One Must Imagine

“I miss you more than I remember you.” — Ocean Vuong

ASCIT Meeting

I went to an ASCIT board meeting on Nov 12, and learned many interesting things:

• PMA department suggested in-person tests (definitely won’t pass)
• Bureaucracy is highly inefficient (too many ways to count)
• Student organizations with no faculty are remarkably weak, and those with faculty are sometimes dominated by them
• ARC has a detailed tutorial on how to email profs for summer research

Caltech’s ARC ¹

At Nov 19’s ARC meeting, I learned that the same issues have existed in this institution for years, perhaps since the beginning. I was reminded of the quote, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” which I learned this summer. Anyway, here are a few of the main points:

1. Bad teaching/lecturing, which was a common theme in both meetings.
2. Late grading/feedback for homework.
3. Undercredited courses, most courses have way more units/weekly hours than are given for taking them.

Kip Thorne Again

On the 13th, Kip Thorne and Lia Halloran had a book talk in Beckman Auditorium about their newest book, The Warped Side of Our Universe. It’s a poetry + physics + art book which is a very interesting format that is only possible when two very different people come together.

I was able to get a signed copy, which I will read first and then give to DMO. He actually got into astronomy in undergrad because he read Kip Thorne’s other book Black Holes and Time Warps. So, I’m sure that he will love the signed book (it will be a surprise).

LIGO to the polls!

I’ve been to two LIGO talks by Lee McCuller, who focuses on using squeezing to process the signals from LIGO more precisely. It’s very interesting work that that requires a lot of effort for small improvement. I still don’t really understand it, maybe I will understand it if I go to two more LIGO talks.

Symbolic regression, symbolic regression everywhere

For some reason, research related to what I looked into last summer keeps showing up in the talks I go to. Currently in quantum computing, there is a lot of conversion of classical mechanics problems to quantum mechanics problems and then solving in the quantum computer.

In a talk by Robin Kothari from Google’s Quantum AI, he described balls and springs systems which can be exponentially sped up by using quantum computing. There is a very interesting conversion of Hooke’s Law to Schrodinger’s equation with some clever matrix algebra. He said that he and the group found this example by literally just writing a bunch of differential equations on the board and then seeing which ones can be turned into a quantum format. It turns out that a harmonic oscillator is the same thing as the Schrodinger equation!

Applying to the 3-D particle physics case, I wonder if it would be useful to slightly change and apply the analogy of springs to make faster simulations?

I always wonder if there is any value in applying symbolic regression to problems to find some closed-form equations. Yisong Yue is working on something similar to symbolic regression, but in a smarter way that includes domain knowledge from experts. For example, to find out whether two mice are sniffing each other in a video, it’s possible to track their noses and bodies and then calculate the distance between the nose of one and the body of another. Then, using an if-statement and some distance threshold, a simple equation to classify the behavior can be written.

Arty-ficial Intelligence

Someone from an AI + art startup came to give a talk and it was way too vague, there was no vision. There were all these flowcharts but the actual substance was not there.

They are trying to create a platform for anyone to create a custom VR experience, but there was no mention of how it would work, how easy it is to use, how much power the user gets, or how AI is used in the platform.

Freeskating

I’ve been learning how to freeskate for a week now, practicing for a few minutes every day. On the first two days, I could barely get on the skates, falling off after about 2 meters. On the third day, I was able to travel 20 meters.

Now, I’m still figuring out how to pump, which is the method of speeding up without being on an incline. It seems to require a lot of control and I will definitely need to practice more to figure it out. It’s embarrassing to keep falling off at first, but it’s always about seeing improvement and not caring what others think.

Right now, I can go all the way down the ramp in front of Browne/Page and end up at the western door of Fleming.

However, I must note that losing balance can easily lead to sprained ankles. I luckily escaped a serious spraining and was good after about two days, but when going at high speed, definitely don’t try any tricks at first.

Putting on the LBs

Old pictures of me showed that my face was relatively fat from 2021 August to 2023 July. I think I may have been eating too well or a poor diet, I’m not sure, or maybe I wasn’t exercising. It’s probably the latter because I was not doing much cardio at that time.

A month before coming and two weeks before coming, I saw that I lost around 5 kg and was looking more healthy. However, last week, I weighed myself again, and found I had gone up by 5 kg. Such a great math TA, demonstrating an application of the additive identity ².

I have a lot of free time so I’m exercising more (I go to the gym five days a week) but I’m also gaining more weight. I think a portion of the problem is that when I exercise I want to eat more, and I end up overeating. Back home, I almost never ate dessert, but it’s so easy to eat sugar and fat here. It’s also very hard to eat vegetables because they taste horrible compared to my mom’s cooking.

“You only miss the sun

when it starts to snow,” as Passenger said.

My father told me when I was just a child ³, “Your mom’s cooking is actually very good.” I didn’t believe it until I visited other people’s houses. Yeah, it’s true.

My mom has always bought horrendous vegetables from the Asian supermarkets because they are healthy. In order to make me and my siblings eat it, she phrased it as a mission. So, whenever one of us wouldn’t eat our vegetables, we would refer to it as mom’s orders. This divide-and-conquer method worked very well until I one day realized that some siblings are more equal than others ⁴, and that I must eat more.

Lemme cook

So, I made some stir-friend egg and tomato + rice (a Chinese comfort food) myself and shared with my friends. The rice was really dry because not enough water was added and also the rice was a drier variety. Is that the correct adjective? Isn’t drier also the machine? Oh, dryer is the machine.

My cooking was on point though, it tastes just like I remember (it’s kind of hard to mess up the dish), though I could have added more water.

Anyway, I did this a week ago so the eggs might have gone bad if I didn’t put them in the fridge. Otherwise, I should probably use them soon.

Delicious!

J’s Malevolent Kitchen ⁵

J said that to prepare for what he expected to be horrendous food from Caltech Dining Service (CDS), he ate three boiled eggs for breakfast every morning to adapt to flavorless food. It seems strange, but he says that he wants to enjoy his time here, so he will enjoy other aspects of life back home while he eats bad food, and then enjoy the food here.

Doesn’t make much sense to me since I think the food here is pretty good, but maybe I’ll get tired of the same three sandwiches after a year or two.

I heard that UCLA has a new dish every week, which made me really jealous until I realized that I don’t want to be there.

Fallin’ on my head

Rained a lot for the first time in a long time. It made me nostalgic for the rain back home.

Also, I found that the Spotify playlist I made with my friend now has a bit more double the songs from when I started two months ago.

Self-image

Everyone views themselves differently; some are narcissists and others hate themselves. Of course, it’s good to be in the middle. I think I am pretty close to the middle, maybe more on the narcissist side.

Self-awareness is the condition for proper self-love. Applying that, I will try to minimize my trash intake (note: still working on it).

“Happiness” by Carl Sandburg

Money is not so important to happiness above a certain point, but human relationships are. As Carl Sandburg put it in 1912, the answer is not success in society:

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness. And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men. They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

“the professors…”

However, there have also been studies done which reveal that relationships are more important than money.

However, this information is not easy to apply, since the idea of monetary success and happiness are so ingrained in society and form our personal biases. Perhaps the only way is to first append the value of relationships onto money rather than try to replace it immediately.

Le Festin

This weekend was Avery House’s Ratatouille-themed Interhouse Party, Ratatouvery, which actually required a lot of effort to put together: painting, building, cooking, etc.

T was the DJ for the first half and he actually had some really nice transitions, which I know he was working on. He actually says that he became “half-deaf” by the end because of the rumbling from behind the speakers. Also, he didn’t want to turn down the volume because that would kill the mood, which is understandable.

Note: I’m realizing that the people I’m referring to with initials are very obvious to other classmates, so I won’t use any identifier for those who might not want others to know.

Man with a Guitar

One of my friends worked very hard on the massive murals, perhaps too hard. They get very obsessed over work-related responsibilities to the point of not eating or sleeping. All of their friends are very concerned, as they should be, and have to come up with reasons to serve as distractions from work.

For people with this kind of personality who also don’t have many friends, it can be easy to continue these unhealthy habits. It’s actually a major reason for why people need each other: to call each other out.

毒药

I witnessed someone who drank so much they had a headache and needed serious medical attention.

It’s like being a child lost in a store, completely helpless. It’s like eating a banana and a massive calzone the size of your face from the school cafeteria and then throwing up a few hours later. It’s like being on a bus snaking its way up a mountain on a poorly maintained road.

It was strange to see someone at their lowest point, perhaps in their entire life. I thought, “Oh, this is how bad it gets.” I didn’t really feel bad because I knew something similar will happen to me eventually, or maybe it already did. So, I could definitely see a portion of the worst part of me right there in front of me, which might have been what was so strange about it.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever witnessed a highlight of anyone’s life, since they are all still alive (luckily). Isn’t it a bit early for that? Although, if it’s relative to the present, maybe.

Obviously

Everyone also views their environment differently. For example, someone might be oblivious to the trash on their desk or germs on their hands, while others might go crazy about it. In my eyes, when I see something important, it pops out to me, usually a pattern I recognize.

When I was learning freeskating yesterday with A, he made sure to clear the road of all leaves, which was very interesting. It must be something that pops out to him, perhaps because leaves have gotten stuck in the wheels before?

Stonks

Some of the stocks I bought have gone up recently, such as Uber and AMD. Uber went up by 20% somehow. Retrospectively, I wish I bought more of it.

My theory on why Uber is a good stock to buy is because the concept of the company itself is directly benefitting from societal changes in the youth:

• Less and less people know how to drive, and are learning to drive later (I don’t really have data, only anecdotes), so they will rely on Uber/Lyft.
• Less and less people know how to cook, and are relying on food delivery services instead (No data needed).
• I have personally experienced the crazy discounts that Uber Eats provides for new customers that definitely hook people in.

Limit and Market Orders

When you buy using a broker-dealer like Robinhood, there are limit and market orders which are sent in when a stock is bought or sold. By using a market order, the trade goes through with the instantaneous price.

There is a buy limit order and a sell limit order. The buy limit order buys when the price goes below some price threshold and a sell limit order is the opposite.

Footnotes

1. Reference to Noah’s Ark. ↩

2. x + (-x) = 0 ↩

3. “The Nights” by Avicii ↩

4. Reference to Animal Farm. ↩

5. Sukuna’s domain expansion. ↩