Dot product Updated +Created
The definition of the "dot product" of a general space varies quite a lot with different contexts.
Most definitions tend to be bilinear forms.
We use the unqualified generally refers to the dot product of Real coordinate spaces, which is a positive definite symmetric bilinear form. Other important examples include:
The rest of this section is about the case.
The positive definite part of the definition likely comes in because we are so familiar with metric spaces, which requires a positive norm in the norm induced by an inner product.
The default Euclidean space definition, we use the matrix representation of a symmetric bilinear form as the identity matrix, e.g. in :
so that:
Dual space Updated +Created
The dual space of a vector space , sometimes denoted , is the vector space of all linear forms over with the obvious addition and scalar multiplication operations defined.
Since a linear form is completely determined by how it acts on a basis, and since for each basis element it is specified by a scalar, at least in finite dimension, the dimension of the dual space is the same as the , and so they are isomorphic because all vector spaces of the same dimension on a given field are isomorphic, and so the dual is quite a boring concept in the context of finite dimension.
One place where duals are different from the non-duals however is when dealing with tensors, because they transform differently than vectors from the base space .
Lecture 1 Updated +Created
Bibliography review:
Course outline given:
Non-relativistic QFT is a limit of relativistic QFT, and can be used to describe for example condensed matter physics systems at very low temperature. But it is still very hard to make accurate measurements even in those experiments.
Defines "relativistic" as: "the Lagrangian is symmetric under the Poincaré group".
Mentions that "QFT is hard" because (a finite list follows???):
There are no nontrivial finite-dimensional unitary representations of the Poincaré group.
But I guess that if you fully understand what that means precisely, QTF won't be too hard for you!
Notably, this is stark contrast with rotation symmetry groups (SO(3)) which appears in space rotations present in non-relativistic quantum mechanics.
Lecture 3 Updated +Created
Spacetime interval Updated +Created
In the Galilean transformation, there are two separate invariants that two inertial frame of reference always agree on between two separate events:
However, in special relativity, neither of those are invariant separately, since space and time are mixed up together.
Instead, there is a new unified invariant: the spacetime-interval, given by:
Note that this distance can be zero for two events separated.
Projects must aim for novelty Updated +Created
The projects you do must always aim to achieving some novel result.
You don't have to necessarily reach it. But you must aim for it.
Novel result can be taken broadly.
E.g., a new tutorial that explains something in a way never done before is novel.
But there must be something to your project that has never been done before.
You can start by reproducing other's work.
Dual vector Updated +Created
Dual vectors are the members of a dual space.
In the context of tensors , we use raised indices to refer to members of the dual basis vs the underlying basis:
The dual basis vectors are defined to "pick the corresponding coordinate" out of elements of V. E.g.:
By expanding into the basis, we can put this more succinctly with the Kronecker delta as:
Note that in Einstein notation, the components of a dual vector have lower indices. This works well with the upper case indices of the dual vectors, allowing us to write a dual vector as:
In the context of quantum mechanics, the bra notation is also used for dual vectors.
Automatic code generation Updated +Created
Lecture 2 Updated +Created
@cirosantilli/_file/riscv/riscv/timer.S Updated +Created
TODO: the interrupt is firing only once:
Tested on Ubuntu 23.10:
sudo apt install binutils-riscv64-unknown-elf qemu-system-misc gdb-multiarch
cd riscv
make
Then on shell 1:
qemu-system-riscv64 -machine virt -cpu rv64 -smp 1 -s -S -nographic -bios none -kernel timer.elf
and on shell 2:
gdb-multiarch timer.elf -nh -ex "target remote :1234" -ex 'display /i $pc' -ex 'break *mtrap' -ex 'display *0x2004000' -ex 'display *0x200BFF8'
GDB should break infinitel many times on mtrap as interrupts happen.
bitcoin.org Updated +Created
Official Bitcoin domain registered by Satoshi Nakamoto.
Registration: 2008-08-18 by www.namecheap.com, an American company. But using a privacy oriented registrar: bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/89532/how-did-nakamoto-untraceably-pay-for-registering-bitcoin-org It is unknown how he could have paid anonymously, so it seems likely that the true identity could be obtained by law enforcement if needed.
First archive 2009-01-31: web.archive.org/web/20090131115053/http://bitcoin.org/ Also from the archive history web.archive.org/web/20100701000000*/bitcoin.org, things really started picking up on July 2010. This is almost certainly due to the opening of
Benji Wojin Updated +Created
How to write technical help requests and bug reports Updated +Created
Ciro Santilli often sees all those genius who are much smarter than him making shitty forum/mailing list posts, they need to learn this:
  • The apparently most important one liner error message must appear in the title, and fuller apparently relevant logs must appear on the body
  • You must always give the version of the software that you are using as either a tag or git SHA
    These are an important part of the minimal working example.
  • For build errors, you must give your OS and compiler version and version of any relevant external library
Use English Updated +Created
By writing in English you reach more people.
Writing in any other language is a waste of time.
The reason is simple: English speakers control a huge proportion of the world's GDP.
English is the de-facto Lingua Franca of the second half of the 20th Century, it is the new lingua franca, the new Latin, and there is no escaping it.
Students who don't know English will never do anything truly useful in science and technology. So it is pointless to teach them anything (besides English itself).
Publish your source Updated +Created
For example, if you write LaTeX files for you PDFs, give both PDFs and the LaTeX.
This allows other people to:
  • modify and reuse your material
  • make improvement suggestions that you can accept by clicking a button
    The perfect way to do this is to use GitHub pull requests
E. Coli K-12 MG1655 Updated +Created
NCBI taxonomy entry: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=511145 This links to:
  • genome: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/?term=txid511145 From there there are links to either:
    • Download the FASTA: "Download sequences in FASTA format for genome, protein"
      For the genome, you get a compressed FASTA file with extension .fna called GCF_000005845.2_ASM584v2_genomic.fna that starts with:
      >NC_000913.3 Escherichia coli str. K-12 substr. MG1655, complete genome
      AGCTTTTCATTCTGACTGCAACGGGCAATATGTCTCTGTGTGGATTAAAAAAAGAGTGTCTGATAGCAGCTTCTGAACTG
      Using wc as in wc GCF_000005845.2_ASM584v2_genomic.fna gives 58022 lines, in Vim we see that each line is 80 characters, except for the final one which is 52. So we have 58020 * 80 + 52 = 4641652 =~ 4.6 Mbp
Anne Wojcicki Updated +Created
She's truly passionate about health research and keeping healthy, almost obsessed by it. Also she's strong willed, and energetic. Good traits for founding 23andMe.
As www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/style/anne-wojcicki-23andme-genetics.html puts it well:
The Wojcickis grew into Silicon Valley royalty. It’s the sort of family, Anne jokes, where “you’re only a viable fetus once you have your Ph.D.
Video 1.
Anne Wojcicki interview by Talks at Google (2018)
Source. She's athletic! As mentioned at: www.vanityfair.com/style/2014/04/sergey-brin-amanda-rosenberg-affair. And despite the name, and unlike Sergey, she's completely american as seen from her perfect accent!
Busy Beaver Challenge Updated +Created
Project trying to compute BB(5) once and for all. Notably it has better presentation and organization than any other previous effort, and appears to have grouped everyone who cares about the topic as of the early 2020s.
Very cool initiative!
By 2023, they had basically decided every machine: discuss.bbchallenge.org/t/the-30-to-34-ctl-holdouts-from-bb-5/141

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