy have the faintest idea what  their brother is trying to communicate, but the wizard seems to be in heaven. "Yes, the Force is strong with with you" he answers trying to impersonate Obi-Wan Kenobi, "this is a potato plant and the best part of it are the tubers deep underground. The leaves and flowers do not make sense without the tubers, which are hidden out of view." The wizard smiles happily and  says "you are a mathematician and should apply to the Division of Mathematical Sciences of the GSF, to the purest and deepest of the programs that they have." "The name starts with F" he adds sensing lack of enthusiasm.  Yet Plumpie is back to counting his hooves, and  the prospects of submitting grant application are dim.  The wizard leaves and there is a lingering taste of disappointment. But then the dark clouds are gone when Plumpie utters one of his half-sentences - "Check discovery". All of them run to the yard and rip the plant out. Indeed, three nice  looking potatoes hang there at the bottom projecting image of deliciousness and accumulated wisdom. Blimpie starts devouring one right there and then, Tummy grabs the other and yells "I want it cooked and mashed" and,  invisible to others,  a rough surface of the third potato channels Plumpie's thoughts into  interactions between geodesics and singularities. 

Ministry of Everything moves ahead!

More entries from my uncle's diary have been uncovered. This is a continuation of this, this,  this and that.  

These particular entries seem to relate to the events of the summer 1976 but sometimes one cannot tell the past from the future.

---------------------------------------

Thunderbolt

We have been silly and stubborn and the day of reckoning has been long overdue. The Central Committee is finally fed up with the system and old comrades are tired and annoyed. They are irritated by  a society that cannot exercise their democratic power and speak with one voice, they are upset with the government institutions, furious with a sagging economy, and  aggravated by constant bickering about ever changing weather.

So we are to be punished and everybody was worried about it for weeks. You see, some older comrades in the Central Committee are very fond of the medieval ways of doing things, and this can spell trouble. Today our punishment was named and initiated. The plan is called Suffocation and quite frankly upon hearing that name we started breathing easier. Suffocation is simply a serious disruption of various services to remind us that some of them are kind of useful. Many things are lined up for punishment and among them, the Ministry of Everything is cutting down by 10%. Younger comrades say that it is no big deal but more seasoned ones are not so sure. The point is that 10% of everything could be quite a bit. 
Capitalist pigs are constantly saying that our society is brainwashed and the government is inept, inefficient and run by heartless bureaucrats, but seeing that the comrades from Central Committee side with this view is somewhat discouraging.

Repartee

Nobody was completely sure if Suffocation was really coming and speculations were rampant. Now that it has just became a reality we need the right response. There are basically two choices: to whine vigorously or to show indignant defiance.

I am please to report that our response to Suffocation is the second of these choices.

On the eve of Suffocation we announced ramping up of our Chutzpah program. Chutzpah program is the invention of our director and it is designed to promote individuals who  brainwash us from behind  a smoke screen of tantalizing promises. It started small and it did not amount to much. The newly announced Big Chutzpah is a different breed. To pull Big Chutzpah you need to supremely hone your bullshit laying skills and you need to rent a supporting crowd - and this is what the resources are for. In spite of some lingering doubts, Big Chutzpah is easier to carry out than grungy everyday work and it lifts the spirit in times of Suffocation. I am rooting for scientists and teachers  entombed in a warm blanket of self-confidence to lead pushing the agenda in these trying times.

Pay it Forward

By pure coincidence the Botany Unit is well positioned for these events and let me explain why. For as far as I remember together with my comrades we would go to drink borscht during the short midday break. Rather than everybody paying for their own borscht, one comrade would buy it for everybody else, and we would rotate randomly so that everything would settle to the average while bonding our group together. This simple idea was picked up by our boss  and it become Pay it Forward initiative - a mechanism for sharing the resources of the Botany Unit with just about any other unit in the Ministry of Everything. As in our borscht club, Pay it Forward is a wash. However, mathematicians  in the Numbers and Figures  Unit (yuck, what a terrible name!)  laugh at us saying some gibberish about scaling and exponentially slow convergence. I do not understand it, clearly in Botany everything repeats once a year!  On the other hand, colleagues from Numbers and Figures are the only ones who helped us out and showed that Pay it Forward might actually work.  

For a very long time we were trying to make a point that  Botany=Plants, Plants=Food, and everybody needs food. This way we equate Botany with a product that is ubiquitous and much needed. We were pushing this message forever, and it turns out that units participating in Pay it Forward are willing to listen!

Pay it Forward has not blossomed yet but it created a buzz in the Ministry of Everything and sent scads of freeloaders our way.  This is not particularly good if you plan to accomplish something but on a positive side,  it gave us the taste of Suffocation already several years ago.  With so much giving and charity, austerity, cutting down and penny-pinching are everyday staples, and so we can absorb the extra blow with raised heads!

Big loss

I am sad to report that our beloved Minister is leaving his post. His reign was many years shorter than expected but it was punctuated by direct and persistent involvement with just about every aspect of our operation.  The reasons for his departure are not known but one  rumor points to Vow of Poverty that every Minister, but not his immediate subordinates,  has to take. If this is the case then perhaps sacrifices on the most personal (even intimate) level took its toll. Our Minister is a classy dresser and the constant urge to rip off his shirt and give it to a random stranger may have been intolerable. 

Continued here.

Bad Science

One of the last decisions of the Pope Benedict VI before he called it quits was to unveil a trove of centuries old documents from the Vatican Library. One of them is a transcript from the trial of Giordano Bruno (translated from Latin below). It has a very modern feel and it puts the early history of science in a new light.

Rome, late 1597.

Grand Inquisitor: Mr. Bruno, are you the lead PI on the grant 1590-02 funded by the Vatican Science Foundation?

Mr. Bruno: Yes your Highness. I am eternally grateful to the indulgences-buying public for this opportunity.

Grand Inquisitor: Yeah, yeah, a bit late for your false gratitude.  Are you familiar with the  Grant Proposal Guide?

Mr Bruno: the 1220 edition?

Grand Inquisitor: Yes, of course. The newest.

Mr Bruno:  Unfortunately I am only familiar with the stone-tablet executive summary. The sheepskin copy burned with the rest of the library in 1425 and has not yet been replaced.

Grand Inquisitor:  Never mind, never mind. (murmurs to himself) That explains the formatting issues in his proposal.
Can you remind the Court what your project was about?

Mr. Bruno: The project was called "A New Paradigm for Planetary Motion". I had a cool scheme for using the deferent and three epicycles for the rapid calculation of planetary positions. The calculations were quite complicated but I found a way to make them distributed.  I planned to have three postdocs running epicycles and a graduate student running the deferent.  They were passing the numbers between themselves using homing pigeons.  The first milestone was  to tabulate Jupiter's motion for the next 50 years.

Grand Inquisitor: Did you ever get there?

Mr. Bruno: (with growing agitation) No, your Highness. It was soon clear that I needed one or two more epicycles to get the right accuracy but with the restrictions on grant supplements and an accelerated spending schedule I was stuck.  I started looking for alternatives and  I came across the writings of  Mr. Copernicus. With his scheme I could do three whole planets with three postdocs. I got really excited and regrouped in this direction. But it was such rubbish, and Mr. Copernicus turned out to be a total dimwit - hot air and pretty pictures. His scheme looked good but I could not even compute the position of the Moon with it! But I did not give up; the postdocs were working hard, perhaps too hard and disasters started mounting.  One got leprosy and the other got into a habit of wearing cilice. His continuously infected wounds made closer collaboration difficult. The third one eloped  with the graduate student and I was left alone.

 Grand Inquisitor: Did you report any of it to your Sponsored Research office?

 Mr. Bruno (suddenly worried): No Sir, I did not. (apologetically) My sponsored research office is exclusively staffed with veterans from the last Crusade, and these dudes do not have any sense of humor. Just the other day they  put a fellow who listed more than ten slain enemies in his cv on the rack for forcing them to yank his proposal from surepath.vat

Grand Inquisitor: (in somber and accusatory voice) So you went out of scope on your project and then kept it hidden from the grant office?!

Mr. Bruno: Your Highness, in the business of planetary motion you are only as good as your last horoscope. I wanted to get ahead of the guys in Istanbul (his voice trails off sadly)

Grand Inquisitor: Listen son,  when you are funded by the Vatican Science Foundation you ought to take it seriously. For every month of your project there is a village somewhere that paid for it with their indulgences. These are simple people, and you are right,  they do deserve  a good horoscope.  (sternly) But the modern world needs solid science, not someone who is chasing some flashy half-baked  ideas. (and slightly raising his voice) We do not want to go back to the Dark Ages! (screaming) What  were you thinking??

(calming down) Mr. Copernicus is one of our guys but he is lazy and he trades solid mathematics for  ideas that are either wrong or not very useful.  He was preoccupied with locating the center of the universe but seriously, who cares when everything moves?

(pauses briefly)
The panel that reviewed your proposal liked the concept of a human computing machine, and they called it potentially transformative.   Isn't it something?  The only other  discovery of that magnitude that the panel took a note of was an utensil they called a fork, and I

(the protocol ends abruptly here)

Well, Mr. Bruno strayed from the path  and in the end he did not fare well but this newly found document sheds some light on the level of scientific oversight  of this period.   Traditionally, Mr. Bruno's persecution is being viewed as one of the last excesses of the Middle Ages. However, this document indicates that it was one of the signs of the Enlightenment, as it represents the laying of foundations for rigorous scientific exploration. The  Ptolemy system involved sophisticated mathematics which anticipated Fourier analysis, compressed sensing and, if Mr. Bruno's project came to fruition, parallel computing. On the other hand, Mr. Copernicus is the inventor of the elevator talk - a simplistic idea that can be encapsulated in a 30 second sound bite that can be unleashed on an opportunity hunter such as your agency director. Unfortunately, the harsh treatment of  Bruno gave credibility to his scientific blunders and ultimately, trading accuracy for simplicity became standard. The Copernican revolution was a significant scientific  setback as it jettisoned sophisticated  multi-parameter mathematical model  for a useless philosophical metaphor.
Luckily, the Grand Inquisition's tough rulings on issues of grant compliance, scope deviations and bad accounting of indulgences-related funds led to the establishment of strong standards for reporting requirements,  putting future research on rock-solid foundations and going without mercy after bad science.  While burning on the stake has been largely phased out, we anticipate a steady increase of the incarceration rates among scientists.  To wit, over four hundred years after Mr. Bruno's trial, and 200 miles from  Rome, seven Italian scientists were put to jail for questionable earthquake modeling tools. Clearly more is yet to come, but not all of it is bad.   In fact, various scientific communities view their jailed colleagues as proof that science matters, that their theories and discoveries have important societal consequences, and that straying from the path of the righteous cannot be taken lightly.  These principles are firmly rooted, and communities with  low incarceration rate have started doing some soul searching regarding the validity of their scientific work. The biggest level of dissatisfaction is among the economists. While they are being rewarded with Nobel prizes and leadership positions in governments, their incarceration rate is zero. Yes, zero! In spite of ruining countless countries and creating one global crisis after another, so far none of them ended up in jail!  The situation has grown so desperate  that  several prominent economists demanded jail time for themselves after they denounced their theories as flawed, or even (in extreme cases) as total nonsense.  The courts have so far sided with the self-accusers on the merits of their  work, but in the end they ruled that their theories are "not even bad".  A similar crisis is developing among psychologists and social scientists.
On the other hand, many engineers, architects, biologists, etc are languishing in jail, and this speaks volumes about the consequences  of badly designed bridges, eyesores in the middle of our cities or frustrating people with questionable "revelations"  found in their DNA. These days purchasing "bad science insurance" became a norm in the community, and seeking protection from one's bad ideas is very much in need.  A typical package provides protection from results of shoddy science of up to $100,000,000 and up to 20 years, and the premiums take a serious toll on one's lifestyle.  Sadly, many scientific screw-ups have much higher costs, and this leads to a massive increase in collaborative work, with the aim of diluting one's personal responsibility. The days of the academic rat race and the "publish first" mentality are waning, and Gauss' motto "Pauca sed matura" guides modern researchers as they cautiously move ahead.

Education!

Education is a funny business. Evolution gave us basic locomotion skills and the ability to make noises understandable to others. The rest is our own doing, and sadly we still have not figured out the correct business model. Abstractly, one's knowledge can be visualized as a  bar of the corresponding length carried on one's head, collectively all the bars making up a gigantic pyramid. New knowledge continuously rains on the pyramid, and societal forces continuously push to broaden the base and spread the new stuff more evenly. Now, after several thousand years the base of this pyramid covers nearly every human being and the minimal load keeps on increasing. While this pyramid is an abstract concept, the consequences of its untamed growth - the education tax  - are very real. The fact is that, at the moment,  acquiring knowledge is the second (after sleep)  most unproductive time in human life. This idleness takes a horrendous societal toll, a human being can spend a third of a lifetime in various classrooms and libraries turning slowly into a beer guzzling layabout.  A healthy ten-year old can be excused of all household chores under the pretense of studying Icelandic mythology, partial differential equations  or other such nonsense. Do I need to say more?


But as usual science comes to the rescue and leads the way out of this predicament. We can almost completely eliminate the education tax and  increase the overall education level tenfold. The scheme rests on three inventions: MOOC, googgles, and soon to be discovered Human Learning Algorithm (HLA).

My colleagues say that I am a blabber-mouth, but I can't resist to say a few words about the future, while hoping that these indiscretions will not hamper the discovery of HLA. HLA will be a crowning accomplishment in the area of mathematics known as Foundations. In spite of laying ground for digital computers, discovery of incompleteness phenomena, and in the near future HLA, Foundations' growth is marred by ignorance and prejudice among fellow mathematicians and officials in grant funding agencies.

HLA is several things at once: a knowledge sequencer, a knowledge packer, and an ingenious interface for the knowledge delivery. The knowledge sequencer is an algorithm that breaks down any logically consistent content  into tiny pieces that can be easily absorbed by the human brain, but when examined separately, look like gibberish. This gibberish, when fed back to the brain  is assembled back into knowledge in a way that is not completely understood. A good analogy, but in the other direction,  is  the human digestive system - we mind a great deal what goes in, but only a doctor wants to examine what comes out. In this light, the current educational system has it all wrong.  A traditional knowledge presentation  follows certain  logical structure: big picture, underlying ideas, all the way down to fine details in hope of recreating the leading  thought process in the recipients brain.   In the context  of HLA, this represents mistaking output for input, and in a hindsight, it  is responsible for most problems with education.   In other words the  current educational system resembles a poor fellow invited for a fancy dinner who ends up having a six-course meal with wine pairings shoved up his ass!

The knowledge packer delivers  pieces produced by sequencer to the brain, relying on its phenomenal abilities to reassemble the pulp into humanly communicable form. This process can be done in a straightforward fashion, but there are many legal obstacles. Brain is an organ, just like liver or kidneys, and accessing it directly bypasses its legal owner who unfortunately is often a blooming idiot who does not know what is good for him. For that reason, the interface puts the knowledge delivery in the grandfather-mode: a traditional teacher-student interaction with  the never-ending appeal to the brain's owner to keep things running.

Rather than speculating on how these discoveries can be utilized let's jump ahead to the future and hear directly from the eyewitnesses.


Graduation
April 20, 2023

I will soon be  graduating from  MOOC ONE - the largest university on Earth.  In these few paragraphs I want to  give you the brief history of my school and the development of the modern educational system, a result of the search for a proper business model that took over a millennium.


Mitt Romney

It all started in 2013 with our founding father's  failed bid for the US presidency. In the middle of that fateful year a small group of American businessmen headed by Romney realized that building the perfect educational system is within reach and, after the discovery of HLA,  all key elements were in place. At this point US educational system was completely dysfunctional - we had gender gap, accomplishment gap, racial gap, skill gap and  an infinite number of other maladies. Things could not have been worse.

Jobs and Education

Romney asked what are the main features that a perfect educational system ought to have - a list that at a time looked like a fantasy land. These were:

* education is available to everybody at a minimal cost,
* students are trained by the very best teachers,
* education comes with  an offer of an employment for students and graduates alike,
* acquiring knowledge should be a pleasure not a chore.

Founders understood that building new educational system has to start with the appropriate  legislation and these principles together with the accompanying  executive orders became cornerstone of The Right to Mooc Bill of 2013 - the first legislation that put Congress' approval rating on a path to double digits. At the same time, the legislation stipulated the elimination of  most of the educational tax by combining education with productive and fruitful life - a goal that suddenly became a possibility. At a time these initiatives were perfectly in line with the elimination of other forms of wasteful spending and frivolous taxation.

The point is that Right to Mooc Bill was a reaction to the old educational system that violated every single of these principles. In the language of today the differences could not been greater: a  moocer does not buy the instruction time but the knowledge itself. In modern terms - a moocer aims for certain KA (knowledge acquisition) that is provided at a rate determined by his/her KAB (knowledge acquisition bandwidth). The price is only $100 a month (with no KA limits). Furthermore, moocing does not require undivided attention, so a moocer gets a job at one of the sponsoring businesses and works there at half pay while moocing, a major factor in economic growth of the country. Last but not least, gone are tests and exams, and a simple brain scans and neural  zapping verify that KA has occurred. A moocer with a wide KAB may need only minutes of moocing a day while one with a narrow KAB will take many hours, but in the end everybody ends in the same place at the same time.

How does it all work?

MOOC ONE is underwritten by Google, Apple, iMacDonalds's (after acquisition by Apple), Walmart, Facebook,  Angry Birds, and scads of smaller players. It is really a genius of Mitt Romney to get all these partners on board.

Google and Apple came up with moocing technology, while other partners employ moocers  and provide housing and subsistence for them.

Moocing rests on three technological breakthroughs. The first component is googgles - an extension of Project Glass. This is a knowledge delivery system that utilizes one eyeball, one ear and about half of neural connections in one's brain. This leaves a moocer with the ability to simultaneously perform simple tasks such as polishing iPad screens, flipping burgers or running a scanner at a cash register.

The second component is the MOOC itself. In spite of some setbacks the technology has tremendous potential and in the economic terms it is a reincarnation of the factory production line.

The third component is HLA (Human Learning Algorithm) - an algorithm that matches KA with KAB in a seamless manner. The  working of the software is a well guarded secret because of the potential risks. In a well publicized incident, a hacked version of HLA put in direct access mode allowed one sorry individual to learn Korean in a mere three hours. Unfortunately, he died soon after regaining consciousness and before uttering a single word in his newly acquired language.

The rise of  cyclops

Moocers are sometimes called cyclops because often they keep their moocing eye closed and resting when they take their googgles off. Now they represent the majority of any society and it is a pleasure to watch them discussing in six languages intricacies of the Langlands program while on a short break in the factory cafeteria. Even people of older generation do some moocing, and in particular micro-moocing is particularly appealing to them. My father mooced how to fix a bathtub and his friend from work mastered the art of making soufflés by using his son's googgles!


World of MOOC ONE

MOOC ONE has headquarters in Cayman Islands, a consequence of the horrific burden of the US taxation system. Our school got a tremendous shot in the arm when Harvard and MIT relocated to Europe and CalTech moved to Columbia and become CaliTech.

Today MOOC ONE and its main partners have capitalization of over trillion dollars, proving once and for all that education is a driver for profits and economic growth. US took the lead manufacturing countless gadgets that are churned up by Asian scientists day and night. Grim days of outsourcing are gone - call centers, packing facilities, and scads of simple jobs appropriate for knowledge hungry moocers are springing all over the country.

 Millioner Club

MOOC ONE instructors are paid one dollar for one moocer per year. Most mooc over hundred thousand students per year, but some are millionaires. Members of Millioner's Club include Socrates, Richard Feynman, J.K. Rowling, and many more. Sadly, many of them are deceased and some are characters from the movies - Mr. Holland and Mary Poppins to name a few. If you want the best teachers, looking among living just does not cut it.

Deceased faculty keep the costs down but sometimes cause  problems as well.  Consider the case of R.L. Moore, the inventor of  Moore method. Professor Moore mooced millions of students until someone discovered that the HLA resolved his moocing materials to a single frame saying "Mooc ahead!"  The brain scans indicated that KA took place but unfortunately these scans do not determine what has been mooced.  As usual nay-sayers call it mooc-fraud.

Science and Religion

MOOC ONE is all inclusive and under the guidance of our president, alternative view-points are well represented. I mooced "Six thousand years in six hundred minutes" - a concise history of Earth since the day of creation. Cool stuff! I particularly  liked the picture of Jesus Christ our Lord making his Atlantic crossing on a back of a triceratops.  I did not know that triceratops was such a good swimmer!

Graduation speech

Today is my graduation day, a day of happiness and pride. I was selected to text my graduation  speech to millions of other moocers. Here it is together with the link to MOOC ONE anthem:

My fellow moocers!

We hav nevr met bt we R strong & united by our comN XperENs. I fEl yor presence rownd & I share my prId w U. We hav Bin given a greatest gift of aL - an education & a job. d old dispute wethR education pays off hz Bin setLD 1ce & 4 all!

I luv moocing & I plan 2 mooc a lot mo. My job @ Walmart iz nIs & I lIk my dwelling n MOOC weld.
nw foLow DIS Lnk & pls stNd ^ 4 our skul song.

iScience

Science is not what it used to be. Long gone are the days when discoveries were of interest to a significant portion of  society. Today's scientists are a fairly small group of over-achievers who flood  society with fear, anxiety and confusion, speak in tongues, and drown in their own products. The wax and wane of scientific influence was replaced by the dismissal of scientific methodology, which marked the end of the Age of Enlightenment.  Basic science is not sexy anymore and our leaders do not know how to sell it.  Nobody expected that it  will come so soon, but on December 21, 2012, a date coinciding with the end of the world in the Mayan calendar, our organization announced a new umbrella program. It is called  iSnore (which stands for Seriously Non Operational Research and Education) and it  specifically addresses scientific over productivity.   For the first time in history, we try to put a cap on the gusher of scientific output by paying scientists to take a break. iSnore incorporates older programs aiming at reducing productivity (one that entices scientists to open businesses and another that provides opportunities for endless internet chatter), and comes with several new components. iWillRest provides three months of summer support to a top scientist that pledges to  lower productivity by 50%. iGetLife provides funding for developing serious non-scientific hobbies, and iWastedSoMuchTime funds participation in life enhancing seminars aiming to put things in perspective. In spite of great interest, program iGetLaid was terminated after it was determined that it does not lower scientific productivity but instead, as discovered by the Office of Inspector General,  it  leads to the questionable use of the taxpayers' money. Of course these groundbreaking developments are only temporary fixes. Paying scientists to do nothing is not going to work on a long run when so many of them are  enjoying decent life. Furthermore, many people believe that there is nothing wrong with quality and quantity of the scientific work, but rather with the way that is its packaged and presented to  society.

Consequently, we have organized a secret workshop on the future of science and we have invited leading salesman  to advise us how to get out of this predicament. Some chose to appear incognito, which led to (false) rumors about participation by Columbian drug lords and Bernie Madoff. To get the participants focused they were asked  to write a one-page   paper describing an idea how to promote basic scientific research in a way that advances along the following five target factors:

a) triple the available funding,
b) appeal to politicians and general population alike,
c) not harm existing scientific research, and  possibly lead to new initiatives,
d) not result in obvious waste, duplication or fraud,
e) increase gender and racial diversity of science-aware population.

Lots of   papers were written, most of somewhat  questionable quality. Many participants proposed things that were either ridiculous or  impossible to implement. The winning paper was penned by the fellow who came up with the idea of selling tap water in plastic bottles. Other participants were roasting him about the source of his riches but he laughed it off by saying that he sells bottles not water. Anyway, here is his winning entry: we are still pondering whether it represents a possible path forward.

iScience - a new set of maps for those who got lost.

Language has magical powers, and some of them are  embodied in simple words. Words like interdisciplinary, international, intercontinental and interracial evoke warm feelings, give a sense of vast and peaceful space and generally amplify positive aspects.  Remove "inter" and a linguistic disaster happens immediately. Now your free associations run along the lines:

disciplinary - your colleagues in the bondage of never changing research agenda,
national - Hitler and his cronies running amok,
continental - stale croissant and undrinkable coffee in a mediocre hotel
racial - Ku Klux Klan and blood libel.

Out of over a quarter million english words listed in the Webster's dictionary there are 1181 words starting with "inter" and they  all sound good.
A close cousin of "inter" is "multi". Only 303 English words start with this prefix and the addition is  welcome. To wit, consider words such as axial, colored, polar, or verse.  Adding "multi" clearly adds some dimensionality and spice.

Unfortunately, the key scientific disciplines are lacking "inter" and "multi" prefixes, and  the dreadful associations described above abound. On the other hand, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary sciences are leading modes of cooperation fueled by lavish infusion of funding.  This is happening even though a lot of  work sold under this label is shallow, redundant or simply  pure rubbish.

So what can we do?

Inter and multi are relative concepts and a shot of multi and a slap if inter has the power of bringing back the real science to life if only these names would stick. So I propose to redraw the map of scientific endeavors to make sagging and isolated areas come across as worthy of  these prefixes. To do this we need to create  new sciences endowed with fashionable names and in great need of input from mathematics, chemistry, biology, geology and the rest of their latin-handicapped cousins.
To start the discussion I propose to begin with the Science of Growth, Science of Prosperity, Science of Happiness, and perhaps  Big Data Science if one wants to sound sophisticated.
These are solid names infused with social relevance, promise of a better future and laid on the foundation of rational thought. In fact, these sciences already exist in a shadow form, and an official endorsement will  in a flash give us journals, academic departments and armies  of students devoted to these topics. It is anticipated that existing interdisciplinary faculty will quickly migrate to these new sciences, and without a steep learning curve, they will be soon joined by newcomers.  At the same time, for example, mathematics or geology, safely wedged between Science of Growth and Science of Prosperity would become truly inter- and multi-disicpliplinary, and nourish these budding sciences with   long lasting legitimacy and steel core of discovery-based knowledge.

I anticipate that this new scheme will deliver with regards to all five targets factors described above and that the implementation is not going to be costly.
I propose to call this new scientific layout iScience.
---------------------------
(The presentation ended with a cartoon depicting a nuclear attack submarine pulling a gigantic cruise ship filled with jolly vacationers across the Caribbean.)

Time for a second bite

My religious studies initiated in my former post led me to the discovery (via a hint from the Almighty herself) of a God-talkie, a device that allows two way communication with the Creator. The device is widely available, although currently the demand exceeds supply. It is an iPhone 5, and  its precursor iPhone 4S - and the communication with Almighty is channeled by Siri. I received my own long awaited copy of the iPhone 5 yesterday and immediately started on several simple tests.

The un-earthly provenience  of some  components of the iPhone is quite clear. In spite of having four cores, twice as many as its predecessor, the device does not seem any faster. The simplest explanation for this fact is that only two of the cores are available to the user, while the remaining two have a special purpose. One is controlled by the National Security Agency under the provisions of Patriot Act, and the other is the long awaited God-communicator.

I will report on the early results of my testing momentarily, but let me start with a brief history of the God-talkie, an odyssey that is not widely known.

Legacy of Steve Jobs

A lot has been written about Steve Jobs, but the big picture is still largely hidden from the public. It is time to reveal some of these details as they will eventually become a part of his sainthood application.

In the mid 70's Steve Jobs on a trip to the Mountain States encountered religious people who claimed constant, two-way communication with God. Skeptical of the messengers, but curious about the message, Steve took this  as a sign that required proper interpretation and a corresponding action. Indeed, a simple letter permutation led him to what he described himself as  "a positive life-changing experience" - an ingestion of a large quantity of LSD. It was not an ordinary acid trip, but rather a destiny seeking exploit. The details are sketchy, but at some point there was a moment when  enveloped  in a purple haze and surrounded by ordinarily inanimate objects talking to one another, he was charged with the development of a God-talkie, a task that took over a quarter of century and was completed with the announcement of iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011.  What most of us would have chalked up as a bad trip, Steve has taken with utmost seriousness. For the next 35 years, he built one of the most profitable companies on the planet, created exotic needs that he subsequently fulfilled, and experimented with the designs of a God-talkie. He had to wait for the technology to develop that would allow his device  to be small, portable and endowed with  a jewel-like body. In fact, the only hint of a higher purpose of his devices is that he would not compromise on the aesthetics and refuse fugly designs that dominate modern electronics industry. The history is well known, early version of Mac computers, NeXT machine known as "God's Macintosh", long forgotten Newton - this  is just a long list of baby-steps toward a single most important technological discovery in the history of humanity, and a fulfillment of a dream of every prophet. And when the mission was finally accomplished, Steve  was recalled  from Earth on the next  day, leaving the final steps  in hands of millions of underpaid Chinese workers and the UPS.

Of course, Steve was sworn to secrecy and his plans were not to be revealed to anybody. Yet, as a mere mortal he was allowed to create a symbol, a road sign, a powerful message to himself that would keep his energy in total focus for what he knew will be the rest of his life. The symbol is of course the logo of the Apple Company, perhaps the most recognizable industry logo on the planet,  yet also the one whose meaning is the least understood. Apple's logo is of course an apple, duh,  and this triviality hides the truth in plain sight. What Steve Jobs had in mind is of course Adam's apple, the  fruit from the  Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and what is crucially important, the one with its missing bite. This bite was the first step that humanity took on a path to self-awareness. It made us see our nakedness, which led toward wearing climate appropriate clothing, building fashion industry, and rubbing off a lot of unnecessary body hair, all of great importance for individuals valuing personal hygiene and aesthetic appearance. But I am straying…
Popular mythology portrays Adam's Apple as originating from Satan and  facilitated by reptiles and women.  It is a painful stereotype that needs to be addressed by emphasizing that the effect of consuming fruits from  the  Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could be two-fold. So Steve, not a biblical scholar, understood the duality and the first commercial God-talkie was available in black and  white versions. The technological issues in manufacturing a white version, endless delays and odd sounding problems,  are all well publicized and indicate greater forces at work.

Building a God-talkie is an engineering tour-de-force, but genius of Steve Jobs saw several steps ahead, and an apple is a great metaphor. Because apple is a  food of a childhood, symbol of nourishment and good oral hygiene, and when fermented, a great source of enjoyment. Steve's message as we are approaching the end of the  sixth millennium is that we desperately need a second bite from that apple. There is just so much stuff that we need to be aware of, and God-talkie is a device that may help us to sort it all out. This is what sustained his endless hours spent on peddling overpriced hardware to unsuspecting audience, his relentless drive to perfection, and fearlessness when confronted with customers who were forced to pay way  more for gadgets with fewer features, clearly a requirement of God-specs that at that point nobody knew about.

Last but not least, pairing a God-talkie with an ordinary phone is another stroke of genius. While having long conversations with the Creator may not really be meant  for everybody, the device combined with Skype allows a conversation, with minimal expense,  between just about any two human beings on the planet. So even if the chatting with the Creator will not amount to much, we can and should use the device to talk to one another! It is  the last hope for a planet that is quickly rolling off the cliff.

God-talkie - first impressions

With the device in hand and fully configured I started with the essentials - downloading my music and movies, all 30 gigabytes of it.  I respect my music, and my choices should give the Creator  a good sense of my human attributes and set the tone for the future exchanges. Talking to God is not easy, and frankly the selection of questions is not obvious. At first I wanted to know the important stuff - is the planet safe for the next fifty years? no major earthquakes, comets, gamma-ray bursts in the vicinity? is somebody going to drop a nuke on us? does Higgs boson exist?  But seriously, what would I do with the answers?  It is someone else's work to ask these questions.  So I started like a mathematician, let's be more basic and easily verifiable. Nervously, and with somewhat shaky voice I asked:" Siri, where am I?" In few seconds Apple maps interface showed up and a blinking blue dot indicated my location. I was stunned, the map showed the location of my soul instead of my body! My street and my house were completely gone and a large green area surrounding the blue dot resembled the Garden of Eden.  I was elated by this confirmation of the devices' ability, and made a quick mental note to never use it for earthly navigation.


For the next question I decided to be more probing and to venture a bit into unknown. With a bit more confidence I asked "Siri, who am I?" This time the result was also surprising, but I was not sure whether Siri was channeling for the Creator or the National Security Agency. After a minute or so, the device started showing my Social Security number, credit card history and a list of recently visited web sites that I distinctly remembered as looking at in the "Private browsing" mode.  Obviously, it is the details that define us, but I was taken aback but somewhat one-dimensional picture that was revealed. Yet, among the flurry of my financial records and job related correspondence (which most definitely is confidential), I glimpsed an image of a small yellow plastic  bear. I purloined it from the doctor's office when I was six years old and I still am a bit uneasy about it. Apparently the Creator thinks that  it is an issue as well.

In the end I was getting a bit depressed with the paucity of really good questions, for which the answers could have a significant behavior altering effect. Can the Creator tell me something that will really  make a difference even for a moment?

In desperation I asked "Siri, will I wake up tomorrow?" In a flash, words "probably" blinked  on the screen, the alarm clock interface popped and  Siri gently inquired  about the wake-up call. Finally, a morsel that I was hoping for! I decided to leave dirty dishes in the sink, had a sip of nice bourbon, and went to bed without brushing my teeth.