This is giving me ideas for pre-interview tests. Instead of internet search and time restrictions, ask meta questions. How long do you think it will take you to solve this question? Then, later, ask: Why did it take you so much longer?
Allow them to freely use the internet during the test, but then later ask: You switched tabs/windows 23 times during the last question. Please provide an explanation of what you were doing.
I wonder if these are useful/sensible questions.
Another interesting idea: collaborative exam (via @simblysimple)
What the hell?! This is the most insane science I've heard of.
In this procedure, surgeons remove a patient's tooth+bone, drill a hole in it and put a lens, and then they IMPLANT THE TOOTH IN THE PATIENT'S CORNEA!?
What?!
The more I looked into this, the more insane it is. 🧵
Is this some bizarre evil scientist Nazi experiment? Nope. It's a procedure invented in the 1960s and is performed every year in several locations around the world.
Including Sankara Nethralaya in India. 🧵
Why the hell are they putting a tooth in someone's eye?!
There are patients where normal corneal transplants fail (repeatedly) because the patient's immune system rejects the transplanted cornea.
This is rare, but in such cases, a tooth is the only thing that works well. 🧵
Tall Quantum Claims: Microsoft has a breathless (but difficult to understand) press release about a new quantum computing chip which makes it appear as though they've solved Quantum Computing. This isn't true, but the science of the claims is fascinating 🧵
We don't know for sure if Microsoft have (so far) invented a new type of material (topoconductor) which allows a new type of qubit (Majorana zero modes) that could revolutionize QC. But let me give a high-level explanation of what's being claimed and why it could be a big deal 🧵
This is a rather complex topic: I'll have to explain bits, qubits, why error correction is so important in qubits, Majorana particles and how qubits based on them help with the error correction problem 🧵
I recently found out that Akbar's wife, popularly (but mistakenly) known as Jodhabai, was an accomplished international trader and her business problems possibly resulted in changing the fate of India: ensuring the British colonized India instead of Portugal 1/36
So, this is the story of how a Hindu queen's Muslim ship, carrying Hajj pilgrims in Christian waters patrolled by the Portuguese armada resulted in changing the course of Indian History. (Sorry can't find the original source of for this wonderful sentence) 2/36
But first, what do I mean by "mistakenly known as Jodhabai"?
The name of Akbar's wife, mother of Salim (aka Jahangir), was not Jodhabai. Women of the Mughal harem were referred to by their birth place (or place where they were "first viewed with affection by the Emperor") 3/36
Who are Indians descended from? Aryans from Europe? Dravidians who've been "here" forever? The Indus valley civilization?
A controversial question for 150+ years, but now we have DNA evidence that answers these questions with a high degree of certainty.
🧵
The controversy originated with the (now discredited) "Aryan Invasion Theory" which began as a respectable theory of how Indian, European, and Persian languages all have a common ancestry: but was quickly adopted by racist white Europeans
It started in late 17xx when William Jones, a linguistic scholar, was appointed a judge of the Bengal Supreme Court. He came to India and noticed striking the similarities between Sanskrit, Persian, Gothic, Greek, Latin.
Devanagari is an extremely elegant script. But this was never explained to us in school.
A thread on the awesomeness that is devanagari.
Let's start with the things that my teachers did *not* teach me in school:
Why do both श and ष exist? (The difference in pronunciation was never explained) Why do ङ and ञ exist?
What is ऋ? Is it pronounced “ri” or “ru”, and in any case, why does it even exist if री and रु exist?
Much later in life, when I understood the meaning of the rows and columns in Devanagari, everything fell into place and I saw the beauty and elegance of it all.
Ever wondered why "sin" (of trigonometry) is called "sin"? Today, I decided to find out, and the history is fascinating. It comes from the Sanskrit word for bowstring which somehow got translated to the Latin word for the "pallu" of a toga.
Follow me down this rabbit hole 🧵
Let's start with this wonderful image I received from a friend on WhatsApp (source unknown). Here, you can clearly see why "tan" is called "tan". But what about "sin"?
If you think of the solid yellow arc as a bow, then the solid blue line (sine) is the bowstring 🧵
jīvá (जीवा) the Sanskrit word for bowstring is the name given to sin by Aryabhata the inventor¹ of the sine and cosine functions.
How do you get from there to a toga? A series of interesting accidents