Daniel Spielman is a prominent American computer scientist, known for his work in algorithms, theoretical computer science, and data compression. He is particularly recognized for his contributions to the development of modern techniques for the analysis and design of algorithms, including work on error-correcting codes, spectral graph theory, and mathematical optimization. Spielman has also been involved in research related to machine learning and has made significant contributions to the field through his academic work.
The American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) is a mathematical examination designed for high school students in the United States. It is a part of the selection process for the prestigious USA Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO), which is aimed at identifying and encouraging outstanding young mathematicians. The AIME is typically administered after the American Mathematics Contest 10 (AMC 10) and the American Mathematics Contest 12 (AMC 12).
CRESTA refers to the "Catastrophe Risk Evaluation and Standardizing Target Accumulation" system, which is primarily used in the insurance and reinsurance industries. It is a standardized system for classifying and mapping natural catastrophe risks, helping insurers and reinsurers evaluate their exposure to various hazards like earthquakes, floods, and storms.
Credit risk refers to the possibility that a borrower or counterparty will fail to meet their obligations in accordance with agreed terms, which often results in a financial loss for the lender or investor. This risk is particularly relevant in the context of loans, bonds, and other financial instruments where the repayment of principal and interest depends on the creditworthiness of the borrower.
The Esscher principle is a concept in actuarial science and financial mathematics, particularly in the context of insurance and risk theory. Named after the Danish actuary Finn Esscher, the principle is used for determining the premium that should be charged for an insurance product or for valuing insurance liabilities. The Esscher principle involves adjusting the probability measure of the underlying risk model through a transformation called the Esscher transform.
Longevity risk refers to the potential financial risk that arises from individuals living longer than expected. This risk is particularly relevant in contexts such as pensions, insurance, and retirement planning. Here are some key points about longevity risk: 1. **Definition**: Longevity risk is the risk that people will outlive their financial resources due to an increase in life expectancy. This can impact both individuals and financial institutions.
The concept of **apartness** is related to the idea of distinguishing between elements in a mathematical structure. It is a general way to formalize the notion of two elements being "distinct" or "different" without necessarily operating under the traditional framework of a metric or topology. The concept originates from the field of constructive mathematics and has implications in various areas such as algebra and topology.
A heavy-tailed distribution is a type of probability distribution that has a tail, which is the part of the distribution that represents extreme values, that is significantly heavier or more significant than that of the exponential distribution. This means that it has a higher probability of producing values far from the mean compared to lighter-tailed distributions, such as the normal distribution. In practical terms, this implies that heavy-tailed distributions can model phenomena where extreme events have a considerable chance of occurring.
The Kaplan–Meier estimator is a statistical tool used to estimate the survival function from lifetime data. It is particularly useful in medical research for analyzing time-to-event data, such as the time until an event of interest occurs (like death, relapse, or failure) when some subjects are censored, meaning they leave the study or do not experience the event during the observation period.
Life expectancy is a statistical measure that estimates the average number of years a person can expect to live, based on demographic factors such as current age and sex, as well as historical mortality rates. It is commonly used to assess the overall health and longevity of populations and can vary significantly between different countries, regions, and demographic groups due to factors like healthcare access, lifestyle, economic conditions, and environmental influences.
Ciro Santilli's knee by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
If Achilles' had his heel, Ciro had his knee.
First during University in Brazil while trying a kick up during the development of Cirodance his knee went a bit weird for a few weeks.
Then, just after arriving in France for École Polytechnique, the boys were playing indoor soccer, and to impress the girls Ciro was playing really hard, even took off his shirt, and suddenly when he was running by himself his knee snapped, he fell and it hurt like hell.
Ciro was on crutches for a few weeks, but the inflammation went away, but then he tried to play more soccer, but the knee was not as stable as before, and once he tried to run full speed, it slipped and hurt him a bit more (less severely) and so he gave up. For some reason it was not visible on the tomography made at the hospital.
Maybe Ciro should have investigated more though, certainly an experienced doctor could have done a hand pressure exam to determine which joint was damaged manually even. That was a medical failure.
So from this day on Ciro gave up on all interesting sports, and confined himself to more repetitive stuff like gym weights and cycling: Section "Ciro Santilli's sport practice". At Polytechnique he was forced to take up swimming as his mandatory sport, that was unbearably boring.
This defect is likely genetic since a close relative had similar problems.
But oh well, his then not-even girlfriend was impressed enough by the soccer or sorry enough for the sucker to marry him, so it worked out.
Poor countries don't have a lot of money.
Therefore, you have to pick a few key the next big thing deep tech bets, and invest on those enough.
These have to be few, because your country is poor, and so you can't invest on everything.
Therefore, the bets have to be well selected, because it is useless to make several insufficient investments: you have to pick a few ones, and put enough time and money into each one of them for them to stand any chance. These bets should be made and reevaluated on 5/10 year horizons.
The key things that you have to select are:
And then you only tax those companies heavily when the start to bring in real money. These are startups remember! You only need 5 unicorns a year to call it a success. And countries should not be greedy and invest through equity, but rather recoup their investment through taxation alone.
Ciro's second removed uncle, who was a physicist at the University of Campinas, one of the best universities in the country, told him an anecdote. He had moved from fusion energy research to solar cell research. At some point, there was a research lab that needed 10 million to buy a machinery critical for their experiment. They asked and asked, and finally the government gave them only 2 million. So in the end they spent those 2 million in random ways, but of course did not achieve their research goal and no money came out of it.
He also explained how as a result of the insufficient investments, he felt clearly that some of the semiconductor production facilities related to solar power he saw simply were not able to control the production process adequately to produce consistent silicon. As a result, everything failed sooner or later as people found more and more bugs that they did not have the time to solve.
Another key investment is enticing back experienced exchange-students who have learnt new techniques to be heads of laboratory/founders to back in your country.
A fantastic initiative from Brazil for example is BRASA, which aims to put together Brazilian exchange students to make a difference back in Brazil.
Do not try to forbid external companies from selling in your country. Instead, fund your own companies to be able to fight the external market off. And if they can't, let them die and pick a different bet. Video "How Taiwan Created TSMC by Asianometry (2020)" has a good mention. Protectionism is something that Brazil notably tried to do, and look at what it led, not a single international success.
Richard B. Dunn could refer to several individuals, but without more context, it’s challenging to provide specific information. One notable figure is Richard B. Dunn, an academic and historian known for his work on early American history, specifically colonial America. He may also be associated with various other fields or professions.
Robert M. MacQueen is a notable figure in the field of computer science, particularly known for his contributions to algorithms and data structures. He is recognized for developing the MacQueen clustering algorithm, which is part of the broader domain of data analysis and machine learning. The algorithm is a type of classification method used in various applications, including statistics and data mining.
"Novae" (singular: nova) refers to astronomical events involving the sudden brightness of a star due to a thermonuclear explosion on its surface. This phenomenon occurs typically in binary star systems, where a white dwarf star accumulates material from a companion star, often a red giant or a main-sequence star.
Sandra Troian is a physicist known for her work in the field of fluid mechanics and complex fluids. She has made significant contributions to our understanding of the behavior of fluids in various contexts, particularly in areas such as capillarity, surface tension, and the dynamics of complex fluids. Troian is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and has published numerous research papers that address both theoretical and experimental aspects of fluid dynamics.
Robert G. Jahn (born October 24, 1930 – November 17, 2020) was an American engineer, physicist, and parapsychologist best known for his work in the fields of consciousness and the interaction between human thoughts and physical systems. He was a professor of aerospace engineering at Princeton University and later became the dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
We have two killer features:
  1. topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculus
    Articles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
    • a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
    • a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
    This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
    Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page
    . View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivative
  2. local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:
    This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
    Figure 2.
    You can publish local OurBigBook lightweight markup files to either https://OurBigBook.com or as a static website
    .
    Figure 3.
    Visual Studio Code extension installation
    .
    Figure 4.
    Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation
    .
    Figure 5.
    Web editor
    . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.
    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
    . Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.
    Video 4.
    OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo
    . Source.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
  4. Infinitely deep tables of contents:
    Figure 6.
    Dynamic article tree with infinitely deep table of contents
    .
    Descendant pages can also show up as toplevel e.g.: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/chordate-subclade
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact