Beta decay Updated 2025-07-16
Uranium emits them, you can see their mass to charge ratio under magnetic field and so deduce that they are electrons.
Caused by weak interaction TODO why/how.
The emitted electron kinetic energy is random from zero to a maximum value. The rest goes into a neutrino. This is how the neutrino was first discovered/observed indirectly. This is well illustrated in a decay scheme such as Figure "caesium-137 decay scheme".
better-sqlite3 Node.js package Updated 2025-07-16
As claimed on their README, their operation truly appears to be 10x faster than the node-sqlite package!! It is insane!! How can that other package still exist at all?
The only big problem was the lack of ORM, but people are looking into that by adding it to Sequelize:
Zeeman effect Updated 2025-07-16
Split in the spectral line when a magnetic field is applied.
Non-anomalous: number of splits matches predictions of the Schrödinger equation about the number of possible states with a given angular momentum. TODO does it make numerical predictions?
www.pas.rochester.edu/~blackman/ast104/zeeman-split.html contains the hello world that everyone should know: 2p splits into 3 energy levels, so you see 3 spectral lines from 1s to 2p rather than just one.
p splits into 3, d into 5, f into 7 and so on, i.e. one for each possible azimuthal quantum number.
It also mentions that polarization effects become visible from this: each line is polarized in a different way. TODO more details as in an experiment to observe this.
Video 1.
Experimental physics - IV: 22 - Zeeman effect by Lehrportal Uni Gottingen (2020)
Source.
This one is decent. Uses a cadmium lamp and an etalon on an optical table. They see a more or less clear 3-split in a circular interference pattern,
They filter out all but the transition of interest.
Video 2. Source. Does not appear to achieve a crystal clear split unfortunately.
Google Quantum AI Updated 2025-07-16
Google's quantum hardware/software effort.
The "AI" part is just prerequisite buzzword of the AI boom era for any project and completely bullshit.
According to job postings such as: archive.ph/wip/Fdgsv their center is in Goleta, California, near Santa Barbara. Though Google tends to promote it more as Santa Barbara, see e.g. Daniel's t-shirt at Video "Building a quantum computer with superconducting qubits by Daniel Sank (2019)".
Video 1.
Control of transmon qubits using a cryogenic CMOS integrated circuit (QuantumCasts) by Google (2020)
Source. Fantastic video, good photos of the Google Quantum AI setup!
Zettelkasten Updated 2025-07-16
zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/ mentions one page to rule them all:
How many Zettelkästen should I have? The answer is, most likely, only one for the duration of your life. But there are exceptions to this rule.
Euler number Updated 2025-07-16
Go (game) Updated 2025-07-16
Zongzi Updated 2025-07-16
Eaten during Dragon Boat Festival, but can be bought year round.
Buy frozen. Pick the ones with meat and eggs!!! Boil.
Cost about 4 dollars for 2.
You can't eat them every day because too heavy, but they are so amazingly tasty!!!
Chain rule Updated 2025-07-16
Here's an example of the chain rule. Suppose we want to calculate:
So we have:
and so:
Therefore the final result is:
Gradient Updated 2025-07-16
Takes a scalar field as input and produces a vector field.
Mnemonic: the gradient shows the direction in which the function increases fastest.
Think of a color gradient going from white to black from left to right.
Therefore, it has to:
  • take a scalar field as input. Otherwise, how do you decide which vector is larger than the other?
  • output a vector field that contains the direction in which the scalar increases fastest locally at each point. This has to give out vectors, since we are talking about directions
Graphene Updated 2025-07-16
A single layer of graphite.
Green fluorescent protein Updated 2025-07-16
The 3D structure of GFP is so cool. It is so clearly a bottle with a fluorescent bit well isolated right in the middle. Like a little lamp.
grep Updated 2025-07-16
If you are a programmer, grep becomes a verb: "to grep" means "to search text files", much like "to Google" means "to search random stuff online".
M,n,k game Updated 2025-07-16

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