Inference

New: In the mid-1980s, an enigmatic document began circulating in French mathematical circles. Entitled Récoltes et Semailles, it was a lengthy, philosophical and deeply personal tract from the elusive mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, by then living in self-imposed seclusion. Now published officially for the first time, Pierre Schapira casts a critical eye over the book and some notable omissions.

(Essay available in both English and the original French.)

A Truncated Manuscript | Pierre Schapira | Inference In the mid-1980s, an enigmatic document began circulating in French mathematical circles. Entitled Récoltes et Semailles, it was a lengthy, philosophical and deeply personal tract from the elusive mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, by then living in self-imposed seclusion. Now published official...

As the end of the year approaches, the editors are delighted to present our second annual review, highlighting the essays that best represent our aims, ambitions, attitudes, and even our animadversions. Collected here are some notable essays we published this year, some illuminating exchanges from our letters section, and a selection of our favorite links from The Rambler.

Wishing our readers, contributors, and followers all the very best for the new year ahead.

2022: The Year in Review | The Editors | Inference As the end of the year approaches, the editors are delighted to present our second annual review, highlighting the essays that best represent our aims, ambitions, attitudes, and even our animadversions. Collected here are some notable essays we published this year, some illuminating exchanges from o...

New: A decisive breakthrough in fusion power or another incremental, yet significant, step towards a clean energy future? Daniel Jassby weighs up the latest milestone in fusion research achieved at the National Ignition Facility. https://inference-review.com/article/on-the-laser-fusion-milestone

Python is arguably the most popular programming language worldwide. Since its debut in 1991, Python’s accessibility and rich functionality has helped it gather a huge userbase. Its design was influenced by creator Guido van Rossum’s involvement with an earlier language, ABC. Lambert Meertens, one of ABC’s developers, recounts Python’s origins and how ABC’s design philosophy shaped its successor. https://inference-review.com/article/the-origins-of-python

New: From Douglas Hofstadter, a sweetish suite of machine translations of a pseudo-Swedish paragraph. The resulting gobbledygook reveals the zombie-like nature of these highly vaunted programs. https://inference-review.com/article/wacky-jabber

The first images from the James Webb Space Telescope are now just a few days away. Casey Papovich, an astronomer who will using data in his research, explains how is poised to answer deep questions about the nature of planets and the formation of the first galaxies.

A First Year of Discovery | Casey Papovich | Inference The first images from the largest and most advanced orbiting optical observatory to date—NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope—will be released on July 12. As one of the scientists who will be using the Webb, Casey Papovich examines how it may help answer deep questions about the nature of exoplan...

Bacterial motility is powered by the rotation of its filaments, or flagella. Over the past fifty years, imaging advances have allowed the piecing together of the flagellar motor’s organization.

Bacterial Swimming | Nicholas Taylor | Inference Bacterial motility is powered by the rotation of its filaments, or flagella. Each flagellar motor is made up of a long filament, connected to a basal body embedded in the bacterial cell envelope. Over the past fifty years, advances in electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography, together with gene...

Origin of life research is in trouble. Laboratory conditions cannot replicate prebiotic scenarios, meaning studies that purport to explain the emergence of life in fact explain nothing at all.

A Storm in a Primordial Teacup | A Storm in a Primordial Teacup | Inference Origin of life research is in trouble. Laboratory conditions cannot replicate prebiotic scenarios, meaning studies that purport to explain the emergence of life in fact explain nothing at all.

Were conscious perception updated only twice per second, as some claim, decisions would be made during an unconscious processing stage, meaning our free will might just be an illusion.

Long Thoughts | Rufin VanRullen | Inference Consciousness is formed in discrete windows of perception, yet the exact length of these windows remains debated. Michael Herzog et al. claim that consciousness is updated just twice per second. Should this be the case, decisions would take place during an unconscious processing stage, meaning our f...

The Antikythera mechanism, an astronomical calculator found in a first-century BCE shipwreck, has proven to be mechanically more sophisticated than anything known from the subsequent millennium.

A Mirror of Nature | Mike Edmunds | Inference The Antikythera mechanism, an astronomical calculator found in a first-century BCE shipwreck, has proven to be mechanically more sophisticated than anything known from the subsequent millennium. Yet rather than being an anachronism, the mechanism testifies to the reality of such complex machines in....

Prior to 2018, the standard for the kilogram was a platinum alloy cylinder created in 1889 and stored in Paris. In this note, Jeremy Bernstein explains how the kilogram is now defined using fundamental constants.

The Kilogram | Jeremy Bernstein | Inference Prior to 2018, the standard for the kilogram was a platinum alloy cylinder created in 1889 and stored in Paris. Over the years, the cylinder lost about 50 micrograms of mass by surface ablation. That original kilogram is not what it once was—albeit only fractionally. In this note, Jeremy Bernstein...

In Imperial Science, Bruce Hunt details how the desire for quick communications across the British Empire, drove progress in the physical sciences towards a theory of the electromagnetic field. Read the book review by David Kordahl.

Agents in the Ether | David Kordahl | Inference In the late nineteenth century, research in electromagnetism became intertwined with the Victorian British Empire’s ambitions to install a global network of submarine telegraph cables. In Imperial Science, Bruce Hunt details how the desire for quick communications from London to Egypt, and then on...

How close are we to viable nuclear fusion energy? In a new essay for Inference, Daniel Jassby concludes that commercialized fusion energy “is likely unachievable anytime in the next half a century.” https://inference-review.com/article/the-quest-for-fusion-energy

In a new letter, historian of science Neeraja Sankaran responds approvingly to a glowing review of her latest book A Tale of Two Viruses. It’s all in the details.

All in the Details | All in the Details | Inference Peyton Rous’s reactions to his various colleagues offer a glimpse of the personality behind the scientist—and serve as a perfect example of the vital role archives play in the craft of history.

More than most laymen, physicists are floored by the idea of the Big Bang. They are confounded also by the structures that govern the resulting universe. They know too much not to feel mystified.

Before Before | Stanley Deser | Inference

Despite repeated claims that the prospects for commercialization have never looked brighter, the stark reality is that practical fusion-based electric power remains a very distant prospect.

The Quest for Fusion Energy | Daniel Jassby | Inference In recent years, a steady flow of press releases from nuclear fusion research projects have hailed breakthrough advances and new record yields. Despite repeated claims that the prospects for commercialization have never looked brighter, the stark reality is that practical fusion-based electric power...

Aux yeux des mathématiciens, il est comparable à Einstein. Pierre Cartier, ancien collègue de Grothendieck, propose l’éloge franc et rationnel de l’homme et de son œuvre.

Un pays dont on ne connaîtrait que le nom | Pierre Cartier | Inference Aux yeux des mathématiciens, il est comparable à Einstein. Aux yeux des profanes, il n’évoque que ragots et commisération. Des profondeurs de l’exil qu’il s’est imposé, Grothendieck a transmis à ses pairs son introspection, Récoltes et Semailles. Pierre Cartier, son ancien collègue e...

Among mathematicians, he is likened to Einstein. Among others, he evokes gossip and pity. From the depths of his self-imposed isolation, Alexander Grothendieck has sent us a vast, introspective work: Récoltes et Semailles (Crops and Seeds). Read this biography by his friend and colleague Pierre Cartier.

A Country Known Only by Name | Pierre Cartier | Inference Among mathematicians, he is likened to Einstein. Among others, he evokes gossip and pity. From the depths of his self-imposed isolation, Alexander Grothendieck has sent us a vast, introspective work: Crops and Seeds. Mathematician Pierre Cartier, one of Grothendieck’s colleagues, offers a rational...

"Rawlinson’s notebooks trace his struggle. The cuneiform symbols themselves appear faintly at first, traced in pencil, then written over in pen, one symbol at a time, as Rawlinson became more confident of their shapes." —Edmund Richardson

The Riddle of the Mountain | Edmund Richardson | Inference For almost 2,000 years, the Behistun Inscription lay unread. Carved into the cliffs of western Iran and written in cuneiform, the inscription had “baffled for centuries the most learned men in Europe” until Henry Rawlinson, a British army officer, set about solving it. The riddle of Behistun is ...

Lawrence Krauss’s The Physics of Climate Change is an accurate portrayal of modern climate science, says David Romps. There are, however, a few quibbles to be had with Robert Socolow’s review.

Perspective Is Everything | Perspective Is Everything | Inference

For almost 2,000 years, the Behistun Inscription lay unread. Written in cuneiform, the inscription had “baffled for centuries the most learned men” until Henry Rawlinson set his mind to solving it. Read Edmund Richardson's essay for Inference.

The Riddle of the Mountain | Edmund Richardson | Inference For almost 2,000 years, the Behistun Inscription lay unread. Carved into the cliffs of western Iran and written in cuneiform, the inscription had “baffled for centuries the most learned men in Europe” until Henry Rawlinson, a British former army officer, set about solving it. The riddle of Behis...

"AI, whether of the machine-learning variety Garfinkle fears or of the more powerful logic-based type, is simply another class of weapons. For espionage, it is perhaps now the most potent class there is." —Bringsjord, Bringsjord, and Govindarajulu.

Deep Detectives | Deep Detectives | Inference Machine learning is incapable of generating the kind of subterfuge that a human mind can. It is the human mind that can harness this new technology to nefarious ends that should be feared.

A fascinating possibility exists for exotic quantum statistics to interpolate between the familiar cases of bosons and fermions: the anyon, observed in two dimensions. But how does it behave in one? Martin Greiter tackles this question in his letter.

Anyons in One Dimension | Anyons in One Dimension | Inference A fascinating possibility exists for exotic quantum statistics to interpolate between the familiar cases of bosons and fermions: the anyon, observed in two dimensions. But how does it behave in one?

Wilson’s life was an astounding journey from a child collecting snakes and ants, to a top-ranking academic biologist, to one of the best-known public champions of nature. He died late in 2021.

Memories of E. O. Wilson | Walter Tschinkel | Inference E. O. Wilson brought myrmecology, the study of ants, to public attention, and in doing so was a voice for conservation. When he died late in 2021, the world lost a productive scientist and an inspiring human being. His life was an astounding journey from a child collecting snakes and ants, to a top-...

The conflict in Ukraine bears some resemblance to the period between 1918 and 1921, when national populist agendas plunged the multicultural societies of Eastern and Central Europe into civil war.

Conflicts Separated by a Century | Conflicts Separated by a Century | Inference After World War One, national populist agendas plunged Eastern and Central Europe into civil war. Robert Blobaum can see similarities to this period of history in the current conflict in Ukraine.

Twentieth century research into bacteriophages and sarcoma agents radically reshaped what virologists thought they knew, and laid the foundations for our current understanding of viruses. Raghavendra Gadagkar reviews Neeraja Sankaran’s book, A Tale of Two Viruses.

Parallel Histories | Raghavendra Gadagkar | Inference In A Tale of Two Viruses, Neeraja Sankaran traces the parallel histories of two groups of viruses: bacteriophages, which infect bacteria, and sarcoma agents, which cause cancer. Research into these two distinct groups proved to radically reshape what scientists thought they knew, and lay the foundat...

A note from Sheldon Lee Glashow in response to the latest findings announced by the Collider Detector at Fermilab Collaboration.

Is the standard model of cosmology wrong? Subir Sarkar claims that long held assumptions in cosmology are no longer tenable in light of recent data, calling into question the inference that the universe is dominated by a cosmological constant.

Heart of Darkness | Subir Sarkar | Inference Is the standard model of cosmology wrong? Subir Sarkar argues that the discovery of dark energy, the basis of widely accepted models, was simply an accident waiting to happen. He claims that long-held assumptions are no longer tenable in light of recent data—data that undermines the inference that...

In The Dawn of Everything, speculative archaeology meets a personal advocacy of anarchy, and the result is “a new history of humanity.” Welcome anarchaeology. Read David Graeber and David Wengrow's book review by Lawrence Rosen.

Anarchaeology | Lawrence Rosen | Inference In The Dawn of Everything, speculative archaeology meets a personal advocacy of anarchy. The result is “a new history of humanity”—anarchaeology. The exercise merely proves that humans will always seek, in our rage for meaning, to reassemble the scattered remnants of our past into a story. In ...

Thousands of Russian scientists have signed an open letter protesting the war against Ukraine. By so doing, they have put themselves at great risk. We at Inference share their sentiments and are proud to share their open letter, in Russian and in English.

On the War in Ukraine | Inference Thousands of Russian scientists and science writers have signed an open letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin. They strongly protest the war Putin has launched against Ukraine. By so doing, these scientists and journalists have put themselves at great risk.