DJ

The Statistics of Recipes

2014-01-20T00:00:00-00:00

This project started with a riddle:

“Can you think of three foods for which each pair tastes good together, but the combination of all three does not?”

If you’re stumped, don’t feel bad - I’ve never heard a good example. (Though the most entertaining, rumored to have originated with a student at UC-Berkeley, is “a shot of tequila, a shot of tequila, a shot of tequila.”)

Subjectivity in what “tastes good” aside, this riddle begs the question: can you construct recipes simply by combining ingredients that taste good as pairs? Or do you need to consider three, four, or more ingredients at once? Does this vary by recipe type? By culture?

Perhaps surprisingly, these questions can be formalized in a rigorous, quantitative way. Using the framework of maximum entropy modeling, we can ask how much of the information contained in the distribution of recipes is accounted for by pairwise interactions alone, and how much depends on triplet, quadruplet, or higher order interactions. Using a database containing over 50,000 recipes (and over 300 ingredients), we are attempting to answer these questions, as well as predict new recipes.

With: Ari Strandberg-Peshkin & Kelsi Lindblad

This project description was adapted from one by Ari Strandberg-Peshkin.

The Statistics of Recipes was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on January 20, 2014.

More Advice for Future Churchill Scholars (and Other Cambridge Students)

2012-10-20T00:00:00-00:00

Go to at least one May Ball. If you can, go to one of the two most lavish (Trinity or St. John’s). I’m no fan of pomp and circumstance or throwing down a couple hundred pounds on a party, but there is nothing quite like enjoying an all-night festival of fireworks, food, music, punting, and games, all with many good friends and in the spectacular setting of a Cambridge college courtyard. If you truly can’t afford it, volunteer to work during one of them, as volunteers often get free (or at least reduced) tickets (watch your email for the call for applications).

Go to several garden parties. Almost every club or other organized body of students will hold one. Some are free, others cost money, but the distinctly British tradition is good fun. Especially if it’s not raining.

If your department offers it, consider supervising undergraduates. It can be a fun way to get a glimpse into the undergraduate educational experience at Cambridge, practice teaching, meet some undergrads, and make some extra money. The pay is quite good (and even better for larger groups of students) but beware that you will get a separate check from each college to which the students belong.

Go to Edinburgh. With its beautiful architecture and green spaces, many excellent cafes and restaurants, and rich history, it has something for everyone. Moreover, it’s just a train ride away from Cambridge and the tickets are quite reasonable (£30?) if purchased in advance.

If you enjoy hiking, go to Snowdonia in Wales, the Lake District in England, and anything in Scotland, particularly in the early fall or late spring/summer. Be prepared for awful weather… and be thankful if it doesn’t arrive.

Take visiting friends to formal dinners, especially at one of the nicer (sorry, Churchill) dining halls (e.g. Trinity). Most find it a very unique and memorable experience.

This post is adapted from a final report I submitted to the Churchill Foundation - the sponsor whose generosity is allowing me to spend one year at the University of Cambridge. It was written in September 2012.

More Advice for Future Churchill Scholars (and Other Cambridge Students) was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on October 20, 2012.

Dispatch from England - Part V

2012-10-19T00:00:00-00:00

The Pepperpots offer the most consistency in good living – large rooms, private bathrooms, and spacious and modern kitchen and living rooms. The size and quality of the bedrooms and kitchens in the hostels are more variable, while private bathrooms are, to my knowledge, not available. Most also do not, I think, have living rooms. The advantage of the hostels is that they are far more charming from the outside, several have vast backyards with fruit trees and gardens, and the rent ranges from slightly to considerably cheaper (depending on room size). However, I certainly do not seem to be running short of money while paying Pepperpot rent.

If you choose to stay in the Pepperpots, request a large bed and/or large room. The floor plans and bed sizes differ slightly and considerably, respectively. My own room (63K) is equipped with a standard single, from which my feet often hang over the edge. Other rooms, including that of fellow Churchill Scholar Sam Strasser, who lives next door (63H), include massive double, perhaps even queen, beds.

Acquiring internet access upon your arrival in Cambridge is painfully slow. Rebecca Sawalmeh will give you a form which allows you to apply for an IP address, thereby giving you internet access in your room. The process takes about three days, so submit the form ASAP. In the interim, you can access wifi in the buttery.

The college does not provide wifi in any of the hostels, Pepperpots, or other outer accommodations. Moreover, the internet agreement form and any conversations with college computing personnel will likely imply that you are not allowed to install a router. This is in fact not true and a careful reading of the agreement form will indicate that you can install a router, provided you password protect your network. Consider bringing a router with you or ordering one (e.g. from Amazon UK) to be delivered before or soon after you arrive.

Eat in the dining hall often. It is no gem, but it is inexpensive, reasonably tasty and healthy, and, most importantly, a great place to meet people outside of your discipline or social circles, including undergrads and faculty.

The dining hall pricing system is mysterious and erratic. The same plate of food may vary in price by 50% or more, depending on who is manning the tills. A consistently cheap option, however, is the salad bar. Though all the items are cold, it always includes a wide range of salads, vegetables, meats, and beans. Regardless of how much you stack on your plate, the fee is only about £2.

Take advantage of the college trip to Chartwell during Michaelmas. Not only is it a rich historical site and interesting portrayal of Sir Winston (whom I warmly refer to as our “sugar daddy”), it is nestled in the gorgeous English countryside.

The MCR runs approximately one trip to London each term. Sign up early, as spots go fast. Even if you are not interested in their destination (e.g. British Museum, National Gallery), you can always claim the free round-trip train ticket and head off on your own in London.

Take advantage of the MCR bar. It is convenient, dirt cheap (e.g. £1.25 for a glass of wine), and yet another great way to mingle with grad students outside your discipline. (Well, perhaps not too far outside. After all, this is Churchill College – home of a 70% population of scientists and engineers.) You are also welcome to bring in friends from other colleges.

An entertaining game that a group of friends and I accidentally discovered is “the animal sound game.” One person proposes an animal and then each person describes their own culture’s canonical sound for that animal (for example, cows “moo” in English). The variation in the ways different languages interpret the sounds of animals in ways most congruent with their own language is remarkable and very entertaining. Best played in hall with your most diverse group of friends.

Order your groceries online. It is more convenient (no hauling groceries from town to college), less stressful (no crowds), and much faster (easy item searching). Moreover, the delivery fees are modest (£3-5) and can be shared with friends if you pool your orders. Possible options include Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Ocado. In short, I find Sainsbury’s to be a tad pricier than the rest, Ocado to have a poorer selection than the rest, and Asda to have less of a range of vegetables than Tesco. Thus, Tesco has so far been my vendor of choice. Your own preference will likely depend on what kinds of things you order, so it is wise to try ordering once from each service and then choose your favorite.

Arrive early and spend a couple of weeks settling in. Doing so before term starts ensures that you beat the crowds at banks and for various university services. It also ensures that you don’t leave your life half-organized before embarking on your research or coursework. Try also to visit colleges, museums, Grantchester, and other Cambridge sites as early as possible. The longer you are here, the more your focus and time will be absorbed by your studies, so do things early!

Finally, familiarize yourself with Gumtree, the UK’s equivalent of craigslist. It is, for example, the best way to pick up an inexpensive and high quality bike in Cambridge.

This post is the final part of a five-part series on my first four months in Cambridge adapted from a mid-year report I submitted to the Churchill Foundation - the sponsor whose generosity is allowing me to spend one year at the University of Cambridge. It was written in January 2012. You can read some additional advice I wrote at the end of time in Cambridge here.

Dispatch from England - Part V was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on October 19, 2012.

Dispatch from England - Part IV

2012-05-20T00:00:00-00:00

I recently caught up with a good friend of mine from the States with whom I often hiked in southern California. I told her that I very much missed hiking and regretted the notable lack of contour lines on maps of Cambridge and the surrounding area. She extended her sympathy and asked what I had been doing instead. I told her that I had spent a week in Budapest on a research visit, a week in Muslim Spain attending a conference and snowboarding, three days in Italy for ice climbing, two days in Munich for Christmas festivals and museums, one week in Vienna for Christmas festivals and museums, and nine days in Morocco hiking and exploring the medieval cities of Marrakesh and Fes. She retracted her offer of sympathy.

Budapest
It is hard to say whether my fondness for Budapest should be attributed to its own merit as a city or to my general longing for a big city after spending a month in the small village of Cambridge. Either way, I was very happy when my advisor extended an invitation to everyone in our group to spend one week in Budapest visiting him. Highlights of Budapest included the nighttime views of the city, the hills, the architecture, the Turkish baths, and the bakeries.

The Danube River runs right through the center, dividing the city into Buda (west) and Pest (east), which were originally two separate cities that gradually grew together. Across the Danube stretch several bridges, which are all lit up spectacularly at night, along with many of the major buildings. My initial impression of the city was that it was proof that communism is a recipe for poverty and ugly buildings, but walking across the bridges after dark and pausing for views of Parliament and Castle Hill quickly reminded me that Hungary has done fairly well for itself after leaving the nest of Mother Russia.

In the mornings, I took advantage of Buda’s steep hills (especially Castle and Gellért Hills) to get in some proper runs[¹] (the steepest thing I can run up in Cambridge is the curb) and soak in more views of the city. I even had the opportunity to go for a nice run with a friend from the States who happened to be visiting the city for a conference.

By day, I worked at the Central European University with my advisor. Without the distractions of Cambridge, the week turned out to be very productive scientifically, including the initiation of a collaboration with an experimental neuroscientist in Budapest who is willing and able to test a model of single-cell computation that I have been working on.

By night, I took long walks and reveled in the array of non-British restaurants. While Hungarian cuisine is not known for catering to vegetarians[²], I managed to find several excellent vegetarian or vegetarian-friendly restaurants and cafes (especially Govinda-Buda, Hummus Bar, Edeni Vegan, Falafel Önkiszolgáló, and Napos Oldal Ökocafé), as well as sample the goodies of several famous Hungarian bakeries (especially things filled with spinach, poppy seed, or chestnuts, and especially from Ruszwurm).

On one weekend afternoon, I also visited one of Budapest’s lavish Turkish baths – Gellért fürdő. Known for its spectacular art nouveau architecture, the bath (like most) had co-ed, male-only, and female-only sections. The main attraction was the hot tubs, though there was also a (freezing cold) pool for swimming. While the co-ed area was impressive, the male-only area had larger hot tubs, smaller crowds, and spectacular tile work. It also had saunas but they were so hot and foggy that I could neither breathe nor see and so left after approximately three seconds. The price to pay for these additional luxuries was a constant stream of naked old men going to and fro. While the baths are definitely worth a visit for solo travelers, the steep price of admission makes it a better deal for small groups who might stay and chat for several hours, as I found myself leaving after about an hour (admission tickets are good for the day).

My next visit to Budapest is scheduled for early April, during which time I look forward to checking out the zoo and another bath (Széchenyi), in addition to running in the hills again.

Granada and Sierra Nevada, Spain
The theoretical neuroscience community has a superb tradition of scheduling major conferences near ski resorts. Thus, my winter travels kicked off with several days in Granada at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) main conference, followed by two days of workshops (and skiing/snowboarding) in Sierra Nevada.

The “Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation” was founded 25 years ago as the first and only (at the time) professional society devoted to theoretical and computational neuroscience. Since then, the “NIPS” conference has gradually drifted more towards research in machine learning.[³] Many theoretical and computational neuroscientists see this as a “hijacking” of a conference they founded and nurtured, but others (including myself) see it as an opportunity to get an update on the latest in machine learning, while simultaneously meeting up with the few neuroscientists who still attend.[⁴]

Those few neuroscientists can be divided into two groups. The first are those who command an expert knowledge of machine learning and allow it to strongly influence their neuroscience. This group includes my own advisor and several collaborators. The second group include the old fuddy-duddies who cannot seem to let go of NIPS and accept that it is no longer a neuroscience conference. This group is disproportionately represented on the board and hence gets the opportunity to deliver incongruous speeches each year on the exciting new research on “neural” information processing systems that their conference features.

One (unforeseen) benefit of having so few neuroscientists present was that I find the conference much more manageable and relaxing. With only half a dozen or so posters to see each evening, I found myself with plenty of time to grab dinner and sleep (luxuries I do not enjoy at the other main conference I will attend this year - Cosyne).

Another (also unforeseen) benefit was that I find myself with enough time during breaks to see a bit of the city. As the main conference was held in Granada and this was my first trip to Muslim Spain, this was a welcome opportunity. Two friends and I spent one day during the lunch break wandering through the Muslim “medina” in the northeast part of town. Built on a hill just across from the Alhambra,[⁵] the medina offered stunning views of the palace and the rest of the city. We managed to find a terrace bar and sat for a while, enjoying the sunshine and high viewpoint foreign to the Cambridge-bound. We also stumbled upon a turnstile inside on the outside of a nunnery with pictures of baked goods. Curious, we put 5 euros in it and turned it. We heard some scurrying around and out popped a huge bag of homemade cookies and sweets! By far the best mysterious turnstile into which I have ever put money.

The conference itself was divided into three pieces – tutorials, main conference, and workshops. The tutorials, delivered on the first day, are 2-hour introductory sessions on exciting new areas of research. Among them was a tutorial titled “Flexible, Multivariate Point Process Models for Unlocking the Neural Code”, which is related to my own work at Cambridge and which I found quite helpful. I ended up spending several hours over the course of the conference discussing my current project with the professor who gave it and received a number of interesting suggestions to follow up on.

The main conference included both talks and poster sessions. As I have a strong preference for conversations and poster sessions over talks,[⁶] I skipped many of the talks to meet with other researchers at the conference but spent 4-6 hours each evening browsing and discussing posters. Due to the relatively small proportion of work in theoretical and computational neuroscience, I was able to see all that I wanted to see, as well as catch a few posters on machine learning.

Finally, the workshops feature a series of talks on more specialized topics in rooms that can accommodate only 20-40 people and are thus meant to promote more discussion than the talks at the main conference. Unfortunately, out of almost 30 workshops, there was not a single one on theoretical neuroscience. Fortunately, I still found a number of interesting talks embedded in workshops whose topics I was not particularly concerned with. Even more fortunately, the workshops were held in the Sierra Nevada mountain range a little over an hour from Granada, so I also managed to squeeze in an afternoon of snowboarding.[⁷]

Despite the (relatively) relaxed pace of the conference for me, I found myself simultaneously exhausted yet bursting with ideas I wanted to work on back in Cambridge. However, it would be almost a month before I would get the chance to do so, as I was immediately headed for Italy for a couple of days of ice climbing, followed by a series of other holiday trips. In the future, I will likely try not to tack on vacations at the end of conferences, as I often find myself most inspired to work at those times.

All in all, I would say that I benefitted greatly from the conversations, posters, tutorials, and location of NIPS, but that the lack of neuroscience at the workshops was a bit disappointing. Although I would not consider NIPS a “must-see” for me, I will likely drop in periodically when working on an appropriate project.

Torino & the foothills of the Alps, Italy
The first serious research opportunity I was ever given was for a summer internship at the Institute for Scientific Interchange in Torino, Italy with USC physics Professor Paolo Zanardi. In addition to hooking me on science, Paolo also introduced me to mountaineering and the Alps. Ever since that summer, I have been looking for opportunities to return and when Paolo heard I would be in England for the year, he invited me to fly out to Torino for a couple of days of ice climbing in the foothills of the Alps. We were joined by a childhood friend of Paolo and our expert mountain guide Muyo, who had also led our initial mountaineering trip in the Alps.

Like any proper Italian outing, each of days began at a café with espresso, cigarettes, and croissants and was, in remarkable incongruence with the physically demanding sport we were pursing, dotted with frequent cigarette breaks. The ice park we climbed in was absolutely stunning. Massive icicles and icy stalagmites formed an intricate, deep blue playground that I could have spent (and did spend!) hours staring at.[⁸]

Though I was a bit worried about my ability to ice pick my way up those beasts with only two days of rock climbing experience and a cushy Cambridge life-weakened body, Muyo made the introduction as gentle as possible. We spent the first half-day in “ice school” on a notably- less-steep-than-everything-else ice sheet, learning proper position, and navigating our way through pick ax “courses” that Muyo would engineer. By the end of the first day, we took our first stab at the real deal – vertical sheets of ice stretching perhaps 50m in the air. Though I was neither graceful nor fast, I did manage to make it to the top.

My rappel back to earth introduced me to a phenomenon the Italians refer to as the “boils” – the feeling of blood rushing into your hands after being raised above the heart for the duration of your climb. It is one of the more painful things I have willingly inflicted upon myself.

Our day finished with (what else?) espresso, wine, and cigarettes, followed by dinner.

The next day was spent conquering three different (and more difficult) faces of the same ice sheet we had climbed the previous day. By the end of the day, I was utterly exhausted and spent a significant fraction of my time dangling pathetically from one ax, with only a rope saving me from a very unpleasant fall. Nevertheless, I did manage to make it up every climb we attempted and so left with (most of) my dignity intact.

Munich, Germany
My winter travels next took a marked turn for the urban. Courtesy of a night train from Torino, I met fellow Churchill Scholar Samantha Strasser in Munich where we spent the next two days exploring Christmas markets and museums.

Since I arrived a few hours before Sam, I first visited Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany, after which all subsequent camps were modeled. Less than half an hour outside the city center and free to all visitors, Dachau was one of the most powerful museums I have visited. Virtually the entire site, from the bunkhouses and work yards to the gas chambers and crematoria were open to the public. The combination of the (excellent) audio tour and bitter cold and snow that day made the experience even more, well, depressing (which, in this context, felt appropriate).

Sam and I’s first targets were theChristkindlmarkten, or “Christmas markets.” Despite their angry-sounding language, the Germans apparently have no shortage of Christmas cheer and flood their streets with little booths selling ornaments, handmade crafts, baked goods, and ample supplies of Glühwein (mulled wine) and other warm alcoholic beverages. Sam and I were careful to keep warm by stopping for Glühwein frequently.

Knowing the German penchant for science and engineering (and suckers for both ourselves), Sam and I next visited the Deutsches Museum, Munich’s monument to all things involving science and technology. The highlights included a huge sailboat with cutaway hull, a massive collection of early computers, and plenty of old scientific instruments. Another notable feature was the German no-nonsense approach to explaining science. While most American science museums I have visited try to dumb down the science and replace it with flashy demonstrations and games to attract children, the Germans had no qualms about using words like “eigenvalue” and “resonant frequency”, as well as equations and laws of physics, to explain their exhibits. (In case it is not by now clear, I am smitten with the Germans.)

That evening, we had dinner at the Ratskeller München – a restaurant beneath the town hall.[⁹] Upon looking for the rest rooms, we discovered that there was not just one restaurant under the town hall but rather a vast complex that stretched seemingly forever in every direction, shifting atmosphere as one passed the (not at all obvious) borders between restaurants. We both found ourselves using the rest rooms far more often than necessary.

We spent the night at the Wombat Hostel, one of the nicest, cleanest, and safest hostels I have ever stayed at (highly recommended for visits to Munich) and Sam’s (entirely unrepresentative and misleading) first hostel ever.

The next day we were led on a 4-hour tour of the town by a flamboyantly gay, black R&B singer named Ozzie. (It was not necessary for him to carry an umbrella or flag for us to spot him in a crowd.) The fast-paced tour took us to the site of Hitler’s infamous Beer Hall Putsch, pointed out the few original buildings that had survived the bombings during World War II, and educated us on the difference between Bavarian and German culture (the former is responsible for the “German” stereotypes of lederhosen and well-endowed females serving beer and pretzels, for example). Though I rarely go on tours and even more rarely enjoy them, I would most definitely recommend Ozzie’s tour (leaving from the Wombat every day at 11am) to anyone visiting Munich.

The remainder of Sam and I’s time in Munich was spent pursuing Glühwein, smoked fish, and hearth-baked bread in the Christkindlmarkten.

Vienna, Austria
The next morning (December 23) we took a train to Vienna. True to form, the German trains arrived and departed precisely on time, contrary to those of some other countries.[¹⁰] We had decided to spend a week in Vienna, after a friend at Churchill, Frederica Stahl, had offered her family’s apartment while they were spending the holidays in New York City.[¹¹] Thankful to have free housing, we were unprepared when we found that we were staying in a three-story penthouse overlooking the former summer palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy. We decided immediately that we were slightly indebted to the Stahl family and spent the remainder of the week buying them gifts to assuage our embarrassment (of riches).

Also meeting us in Vienna were another Churchill Scholar Jonathan Wang and another Churchill student Sherry Gong. Our first day there was spent checking out the Christkindlmarkten, which were similar in spirit to those of Munich.

Christmas Eve and Day turned out to be the least traditional of my short life. On Christmas Eve, I met up with a Viennese friend and his girlfriend and they took me up into the hills northwest of town to get some nice views of the city and to marvel at the art nouveau architecture of the insane asylum located there. Part way through our (frigid) walk, we decided that a coffee would be hit the spot and found a nearby café. As we sat down and awaited the arrival of our drinks, we gradually noticed that the other customers seemed a bit more disheveled than the typical fashionable Viennese resident. When one of them suddenly burst out yelling in monologue, we realized that the café was actually run by and for asylum inmates. We shrugged and soaked in one of the more entertaining cups of coffee any of us had ever had.

That evening, hungry and without groceries, I ventured into the city to find something to eat. Not exactly sure what to expect to be open (I had never spent my Christmas Eve wandering a foreign city), I found that it was just me and the Turks and so settled down to a non-traditional Christmas dinner of falafel, hummus, and pita.

Christmas Day was even stranger, as the four of us ventured to the western edge of town to visit Schönbrunn (the former summer palace of the Habsburgs), which, in addition to the palace, contained a Christmas market, several greenhouses and cafes, extensive gardens, and the world’s oldest zoo. Although I usually loathe palace tours (too ostentatious), the included audio tour made it a tolerable, perhaps even enjoyable, experience.

My favorite part of the visit though was the zoo. Given that it was winter in Austria and that we had never heard of this particular zoo, our expectations were very low. Thus, we were stunned to find penguins, giant pandas, elephants, koalas, hippos, tigers, orangutans, naked mole rats, and pretty much every zoo-worthy animal you could imagine. It is very possibly one of the finest zoos in the world and certainly the highlight of the Habsburg summer estate.

Though Jonathan and Sherry left the following day, Sam and I spent the rest of the week exploring Vienna’s famous kaffeehaus culture and museums. The kaffeehausen range from magnificent marble palaces with tuxedoed waiters (Café Central) to cozy, intellectual retreats for those who wish to read or discuss philosophy and politics (Café Hawelka) to smoky, 50s diner- like cafes that only the Viennese could love (Café Prückel). At each location, a simple espresso can be quite pricey (3-4 euros), but you are really paying for the right to sit in the café for a couple of hours, chatting with friends or reading a newspaper or book, which just so happens to come with a free cup of coffee. My personal favorites were probably Hawelka, Central, Sperl, and Savoy,[¹²] albeit all for different reasons.

In addition to the kaffeehausen, the Viennese are also known for their bakeries and, in particular, their cakes. While I am not an especially big fan of cake, the multi-layered pieces of art that we did try from Oberlaa (several locations throughout the city) were the pinnacle of cake evolution, while the chestnut dishes and cheeky service at Sluka (near the Rathaus) were alone reasons to return to Vienna.

Of the museums Sam and I visited, my favorite by far was the Haus der Musik (“House of Music”). Although I was unimpressed by three of the four floors of the museum (those hero worshipping Viennese composers and hosting puzzling demonstrations for children which tried unsuccessfully to make connections between music and the brain), the floor on the science behind acoustics, sound perception, and music production was excellent. Combining the German tradition of no-nonsense science education with the American penchant for showy demonstrations, the exhibit was entertaining and informative and I spent perhaps two hours in that section alone.

The ultimate (in both senses of the word) highlight of our visit to Vienna was a walk from the top of the hills north of the city down through the heurige (vineyards). Not one to usually spend my vacations in cities, I was eager for something approximating a hike and Sam was kind enough to oblige me. The walk turned out to be far more impressive than either of us anticipated. We wound our way along and through several heurige, enjoying unmatched views of the city the entire time, before finishing at one of the few that was open in winter. Occupying a complex that included an alleged former apartment of Ludwig van Beethoven,[¹³] the Mayer am Pfarplatz was a cozy, rustic tavern-like space, complete with pretty courtyard and, most importantly, excellent house reds and whites, all for surprisingly reasonable prices (2-3 euros per glass).

After a week of luxurious Viennese living, we finally packed our bags, arranged a pile of wrapped gifts and thank you notes for the Stahls, and headed to London for New Years’ Eve.

London, England
Unfortunately, I awoke that morning with a cold and decided not to stick around London for midnight. After meeting several friends from Churchill for a dim sum dinner, I caught the train back to Cambridge. I was not too disappointed with my fate, however, as the overwhelmingly large (and drunk) crowds deter me from wanting to ever spend a New Years’ Eve in London anyways. I spent the next two days nursing my cold and preparing for my trip to Morocco.

Marrakesh, Fes, and the Atlas Mountains, Morocco
Joining me for this 9-day trip were fellow Churchill Scholars Alicia Schep and Ethan Schaler. Our trip included three days of hiking in the Atlas Mountains, two days each exploring the medieval cities of Marrakesh and Fes, and two days riding trains between the two cities.

The time we spent in the mountains was the unanimous highlight of our trip. Our trek took us through Berber villages, snowy mountain passes, and terraced farms, and along snaking rivers and high mountain ridges. For 150 euros per person, we received a private taxi to and from Marrakesh, accommodations in Berber guesthouses, all meals, two mules, a muleteer, a cook, and a guide. Though we had some idea of what we paid for in advance, the luxury far exceeded our expectations, to the point that we were actually quite embarrassed on the first day when we found out that we had a 1:1 ratio of support staff to hikers, that the mules could carry everything, and that the cook was going to make us hot meals even on the trail. Furthermore, it turned out that the Berber guesthouses, which we were expecting to be no more than a mat on a floor, possibly amidst goats, actually had hot showers, toilets, beds, and satellite TV. Thus, our second night was spent watching Bollywood movies and Rambo II. Our embarrassment of riches felt slightly less undeserved on the second and third days, during which our journey included some serious elevation gain.

Besides the fantastic weather and views, a key component of our enjoyment was the interaction with our guides and the Berber villagers, all of whom were nothing but hospitable. Our guide, who had grown up in a nearby village and spoke fluent English, was eager to answer any questions we had about the Berbers and Morocco as well as ask his own questions about England and the US.

Besides the luxury, another big surprise during this part of the trip was the lack of foreigners. We were the only white people we saw until the very end of the third day when we approached the largest town in that part of the country, where some Europeans were staying in hotels and making half-day treks into the mountains. We seemed to be the only ones who were actually doing multi-day trips through the villages. Given the dismal weather and depressingly short days in the UK and much of Europe throughout the winter, we were shocked that more British and Europeans did not spend their holidays walking in Morocco. Apparently, winter is even low season in Morocco, and those who do visit tend to do so in the summer, at which time the temperatures in Morocco often reach 40C (104F). This seems entirely backwards to me. If I find myself again spending a winter in the UK or Europe, Morocco will be my go-to outdoors retreat.

While the Moroccans we met in the mountains were unfailingly hospitable, the cities were a considerably more mixed bag of hospitality and hustling. Common greetings included “Hey, my brother!” and “Remember me?” My favorite, offered by one restaurant owner, was, “You and me, we have same color blood. Its red, no?” In most (all) cases, however, the goal was to sell us something or extract a tip. Males young and old all eagerly offered directions… after which they staunchly demanded a fee, offered to take us to family stores where we would get a great discount… when in reality the price was hiked to cover their commission, and pointed out that wherever we were going, be it a hotel, restaurant, or historical site, was closed, regardless of the time of day, and that they would show us to an alternative location… which of course would have been happy to offer our benevolent guide a commission. Beyond these more standard requests, however, I had the questionable honor of being offered marijuana approximately once every fifteen minutes. That Ethan and Alicia received not one such offer is a clear statement by the Moroccans about my appearance. After only a couple of days in the cities, we were quickly trained to be pessimistic and misanthropic, ignoring, frowning at, or even scolding anyone who approached us unsolicited.

To be clear, however, the Moroccans whom we approached were consistently friendly, helpful, and hospitable. This leads me to propose the following rule of thumb for traveling in Morocco – if they approach you, expect a hustle; if you approach them, expect hospitality.

Although we managed to escape unrobbed, unconned, and unrepentant, our closest brush with being hustled occurred on the train ride from Marrakesh to Fes. Having paid for first class seats in a small cabin for six, we felt reasonably safe and well-protected from the second class cars, the suspected haunt of the hustlers. Among others, an older man with a newspaper sat down across from us. After a bit of conversation, we described our trip and told him that we were headed to Fes and would be staying in a riad called Dar Hafsa. We chatted for a bit longer before he excused himself for a phone call. A couple of hours later (the train ride was a punishing 7-hour ordeal), the man returned and introduced his friend, whom he claimed was an official tourist guide. The friend quickly flashed a badge at me, which I neither had time to see nor knew what to look for anyways, and then unleashed a five-minute tirade against our riad. Highlights included his prediction that a dark man would offer us tea, but that we should not trust him, for he was in cahoots with the maid and together they would steal our bags. They were also, allegedly, involved with the mafia. When the man concluded and rocketed out of our cabin, Alicia, Ethan, and I were left slack jawed, wavering between nervous laughter and a serious reconsideration of our plans. Deciding to continue to our riad but to remain alert and leave if uncomfortable, we departed the train in Fes and made our way towards the riad. It was by now after dark and we were having considerable trouble finding our way. We finally identified our intended path as a small, dimly lit alley off the main road. As we entered the narrow passage, a man shouted, “Be careful! The mafia operates there!” Right on cue, loud wails began blaring on unseen speakers and a swarm of children began running behind and around us. My heart was doing gymnastics in my chest. Nearly ready to turn back, we stumbled upon a dark wooden door labeled “Dar Hafsa.” We desperately knocked on the door and were immediately welcomed in. The interior of the building stood in stark contrast to the alley outside – beautiful tile work stretched for three stories above on all four sides, a large comfortable-looking couch wrapped around a glass table with a silver tea set, and a host that could do nothing but smile. He was also, however, a dark man and offered us tea, as the prophecy had stated. Over the next day and a half, we remained suspicious and responded to any offers to show us around, clean our rooms, or otherwise interact more than minimally necessary with nervous rebuttals. The man’s sister, and co-owner, finally approached Ethan and asked what was wrong. Eventually, we realized that the train had tried to scam us, that no one travels from Marrakesh to Fes with just a newspaper, that “a dark man will offer you a tea” was about as vacuous as Moroccan prophecies come, and that the loud wails we had heard were an announcement for Muslim prayer time. Relaxing our trigger fingers, we thoroughly enjoyed the rest of our stay at Dar Hafsa (very highly recommended for inexpensive, luxury living in Fes).

Although we explored historical sites and museums in both Fes and Marrakesh, the obvious highlight of both cities were the medinas – the medieval, walled, inner cities free of cars and full of narrow streets and bustling marketplaces. While the medinas were initially sensory and social overloads, their excitement and charm quickly grew on us. Other favorites in Fes included the views from the Merenid Tombs and the food at Café Clock and the restaurants near Bab Bou Jeloud (“The Blue Gate”) and in Marrakesh included the Jardin Majorelle, a beautiful garden established by French fashion icon Yves Saint-Laurent, the ornate Saadian Tombs, and the Djemaa El-Fna, one of the largest and busiest squares in Africa (and the world).

For only about £50 and 3.5 hours each way, Morocco was not only inexpensive and accessible, it was likely my favorite of my winter travel destinations, and for my own sake, I hope the British and Europeans continue to unjustifiably ignore its opportunities for winter hiking.

This post is part four of a five-part series on my first four months in Cambridge adapted from a mid-year report I submitted to the Churchill Foundation - the sponsor whose generosity is allowing me to spend one year at the University of Cambridge. It was written in January 2012. You can read Part V here.

One day, just as I was halfway through a 45 minute run and turning around to come home, my nose began to bleed (this is a regular occurrence for me when in cold, dry weather). Knowing that I did not plan to do laundry during my visit, I attempted to keep my clothing dry by wiping my nose with my arms and tilting my head backwards. By the time I returned to the guesthouse, I looked so ghastly that three construction workers outside of the building dropped their tools and slowly backed off the sidewalk, mouths agape, to let me pass. ↩
My advisor and I once stopped in a traditional Hungarian café for lunch. We sat down to look at the menu, realized within a few moments that there was not a single item on the menu I could eat, and were forced to get up and leave. We got Chinese food down the street. ↩
The distinction between theoretical neuroscience and machine learning is that the former (attempts to) study how computations are carried out in real brains, whereas the latter study optimal ways to learn from data, regardless of whether those are the ways that any organisms actually do it. In theory, there is plenty that the two communities should be able to learn from one another. In practice, however, translating between the two communities is often more difficult than expected. ↩
In case you are worried about the poor theoretical and computational neuroscientists, fear not. In 2000, they founded the Computational and Systems Neuroscience (Cosyne) conference and have successfully defended it from the greedy machine learning folks ever since. I will attend (and hopefully present at) this conference at the end of February. ↩
The Alhambra is an absolutely stunning Moorish palace built in the mid 14th century. Through a conference-organized trip later that week, we had the chance to see the dazzling geometric patterns and intricate weaving of religious verse and decoration up close. ↩
Spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money to fly scientists to the same location to watch one of them talk (which could be done online) rather than to discuss and argue in small groups (which is more difficult to do online) is, I believe, completely irresponsible and wasteful. ↩
The workshops include a 3- or 4-hour morning session and 3- or 4-hour evening session, with time in between to ski or snowboard. ↩
The Italians have a beautiful and appropriate name for these structures – candela de giacco, or “ice candles.” ↩
It turns out that putting restaurants under town halls is so common in Germany that they even have a word for it – Ratskeller (Rathaus means city hall and Keller means cellar). ↩
I once boarded a train from Cambridge to London that seemed very unready to leave upon our departure time. The conductor announced that we would be slightly delayed, as we attempted to couple with another train before departing. We spent the next forty minutes, repeatedly bumping into the other train at quite unthrilling speeds, before the conductor finally announced, “Ok, just one more try.” We failed and left 45 minutes late. ↩
The name on the apartment doorbell read “Dr. Stahl.” I later found out from an Austrian friend that “Stahl” means “Steel”, so that Frederica’s father bore the intimidating title “Dr. Steel.” ↩
Just a heads up - I’m pretty sure Savoy is a gay bar. However, it also happens to be one of the most beautiful cafes in the city. ↩
I say “alleged” because there are at least twenty sites in Vienna suggested to be former dwellings of Beethoven, many of which are controversially identified as such. ↩

Dispatch from England - Part IV was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on May 20, 2012.

Dispatch from England - Part III

2012-04-21T00:00:00-00:00

A few months before I moved to Cambridge, I was traveling to London for an interview with a PhD program and used the opportunity to scope out the housing situation in Cambridge and meet with my advisor. After I spent the day with my research group, I decided I would spend the evening preparing for my interview. Since my hotel did not have wifi, I ventured into town to look for a café to work in for the evening. To my horror, every single café I encountered closed by 6 or 7pm. Dejected by this unexpected internet famine, I wandered back to my hotel and read a book.

Cambridge is a much smaller and quieter town than I expected. Besides the early café closings, most stores close by 5 or 6pm and bars and pubs close by 11pm. Ethiopian, Israeli, and many other ethnic cuisines are nonexistent, while those cuisines that are represented (e.g. Indian, Chinese, Thai, British) are not represented particularly well. While I initially thought that I would revel in the quaintness of Cambridge, I found it almost unbearable after a month and arranged for twice a week visits to a research institute in London. More recently, however, this aspect of Cambridge has been growing on me, especially as I have made friends and figured how to find the activities and stores I need access to.

Another feature of Cambridge that gradually swooned me is the atmospheric setting it is known for. Riding my bike home through dark and fog, past the ominously lit facades of several hundred year old colleges to the sound of church bells only gets better each day.

An annoying and unexpected drawback of Cambridge’s ambience is the hordes of tourists that pour into the city every day. While we are lucky enough at Churchill not to have tourists peeking in our windows, it is impossible to avoid them. In particular, it is quite difficult to avoid them when riding down the street on a bike. Apparently foreign to the concept of roads, they wander on and off the streets with not so much as a glance over their shoulders. I make a sport of trying to ride as close to them as possible without hitting anyone. My hope is that, over time, this may help educate them about the dangers of the road and that my humble self may play a small role in making Cambridge a better, safer place.

Besides the colleges, another major target for the tourists is the market square. Because of this, I was initially hesitant to venture there myself, expecting overpriced, inferior quality goods. However, when I finally did muster the misanthropic courage to brave the crowds, I found that the market was one of the best places to go for fresh-baked bread, soaps and shampoos, bike repairs, and many other edibles and non-. I now drop by at least once a week.

Despite the hordes of tourists, Cambridge is still dominated by students, faculty, and other university personnel. The snippets of conversations at pubs and restaurants that I overhear are among the most intelligent conversations I have ever overheard in public. I once sat on a train to London on which two men in front of me were chatting across the aisle about how to design some new genetics experiment. In most parts of the US, I am impressed if the people sitting in front of me on a train manage to speak in complete sentences.

With the positive benefits of an old, prestigious university come the negative, including bureaucracy. And given 800 years, Cambridge has perfected the stereotypical enormous, multi- layered, and inefficient bureaucracy. It took me three days to get internet access at my college and another two weeks to get wifi access to the three (!) different networks in my department. Getting my university card activated for department access took another several days,[¹] and woe be it to he or she who attempts to arrive in Cambridge before his or her official start date. I moved in three weeks early to get settled and my arrival at the department inflicted mass panic and, I kid you not, meetings about how in the future to handle such situations. It was as if no human being in the 800-year history of Cambridge had ever arrived before the term began.

Despite its impenetrable bureaucracy, there are things that the University does well and one of them is student clubs. With two wine tasting societies, two math clubs, a tea club, a sci-fi club, a dozen or so dance clubs, another dozen or so science clubs, a club for just about every ethnicity represented at Cambridge, a cheese tasting club, multiple clubs for any sport you can name, and half a dozen outdoors groups, you would have to be comatose not to find a group of like-minded people. The standard way to get acquainted with your options is to attend the “Freshers’ Fair” in early October, during which pretty much every club sets up a booth over two floors of a nearby gym (Kelsey Kerridge), as well as a large park across the street.

The existence of half a dozen outdoors groups was one of the biggest surprises for me. Located in the flattest part of one of the flattest countries, Cambridge actually has far more outdoors clubs than my previous university (USC), which was nestled among the mountainous paradise of Los Angeles. There is the Hillwalking Club,[²] the Mountaineering Club, the Rambling Club, the Caving Club, the Orienteering Club, the Scout and Guide Club, and the Rock-Climbing and Trekking Society, among others I am likely missing. In case it is not eminently obvious, the Hillwalking Club goes on biweekly weekend hiking trips, the Mountaineering Club climbs mountains, the Rambling Club goes for day/half-day walks near Cambridge, the Caving Club organizes weekend caving trips, the Orienteering Club competes in orienteering competitions (races with compasses), the Scout and Guide Club is involved with the British co-ed equivalent of Boy Scouts, and the Rock-Climbing and Trekking Society climbs a few days a week at a local climbing wall, as well as climbing outdoors every weekend.

My only (very positive) experience so far was with the Hillwalking Club. While only one of their trips has coincided with a weekend I have been free, that weekend was my most enjoyable in the UK. For ~£30, their trips include transportation, accommodations in a bunkhouse (which includes a kitchen, living room, and beds), and excellent company. The trip I went on was to Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales, though other common targets include the Lake District, Peak District, and Snowdonia, all of which require about 3-4 hours of driving. Trips depart early Friday evenings, conveniently from the Churchill Porters’ Lodge,[³] and return late Sunday, employing a combination of cars and mini-buses. Friday is spent driving, unpacking, and hanging out in the bunkhouse, while Saturday and Sunday are spent hillwalking during the day and hanging out or driving back to Cambridge in the evening. While I was convinced that I liked the club on the first day (it is made up of scientifically literate outdoors enthusiasts – an easy sell), my first experience with hiking in the UK was unconvincing to say the least. After a muddy scramble to our first “summit” (elevation gain ~100m), I realized that I had made a big mistake in not bringing waterproof boots. This notion was reinforced as the fog closed in around us, the wind and rain were unleashed with hurricane force, and the temperature flirted with freezing. The ultimate summit we reached that day featured us huddled together trying to stay warm and peering off into the thick fog, imagining the views one might enjoy on a fictitious clear day in Wales. As I lost all feeling in my body and was repeatedly blown over only to fall into a muddy puddle, my inner monologue consisted only of repeatedly wondering whether this was the most miserable day of my life. I concluded that it was. All of this changed, however, when we finally, after ~7 hours, returned to the bunkhouse and I discovered what turned about to be the greatest shower stall in which I have ever had the pleasure of shivering. I nearly cried with joy. The rest of the evening[4. And there is plenty of evening when the sun sets at 4pm.] was spent gorging on all sorts of food, mulled wine, hot tea, and biscuits. Although most folks had arranged in advance to collectively cook a pesto spaghetti, I had chosen to go solo due to a staunchly anti-pasta philosophy. My own dinner consisted of falafel, beets, and peanut butter and banana sandwiches. After dinner, we spent several hours chatting and playing music. Although I was tempted not to don my soggy boots and return to the harsh Welsh weather the following day, the surprising sight of sunshine changed my mind. Fortunately, the nice weather held for the day, and we enjoyed a beautiful hike past several waterfalls and through the classic rolling meadows of the British countryside. Although we still found ourselves knee deep in a bog, praying that our boots would not be sucked into the earth, by the end of the afternoon, that day of hiking prevented me from leaving Wales with nothing but spite. I look forward to more hikes with the Hillwalking Club, though perhaps after the purchasing of waterproof boots and the arrival of warmer weather.

A final note on life in Cambridge for vegetarians – I am sorry. Cambridge is not particularly accommodating. There exists just one vegetarian restaurant in Cambridge, the Rainbow Café. Although almost every restaurant will offer vegetarian options, they will not necessarily be impressive (by British standards, baked potatoes qualify as vegetarian “entrées”). Often the best bet for vegetarians is an Indian, Thai, or Chinese restaurant, though there are a few British/European restaurants that do cater particularly well to vegetarians (Zizzi and All Bar One being among them). The most economical options for vegetarians, however, are the college dining halls or cooking for one’s self. As for the colleges, I believe all serve vegetarian entrées and offer a salad bar on a daily basis. As for cooking, the major grocery stores do reasonably well at catering to vegetarians. Sainsbury’s and Tesco in particular sell tofu and plenty of vegetarian proteins and ready-made dishes. If ever there is something you cannot find there, Revital on Bridge Street, Arjuna Wholefoods on Mill Road, and the several Asian and Middle Eastern grocery stores also on Mill Road are all great options for vegetarians.

This post is part three of a five-part series on my first four months in Cambridge adapted from a mid-year report I submitted to the Churchill Foundation - the sponsor whose generosity is allowing me to spend one year at the University of Cambridge. It was written in January 2012. You can read Part IV here.

The person who was supposed to be responsible for this had the incredible habit of working only in 30-minute increments, inevitably at times when no one wanted to drop by. ↩
“Hillwalking” is British English for “hiking.” The latter term they find mildly offensive, as they believe it sounds like one is bragging, an activity the modest British dare not be associated with. ↩
Yet another benefit of Churchill’s position on the edge of town is that it is the most convenient college from which to access the highway out of Cambridge. ↩

Dispatch from England - Part III was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on April 21, 2012.

Dispatch from England - Part II

2012-04-19T00:00:00-00:00

A friend of mine purchased a used bike at a shop for £150. After a series of subsequent mechanical problems over the following few weeks, he realized he had been ripped off and was regretting his purchase. Relaying his story to his brother back in the US, he said, “This 150 pound bike has been nothing but trouble for me.” His brother replied, “What did you expect from such a heavy bike?”

Life in England is an endless series of miscommunications. If you go to the store wishing to purchase eggplants, zucchini, shrimp, rubbing alcohol, or q-tips, prepare for disappointment; the English only sell aubergines, courgettes, prawns, surgical spirits, and cotton swabs.[¹] My persistent lack of knowledge on the names of products, brands, and stores has made mundane purchases into scavenger hunts.[²] While one does gradually assimilate, I still find myself regularly consulting my British friends on what things are called and where I might buy them.

Consulting my friends before I go to the store is essential, as asking a British person for advice in a store is among the greatest of personal intrusions. On my first trip to Sainsbury’s (the standard British grocery store), I found myself overwhelmed by a wall full of soups and asked the gentleman next to me, who was also eyeing them, whether he had any recommendations. He snorted and immediately scurried away. Thinking that perhaps he did not speak English or was just in a particularly bad mood, I waited until another person, this time a young woman, wandered up to the soups and asked her the same question. Her eyes widened in fear and she too scurried away. Though I was tempted to conclude that this whole episode was due to my hulking frame and intimidating masculinity, I found it slightly more plausible that the British are incurable introverts and now do my best to avoid eye contact or conversation with anyone I do not know.

An even better way I have discovered of avoiding conversation in grocery stores is to avoid them altogether. While I would rarely consider the British to be on the cutting edge of anything related to technology or food, they have made surprising advances in online grocery shopping. Just about every major grocery store in England, as well as a few that do not even have brick and mortar storefronts, offer the ability to shop online and have groceries delivered directly to your door. The advantages of this method of shopping include easier searching (search by food name instead of wandering up and down aisles), not having to haul your groceries home, and, if you are British, avoiding the awkward event of having American strangers ask you questions in the store. (Perhaps this explains why the British seem to be leading the way in online grocery shopping.) If something you order happens to be out of stock, the store will offer a substitute item which you can either decline or choose to purchase for the price of the original or substitute item, whichever is cheaper. It is also still possible to take advantage of in-store specials, read nutrition and ingredient labels, purchase household items such as detergent and soup, and amend your order up until the evening before your delivery. All of this can be had for a modest delivery fee of £3-5.

While we may agree about the joys of online grocery shopping, the English and I perpetually disagree about the culinary status of the potato.[³] They believe it is the pinnacle of vegetable evolution. I believe they are insane. I have seen “vegetarian” menus that consisted entirely of jacket potatoes (baked potatoes), chips (French fries), and mash (mashed potatoes). I also once ordered broccoli and brussel sprouts from an online grocery vendor whom I shall not name (rhymes with “Stainswury’s”) and had substituted for them two giant bags of potatoes. As a friend had accepted the grocery order on my behalf after I had gone to bed, I awoke to find myself stuck with the embarrassing excuses for vegetables and threw a mild temper tantrum.

Perhaps the final characteristic of the English worth noting here is their ability to conjure up tea in the strangest of places. I was once hiking in Wales in some of the worst weather I have ever experienced (think of a hurricane… on a mountain… at nearly freezing temperatures) and another hiker offered me a cup of tea. I thought he was mocking me and replied, “Only if you have some biscuits as well.” He had both. I could do nothing but stare in amazement (and hypothermia) as he poured me a hot cup of Tetley’s from a thermos (the lid doubled as a tea cup) and produced a sleeve of biscuits (a hybrid between an American cracker and cookie). Another time, the driver who was delivering my grocery order called me to let me know that several trucks had broken down and that it would be of great convenience to him if he could drop off my grocery order a few hours early. I replied that this would be fine but that I would not be home for another half an hour. He replied, “Oh that’s perfect! That will give me time to make a pot of tea.” Apparently, electric tea kettles are standard appliances on delivery trucks. A final story on this note – Churchill College once sent three men to paint the walls in my kitchen and hallways. They arrived early in the morning with their set of tools: paint, brushes, sheets to protect the floor and tables from the paint, and… an electric tea kettle, a box of tea, three cups, and a jug of milk. In the 2-3 days it took them to paint our house, I saw far more tea drinking going on than painting.

This post is part two of a six-five series on my first four months in Cambridge adapted from a mid-year report I submitted to the Churchill Foundation - the sponsor whose generosity is allowing me to spend one year at the University of Cambridge. It was written in January 2012. You can read Part III here.

I once spent 15 minutes ranting about the abomination of Sainsbury’s not selling shrimp, until a moment of inspiration led to me search for “prawns.” ↩
On one of my first weekends in Cambridge, I spent the better part of a morning searching for men’s shampoo, nearly concluding that British men did not wash their hair. ↩
I recently learned that several languages, including Austrian German, call the potato the “earth apple.” While such a phrasing does not elevate my opinion of the potato, I think it is a wonderful tradition that the English-speaking world should adopt. ↩

Dispatch from England - Part II was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on April 19, 2012.

Dispatch from England - Part I

2012-02-09T00:00:00-00:00

Before I arrived in England, I had arranged the purchase of a bicycle from a student who was graduating. Feeling particularly savvy, I mentioned this to Churchill’s graduate student administrator as she led me to my new home at Churchill. “Good!” she replied. “A bike is a great way to get around Cambridge. Just be sure not to ride on the pavement.” I was immediately crestfallen, as I imagined the difficulty of navigating my bike along narrow patches of grass and stopping to walk it across streets and sidewalks. What a waste of nearly £100! She noticed my apparently very worried expression and asked what was the matter. I explained to her my shattered dreams of riding a bike to work each day and she laughed. As it turns out, “pavement” means “sidewalk” in British English. It was this moment I first appreciated that England was indeed a foreign country.

I live in college accommodations known as the “Pepperpots” – 10-bedroom homes with a shared kitchen, living room, and laundry facilities, so named for their alleged resemblance to a pepper shaker (falsely accused, in my opinion). In particular, I live in Pepperpot 63… if you ask the college. Or 40a Storey’s Way if you ask the postal service. Or Broer’s House if you ask the wealthy man who ostensibly paid for its construction. In typical Cambridge fashion, my house has three names, depending on the particularly bureaucracy involved. Whatever you choose to call them, the Pepperpots are undoubtedly among the most luxurious of Cambridge college housing. My room is large enough that, if it so pleased me, I could make snow angels on the floor and not injure myself. I have more storage space than I know what to do with, massive windows, a private heater, and my own bathroom (with a heated towel rack!). The only drawback of the latter is that I must clean it (eventually). Although the single washer and dryer we share among the ten of us tends to get backed up on weekends, the convenience of not needing to leave the house to do laundry is appreciated. The enormous kitchen and living room are wonderful for hosting dinners and parties. With two ovens, three fridges, six burners, and acres of counter space, it is quite possible for half of the house to make dinner simultaneously. Perhaps our best use of the space yet was to host about 25 people for a DIY pizza baking night, during which almost 40 pizzas were baked.

Such an event would not have been possible at most colleges. Churchill has the distinction of being one of the furthest colleges from downtown Cambridge. Although the 15-minute schlep (by Cambridge standards) to my office at the engineering department is a slight inconvenience, Churchill’s remote location gives it something most colleges seriously lack – space. Churchill’s vast sporting fields and tennis courts are a luxury other colleges can only dream of. Our distance from town also helps to deter the hordes of tourists that plague the other college grounds. (This is at least the PC explanation. I suspect that Churchill’s 1960s, Soviet factory-inspired architecture plays the primary role in repelling tourists.)

A major surprise for me about college life is how often I eat at the dining hall. Mind you, this is definitely not due to the quality of food. The English have yet to discover any spices beyond salt and pepper (and even these they seem reluctant to use), seemingly too preoccupied with inventing new ways to wrap sausages in bread (and oh how many ways they have found). The main draw of the college dining hall is the opportunity to meet other members of the college. Undergrads, grad students, faculty, and sometimes even staff gather thrice daily, sharing tables and good conversation.[¹] I regularly dine with a linguist, several lawyers, a German scholar, the son of Nobel Prize winning physicist Ernest Walton, and a cadre of scientists and engineers that dominate the Churchill population.[²] This spontaneous interaction across disciplines and between students and faculty is one of the great benefits of the Cambridge college system.[³] In addition to being a convenient way to meet others outside your discipline, the dining hall is also surprisingly more economical than making dinner at home, at least for vegetarians. A large plateful of hot vegetables and cold selections from the salad bar runs between £2 and £3. Moreover, the salad bar always includes an array of protein options (beans and meat daily, hard boiled eggs and tuna often, and salmon all too infrequently).

Three times a week, the College also hosts a “formal hall.” This is essentially an opportunity to dress up in formal ware, pay three times as much for the same food that was served at the normal dinner, and be restricted to not leaving your seat for approximately two hours. Needless to say, I am not terribly enthusiastic about this tradition, however it is certainly worth indulging in on occasion and provides a reasonable excuse to meet friends for dinner.[⁴] Although I have not participated in it, attempting to attend one formal hall at every college (there are 31) is a popular Cambridge sport. (It is rumored that King’s is the toughest hall to bag, as their once-a-week formal halls consistently sell out in minutes.)

Another highlight of the Cambridge college system is the social life. The student body, especially the graduate student body, is among the most international groups I have been a part of. Among the ten people living in my house, for example, we have four Americans, a Greek, a Thai, three Chinese, and a Sudanese. This diversity has had three main effects on my life at Cambridge. First, on any given day, there is a significant probability that someone’s country is celebrating a holiday, providing ample excuses to throw a party or go out for drinks (I am writing this on a stomach still full from an “Australia Day” barbecue). Second, the diversity in our culinary backgrounds not only encourages us to collectively host several dinner parties per week, but the results are almost unerringly delicious. (To maintain standards, we of course do not allow the native British to host such things.) Third, I have found myself acting more obnoxiously American than I did when living in the States. While I am not quite ready to don cowboy boots and overalls, I do find myself talking about the joys of American national parks, highways, and football more often than I ever was tempted to do in the past.

Despite the diversity of the student body, Churchill is certainly guilty of hosting the largest contingent of Americans at Cambridge, likely due in part both to the Churchill Scholars program (and the requirement that all applicants specify Churchill as their preferred college) as well as Winston Churchill’s fame in the States. One entertaining manifestation of this infestation is that Churchill College is, to my knowledge, the only college which attempts to host an annual Thanksgiving dinner. I say “attempt” because our dinner was notably lacking in pumpkin pie, stuffing, and several other key components of Thanksgiving, but we could not help but be flattered at this gesture. (I cannot wait for the 4th of July this year.)

A final important staple of social life at the Colleges are the “common rooms”, including the “junior common room” (JCR) for undergrads, the “middle common room” (MCR) for graduate students, and the “senior common room” (SCR) for the imminently deceased (ok, for faculty). The Churchill MCR includes both a TV/game room, as well as a bar/lounge with beautiful views of the Churchill fields and unprofitable drink prices (e.g. £1.25 for a glass of wine). The bar is run by grad students on a volunteer basis and seems to be open most nights of the week. The MCR also hosts several parties (e.g. welcome, Christmas, Super Bowl), trips to London (e.g. British Museum, National Gallery), dinners, pub quizzes, pub crawls, and other events, all free or heavily subsidized. These events are yet another great excuse to meet people outside of your discipline.

One of the more disappointing features of Cambridge in general and Churchill in particular are the gyms (or lack thereof). Since the colleges operate as their own fiefdoms, there is no motivation to build a large, central university fitness center. Instead, each college operates its own woefully underequipped facility. Although Churchill’s is considered among the best, the existence of just one treadmill, one bench press, and no more than one of anything else leads to a complicated strategy game to find a time when no one else in the college wants to use the same equipment as you. I have shamefully stooped to spreading rumors that the gym is either closed or occupied for rugby practice during the time at which I want to use it.

This post is part one of a five-part series on my first four months in Cambridge adapted from a mid-year report I submitted to the Churchill Foundation - the sponsor whose generosity is allowing me to spend one year at the University of Cambridge. It was written in January 2012. You can read Part II here.

Churchill is unique in this respect. At most colleges, faculty sit at their own “high table” to avoid the painful difficulties of communicating with non-Nobel Prize winners. ↩
According to its charter, Churchill College is to maintain a population of about 70% scientists and engineers. While this can make for great discussion and easy communication of one’s own research, it has the inevitable effect of strongly skewing the (undergraduate) population towards the male end of the spectrum. ↩
Its drawbacks include terrifyingly intricate bureaucracies, perpetual funding problems, and a notable lack of a respectable fitness center. But who’s counting? ↩
My anti-formal hall stance has softened since I originally wrote this, particularly after attending formals at other colleges (Sidney Sussex and Queens) with large groups of friends. I am now pro-formal hall. ↩

Dispatch from England - Part I was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on February 09, 2012.

Guide to Applying to US Science PhD Programs and Fellowships

2011-07-07T00:00:00-00:00

This is a guide for those preparing to apply to, applying to, interviewing for, and choosing science PhD programs and fellowships, primarily in the US. It assumes that you have already decided to apply to grad school and are willing to put forth a bit more effort than a few Google searches and coin flips.

Why should we listen to you?
If you are considering basing your entire grad school application process on a single obscure blog post, then perhaps a life in research is not your best option. I highly encourage you to seek advice from a range of professors, administrators, researchers, and grad students, especially those who know you and can offer more personal advice. The lessons and suggestions below are merely anecdotes drawn from my own experiences applying to grad school during Fall 2010/Spring 2011.

For full disclosure, I applied to a hodgepodge of programs that would support research in theoretical neuroscience (which translated to Neuroscience, Biophysics, Physics, and Applied Math programs), as well as just about every fellowship for which I was eligible. With the generous guidance of about a dozen professors and grad students, I managed to snag a Churchill Scholarship to spend one year at the University of Cambridge and a Department of Energy Computational Sciences Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF), a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and a Hertz Fellowship to support my PhD studies thereafter. I was also fortunate enough to receive offers of admission from the majority of schools I applied to but deferred or declined them all to spend a year in the UK. (During my year in the UK, I reapplied to a few schools and ended up going to Princeton for its physics program.)

My goal in writing up this guide is not to help you design your college experience, craft the perfect resume, and con your way into grad school, but rather (1) to leverage the obscene amount of time I spent gathering information on grad schools and fellowships to save you time and (2) to help you make a reasonably well-informed decision.

The Process

Identify faculty, schools, and programs (in that order)
Contact faculty and students
Apply for fellowships
Apply for grad schools
Worry
Interview and/or visit
Worry
Decide

1. Identify faculty, schools, and programs (in that order)

Why in that order?
You are going to grad school to learn how to do research (or to escape a poor job market, but my recommendation stands); finding an appropriate research advisor is one of the most challenging and important parts of ensuring that you have a good experience. By focusing on schools or programs first, you may become distracted by far less important details, such as coursework, impressive web pages, and ambitious program names.

Are you saying schools and programs do not matter?
Not quite. A school defines where you will live and who you will interact with, and a program defines your first-year course requirements and may restrict who you can work with. My point is that working with a great advisor at a good school is, for most people, going to be a better experience than working with a mediocre advisor at a great university.

What criteria should I consider in looking for faculty?
Interesting research - Obviously, you need to be interested in their research.

Well-connected - Since your advisor will likely be your primary liaison for establishing collaborations during grad school and finding jobs afterwards, you might want to find someone who is well-connected and collaborates frequently in your research community. Frequent invites to speak at seminars and conferences, a diversity of co-authors on publications, and frequent citations of his/her research (in journals, not USA Today) are all good signs.

Advisement style - Advisors vary widely in how closely they interact with students. Some will assign their students projects and meet with them for a couple of hours multiple times a week. Others prefer to let their students struggle a bit to define their own research problem and may not require any meetings, serving only as a source of advice a couple of times per month or semester. Where your optimal advisor falls on this spectrum of involvement depends on your own personality and preferences. Emails to grad students, interviews, and visits (discussed below) will help you determine the advisement style of the faculty in whom you are interested.

Availability - Your advisor also needs to have the time and funding to take on students. At a minimum, they need to be willing to advise you, but depending on your preferences for interaction, you may want to consider how much time they actually have for their students. A quick glance at their website may reveal whether they are taking on students but if not, a brief email asking this question is absolutely acceptable. As for determining how much time they actually have, emails to grad students, interviews, and visits are again helpful and will be discussed below.

Great explainer - Another helpful quality in an advisor is the ability to clearly explain complicated ideas. Not all great researchers make great mentors, and having an advisor who is a great explainer can help you learn a lot more during your time in grad school. Looking up talks and papers by a professor, as well as interviews and visits, can help you infer how well they explain their work.

Personality - Finally, you need to get along with your advisor. Choosing an advisor because you thought they were “funny” or because they shared your interest in crocheting may sound absurd, but you will be spending between four and seven (or more) years working with them. Due to the nature of scientific research, you will inevitably run into many failures, dead ends, and frustrations, and overcoming such obstacles will be far easier if you have an advisor you enjoy working with. Again, not all great researchers make great mentors.

These criteria of course reflect my own particular preferences, and your own may differ. I strongly recommend drafting your own list before contacting professors or visiting schools, so that you have some idea of what questions you should be asking and what you should be looking for. Update your list as you learn more throughout the application and visiting process.

What criteria should I consider in looking for schools and programs?
Livability - If you grew up in Orange County and will need to be rushed to the hospital if a snowflake impinges upon your sensitive tanned skin, then perhaps the University of Chicago is not your best option. If you were raised climbing trees and having picnics in Oregon, then think carefully before applying to NYU. If you are a diehard rock climber, then perhaps you should pass on the University of Kansas. At a minimum, you should be sure that you can lead a moderately satisfying life in any city containing a grad school to which you apply.

Community - Your school and program more or less define the people you will collaborate, eat lunch, and socialize with for several years. The people in your program are usually the first that you get to know (since you will likely take classes with them for at least a year or two), though how close-knit these communities remain over the next few years varies greatly by school and discipline (mathematicians, for example, typically shun human contact and live in hermit caves after year 3). I have had one professor tell me that the single factor that contributed most to his positive experience in grad school was the enthusiasm and motivation of the students around him; it is much easier to deal with the trials and tribulations of PhD research when you are constantly reminded of how much fun science can be. In addition, your colleagues in grad school will likely become your collaborators afterwards, so surrounding yourself with people who do good work may serve you well in the future. Visiting your program and talking to students ahead of time is the best way to assess whether the community will be a good fit for you.

Multiple advisors - While you may enter grad school gung ho on working with a particular professor, your interests may shift, that professor’s interests may shift, funding may be an issue, or you simply may find that you two do not get along. To prevent yourself from needing to switch schools (or worse, work on something you are not interested in), look for schools and programs that have more than one faculty member you can see yourself working with. Also, if your interests span multiple disciplines, you may need multiple advisors with different areas of expertise anyways.

Funding - It is socially acceptable to ask faculty and students about the funding situation. (I ignored this question throughout my applications and visits until professors actually started asking me to ask them about funding.) In my experience, most programs fund students for their first year or two while they are finding an advisor (which may be done through fellowships, teaching assistantships, or both), and advisors fund their students thereafter. Though funding will likely not be an issue if you are in the sciences, grad students complaining about excessive teaching loads or that they could not work with their first choice of advisor due to funding problems are red flags. Ultimately, you can circumvent this issue if you are lucky enough to snag your own funding (see discussion of fellowships below).

Advisor flexibility - Make sure that your program gives you the flexibility to work with any of the multiple advisors in which you are interested, regardless of their department affiliations. In my experience, this was never an issue, though some more traditional departments may emphasize “training their own.”

Coursework - This criterion is listed last for a reason. While long lists of interesting courses make for impressive websites, it is your advisor, research, and colleagues that will be far more important in the long run. In addition, many (most?) grad students end up teaching themselves and each other skills as needed during research. Do not be distracted by the red herring of coursework. That said, make sure that you can tolerate the course requirements for any program you apply to.

Just as for faculty criteria, this is my own biased list, and you should draft your own as well.

How should I find faculty, schools, and programs?
Ask professors and/or grad students who know you well and/or are knowledgeable about your area of interest for suggestions. Browse review articles, textbooks, and papers and note faculty whose research interests you; follow up by browsing their websites. Diligently scanning the complete faculty profiles for schools and departments in which you might be interested also works, though exhaustive search is linear in problem size (in other words, its time-consuming). As for programs, do not feel as though you must apply to only programs with a particular name; it is more important that you find a program that will give you the flexibility and support to do the research you want to do with the people you want to do it with (again, I personally applied to programs with titles ranging from “Physics” to “Neuroscience” to “Applied Math”). Keep a detailed list of faculty, schools, and programs as you go. For perspective, the Google Doc I used for this purpose outputs a 53-page PDF. Gird thy loins!

2. Contact faculty and students

[GASP] You can email professors?!
Yes, and you should. It will (1) help guide your decision of where to apply, (2) help you write a more-informed application, and (3) possibly help your chances of admission, since a professor may lobby the admissions committee on your behalf. All of this assumes that you avoid racial slurs, links to raunchy YouTube videos, and absurdly poor spelling and grammar in your emails.

How should I email professors and what should I ask them?
Keep your messages short. The likelihood that a professor will read your email varies inversely with its length. Avoid sending resumes or making lengthy introductions. Simply include a sentence or two mentioning your relevant background, that you are applying to grad school, and that you are interested in their research group. Appropriate questions include whether they have the time and funding to take on PhD students and specific questions about their research or potential projects. Be sure to read their webpage and a few of their papers (or at least the abstracts) before contacting them. Failing to do so and instead asking “So what do you do?” will likely give off the impression that you are incredibly lazy and may actually hurt your chances of admission. Also, if you email a couple of professors in a row, be careful not to mix up their names. I did this once and, not surprisingly, I did not receive a response.

Why would I want to email grad students?
First of all, they are a goldmine of useful information about programs, universities, and particular labs. Second, they are much more likely to respond to your messages than professors, as they typically have far more time and receive far fewer emails. Throughout the application process, I actually found grad students to be far more helpful than any other single resource. Many are eager to talk about their own research, the advisement styles of various professors, details of their programs, and just about any question you might come up with. I even had lengthy phone conversations with several especially helpful students. Of course, as I mentioned for professors, make sure to do your due diligence first. Read faculty websites, relevant papers, and program websites before contacting students, and avoid asking questions that are answered elsewhere.

3-4. Apply for fellowships and grad schools

What are fellowships?
Funding, mostly distributed by the government though also by several private organizations, that will follow you to whichever school you choose.

Why should I apply for fellowships?
Preparation - Fellowship deadlines are typically earlier than those for grad schools, and many of the essays, recommendation letters, and other application materials that you prepare can be reused. Inevitably, you will start putting together your grad school applications too late, and the forced preparation of fellowship applications will save you from missing deadlines.

Grad schools care - Many grad programs require their current students to apply for fellowships, and if you can say that you have done so before even applying, you may impress them with your apparent competence.

Academic freedom - There is a slight chance that you might actually win a fellowship and if so, you will then have a reliable source of funding that follows you to whatever university and research group that you choose. This means that funding is no longer an obstacle to your working with a particular group. It means that your research will not be tied to a particular grant so that you have far more freedom in selecting a thesis topic. It also frees you from taking on teaching assistantships for funding, thus giving you more time to focus on your research. You may still decide that you want to teach or your program may still require a semester or two of teaching in order for you to graduate, but you now have flexibility. Lastly, if you are wait-listed or rejected from a school that you are still keen on attending, a fellowship may encourage the admissions committee to reconsider, as you are now essentially free labor.

What are the major fellowships?
In increasing order of benefits, there are the Ford, NSF, NDSEG, DOE CSGF, and Hertz fellowships. Each involves some combination of tuition, living stipend, research/travel grants, research internships, and conferences, lasts for 3-5 years, and may only be used at schools in the US. I will abstain from listing the benefits of each program, as they may change year to year. Check their websites for up-to-date info. In my case, I missed the deadline for the Ford, applied for the NSF, NDSEG, CSGF, and Hertz, received the NSF and CSGF, and made it to the final round of interviews for the Hertz (more on this experience below), so I will offer comments on each of the NSF, NDSEG, CSGF, and Hertz.

What about international fellowships?
There are several fellowships available to Americans interested in heading to the UK for grad school, including the Rhodes (1-3 years, Oxford), Marshall (2-3 years, any school in the UK), Churchill (1 year, Cambridge), and Gates (1-4 years, Cambridge). Fulbright Scholarships (1 year) are more flexible and eligible for study in countries all over the world. International fellowships typically have earlier deadlines (September-October) and require nomination by your undergraduate institution. Note that many of these programs allow you to pursue a master’s (or two) and then return to the US for a PhD program and so provide an excellent opportunity to sample another academic culture and travel without committing to a PhD overseas. I will not comment further on any of the international fellowships here, except to mention that, beginning this September, I will be spending one year at Cambridge on a Churchill Scholarship and will write more about this experience as it unfolds.

What can you tell me about applying for the NSF?
The NSF is by far the largest of the fellowship programs. In 2011 for example (the year I applied), they gave out about 2000 fellowships. The NSF also has the earliest application deadline (mid-November) and so is likely the first application you will submit. Three other unique features of the NSF are that (1) the application requires a project proposal (in addition to a personal statement and summary of previous research), (2) the selection committee strongly emphasizes “broader impacts” on society, and (3) once the results are announced, you will receive “ratings sheets” which offer brief feedback on your application from three reviewers. Given that in all my years of applying for schools, scholarships, jobs, and library cards, I have never received any more feedback than a simple rejection or acceptance letter, I found this third feature of the NSF alone worth the time spent applying. As for the project proposal, I found it to be the single most time-consuming piece I had to prepare while applying for fellowships and grad schools. Writing (and re-writing) an NSF-style project proposal is, however, great practice for applying to grad school and, if you are aiming for academia, applying for the grants that will feed both your children and grad students. In preparing your proposal, I highly recommend (1) starting at least two months before the deadline and (2) eliciting feedback from professors, grad students, and other researchers. Starting early will give you plenty of time to write, revise, seek feedback, and repeat. Eliciting feedback is essential because, unless you are a child prodigy, this is the first real grant application you have ever written and you will be amazed at how much your proposal will evolve with a few rounds of feedback. I should also mention that the NSF will not hold you to carry out the exact project that you propose. The proposal is really meant to test your knowledge of your field and ability to express your thoughts clearly. For this reason, it is probably better to write a proposal about something concrete that you know well (such as an extension of your undergraduate research) rather than the ambitious yet vague project you would really love to work on. Finally, while grad schools and most fellowships will focus almost entirely on your research potential, the NSF also emphasizes your “broader impacts” on society, which include the direct impact of your proposed project, public outreach efforts, participation in mentoring programs, and even promotion of international collaborations (a complete description is available from the NSF). Do not overlook these. The ratings sheets that I and other applicants with whom I have spoken all mention the presence or absence of broader impacts in all three essays, and I am fairly certain that if you submitted a surefire proposal to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity, explain consciousness, and solve three Millennium problems in one brilliant swoop, but left out references to broader impacts, you would be swiftly rejected by the NSF (if it makes you feel better, you would still get the Hertz). Now, if your research is in mathematics or the pure sciences and is unlikely to change your grandma’s life in the next three years, then you are probably terrified at the notion of being forced to write about broader impacts. Fear not! As I alluded to above, broader impacts include public outreach efforts, mentoring, and other activities not directly related to your research, and the NSF will not penalize you for not attempting to cure cancer. Given the novelty of writing about your “broader impacts” and drafting a full-blown NSF project proposal, it can be quite helpful to begin by looking at a few sample essays and ratings sheets, and I have provided such links in the section on additional resources below.

What can you tell me about applying for the NDSEG?
The most unique feature of the NDSEG is that your application must pique the interest of a Department of Defense research office. This does not mean that you necessarily need to be building the Death Star or mind control devices. In fact, every NDSEG fellow that I contacted mentioned that they made no special efforts to reference military applications of their work when they applied. Also, while the NDSEG site mentions that you can browse the websites of the various research offices to see what kinds of projects they find interesting, I would advise against it for two reasons. One, no NDSEG fellow I contacted mentioned any perceived benefit in doing so. Two, government websites are notoriously difficult to navigate and out of date. It seems the best strategy is to apply just as you would for any other fellowship and hope for the best.

What can you tell me about applying for the CSGF?
The CSGF stands for “Computational Sciences Graduate Fellowship”, but “Computational Sciences” is broadly defined as any research leveraging computers and/or mathematics, thus you need not have a server farm in your basement to qualify. In addition to the very generous financial benefits, the CSGF is unique in requiring a summer internship at a national lab. This feature can either be viewed as a necessary obstacle to receiving your funding or as a great opportunity to try out a non-thesis-related research project at one of 17 stellar labs across the United States.

What can you tell me about applying for the Hertz?
Not only is the Hertz the most competitive (about a dozen superstars pick one up each year), lucrative (5 years of stipend and tuition), and prestigious fellowship in the US, it is also by far the most fun to apply for, as it includes two rounds of intense interviews.

After the initial applications in October, about a quarter of applicants are invited to interview. If you are among this lucky bunch, you will receive an email reminiscent of a James Bond movie, requesting that you don a suit, meet at a hotel, and:

At five minutes before your interview time, please go to a house phone in the lobby, dial the operator and ask for Dr. [your interviewer’s name here]’s room. He will pick up and let you know what suite they are in and if they are ready for your interview. The interview will take place in a completely separate living room area of the suite. The interview is a formal technical interview, lasting 45 to 60 minutes. It is patterned after the PhD oral exam and you may be asked to perform calculations, discuss your previous research work, and to demonstrate the breadth and depth of your technical knowledge. Please bring paper and pen in the event you are asked to perform calculations during your interview.

After receiving this message, I was preparing to be doing push-ups and integrals at the behest of a military officer. In reality, although the interviewers asked impeccably sharp questions, the conversation was quite casual. (I was, admittedly, slightly disappointed that I did not get to do push-ups and integrals.) My question topics ranged from my personal motivations (e.g. “How did you become interested in neuroscience?”, “Where do you see yourself in ten years?”) to my previous research (e.g. “Tell us what you did in this project.”) to creative puzzles (e.g. “If you had a friend on the other side of the moon and were banned from launching anything into space, how would you communicate with him?”). In all cases, the interviewers (there are typically two) continually peppered me with sub-questions, ranging from clarifications on specifics (e.g. “And about how large is a neuron?”) to speculations on broader issues (e.g. “And what implications do you think that has for the field of neuroscience?”). Note that you will almost certainly be stumped by one or more of the questions asked and that this does not necessarily disqualify you. I stumbled on at least two questions in the first round and still managed to limp my way to the second round. (The second round interview is very similar.) Personally, I applied for the Hertz mainly because the interviews sounded like fun and I was not disappointed. If you have a similarly sadistic sense of pleasure, then this is the fellowship for you!

I just got a first-round interview! Any advice?
Know your research well, not just the technical details but also the broader significance. Be able to explain why your projects were important and exactly what role you played in each one. One question I was unprepared for was: “What is the most creative idea you have had in your research?” Another was: “What is the most interesting new tool available to scientists in your field?” You should be able to come up with better answers to these than “I vectorized my Matlab code” and “Google Plus”.

Most importantly, be prepared to be humbled. The interviewers will probably be nice, but they will also probably push you to and beyond your intellectual limits. That is their way of testing you, so do not feel ashamed if you cannot answer some of their questions. What you should not do is remain silent for long periods of time, mumble, or bullshit your way through an answer. Instead, vocalize your thought process, and be honest and precise about any uncertainties you have. The interviewers want to see how you think, and they cannot do so if you sit there daydreaming.

Finally, remain confident. Treat the interview like a game, and I am sure you will have lots of fun. I truly enjoyed my interviews and would do it again in a second.

Sounds great! Can I receive all of these fellowships?
Up until 2010, it was possible to accept multiple fellowships and use them one after another. Beginning in 2011, however, the US government decided to spread its funding and no single student can accept more than one scholarship from a federal source (which includes the Ford, NSF, NDSEG, and CSGF). Since the Hertz is awarded by a private organization, it might be possible to accept it along with a federal fellowship, but this is between you and your funding sources. In any case, if you win a Hertz, you should have cured cancer and disproved P=NP by your fifth year, so a second fellowship should not be necessary.

What are applications like in general?
Applications typically ask for a mixture of essays (e.g. personal statement, summary of previous research), recommendation letters (typically three, though as many as five), general GRE scores, transcripts (sometimes official, sometimes unofficial), and personal info (address and such). Some may ask for a subject GRE score in your area of focus. Grad schools have application fees (typically $60-$120), but fellowships do not.

How should I prepare to apply for fellowships and grad schools?
Contact your recommendation letter writers and start preparing your personal statement early (I started during the summer and found it to be just enough time to hit all of my deadlines in the fall). If you can, consider taking your general and subject GRE even earlier (during your junior year) so that (1) you can retake them if you are not satisfied with your scores and (2) you are not preparing for GREs, classes, and applications simultaneously (personally, I found applications to be almost a full-time gig). Make organized spreadsheets of every item that is due; when you are juggling half a dozen deadlines in a single week, you will inevitably forget to send a transcript (or even an entire application) if you are not organized. Be sure to gently remind your recommenders of approaching deadlines; they will forget (though rumor has it that faculty members are so notorious for late letters that review committees will wait a week or more for letters to trickle in anyways). In general, do not worry about contacting the various organizations to make sure that your materials have arrived. They will contact you if something important is missing.

How should I prepare for the GREs?
If you are a native English speaker, all you need to do for the general GRE is to take a couple of practice tests ahead of time to understand the format. ETS (the inept company that administers the GREs) offers test prep software that allows you to simulate the riveting experience of using a computer in the early 1980s… and taking the painfully primitive test in an official GRE test center. There are also plenty of practice books available from companies like the Princeton Review that offer additional practice tests. The test is similar in nature to the SATs and your score is probably not particularly important, so you should not spend too much time preparing for or worrying about the test. If you are not a native English speaker, I hear the test is considerably more difficult. Sorry.

The subject tests, on the other hand, are far more challenging and do require practice. The only subject tests I have had experience with are physics and math. As for math, it is rumored that universities do not particularly care how well you did on the subject test, though they require it anyways. Physics programs, on the other hand, worship the physics GRE, and rumor has it that you need a 900+ score for top programs to even look at your application. Fortunately, there are four old exams floating around the interwebs as well as a fantastic website discussing various approaches to solving the individual problems. I recommend taking each of the (timed) tests on your own and reviewing the web solutions afterwards to fill in the gaps in your learning (I took each twice over a period of 6 weeks and did fine on the exam). Ignore prep books for the physics test; they are a waste of money, as the practice exams and web solutions offer plenty of preparation.

Who should I ask to write my recommendation letters?
Ideally, a Nobel Prize winner who swears that you are the spawn of Isaac Newton and Mother Teresa and will revolutionize your field before quals. Realistically, at least two professors who have overseen your research and an academic advisor who can speak about your coursework, participation in academic programs, and general background and personality. Having recommendations from a professor outside of your university (e.g. from a summer research program) or one who plays poker and shares oscilloscopes with faculty on the review committee (yes, scientists are humans too) are considered pluses. However, the party line is that you are better off with a good letter from an unknown professor who knows you well than a mediocre letter from a Nobel Prize winner who met you once at a seminar.

How should I write my personal statement?
As far as I can tell, there at least three things that grad schools want to hear about: (1) your interest and motivation for doing research, (2) your experience in and preparation for doing research, and (3) your short and long-term goals. Grad schools commit a lot of time and money to accepted grad students, and a PhD student who burns out after two years and heads to Hollywood to pursue a life in film is generally considered a poor investment. For this reason, grad schools want to know that you have reasons for being interested in research and, ideally, a history of pursuing it. In addition to demonstrating that you have faced the frustrations of research, have a realistic picture of what to expect, and yet are still naive enough to want to pursue a career in it, a history of research indicates that you will be able to hit the ground running in grad school and will require less initial training than a born-again English major who decides upon graduation that they want to investigate the origins of our universe. Finally, grad schools want to know that you have invested some thought in your future and thus have some idea of why you want to go to grad school and what you expect to get out of it. You should mention professors you might be interested in working with as well as general project ideas that you might pursue. If you have contacted those professors (and you should), you might mention that, as well as project ideas that stemmed from your exchange. You need not specify fine details, such as the exact molarity of the buffer you will use in step 2 of your first experiment or the variance for the Gaussian noise model you will use in your modeling project. In fact, if you are too emphatic about one particular project, this might even be detrimental to your case, as grad schools may assume that you are inflexible and might be disappointed or even drop out if that particular project does not work out (for example, because the advisor has too many students already). Unfortunately, if you claim to have interests in every field from C. elegans genetics to atomic microscopy to quantum field theory, grad schools will assume you are naive and have not thought hard enough about your future. In summary, you must navigate between Scylla and Charybdis and convince grad schools that you are creative and goal-oriented yet realistic and flexible. Most importantly, start writing early and get feedback from friends, grad students, and (if you are very lucky) professors. Seeking multiple rounds of feedback on each of my essays was probably the single most helpful thing I did while applying.

Fellowships, on the other hand, are slightly different. They seem to be slightly less interested in your interests and motivations and more interested in your previous and proposed research. Several fellowships, including the NSF, require project proposals, and in these cases, feel free to go into far more detail than in your grad school applications.

Will I be hanged, drawn, and quartered for breaching the page or word limits for essays?
I doubt any one actually counts words in your essay, although an extra page may raise eyebrows. Streamlining your essays for readability over poetic flourish is a good idea, but do not stress over a few extra words.

How many schools should I apply to?
As many as you see yourself potentially striving at. I know students who applied to as few as 3 and as many as 15 (and pre-meds are known to commonly apply to 20 or more schools), though the average is probably between 5 and 10. I personally applied to 13 schools, a number at which I arrived by applying to every school which I could plausibly see as my top choice after visiting. Reasons to limit the number of schools to which you apply include applications fees (typically $60-$120/school), time spent applying (though this decreases rapidly since you can recycle essays), and difficulty scheduling visits in the spring (if you are fortunate enough to be accepted). Reasons to apply to more schools include increasing the probability that you get in somewhere, increasing the number of visits you get to do in the spring, and allowing for a “borderline” school to surprise you during a visit. Your own optimum school number will depend on how many schools fit your interests, your pre-application confidence in your admission likelihood and school preferences, your financial status, and your time for and interest in spring visits.

Where can I find more additional resources on applying for fellowships and grad schools?

Advice from other previous applications, including:

fellowship and grad school application from Stanford CS grad student and NSF fellow Philip Guo
NSF advice and sample essays from Boston University physics student and NSF fellow Alex Lang

My own application essays, including:

Additional tips from the NSF (though I found these to generalize to other applications) on:

5. Worry

Now that you have submitted all of your applications, it is time to sit in front of your email inbox, hitting refresh on your browser 24 hours a day for the next couple of months.

In all seriousness, relax. If you have taken the time to read this far in an obscure blog post on applying to grad school, you have likely worked reasonably hard throughout your college career and on your applications, and your hard work will soon pay off. You can also take solace in that you will get to spend the next several years (at least) doing something you love while your sucker college classmates get jobs they hate, slowly lose friends and gain weight, and decay into a passion-less existence. You can also track user-submitted admissions decisions at GradCafe, but I recommend against it. Admissions decisions and interview offers are not sent out all at once, so finding out that others have been accepted, rejected, or offered an interview before you have heard back is not predictive of your own situation. Therefore, you will likely do little more than fuel your own delusions and anxiety.

6. Interview and/or visit

Wait, I have to interview?
This varies by discipline. Some programs require in-person interviews, others may conduct phone or Skype interviews, and still others may admit/reject students based on their applications alone. In the latter two cases, accepted students may be invited to visit before making a decision. For some reason, interviews and invited visits seem to be more common in the life sciences than in math and physics. This may either reflect the cultures of the fields (biologists are usually slightly more gregarious than mathematicians) or the amount of available funding (as a general rule, the more applied departments usually have more money).

Should I be nervous?
Not at all. Interviews and visits are the best part of applying to grad schools! Be prepared for several weeks of:

one-on-one time with faculty to discuss their current research, potential projects for yourself, or just about anything else
plenty of time to talk to current grad students
lab tours
the opportunity to meet other students from all over the country and world with similar interests
...and (surprise!) free travel, meals, booze, and entertainment!

That’s right - spring visits are basically extended science parties. For both interviews and visits, programs typically plan a mix of one-on-one meetings with faculty (30 minutes to one hour), info sessions, lab tours, faculty talks, student poster sessions, lunches, dinners, and receptions with students and/or faculty, and entertainment, including everything from parties to hikes to aquarium visits. “Interviews” are as much recruitment as they are actual interviews, so prepare to courted. Also, in my experience, any reasonable expenses will be reimbursed, from baggage fees to taxis to lunch to coffee. I even heard one rumor of a group of students who ran up a $2000 wine bill during dinner and managed to get comped, though I recommend against trying this yourself.

Does that mean I am guaranteed admission if I am invited to interview?
Not quite, though the odds are in your favor. Most programs claim not to have a particular quota in mind, but rumor has it that typically somewhere between 50% and 75% of interviewees are accepted. Note that more students are accepted than desired to enroll since programs anticipate that not all students will accept their offers. Note also that a post-interview rejection does not necessarily mean that you were a disappointment in person. Interviews are as much about judging your own fit and interest in the program, and faculty may have sensed that your interests were better served elsewhere.

How should I prepare?
Publish three Nature papers, lose 20 pounds, and memorize all of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

But if you do not have time for that, remember that interviews are far more fun and casual than you likely imagine. Be ready to discuss your previous research (partially to test your understanding of your work and partially to direct the conversation towards topics of your interest). Be ready also to describe your current interests, with an eye towards potential projects. For those faculty with whom you will be interviewing (schedules are typically sent the week before you arrive) or with whom you are interested in speaking with at receptions and other events, read their websites and recent abstracts, and prepare questions about their research, intersections with your own interests, and possible projects. Thoroughly reading every paper they have published since their 5th-grade book report on “The Phantom Toolbooth” is however unnecessary, as most faculty are quite happy to give you an overview of their work in person. Essentially, you should read just enough to satisfy your own interests and prepare a few questions. Preparing questions will not only help you gain information relevant to your own decision, it also displays your interest, creativity, and preparedness and will likely help your chances of admission.

What should I ask faculty during my interview/visit?
See the advisor criteria I posted above for some ideas. Besides asking about current and potential projects, consider explicitly asking about advisement style and the funding situation.

What should I ask current grad students during my interview/visit?
While you can also discuss research with them, grad students are your go-to resource for questions on local living and entertainment, coursework, and what it is actually like to work with particular professors. In addition, I found the following three questions to be very helpful: (1) what is the worst thing about your school/program?, (2) what was the biggest surprise?, and (3) where else did you consider going and why did you choose to come here? See the school and program criteria I posted above for some other ideas.

What if I do not get to meet with a faculty member who I am really interested in speaking with?
Many faculty may be traveling or otherwise unavailable during interview/visit weekend, while others are simply over-requested by prospective students and cannot meet with everyone. If someone you requested is missing from your interview schedule, try asking the program administrator if you can replace a less desirable interview or fit in some one-on-one time elsewhere. For example, you might meet with a professor at a reception, over a meal, or during a lab tour. You can also speak with current grad students advised by that professor or other prospective students who interviewed with that professor. If you still feel neglected at the end of your visit, feel free to email a professor to ask questions, set up a phone discussion, or plan to meet at an upcoming conference.

What do I do if I was accepted but not offered a visit and would like to make one?
Let the program director know that you are interested in visiting and, in some cases, they may offer to help pay for a visit (the only school to which I applied that did not offer visits was willing to do this). Even if they do not have the funds to do so, they will likely be willing to set up meetings with professors and students if you can cover travel costs. If you are in this situation with regards to a school you are very interested in, I highly recommend investing in a visit. Choosing a grad school is a major commitment and you do not want to condemn yourself to several years working with an advisor you do not get along with on a project you do not care about in a city you despise simply because you were too cheap to splurge on a visit.

7. Decide

First of all, do not spend too much time during your visits trying to weigh your options and make a decision. Given the limited time of your visits, it is better to avoid this distraction and immerse yourself in the local research and social environment. Also, do not be surprised if you leave every visit wanting to call your friends and family to let them know you have a new top choice. As I mentioned, visits are disguised science parties and you will be swooned by almost every one. In the weeks afterwards, signal and noise will begin to separate, and you will slowly whittle down your choices. If you are fortunate, you will soon realize that every school is awful except for one perfect school that caters to your every need and desire. If you are less fortunate, you will realize that there are two or more schools at which you could be quite happy and productive. If this is the case, review the criteria on faculty and schools that you drafted in the fall (or if you were too lazy to do so, consider my own listed above) and consider your decision in light of these criteria. If you are still stumped, talk with friends, family, academic advisors, and research advisor about your decision. Other prospective students whom you met on your visits are also great for this purpose, as they are in the midst of a similar decision. Encourage and reflect on the feedback you receive, but also monitor whether your explanations of your indecision consistently belie an underlying bias toward one particular school. Often, I find that, long before I feel confident about a decision, my discussions with others betray that I have already made up my mind. If you have particular questions that remain unanswered, contact professors, grad students, or program directors, as most are quite happy to discuss your position in decision space, given their own vested interest in the outcome. Hopefully, you converge on a confident decision by April 15, the sacred agreed-upon admission decision deadline, as declared in the US Constitution.[¹]

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Paul David, Alex Lang, David Sheen, Henry Yuen, Chris Rollins, Nick Steinmetz, Samir Menon, Peiran Gao, and Matt Goldstein for several rounds of generous feedback on my various application essays. Thank you to Nick Steinmetz, Samir Menon, and Peiran Gao for also seeding my initial list of faculty and schools with their own suggestions. Finally, thanks to Bartlett Mel, Andrew Childs, Paolo Zanardi, Stephan Haas, Kwabena Boahen, and Gene Bickers for their mentorship and guidance, as well as putting up with dozens of at-the-buzzer recommendation letter requests. I will spend the next several years trying to earn the generosity that each of you has offered to me.

Postscript

For students currently planning to apply or currently applying to grad schools and/or fellowships, feel free to post additional questions in the comments. For those who have run the gauntlet and survived, feel free to post additional advice (or refutations of my own) in the comments as well. I will periodically update this guide with any intelligent conversation that emerges.

Unverified. ↩

Guide to Applying to US Science PhD Programs and Fellowships was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on July 07, 2011.

College - What I Did Right and Where I Screwed Up

2011-06-01T00:00:00-00:00

Having spent all of two weeks as a college graduate and invited to deliver my life story in three minutes for the USC Board of Trustees this morning, I figure now is a proper time for reflecting on my college undergraduate experience and, in particular, what I think I did right and where I screwed up. As an added bonus, I offer bold, unwarranted advice for students and educators.

What I Did Right

1. Not Selling Out Until I Found My Passion
I entered college without a clue of what I wanted to do with my life and entertained doing everything from making films to being a chef to being a sherpa. Instead of giving up on finding my passion, pursuing a career in medicine, law, or finance, and relegating my enjoyment of life to weekends and semiannual vacations, I spent my first couple of years at USC “shopping” for a passion by sampling from just about every program and opportunity USC had to offer. I explored international commerce in Hong Kong with the business school, tried to bring clean water to villages in Honduras and India with Engineers Without Borders and the USC Stevens’ Global Impact program, immersed myself in Chinese language and business through a summer internship in Shanghai via the USC Global Fellows program, led an initiative to bring the Flexcar car rental service to USC (now acquired by Zipcar), and backpacked western Europe. My major shifted officially from history to business to computer engineering to chemical engineering and unofficially to probably another dozen disciplines.

It was not until my third year at USC that I found something that stuck. That year, I took an introductory course in electricity and magnetism with Professor Paolo Zanardi that undoubtedly changed my life. Though I had taken physics classes in the past, it was Professor Zanardi’s style of teaching that introduced me to a new way of asking and answering questions about the world that resonated with my natural curiosities and loves of mathematics and problem-solving. I unashamedly abused his open office hours by drilling him with questions for hours on end multiple times per week and his ad-hoc whiteboard lessons and suggestions for further reading fueled late nights curled up in bed with a textbook, furiously solving problem after problem. In addition to being an excellent teacher, Professor Zanardi served as a living example to me that science was a viable and rewarding career path. Though I had fallen in love with mathematics in first grade, I had never known a scientist until college and had subsequently adopted the utterly false stereotype that scientists are no more than automatons who mindlessly carry out the “scientific method” at lab benches. It was meeting Professor Zanardi and other scientists that conveyed me to just how creative and exciting an endeavor science truly was. Professor Zanardi also offered me my first significant research experience the following summer in Italy, which made it clear - science was indeed the career for me.

After my decision to focus on science, life became, in many ways, far easier. I stopped worrying about classes or homework because I wanted to do the assignments anyways. I no longer felt an inclination to “build my resume” because the activities required to do so were exactly what I would have chosen to do in my free time. In summary, my internal motivations became aligned with external incentives and there was no longer any struggle to define what I should be doing - I just did.

An important caveat to this story - I was, in many ways, completely miserable during my first two years at USC. Devoid of any clear goals or direction, I felt foolish for not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. How could I not summon an answer to such an obvious question as: what is your passion? I spent hours and days writing and reflecting, trying to “discover” the answer by looking inward, and learned two important lessons. One, identifying your passion is not necessarily easy. Two, looking inward to “find yourself” is not necessarily an effective way to find your passion. Instead, I found that serial sampling of each of your latent interests and allowing yourself to get lost in each and every activity can be far more effective.[¹]

Given my experience, I offer the following suggestions.[²]

Suggestions for students: your first goal in life should be to identify at least one thing you truly enjoy. (Note that you may, or even should, find multiple such things.) Then, and only then, might your goal shift to receiving a particular type of training or degree. If you find at least one such thing before college, great; pursue it. If you do not, use college to carry out massive parallel experiments in each of your possible interests. Actually, even if you come into college with clear goals, consider sampling from secondary interests anyways. In each case, lose yourself in these activities. While reflection is important, constant reflection can be a barrier to actually experiencing anything resembling passion, so reflect with caution. And have patience. Do not settle for a career in something you do not truly enjoy. Dabble widely until you find something you are truly passionate about. Ignore stereotypes about possible career paths and the pressure to chose something based on your parents’ preferences or potential for fat paychecks. When you pursue something you are really passionate about, happiness and success will come naturally.

Suggestions for educators: encourage students to spend time testing out their spectrum of unexplored interests. Offer and advertise optional programs that introduce students to other disciplines without forcing them to change majors. Most importantly, encourage academic advisors to ask students what they really enjoy doing and hope to accomplish, instead of merely focusing on helping them to fulfill degree requirements and resolve scheduling conflicts. Be careful in making decisions and defining goals for students; learning to make your own decisions and form your own goals is an essential part of life that should also be an integral part of education.

2. Finding Great Mentors
Mentors played an essential role both in helping me find my passion and in pursuing it. Paolo Zanardi stoked my interest in physics, fueled my self-study outside of the classroom, showed me that science was a viable career option, and gave me my first significant research opportunity. It is safe to say that I am a scientist because of him. Bartlett Mel taught me how to combine mathematics and biology to “see the neural forest for the trees” and intuit how brains do what they do, as well as how to effectively bridge the communication gap between theoretical and experimental neuroscientists. Andrew Childs taught me how to become a more independent researcher and gave me my first opportunities to give a research talk and write a journal publication. Gene Bickers and Stephan Haas introduced me to the quirky world of academia, answered long lines of physics questions, and helped me navigate many professional and personal problems. Kwabena Boahen and Ted Berger allowed a naive physicist-mathematician to charade as a biologist in their labs and, hopefully, absorb some knowledge about the brain.

Reading books and websites or attending classes is no substitute for working with a great mentor. Great mentors have followed a similar route to your own and can offer recommendations that take into account your strengths and weaknesses and anticipated obstacles on the road ahead. Finding appropriate mentors can be challenging and time-consuming because (1) they must possess knowledge relevant to your goals and (2) you must get along with them, but the trial & error necessary to find them is worth every bit of time and energy.

Suggestions to students: seek out multiple appropriate mentors. The great value of being on a college campus is not the ability to take classes (you can do that online); it is the interaction with people who are currently or have in the past pursued goals similar to your own and can offer relevant advice.

Suggestions to educators: establish programs that help professors learn and share best practices on mentoring. Additionally, establish formal programs for students across the university to help them identify and learn from appropriate mentors. Emphasize mentorship as an essential piece of undergraduate education.

3. Building the Communities I Wanted that Did Not Exist
While I spent my first semester of college reveling in the sheer number of different communities available to me, I soon realized that there were still a couple missing.

First, I wanted to live among a community of inquisitive, clean, and passionate people, so that my day would be infused with interesting conversations (and not marred by the overflowing sinkfuls of dirty dishes, typical of a college dwelling). Initial attempts, including my misguided joining of a fraternity, failed miserably. Eventually, I decided to build my own living environment. I found a 7-bedroom house and hand-picked friends and friends of friends to fill it. That was easily one of the best decisions I have ever made. The three years since have been chock-full o’ stimulating conversations[³] and have convinced me of the benefits of communal living.

Second, I wanted to get off-campus, out of the city, and into nature more often. Despite USC’s prime position as a basecamp for hikes and camping trips exploring the geological chaos surrounding Los Angeles, I could not find a single student hiking group. So I started one. What began as a small group of friends organizing under the banner “USC Trekkers” soon ballooned into a 300-member Facebook group, and I have spent the past three years hiking just about every other weekend. Though I rarely use that Facebook group for organizing hikes these days, it seeded a now quite strong community of hikers at USC. I hike and camp now more often than ever with a revolving community of friends, and a fantastic official USC student group, SC Outfitters, has since spawned and gained popularity.

Suggestions to students: if you are searching for a community that does not exist, build it. It certainly takes effort to organize and develop a new community, but the results and experience are well worth the time and energy. If the communities you are searching for already do exist, great; join and improve them. However, due to the sheer volume of students organizations at a large university, it is easy to drift apathetically from organization to organization, feeling that each one is tolerable but “not for you” and finding yourself at graduation realizing that you did not experience college as you wanted to. Do not let this happen.

Suggestions to educators: make it easy for students to find the guidance and resources necessary to start new communities (USC does this quite well actually). In particular, offer avenues for students to easily organize living communities around mutual interests.[⁴]

4. Learning Outside the Classroom
As my family and friends know, I read textbooks like novels and have since high school. Doing so has helped me in several ways. One, it guided my selection of courses by indicating areas of interest or weakness. Without reading on my own, I would have been at the mercy of degree requirements and minimally informative course descriptions in allocating my time and energy at college. Two, it allowed me to get much more out of my classes, in part by knowing how to ask the right questions. I have found that learning requires at least two passes through a body of knowledge. During the first pass, one gains a sense for the general concepts and relationships between them but spends a great deal of time confused and unsure of what questions to ask to alleviate this confusion. During the second pass, one now has a sense of the general story and can focus on the details as well as asking the right questions to clarify confusion, recognizing the essential assumptions and tools necessary for the production of knowledge, and solidifying links between the important concepts.

Of course, textbooks are neither the only nor necessarily the most appropriate route to learning outside the classroom. In fact, I would argue that what I did outside of the classroom and beyond textbooks was most important to my education (textbooks and courses merely enabled me to do some of these things). For example, leading an initiative to bring Flexcar to USC taught me that proactively solving your own problems often helps others in the process, an 8-week internship in Shanghai developed my Chinese language skills far more than 3 semesters of coursework, working to bring clean water access to a village in India with students from engineering, international relations, and health promotions taught me the value of interdisciplinary teams, starting a weekend hiking group taught me how to organize and motivate people, helping to build an open-source web platform for scientific collaboration (CoLab) taught me how to monitor the zeitgeist of a community and channel it into a useful tool, and perhaps most importantly, doing research at and outside of USC conveyed to me the joy of scientific problem-solving and taught me how to pursue original research and communicate it to others. Looking back at my time in college, it is these non-coursework opportunities that I value most, not the classes. As I mentioned above when discussing mentors, the value of college is not the coursework; it is the professors, students, and opportunities that one gains access to.

Suggestions to students: do not restrict your learning to your coursework. Read outside of classes to inform how you choose courses and projects in the future. Preview course material so that you can ask the right questions and get the most out of your time with a professor. Perhaps most importantly, go beyond courses and textbooks; seek out opportunities and start projects to help you explore your interests and solve problems important to you.

Suggestions to educators: your primary goal should be to instill a curiosity and love of learning and problem-solving in your students. With that in place, they will carve their own paths. Also, de-emphasize the lecture. Encourage students to view video lectures or read textbooks outside of class and emphasize Q&As, discussion, and collaborative problem-solving in the classroom in order to maximize the value of student-professor interaction time. Integrate into courses projects that allow students to solve real-world problems of interest or importance to them. Offer plenty of non-major-specific, optional programs that allow highly motivated students to gain real-world experience solving problems of interest to them. Offer resources for students to easily propose and implement new projects and programs. Be flexible in allowing students to take less courses, forego homework assignments, or take a semester off to pursue such opportunities.

Where I Screwed Up

1. Teach
I have found that I do not truly understand something until I can (and do) teach it. When teaching, you are forced to understand every nuance of the relationships between concepts, the big picture as well as the fine details, and which assumptions are required for certain arguments and why, and you must be able to anticipate and answer every question that a naive but inquisitive student might ask. Combining this with my suggestion above that learning requires two passes, my educational mantra for achieving deep understanding has become: learn twice, teach once. Ideally, I would love to see teaching experience integrated tightly into education so that each generation of students is encouraged to teach and mentor the generation younger than them. For example, middle schoolers might help first graders learn to read, high schoolers might help middle schoolers learn algebra, college students might help high schools learn neuroscience, and so on. Beyond gaining additional familiarity with some body of knowledge, teaching also offers valuable experience in presentation, including how to combine an understanding of someone else’s background and the material to be presented into a coherent and satisfactory explanation.

Despite my love, appreciation, and proselytization of teaching, I failed to gain any consistent, formal teaching experience in college whatsoever. I did not mentor local high school students,[⁵] tutor other college students in introductory material that I knew quite well, or even study or do homework in groups, which would have exposed me to spontaneous opportunities to teach. My rationale for foregoing the first two opportunities was that I did not have enough time to learn all the things I wanted to learn and do research and teach. My rationale for not studying in groups was that I did not want to water down my learning with socialization, piggyback on the problem-solving abilities of classmates, or devote the additional time required to organize such study sessions. In retrospect, I may have been mistaken in both of these choices. As I mentioned, teaching is an excellent opportunity for learning, as well as a rewarding experience in its own right. In the future, I will find ways to inject more teaching opportunities into my life.

Suggestions for students: teach! Teach to solidify your learning experience. Teach to learn to present. And teach because its fun and rewarding to witness and be responsible for the spark of understanding in the eye of another.

Suggestions for educators: integrate teaching experience into every level of education. Have middle schoolers teach primary schoolers, high schoolers teach middle schoolers, and college students teach high school students. Recognize that peer-to-peer teaching is not only valuable for conveying ideas to the taught student, but also for solidifying the understanding of the teaching student and for providing opportunities for spontaneous mentoring on additional academic and non-academic issues. Offering small, optional tutoring problems is not enough; make teaching required and easily accessible.

2. Have a Long-Term Project
I changed research groups in college more often than I changed running shoes (approximately 10 times to 3 times). I dabbled in groups working on everything from cognitive science and neuroscience to nanoengineering and neuromorphic engineering to quantum information and computational physics.[⁶] In doing so, I gained an appreciation for the spectrum of how science is done as well as confidence that I have chosen the field that is most exciting and important to me. However, I also missed out on the opportunity to nurse a research project from vague proposal to implementation to publication. Most of my projects were done in collaboration with grad students or post-docs and focused on a sub-problem of someone else’s project. Only once did I feel that I truly owned a project and even then, the original project proposal was made by a professor (we collaboratively worked out the details).

In retrospect, my serial research sampling seems like a necessary part of converging on what I wanted to do with my time and energy in the future (I did not even consider science as a career until late in my sophomore year and had a bit of catching up to do). However, ideally I would have converged on a general topic before college, carefully chosen a research group based on advisor compatibility and research focus, and nursed my own project from vague proposal to publication throughout my undergraduate career.

Suggestions for students: to the extent possible, come into college with an idea of what you want to accomplish. Start a project or organization as early as possible to tackle a problem of interest and importance to you. Explore every aspect of that project and own it.

Suggestions for educators: encourage students at an early age (well before college) to begin considering what they enjoy doing and what is important to them. Emphasize reflection, independent decision-making, and goal-setting, so that students are more likely to enter college confident of what they want to accomplish. In college, emphasize these same themes in academic advisement and work with students to develop a set of goals that include an independent, long-term project of personal interest and importance.

In Summary…
…I found my passion, learned from great mentors, built the communities I wanted but did not yet exist, and did not restrict my learning to the classroom, but I also missed out on opportunities to teach and pursue a long-term project. All things considered, I have changed a lot over the last few years and while that is not sufficient for indicating progress, it is at least necessary.

Feel free to learn from my perceived successes and failures… or make your own mistakes. I confess the latter is probably more fun.

David Brooks recently wrote a NY Times opinion article making a similar point. The (short) article is worth a read. ↩
Everything I mention here generalizes beyond college life. Feel free to replace “students” with “young people” and “educators” with “parents.” College is certainly not an inevitable part of everyone’s life, nor should it be. ↩
…and dirty dishes, to be fair. You win some, you lose some. ↩
The Greek community is not the solution. (1) Fraternities and sororities, in general, are organized around binge drinking and mate selection, which do not span the full spectrum of possible human activities. (2) Fraternities and sororities are usually far larger than what I have in mind. I am suggesting an easy route for students to organize communities of 5-10 people who live in the same house and share communal space and mutual interests, be it hiking, writing computer games, or cooking. ↩
During freshman year, I did mentor a local high school student with the USC student group, SCitizen, but only very briefly. ↩
I did eventually find a group and advisor at USC that I would be quite happy spending another 6+ years working with. ↩

College - What I Did Right and Where I Screwed Up was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on June 01, 2011.

Four Big Ideas from the Open Science Summit 2010

2010-08-04T00:00:00-00:00

Last weekend, half of my RSS, FriendFeed, and Twitter feeds assembled in Berkeley for the first major conference ever devoted to open science[¹] - the Open Science Summit 2010. The talks ranged from invigorating to completely inappropriate, but the real action was not on stage; it was in the hallways. Put a couple hundred hackers, scientists, and open science fanboys in a conference hall in Berkeley, add after-hours pub crawls, and simmer for three days and you’ve got a recipe for disruptive ideas. I’ll outline my favorite four below.

1. The Synergy Between Microfinance and Open Science
At least in the US, the most typical flow of funding for science follows the pattern: taxpayer -> government -> scientists. FundScience, SciFlies, and EurekaFund ask, “Why not cut out the middle man?” Their idea is to enable citizens to fund scientific projects directly. While any one citizen probably can’t afford to fund anything but mathematics (coffee is cheap), the collective donations of many science groupies can easily add up to support more resource-intensive projects.

I really like this idea because it beefs up the incentive for scientists to adopt open science practices. Why? Consider which projects are most likely to be funded by microfinance. If I’m a citizen about to throw several hundred dollars into a scientific project, I want to be able to see the science. A published paper every few months (or year) is not enough. I want to see the process, I want live updates, and I want to feel like my donation is moving science forward. In other words, citizens will be more likely to fund open science projects than traditional proprietary projects.

Microfinance needs open science because it needs a way to attract citizens and get them excited about the ongoing science of a particular lab. Open science needs microfinance in order to create clearer incentives for scientists to share their science.

2. Reproducibility as the Standard for Open Science
Science is supposed to provide a systematic way for us bumbling fools to avoid deceiving ourselves. One way it does so is by enforcing that our theories be based on results that are reproducible. Yet consider the last paper you read. Where was the raw data from which plots were produced? Where was the simulation code? Where were the exact experimental protocols? Could you really reproduce the results of that paper without this information?

Science should not require trust in another’s scientific infallibility. If you publish an interesting new discovery, I should have the opportunity to convince myself of your discovery by reproducing it. Science that is not reproducible is not science; its marketing.[²]

The standard of reproducibility provides an answer to the question: “Just how open should science be?” If we truly mean to do good science and avoid deceiving ourselves, we need to release every bit of data, code, protocol, and communication that would allow a colleague to reliably reproduce our results.

If you’re interested, you can read, listen, or watch more on this idea from computational scientist and policy wonk Victoria Stodden.

3. Come for the Closed, Stay for the Open
There’s a problem with websites whose main benefits come from a large community of users - they’re only useful once plenty of people sign up and early adopters will be bored in the meantime. Successful websites should be useful to single users or small groups, even if all their friends & colleagues haven’t signed up yet.

For web apps promoting open science, this means that the successful sites will be those that prove useful to individual researchers or research groups, regardless of whether or not their colleagues also use the site. For CoLab (a website enabling online scientific collaboration that Casey Stark and I built and demoed at OSS 2010), this means creating a rich set of tools that is useful for managing the workflow of individual scientists or groups.

Doing so is essential to convincing those that are on the fence about open science to give it a try. The goal is to draw scientists in with slick project management tools for their closed group activities, expose them to the lively discussion and new collaborations being formed over the open projects on the site, and gradually convince them that openness makes science more efficient and fun.

(Thanks to Jason Hoyt at Mendeley for pointing this out.)

4. New Vision for CoLab - Enable Scienctific Debate Around Any Piece of Scientific Content
CoLab was inspired by PolyMath, Quantiki, and a few other experiments in open science from the theoretical physics & mathematics communities and was built by a pair of physics and math majors. Not surprisingly, the site is currently optimized for collaborating over projects that focus on discussion and equations. But Casey and I are aiming to make it stupid easy for all scientists to collaborate openly online, not just physicists and mathematicians. After a series of long discussions with Jean-Claude Bradley, Lee Worden, and other experimentalists who want to share more than equations, I think we’ve got a better idea of how to do so.

Our new vision for CoLab is to enable scientific debate around any piece of scientific content. We want to make it stupid easy to center a discussion around protocols, data, plots, published papers, papers in progress, simulations, code, or any other component of scientific research. As an experimentalist, I should be able to import a lab protocol, raw data, or manipulable plots based on a live feed from that raw data and discuss it online with collaborators across the globe. As a computational scientist, I should be able to import code or live simulations and troubleshoot online with anyone in the world who might be able to help. As a member of a journal club, I should be able to import a published paper and collaboratively highlight and annotate in-line with colleagues, from those in the lab next door to those in another country. As a researcher ready to publish, I should be able to host a working version of my paper online, collaboratively edit with any of my colleagues, and submit a link directly to a journal, without being forced to download the paper and make finishing touches offline. In short, as a scientist, I should be able to easily and openly discuss any piece of my science with my entire scientific community.

That’s no small task, but its what science needs and what we will continue to build.

Update (August 7, 2010): As pointed out by Greg Wilson in the comments below and Lisa Green of Creative Commons over lunch today, there have been plenty of open science conferences over the past decade. This sentence should really read: “…first major conference devoted to open science that this baby scientist & web dev noob had ever seen.” ↩
Update (August 4, 2010): After a fruitful discussion with Michael Nielsen (@michael_nielsen) and Seb Paquet (@sebpaquet) on Twitter, I should clarify that certain fields, such as astronomy, have fundamental barriers to reproducibility. As much as they might love to, physicists cannot summon supernovas on command. Thus, in observation-based fields, we should stress that data analysis be reproducible but not necessarily data collection. The key point is that information exchange between researchers should not be a barrier to reproducibility. ↩

Four Big Ideas from the Open Science Summit 2010 was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on August 04, 2010.

The State of Theory in Neuroscience, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Data

2010-07-25T00:00:00-00:00

If my initial foray into the territory of the biologists has taught me anything, its that theory in neuroscience is a very different game than that of theory in physics. Theoretical physicists are able to temporarily retreat into pure thought and calculation, minimizing communication with experimentalists, and yet still make significant scientific progress. Theoretical neuroscientists, on the other hand, are currently chained to their experimentalist brethren, doomed to empty speculation and crackpot theories if they naively strike off on their own.

Why the Physicists Can
There is a cultural myth that progress in theoretical physics is made by emaciated hermit-geniuses who go off into the woods for months, scribble equations and day-dream in solitude, and return with profound insights into Nature’s inner workings. Although this is an exaggeration, there is some truth to it. Theoretical physicists can go off into the woods and do their work (albeit usually in the company of others) and can make progress while spending a great deal of time in solitude (although most don’t). Though theorists and experimentalists do work closely with one another, theorists are capable of running off without experimentalists for months or years on end and still making scientific progress.

Albert Einstein famously popularized the Gedankenexperiment - the thought experiment meant to elucidate scientific truth based solely on previous knowledge, logic, scientific intuition, and imagination. Though Einstein did not work alone (contrary to popular belief, he had many collaborators), many of his ideas were inspired by thought experiments. For instance, his inspiration for special relativity was based on his mental simulation of chasing a beam of light. More recently, string theorists have argued that, while decades or more ahead of realizable experiments, their approaches to describing the fundamental laws of nature represent a new kind of science that places great confidence in both the ingenuity of the human mind and the beauty and symmetry of Nature (no reference here - this is just what I’ve heard on the physicist circuit).

For our purposes though, the important point is not to what degree theoretical physics can temporarily decouple from experiment; its that progress can be made by theorists at all without constantly holding hands with experimentalists.

Why is this possible? What is special about physics that allows this to occur?

First of all, this wasn’t always possible in physics. Go back to the toddler years of science when Galileo, Newton, and friends were paving the way for modern science, ask them whether they consider themselves “theorists” or “experimentalists,” and you are bound to get blank stares. The distinction between theory and experiment wasn’t made until centuries later. Galileo proposed in precise mathematical terms our modern concept of inertia and built pendulums and telescopes. Newton laid down his famous three laws and played with prisms and mirrors. In the early days of physics, theory could not stray far from experiment.

What allowed theory to periodically decouple from experiment was the establishment of a sufficient theoretical framework to begin with.

The Gedankenexperiment requires solidly tested laws from which to launch intuitive explorations. Galileo and Newton had no such thing. They had to stick very close to Nature and experiments because at that time, we knew very little about Nature. Einstein, on the other hand, had a little more going for him. He had Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory upon which to base his dreams about chasing beams of light. He didn’t have to actually try to chase a beam of light (which would have been a bit difficult) because he had a solid theoretical framework within to mentally simulate at least parts of the experience. In other words, a solidly tested theoretical framework can allow us to replace many basic physical experiments with thought experiments. Fast forward to today and physicists have established a much richer basis of well-tested laws, an environment that supports entire intellectual castles of theory, well-protected from the toils of experiment.

What I want to emphasize is that without an established base of theory, there can be no decoupling of theory and experiment. The modern state of theoretical physics has spoiled many scientists who tend to borrow their ideas of what theory work should look like in other fields from physics. But physics is quite different from other fields. Physics is very old, often deals with relatively simple phenomena, and has centuries worth of solidly tested theories. In other words, borrowing assumptions from modern physics is a grave mistake. For many fields, including neuroscience, it would be far better to borrow ideas about the coupling of theory and experiment from early physics.

Why the Neuroscientists Can’t
Modern neuroscience has very little theory to build upon. Sure, they’ve got the neuron doctrine, that the brain is made of individual cells, but that’s not much more than a special case of a more general law in biology. Beyond that, even the widely accepted notion that spiking neurons are the sole transmitter of information in the brain is a bit shaky. We are quickly gathering plenty of anatomical data, correlations between brain activity and behavior, and other interesting nuggets of phenomena, but broad theories to help us understand this sea of data are either non-existent or highly speculative.

Worse, its not even clear whether such theories will exist or what they will look like. While physicists simplified their game by focusing on “fundamental laws”, neuroscientists face the menacing challenge of historical accidents and messy hacks built by millions of years of evolution. Many (including myself) are banking on the existence of some basic laws that govern brain structure and dynamics, but these laws may look very different from the somewhat more “ahistorical” laws of physics.

What the Neuroscientists Can Do
So if you’re a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, naive young physicist/mathematician who dreams of building theories of the brain, what do you do?

1. Avoid brain theories built by rogue engineers, physicists, and mathematicians who have never met a biologist.

To clarify my earlier comments, its not that brain theories don’t yet exist; its that good brain theories don’t yet exist. There are plenty of electrical engineers debuting their latest computer architecture models of the brain, computer scientists proposing their shiny new graphical models of learning, mathematicians arguing that synchronized feed-forward neural networks clearly solve the binding problem, and other rogue scientists who base their theories of the brain on their intuitions about how the brain should work rather than data about how the brain does work.[[^1]] Plato and Descartes may have had to base their theories of how the mind works on pure introspection and phenomenology, but ever since Ramon y Cajal starting poking around neural tissue, we’ve had real live data to guide our intuitions. Decades from now, we will look back on the state of theory in modern neuroscience and wonder how so much nonsense was published. No field in science today is more polluted with bunk theories and outrageous publications than neuroscience.[[^1]] If you want to understand actual brains, don’t fill your own with this drivel. [^1]: For the sake of not making too many enemies, I’ll avoid references here, but you know how to use Google.

2. Form tight collaborations with experimentalists (and maybe even do a few experiments yourself).

There is room for theory in neuroscience - theory tightly coupled to ongoing experiments. Find people with patch clamps and MRI machines. Understand what they do and how they do it. Propose new experiments and try to help explain the results of old ones. The interesting and achievable projects in theoretical neuroscience of today are not the grand challenges such as explaining the hard problem of consciousness; they are explaining the tiny anomalies in experimental data that make you pause for a moment and scratch your head. Why does the distribution of synaptic strengths in rat visual cortex follow a lognormal distribution? Why does it consistently seem that roughly 90% of neurons are inactive? Why does ferret visual cortex activity rate and variance seem to rise throughout early development, peak, and then decline in maturation? These are the types of questions we need to tackle first before we can explain consciousness, thought, love, and all of that fun stuff. As much as I look forward to the possibility of understanding the brain well enough to support genuine Gedankenexperiment-style theory work, we’re not there yet. Now is the time for theoretical neuroscientists to imitate the physicists of Renaissance Europe, not those of Princeton and Waterloo. In other words, either get your hands dirty with experiments or make friends with someone who does.

Either way, don’t stray far from the data.

The State of Theory in Neuroscience, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Data was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on July 25, 2010.

The Zealot King Problem & An Operational Version of Rice's Theorem

2010-05-15T00:00:00-00:00

The Zealot King Problem
Let’s say you’re the king of a far-off land inhabited by Turing machines. As a highly religious king, you have strict morals and lately, you’ve been frustrated to see many of your citizens acting immorally. You’ve been especially aghast at their frequent and flagrant violation of restriction R. Restriction R isn’t a law, but you simply find its violation morally repugnant. Your department of mad scientists has shown that Turing machines operating under restriction R are just as powerful as those that don’t, so you don’t feel bad about taking away your citizen’s privileges to break restriction R. Thus, the religious zealot you are, you do it; you declare a law that no Turing machine may violate restriction R on any input.

Now you need to enforce your law. You need to make a Turing machine police force that runs around testing passerbys to see whether they are upstanding, R-abiding Turing machine citizens. Can you do it?

Further Motivation for the Theoretical CS Junkie
After an awesome course in mathematical logic with Len Adleman at USC that flirted with issues of computability, I’ve been addicted to theoretical CS textbooks, including Michael Sipser’s excellent Introduction to the Theory of Computation. One exercise (5.28) introduces Rice’s theorem, which states that the question of whether or not a Turing machine’s language has some non-trivial property is undecideable. But this only holds for “linguistic” properties - those of the Turning machine’s language. You might wonder (at least I did), what about “operational” properties?

Certainly there are some operational properties we can decide. Does [insert your favorite Turning machine here] move left on step 6 for any input of length 10? Beats me, but I could sure simulate your Turing machine for 6 steps on each of the n^10 strings of length 10 (where n is the number of symbols in your tape alphabet) and check.

But there are plenty more operational properties that we can’t decide. I was interested in identifying the conditions that make an operational property undecideable, and I’ve at least found a sufficient set.

I post this little result here for several reasons:

Someone has very likely already cooked up a much tighter solution to this (or a similarly stated) problem already. Â If anyone reading this knows of such work, please point it out!
I'm a TCS noob and would love for someone to prove my conditions wrong.
Is there a more general set of conditions than the ones I give? Â Are there other more interesting tweaks to Rice's theorem? Â Any ideas here are welcome.
I'm a sucker for open science.

Formalism & Proofs
First, let’s define two conditions that the restrictions we will consider must have.

Definition 1: A restriction R is “gentle” if for every Turing machine T, there exists another Turing machine T2 that operates under the restriction R and recognizes the same language as T.

In other words, R does not reduce the power of Turing machines.

Definition 2: A restriction R is “non-expiring” if, given any Turing machine T and input w, there does not exist a number of steps N such that if T has run for N steps on w without halting, it is no longer possible for T to violate R.

In other words, R can be violated at any point in a computation and there is nothing a Turing machine can do to “lose” the opportunity to break R, besides halting.

Lemma: Given a “gentle” restriction R, it is possible to create a Turing machine S that never violates R and upon input <T,w>, where T is a Turing machine and w is some string in the tape alphabet of T, S simulates T on w.

Proof:
Its well-known that we can create a universal Turing machine U that given inputs of the type <T,w> simulates T on w (if you don’t believe me, go try to do it yourself or check out Wikipedia). By the definition of “gentle”, we can also create U2 that operates under restriction R and for inputs <T,w>, simulates T on w. This U2 is our desired S.

Theorem: Given a “gentle” and “non-expiring” restriction R, the language BEHAVED = {<T>: T is a Turing machine that does not violate R on any input} is undecideable.

Proof:
We’ll prove this by reduction to the halting problem, described by the language HALT={<T,w>: T is a Turing machine and T halts on w}. That is, we’ll assume we have a Turing machine deciding BEHAVED and build one that decides HALT.

Let B be a Turing machine that decides BEHAVED. Construct the following machine H that decides HALT.

H= “On input <T,w>,

Construct the following machine N. Â On any input x,
1. Run R-abiding simulator S (from the lemma) on <T,w>.
2. If S accepts, violate R and halt.
3. If S rejects, violate R and halt.
Run B on <N>.
If B accepts <N>, reject <T,w>.
If B rejects <N>, accept <T,w>."

If S halts (accepts or rejects), N violates R and halts. If S doesn’t halt, N never violates R and doesn’t halt. So N violates R if and only if S halts. By definition, S halts if and only if T halts on w. So N violates R if and only if T halts on w. Also, by definition, B accepts <N> if and only if N does not violate R for any input. So B accepts <N> if and only if T does not halt on w. So by steps 3 and 4 of H’s description, H decides HALT.

Justification of “Gentle” and “Non-Expiring” Conditions
I needed the “gentle” condition for the lemma. Â If the restriction actually reduces the power of Turing machines, the above method of building some Turing machine simulator that operates under that restriction and only violates it to signal some particular situation (i.e. halting) won’t work, since the simulator won’t be universal.

I needed the “non-expiring” condition to make sure that when S finishes simulating T on w, its still possible for N to violate R. Â This condition kicks out those easily decideable restrictions that I mentioned earlier.

Any suggestions on tweaking these conditions are welcome.

Some Examples of “Gentle”, “Non-Expiring” Restrictions
Turing machines are robust little guys and we can come up with plenty of plenty of restrictions that won’t reduce their power. Here are some examples mostly adapted from Sipser’s text:

Only move left to "reset" like a typewriter (that is, if you want to move left, you have to go all the way to the left edge of the tape and then work your way to the right again).
No writing on multiple tapes (for instance, we could lay out several tapes to "tempt" a Turing machine, then demand that it only use one).
No exploiting non-determinism (similarly to the multi-tape case, we could give a Turing machine the option of "branching", then demand it not do so).
Alter each tape square only once.
No using squares of a doubly infinite tape to the left of some given square (that is, we give a Turing machine a doubly infinite tape, then demand it not cross a certain boundary, effectively restricting it to the usual semi-infinite tape).

I’m sure you can come up with many more and feel free to share your favorites.

The Zealot King Problem & An Operational Version of Rice's Theorem was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on May 15, 2010.

Better Metrics for Education

2010-04-11T00:00:00-00:00

Have you ever taken a standardized test in your life that you thought properly measured the skill it was trying to test? Ever in your daily work found yourself thinking, “Wow! This job is just like that test I took in high school!”? Unless you make your living as a Mechanical Turk, probably not. Standardized tests seem to be almost universally regarded as artificial, but what exactly is it about them that is so far from the reality they are supposed to simulate?

Why Standardized Tests are Unnatural

Wrong temporal scale of pressure
Time management is an important skill in any field, but the majority of exams probe this skill on far too small a scale. In life, time management on the order of days, weeks, and months is far more crucial to success than time management on the order of minutes and hours. Standardized tests demand that not a minute is wasted, that essays be churned out in 20 minutes a piece, and that quantitative results be produced so fast that reflection is impossible. Who works like that?

Too close to purgatory
Unless you’re a deceased pagan in 14th century poetry, you probably spend very little time working in purgatory. Why then do tests take place in empty, silent, foreign rooms, devoid of pleasant stimulations such as music, window views, or our favorite cushy office chair? There’s a reason that people are so particular about their work environments - because it matters. Learning research shows that information learned in a particular context is often best recalled in that same context. By placing students in such unnatural conditions, ones they are unlikely to ever encounter again, we’re placing them at an unnecessary (and uneven) disadvantage.

Isolated from other people
It’s time to give up the myth of the lone genius. Successful people, regardless of their field, know how to work with others. Yes, those people also know how to work independently and produce unique and creative contributions, but they balance their time. Tests too should strike a balance between collaborative and independent work.

Isolated from information tools
It’s also time to stop ignoring the fact that just about every worker in the world has Google at their fingertips. No one needs to memorize the periodic tables of elements, the quadratic formula, or how to spell “paramecium.” Far more important is how to find and use information. Let students bring books, iPhones, and laptops to exams and start testing skills that matter.

A Marketplace for Metrics
So what kind of metrics do we need? To argue for one or a few in particular would only serve to bias the educational system in favor of certain social classes or types of learners. What we really need is a vibrant marketplace of metrics. Allowing a single metric (i.e. the SATs) to so fully dominate a measuring process as complicated as predicting the lifelong success of an eighteen year old is naive and irresponsible. I doubt a small group of middle-aged white male “experts” gathered at a roundtable in Washington, D.C. are going to solve the problem either. Instead, we need a wide field of people with different strategies competing to provide better measures of student aptitude.

Exactly what types of metrics this competition would converge on, I don’t know. I imagine students taking one or more general exams as well as a few less common ones focusing on the particular strengths they would like to emphasize. This test selection process would not only be a great exercise for young students in reflecting on their own strengths and weaknesses, it would help schools and employers better understand which characteristics a student most wants to emphasize.

That said, there are two particular skills alluded to above that I would hope to see quickly worked in to some of the competing metrics - collaboration and long-term time management. I’ve never seen a standardized test that probed either skill and yet, I can’t think of any two more important to my daily success.

This rant was inspired by a lunchtime discussion with Phil Zager and David Livingston. Thank you to both for providing such great conversation.

Better Metrics for Education was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on April 11, 2010.

The Dematerialization of Life or "Hey, Where'd All My Stuff Go?"

2010-04-06T00:00:00-00:00

I’m a huge proponent of digitizing my life as much as possible. When the data of my life is available as bits, its also searchable, sharable, and can be mined to ask interesting questions.

One possible drawback I’ve noticed though is that, when the objects of my life are physically present in my immediate environment, I can “bump into them” on accident and be spontaneously reminded of past experiences or future expectations. But as these objects are digitized, my room becomes emptier and emptier. Everything I keep or own is on my computer. My immediate environment is somewhat empty. With the digitization of my life, what am I losing that is unique to human interaction with physical objects?

There might be ways our brains respond to physical objects that are simply cannot be stimulated by the digital representation of those objects. I’ve heard plenty of people complain about the “digitization of human relationships”, but I think we’re completely overlooking the possible drawbacks of dematerialization and the disappearance of objects.

The Dematerialization of Life or "Hey, Where'd All My Stuff Go?" was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on April 06, 2010.

When and How Do I Learn Something?

2010-03-28T00:00:00-00:00

Blogged essays, twittering professors, personalized robotic tutors, and other technological pixie dust are all wonderful, but before asking what are the appropriate technologies for a better education system, we must understand when and how students learn.

I’ve asked myself this question over the past few weeks and here’s what I’ve come up with.

When I Teach
Teaching someone else what I’ve learned forces me to clarify my thoughts. It also encourages me to focus on the aspects which are most difficult. When learning on your own, its easy to sweep the most confusing bits under the mental rug and pretend they don’t exist. But when you teach someone else, you’re forced to anticipate and respond to their confusion on those same topics. In many of my college courses, I’ll invite friends over to study for exams or do homework, even if I’ve already studied or completed the work myself because it gives me the opportunity to teach.

Now imagine if teaching was actually a built-in part of our education system instead of an accident that some lucky students discover. Grad students teaching undergrads, undergrads teaching high school students, high school students teaching middle school students, and so on. Sure, some of this happens already through teaching assistant positions and volunteer tutoring services, but I imagine a much richer system in which students would teach topics immediately after learning them, testing and solidifying their learning experience.

Another interesting strategy I would like to try are “symbiotic learning relationships.” Let’s say I’m taking a class on quantum mechanics, but I’m also interested in 14th century feminist architecture and, quite fortunately, you are taking a class on 14th century feminist architecture, but you’re interested in learning a little quantum mechanics. We would make a deal to meet once or twice a week and tutor each other in these subjects, teaching as we learn. This could be an interesting side program that students can participate in voluntarily.

When I Prepare a Presentation or Write Out My Thoughts
Presenting and writing are helpful for the same reasons as teaching. Blogging has the added benefit that, while sometimes I won’t be able to find someone nearby who shares my interests and gives me the opportunity to teach, I can always blog on even the most obscure of lessons. In the context of a unified learning strategy, I see blogging as a great backup for face-to-face teaching.

When I’m Corrected After Realizing I’ve Made a Mistake
I’ve noticed there’s a significant difference between whether I’m corrected before or after realizing I’ve made a mistake. If I’m corrected before, I’ll often brush off the correction, superficially adjust my thinking, not truly appreciate my own mistake, and simply make it again in the future. However, if I realize I’ve made a mistake and struggle a bit with correcting myself first, then a correction comes as a welcome insight and I appreciate much better the change in my mental model that needs to take place. Good teachers don’t rush to correct students; they first encourage them to recognize their mistake and try to correct it themselves.

When I Summarize an Approach
After I solve a problem, write a proof, or otherwise come to understand a new concept, taking the time to review the approach I used is crucial to storing that lesson for future use. After a particularly difficult homework problem, my first instinct is often to run away in triumph, but resisting that urge and taking the time to reflect is probably the most important opportunity for learning in a course. Every problem is a chance to learn something new… if you stick around long enough to do so. A policy I’ve found helpful is to write myself a little note (in the book or on the assignment) after every problem I’ve solved, summarizing the general approach I used and any new insights I gleaned.

When I Read Slowly and Think in Pictures
This is a little trick I picked up from Richard Feynman. Don’t read faster than you can picture what you’re reading. It’s easy to read a paper or book at breakneck speed, superficially recognizing all the ideas and their connections and convincing yourself you understand everything. But for me, there’s a huge difference between keeping track of concepts as words and doing so with pictures. With pictures, I’m less likely to forget any particular detail, I can watch how different ideas interact, and I can tell myself a story as I read. Without pictures, concepts are represented in my mind as lifeless words and I’ll miss much of the interesting consequences of what I read.

So as I read, I’ll make sure to represent each concept or detail with something visual. Say I’m reading about an atom - I might picture a little ball. Then I read its positively charged - I add some hair to the ball. Later on, I won’t forget that the atom is positively charged because I’ll always be reminded by the hair. The pictures can be total nonsense; the important thing is that I have some visual representation to work with.

When I Take Action on Something
I asked one friend the motivating question for this post and his response was, “When my learning is directly responsible for saving me from a charging bear.” While not every educational moment can be this epic, immediately using the information I’ve gained through a new or existing project makes it far more likely to stick with me. What project means here really depends on the lesson learned. For particularly abstract lessons, like a new mathematical theorem or definition, a “project” might be a proof whereas for a new physical phenomena (like the dispersion of light through a glass of water), a project might be as simple as a quick experiment.

When I Learn Collaboratively
Figuring something out on my own can be fun, but the exciting back-and-forth that takes place when I do so with someone else is often even better. I find those moments energize me for the rest of the day and often lead to vivid and fond memories.

So what about you? Have any to add? Taking the time to reflect on a list like this for yourself might be very helpful in making the best of your time.

When and How Do I Learn Something? was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on March 28, 2010.

Thoughts on Randomness

2010-02-28T00:00:00-00:00

1) Randomness is, in a sense, a measure of compressibility. A physically random system is one whose dynamics we cannot predict and that we must simulate in order to know. It is temporally incompressible. Of course, in reality, physical processes tend to exhibit degrees of randomness, so that we can say some things about them, but perhaps only a limited number of things up to a limited accuracy for a limited amount of time.

Is “that which cannot be predicted except by a full-scale simulation” a proper definition of a random physical process? How does this relate to Kolmogorov complexity?

2) We need a measure of how difficult it is to recognize the order in an apparently random process. Kolmogorov complexity is a good description of the compressibility of a process, but it doesn’t tell us how hard it is to recognize that minimal description. It may be that we think a process is quite random, requires a long description length, and thus has high Kolmogorov complexity but, with just one little insight, we will find some beautiful underlying structure and our minimal description length (and Kolmogorov complexity) drop enormously. Or it could take centuries of great thoughts to make such a simplification. Or it might not even be possible. That Kolmogorov complexity says nothing about the distribution of descriptions in “description space” and the ease/difficulty of discovering the minimal one seems to me to be a serious shortcoming. A better understanding of the “difficulty of description” might give us some interesting information about scientific theory and what types are “easier” or “harder” than others to discover.

These thoughts are inspired by a lunchtime conversation with http://www.mit.edu/~hyuen/ today on the nature and importance of randomness and a conversation last week with the USC theoretical computer science lunch bunch over a long-lost, unpublished paper by Len Adleman about randomness.

Thoughts on Randomness was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on February 28, 2010.

What's Your Ideal Classroom Experience?

2010-02-20T00:00:00-00:00

A lecture is a process in which information passes from the notes of the lecturer into the notes of the student without passing through the minds of either.

Call me a radical, but I have a growing notion that a professor spewing forth information to dozens of students playing classroom stenographer is perhaps not the best way to educate the next generation. Here is my favorite idea for a better classroom experiences that I’ve pieced together from friends, my own experiences, and daydreaming in the shower.[¹]

Professor as Advisor
Parents stop reading stories to children sometime around age five or six, so why do professors continue to read textbooks and lecture notes to students until age 22? That’s a waste of both professor and student time. Instead, choose a topic each week, suggest some reading for students, and allow them to, by any means necessary, teach themselves. They might read a textbook, watch some video lectures, and/or gather in small groups to discuss. During this preparation time, students could keep track of questions that arise that they can’t work out between themselves. To further guide students, a professor might point out several subtopics that individual students might specialize in and summarize to the others. Once or twice a week, students would meet with a professor, discuss questions, present on their specialized subtopics and, depending on the type of course, do example problems (math/science) or brainstorm real-world examples (social sciences). During this “class”, professors would not play “sage on a stage”, but rather more of an advisory role. The professor might pose a problem and students would work together at the blackboard to solve it. The professor would be there to offer guidance, suggest alternative approaches, and point out interesting examples.

Advantages:

more time for student questions
more time spent solving problem together
students get the chance to teach
less time commitment for the professor

Disadvantages:

requires motivated students

My personal experience is that I learn little from lectures and much more by doing and teaching. I’m currently taking a general relativity course that is a watered-down version of this model and I love it. Instead of dreading (or more realistically, simply skipping) a two-hour, twice-a-week course, I look forward to it. Each week, we go off on our own, read a book chapter, work on about five problems, and choose an interesting experiment or physical phenomena to present on. No homework to turn in whatsoever. And the result? Students in the class actually fight with one another over who gets to present on some examples because it’s fun to present interesting examples you’ve worked out for yourself. It’s not fun to work on a half-dozen problems on your own, hand them into a mysterious wooden box, never discuss them, and receive a crumpled version of your work, annotated with a cryptic number, several weeks later.

Summarizing, some key ideas that I’m suggesting need to be worked into the class experience are:

student-to-student teaching
live, collaborative problem solving
student responsibilities outside of class
no need for graded homework

Thoughts?

Note that, at least in this post and the motivating conversations, I’m still holding on to the assumption that learning is a process that begins at age 4-6 and ends somewhere between 22 and 30, depending on your interests and levels of masochism. In other words, I’m assuming that learning is not a lifetime experiences interwoven into our daily lives. I’ll delve into that possibility in future posts, but let’s keep it simple for now. ↩

What's Your Ideal Classroom Experience? was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on February 20, 2010.

Succubi, Ripeness, & Saturation - Hitting the Scientific Sweet Spot

2010-02-01T00:00:00-00:00

“What are you gonna do with your life?”

College freshmen (and many graduates… and many adults) all grapple with this question. If you’ve been naive enough to answer “science!” then you’re faced with the follow-up: “Well, what are you gonna study?”

Most young knowledge warriors charge straight at whichever field their best teacher from high school or college was from, certain that their initial passion will never wane. Yet talk to these firecrackers seven years later and notice how many grad students have lost that spark. What once was a tantalizing realm of puzzles and mysteries becomes a never-ending cycle of mundane tasks.

Science can certainly be a cruel succubus, but considering one important feature of a field before hopping on the bandwagon can help avoid this.

Ripeness and Saturation: The Potential of a Science
The key is to compare the current set of ideas with the potential for developing new ones given available data, tools for acquiring data, and culture. Too little new available data, too few tools for acquiring data, or cultural norms that enforce old paradigms can all hinder the potential for interesting projects. Quantum gravity might be an instance of the first two shortages whereas 16th century astronomy (influenced by the church doctrine of a geocentric universe) is a good example of the last. Let’s call these saturated fields.

On the flip side, an abundance of data, the invention of tools for acquiring new data, or changing cultural norms can all provide opportunities for great projects. Genomics is experiencing the first two surpluses whereas complex systems research in the early years of the internet (and the metaphors about networks that accompanied it) probably benefited greatly from cultural shifts. Let’s call these ripe fields.

Your mission, young sailor of the scientific seas, is to find one of these gems.

Now, how can you tell? You can’t be sure, but here are some good signs:

Researchers still identify themselves with another more traditional field and just list this one as an "interest."
It attracts researchers from many different backgrounds and much of the work done is considered "interdisciplinary."
A new institute pops up every week or so.
A large percentage of new papers all reference one or a few papers written in the last five years.
The introductory textbooks were all written in the last few years and there is no consensus on which is best.

Some signs of a saturated field include:

Systematized jargon (new ideas and discoveries get ID numbers rather than names)
A large percentage of new papers are written to make small corrections on old ones (the field has become recursive).
There are introductory textbooks in their twelfth edition and most professors use the same text to teach as they did to learn.

I’d wager quantum computing and neuroscience are ripe for the picking.

Which fields would you add? And which criteria for identifying ripe and saturated fields would you use?

Succubi, Ripeness, & Saturation - Hitting the Scientific Sweet Spot was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on February 01, 2010.

Learning to Read (Scientific Papers)

2009-09-29T00:00:00-00:00

Remember that prideful moment when you read your first book to your parents as a child? I certainly do. I felt as though I had just entered a prestigious, international club of the literate. I also thought that I had received a lifetime membership, one that could never be revoked. Then I encountered scientific papers. Back to infancy…

Scientific papers are written in rigid, formulaic, and often entirely cryptic jargon designed to prevent untrained intruders from extracting the ideas inside (kind of like an academic walnut). Of course, the ideas inside are some of the most fascinating, powerful, and recent ones in the collective state of human knowledge, so their’s is a code worth cracking.

Unfortunately, learning to read scientific papers is not usually an explicitly taught skill in college. Apparently, its just expected that you’ll pick this up on street corners. Fortunately for me, Dr. Michael Arbib has worked this into the curriculum of his CSCI 564 - Brain Theory and Artificial Intelligence course at USC. This skill is particularly useful in a neuroscience course because neuroscience is an absolute zoo of terminology. Being both a young and extremely fast-paced field, different researchers often label the same brain areas with different names and describe the same core principles with different jargon. Our first project for 564 involves a careful reading and documentation of a detailed brain model and I thought I’d share my lessons.

First Pass
Read once for the gist of the idea. The key goal of this first pass is to determine what is innovative about the author’s idea. Why did they propose this new model? What does it explain that old ones do not? Don’t sweat the details until the second pass. With a broad view of how the model works, it will be much easier to evaluate the importance of the details and recognize the relation of individual elements to one another.

Second Pass: Considering Experiments
Experiments can be relevant to a model in many different ways. Some act as inspiration for building the model in the first place. For instance, they might have revealed gaps in older models or introduced entirely unexplained phenomena. As long as the model is designed with these experiments in mind, they will constitute support for the model. Another category of important experiments are those with results predicted by the model. These experiments provide key support for the model because they allow it to be tested with data other than that which was used to build them. Others might be mentioned only because they are vaguely related or famous in a specified discipline of research and not because they are directly relevant to the model itself. These are included either (a) for the interest of the reader (optimistic interpretation) or (b) for padding the citation list in a you-cite-me-I-cite-you fashion (realistic interpretation). For instance, if I’m introducing a new tool for large-scale genomics, I am legally obliged to mention Craig Venter’s human genome paper. So in summary, experiments might be included for:

inspiration/support
prediction/testing
reader interest/citation padding

Second Pass: Considering Simulations
Simulations may or may not be relevant, depending on your field, but they are crucial for brain modeling. One key question to ask: how much of the relevant experimental data available is explicable using various parameter settings for the model? This will separate data into the explicable and inexplicable. Inexplicable data doesn’t necessarily doom the model to failure. Certain data may be considered outside the model’s area of applicability or be simply left as an open question for future work and refinement. Its crucial here though to honestly ask yourself: what does this model accomplish? Can it simulate results that others can’t? Is it faster than older models? Are its mechanisms more biologically plausible than older models? One important consideration I noticed in considering brain models is that there are many very powerful computational models of brain function capable of giving the same results. However, only some researchers build their models with biological experiments in mind and are making an honest attempt to model biological mechanisms. There are many tasks that the brain performs in one way that we can model with computers in a different way. Whether you care about biological realism depends on your field and your goals. Many AI researchers just want to model intelligent decision making and could care less how biological their models are. However, a computational neuroscientist trying to build models of the brain better look to an experiment or two. So in summary, ask yourself:

what data is explained by the simulations?
what data is left unexplained by the simulations?
does this unexplained data doom the model?
how do the simulation results compare to related models?

Second Pass: Considering Related Models
Many models are simply extensions of old ones. They add a new level of detail or a new mechanism to lets them explain more data. Sometimes the goal is to more accurately explain old data. Other times the goal is to incorporate qualitatively new data. Still other times the goal may be to update the mechanisms to make them more realistic given new experiments or data. In summary, good questions to ask are:

which model(s) served as a basis for this model?
how does this model improve upon related models (i.e. why was it introduced in the first place)? speed? explanatory power? realistic mechanisms?

Feel free to add your own lessons in the comments!

Learning to Read (Scientific Papers) was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on September 29, 2009.

Summiting Monte Rosa - Cults, Thoughts, and Chocolate at 4500m

2009-07-29T00:00:00-00:00

Day 0: Do I Need to Wear Pants?
When a group of researchers at ISI invited me to come climb a glacier with them, I had very little preconception of what that actually meant. I tend to be naive about challenges, thinking, “oh boy, that sounds like fun!” long before “wait, how am I actually going to do that?” Though I knew before leaving the States that I’d likely be “climbing a glacier” when I reached Torino, I still packed exactly zero pairs of long pants, long socks, or any other remotely appropriate pieces of clothing or equipment. Like a six-year old boy heading to Disney World, I spent my time in gleeful anticipation and left the prep work to “the adults.” Fortunately, they responsibly prevented me from hacking up the mountain with gym shorts and a butter knife and outfitted me into the proper, burly-looking, mountain man you see here.

That proper, burly-looking, mountain man’s target? Monte Rosa - at 4634m above sea level, the 2nd highest mountains in the Alps.

Day 1: Which Way Do I Hold the Ice Pick?
To climb a mountain, one must start from the bottom… but walking all the way there would take a really, really long time. Instead, we drove through the beautiful Aosta valley and took a cable car well above the tree line to about 3000m. From there, we trekked about two and a half hours over rocks, along cliffs, and across fields of snow. I was told ahead of time this would be “a nice, easy hike” and wasn’t expecting any excitement. To my surprise and delight, there were several sections that required hanging out to ropes and teetering over several hundred meter drops onto jagged rocks. I also got the chance to practice jamming my ice pick into the slippery, snow-covered slopes to gain traction and balance, a trick that would be needed the following day.

Our destination for the first day was the Rifugio Citta di Mantova. My expectations of a tiny hut with a few cots and an old hermit selling boiled mountain goat were (fortunately) quickly dispelled. The refuge offered incredible panoramic views of the Alps, a hearty vegetable & bean stew for dinner, and Tempur-Pedic beds with huge, fluffy down comforters. Even at 3500m in altitude and forced to shuttle in supplies by helicopter, the refuge whipped up a meal that trounced the glorified microwave dinners back at my hotel in Torino. I was stunned by this at first but realized that great food must be in especially high demand for climbers who will need all the strength and morale boosts they can get. More often than bad food, its lack of sleep that kills the morale of a would-be mountaineer. At high altitudes, the lower levels of oxygen in the air can make it difficult to breathe and its not uncommon to wake up exhausted and puking. The effects vary highly from person to person and since I had never been above 1500m in memory, I again didn’t know what to expect. The wake-up call was set for 4am and departure for 5am. As I snuggled into bed, you might expect I would have been fantasizing about epic ascents up sheer ice walls or worrying over tumbling into a deep abyss where I’d be forced to draw straws and eat a climbing mate. Nope. In a confusing act of recursion, all I could think as I fell asleep was “I wonder what I’ll think about when I climb a mountain…”

Day 2: Will the Mountain Have a Bathroom?
At 4am, I found out that I am not particularly sensitive to altitude sickness. In fact, it was the best night of sleep I had had since arriving in Italy and I asked if we could climb up to the refuge every night (the answer was no). I was not sure how my body would react to the day’s physical challenge and subzero temperatures so I stuffed myself with enough crackers, nutella, and jam to put a 6-year old into a diabetic coma. Combined with the effects of two envirogirating bowls of tea, I was wired. At that point, I barely knew a crampon (spikes you fasten to your boots) from a harness (used to connect climbing partners via thick ropes), so I had to be dressed like a baby by our infinitely patient guide, Muyo. By 5:30am, we were ready to start our ascent.

As we steadily marched up the first rolling field of ice and snow, my mind raced with excitement and clarity. I think I was more curious about the mental effects of climbing a mountain more than anything so I paid close attention to my thought pattern throughout the day. At first, I contemplated the history of collective knowledge. I thought about all the years that humans and pre-human species spent living, learning, and dying without passing on any learned lessons. I thought about the great revolution that language enabled - the passing of lessons onto the next generation. I thought about how these lessons were, at first, drawn from philosophical musings, religious faith, and idle speculation and that an even greater revolution occurred when humans begin to compare their ideas very carefully with Nature (roughly in the 16th century but on and off in various cultures before then). I tried to characterize this gathering of knowledge and the best I could come up with was that humans are highly evolved to recognize, appreciate, and cultivate the impossible. Now, what do I mean by that? By “the impossible”, I mean the “thermodynamically unlikely” - that is, states of unusually high order and low entropy. In fact, you could replace “the impossible” with “order” in the above quote if you like (“order” is more clear but lacks the epic flair of “the impossible”). I could apply this statement to appreciating the order in a scene of natural beauty, but what I was moreso trying to characterize was the gathering of scientific knowledge. This activity basically amounts to watching the world around us, noticing patterns in its behavior (“recognizing order”), getting those oh-so-sweet dopamine hits we long for (“appreciating order”), and using the knowledge we gain from extrapolating the patterns to create and engineer more and new patterns (“cultivating order”).

Next, I thought upon expertise. As I stumbled my way up the icy mountain, I realized that our guide seemed to be moving much faster with far less effort. I noticed that he didn’t slip nearly as often as I did and maintained a stable, steady pace, in contrast to my fits and starts as I would gain and lose traction. I recalled a word that physicist Lee Smolin had once used to describe a great scientist who notices a regularity in the world that no one else does - a seer. I generalized the term to one who sees order where others do not and determined that it could be applied outside science just as easily. To me, the icy slope was a uniform plane to be trudged up with stubborn persistence. But as I carefully watched and followed our guide, I noticed that his steps seemed far more discerning. He would aim for little nooks of flat or stable ground that I at first had not even noticed. He periodically altered his course up the mountain, walking slightly left, then slightly right, a pattern that greatly reduced the effort required and likelihood of slipping. I learned as much as I could from him without asking him how he did it. One, I wasn’t sure if he was even conscious of how he did it. Two, and more importantly, we had enough trouble communicating in broken English, let alone broken English masked by howling winds and exhausted gasps for air. Even so, I felt I learned a lot from him and decided that seers could exist in all lines of work, not just science, and that following them and learning their ways was a good way to capitalize on humanity’s gradual, perpetual accrual of knowledge that I had been thinking about earlier.

As we continued and I started to become a bit tired, I started wondering why humans would do something so seemingly silly as to climb a mountain if they’re not trying to get over it or find something on top of it. What kind of evolutionary pressure would ever drive us to do something so dangerous and inefficient? That’s a very complicated question and I don’t have an answer, but I suspect that there are two general categories of motivations for such “adventure sports.” The first group, which I will call “conquerors”, seeks the challenge, strives to overcome and endure, and is driven by pride and competition. The second group, which I will call “explorers”, seeks to enjoy nature, participate in good conversation and thought, and clear their minds. The two groups might share a lot of interests, but the distinction in motivations is important. I first noticed this split when I went running with a friend in Torino. I fall almost entirely into the “explorer” category above and run to clear my mind, explore new areas, and stay healthy. I don’t often run for more than an hour because I can achieve my above aims in around 30-45 minutes. An hour and a quarter into the run with my friend, I was getting bored and a bit too tired to do much thinking. To me, further running seemed pointless, but my friend seemed quite intent on continuing. The difference was in our motivations for running. He is a distinct “conqueror” and, to him, the importance of the run was reaching the peak of a large hill within a specific amount of time. Conquerors and explorers will often share interests and seek to do similar activities like climb mountains, dive shipwrecks, and hike through rain forests, but the way they go about it might be very different and understanding this difference in motivation can be key to avoiding misunderstandings later. That said, the two groups are not mutually exclusive. No one falls entirely into one group and there are certainly people who are equally both conquerors and explorers. I think often about motivations people have for doing things (especially my own!), so even though its not absolute, I still found this distinction important and interesting.

As I thought more about my “explorer” motivations for climbing mountains, runnings hills, and hiking trails, I started thinking about why these activities seem to promote creative thinking and good conversation. I suspect it might work something like this. Engaging the body or senses while thinking triggers activity in different areas of the brain than are normally activated by just thinking while sitting. Despite the illusion that we have full conscious control of our brains, there are many studies that highlight the significant effects of our environment on our decisions and behavior. I suspect that our environment can play just as significant a role in the creative process. Just as different musical instruments enable different symphonies, reading or thinking on a hike, by a fire, in a park, in a cafe, on the move, or in an airplane are different neurological experiences. This is why I find roaming parks, haunting cafes, and exploring cities while reading, studying, and thinking to be such a rich experience.

I also thought about neuroscience and evolution’s effect on the direction of science (something that I will write more about in a future post) and whether information could escape from black holes via entanglement. I had heard of a problem in cosmology called the information paradox in which a black hole collapses and “eats” all the information that was trapped inside it. I don’t know about you but I was pretty angry at black holes for destroying information, which seemed a direct assault on the basic idea that physics conserves information. I had been thinking about the problem for a few days and was pretty excited when part way up the mountain I realized that entangled particles (one inside the black hole and one outside) might be able to “save” the information from destruction, since entanglement doesn’t seem to rely on light or matter to transmit information and shouldn’t be stopped by a black hole horizon. Anyways, once I returned to Torino and looked around at a series of recent papers, I found out that this is indeed roughly how some physicists have resolved the paradox. So even though it wasn’t a rigorous result, I was pretty proud that I was able to come up with the right idea on my own.

You’re probably wondering when I’m going to talk about the mountain again. The truth is, during the ascent, we were so focused on a steady pace of continual climbing that I didn’t get much of a chance to appreciate the mountain. I was mostly buried in my own thoughts and speculation because it was the only solace I had from the bitter winds, subzero temperatures, and gradual exhaustion creeping up my legs. There are two moments, however, that I will never forget.

The first was when I saw the Matterhorn. Never before had I seen a piece of land so menacing and dark. The other glaciers we saw were awe-inspiring and beautiful slopes of gleaming ice and snow; the Matterhorn resembles an obsidian tooth jutting from the bowels of Hell. She is, to say the least, intimidating.

The second moment was when I first reached our destination - Capanna Margherita, the highest mountain refuge on Earth.

The final hour had been a brutal series of switchbacks across a steep, icy face that left us exposed to winds howling so loudly that we could no longer communicate. My fatigue had reached the point that I began to no longer feel safely in control of my body and brain. I would teeter dangerously back and forth on the steep slope and, worse, although my brain would rationally recognize that this was not safe, it was still extremely difficult to focus, act on this recognition, and regain my balance. As we reached the crest of our steep climb though and I got the first glance of the view, I was immediately re-energized and my thoughts came into sharp focus. At 4559m, we were higher than any point in the continental United States and it felt like the top of the world. Even this incredible view from the deck couldn’t keep us from the nice, warm refuge and a chance to sit down and rest. We raced inside, ordered a round of hot teas, and broke out a supply of chocolate bars rivaling that of a fat kid on Halloween (Ritter Sport Dark Chocolate, you never looked so good…). Our guide informed us that although the ascent usually took 4-6 hours when he led groups from Italy, Japan, or elsewhere, we had made it to Capanna Margherita in under 3.5 hours. We had flown up the mountain and, in hindsight, we had good reason to be exhausted. Nevertheless, our journey was not even halfway done. We still had to return to the lower refuge that we had slept at, then back down to the cable car, and finally drive all the way home to Torino by that evening.

The ascent had been a test of willpower and endurance. The descent, however, was a test of control and focus. After waking up at 4am, climbing 1000m in elevation in under 4 hours, and spending the last 24 hours breathing the thinnest air ever to pass through your lungs, you start to get a bit tired. And when you’re tired and the only thing standing between you and rest is a wide open downhill slope, running, sliding, and rolling down it at full speed all seem like wonderful ideas. They are not. They are instead very good strategies for quickly discovering crevices and cliffs. My feeble, exhausted mind had trouble grasping this and it took much effort by our guide to keep me stable and on my feet. Even without giving into the sweet siren call of the human sled, we did manage to descend to the lower refuge in about an hour and a half, stopping just long enough to strike manly poses in celebration of our successful climb. The rest of the descent back to the cable car was far more difficult than expected, requiring every ounce of effort not to give in and just roll the rest of the way down the mountain. I was actually somewhat disappointed that the journey ended up being so mentally taxing on me. Perhaps it was the altitude, perhaps it was dehydration, perhaps it was a day’s diet of crackers, nutella, and chocolate, but by this time, I was on auto-pilot. Needless to say, I never appreciated the overwhelming comfort of a cable car as I did that day.

Day 3+: The Aftermath
One week later, I visited Torino’s Museo Nazionale della Montagna, a museum on this history of the Alps and the sport of mountaineering. It is appropriately located high above the city, next to the church and monastery Monte dei Cappuccini. I say appropriately because (a) this location offers panoramic views of the city and (b) after climbing a glacier, the distant outlines of mountains that used to be merely “cool” become objects of religious awe. Once you’ve been exposed to the world that exists atop those mountains, they take on a new meaning to you. It is difficult to describe but directly analogous to the new importance and significance that the ocean takes on once you’ve begun scuba diving.

The museum itself is, in my opinion, the most underrated attraction in Torino; it doesn’t even appear in most guidebooks. It outlines the history of mountaineering, from the pioneering adventurers who first explored the Alps in little more than fleece pajamas to the mass influx of “mountain tourism” enabled by the automobile to today’s extreme athletes who travel the world seeking to conquer the infamous fourteen “eight-thousanders”. The museum’s rich collection of old equipment including picks (read: walking sticks), jackets (read: wool blazers), and tents (read: burlap bags) made me feel like a princess in my Goretex parka, Tempur-Pedic bed, and heated hotel with running water and full-service restaurant. The stunning photography of Vittorio Sella, the scale model of the original Capanna Margherita, and all the rest of the mountaineering porn in the museum rekindled my excitement and I soon raced back to my hotel room to watch the 2003 documentary Touching the Void, the true story of one of the most incredible mental and physical battles a human being has ever fought and won. I refuse to offer any details because the movie is much more effective when every turn for the worse is a surprise. All I offer is the description from the friend who recommended the film to me; in his words, Touching the Void is one of those few stories that “grapples with what it is to be human.” I’m sure it is even more meaningful if you’ve done some climbing, but I recommend it to all.

Besides the many ideas and thoughts I rambled on about above, the end result of this climb is that I seem to have fallen in with the cult of mountain fanboys who worship glaciers almost religiously. And like every good cult member, I’ve already scheduled another pilgrimage. This Friday, I return to the Alps to spend 4 days on the Tour du Mont Blanc, 170km of raw mountain goodness skirting the borders of Italy, France, and Switzerland.

Summiting Monte Rosa - Cults, Thoughts, and Chocolate at 4500m was originally published by DJ Strouse at DJ on July 29, 2009.