Collective spin modes in ultracold atoms
Physicists created a Bose-Einstein condensate of chromium atoms, ensured the atomic spins were each aligned 90º to the condensate's plane, applied a magnetic field gradient and separated the atoms…
What it means to be green
The News Minute, July 6, 2018: Terracotta handicrafts and vessels, bamboo trinkets, organic grains, herbs and pulses up for sale. Children running around playing with natural stick and wheel toys mad…
A fantastic helipad
Good fantasy fiction – rather simply fantasy fiction – is defined not by a freewheeling re-imagination of reality but one that is re-imagined as much as contained in a self-consistent, coherent and su…
House-hunting
I've been in Delhi for three days, and for the last two of which I've been house-hunting and then buried in office work. While I was trawling through dozens of Facebook posts and items on Magi…
Errata
I've made two mistakes – both concerning Orson Scott Card's quadrology and both nominal – in today's post, and which I have now rectified. I ask that you revisit/refresh that post to read…
A nightmare à la Card
I've missed writing my posts for three days straight. 🙈 I don't know about you but I've certainly let myself down. I have a trove of excuses but I'm sure none of them qualify. Today…
Unto the canopy termini
In the middle of a conversation this morning, my friend wondered aloud as to whether there were any advantages to teaching history forward in time (i.e. with causality) instead of backward. Neither of…
AI beat humans at DotA but the game was rigged
I started writing this as today's post but at some point it morphed into an article for The Wire, to be published tomorrow morning. Sharing it here in full nonetheless. Earlier this week, a team…
Specificity and incompleteness
These days, I can't remember either the good news or the bad news. When someone talks about the good news – likely a centrist or someone who hasn't thought their political views through – I no…
A dull review
There's a new book by Alan Lightman out, titled Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine. Irrespective of others' appreciation of it, I expect to find the book preposterously dull if Michael…
For solitude
Climate change is gradually turning the abundance of space into privilege, at least if it already wasn't before. In a warmer world, in which we will surely prize the efficient use of resources, p…
No rest for tall people
Yesterday, I travelled first class in the Shatabdi Express, from Chennai to Bengaluru. I'd been looking forward to the journey because of the extra legspace in the offing, and the ability to sit i…