https://matthewjordan.ca Matthew Jordan Wed, 21 Jun 2023 04:42:58 +0000 https://matthewjordan.ca en https://matthewjordan.ca/Home Tue, 28 Feb 2023 01:43:07 +0000 Matthew Jordan https://matthewjordan.ca/Home Matthew Jordan My calling in life is to learn as much as I can, then share those learnings with other people. <img width="950" height="950" width_o="950" height_o="950" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2ef172d130a4519d98943516a9280a2c394da6e514b0dd7e999cb9722610011c/20220824_163244-Copy.JPG" data-mid="170185229" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/950/i/2ef172d130a4519d98943516a9280a2c394da6e514b0dd7e999cb9722610011c/20220824_163244-Copy.JPG" /> <img width="3015" height="3018" width_o="3015" height_o="3018" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9b0016ce16ba8e7415683b30c340efe2f03f5d81ae8125c96475fbeffee69085/Falkirk_Wheel.jpg" data-mid="170185233" border="0" 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height="3441" width_o="3445" height_o="3441" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2a82075939fe1356557f59abe92ce01d5598ee23c697d3e985cbd3668404bc84/IMG_9704.jpg" data-mid="174287505" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2a82075939fe1356557f59abe92ce01d5598ee23c697d3e985cbd3668404bc84/IMG_9704.jpg" /> <img width="2102" height="2104" width_o="2102" height_o="2104" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b3df65d2e35c8648913e5053f4ce3b484b34f6d8146cfb7380058575e6c71dd2/IMG_5608_Original.jpg" data-mid="174287504" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b3df65d2e35c8648913e5053f4ce3b484b34f6d8146cfb7380058575e6c71dd2/IMG_5608_Original.jpg" /> <img width="1745" height="1744" width_o="1745" height_o="1744" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4337e2b818adb7f9983048c3f4a195ada2a13cccdf7b677c12adeb5048eb12fb/IMG_6103-Copy.JPG" data-mid="170185238" border="0" 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data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/519b997e2aa44f99c4404de1c6baad058d0527e959a79f77bcbe59438f74a2b3/IMG_20190805_111342.jpg" data-mid="174287507" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/519b997e2aa44f99c4404de1c6baad058d0527e959a79f77bcbe59438f74a2b3/IMG_20190805_111342.jpg" /> I’ve done this many different ways: starting a walking tour company, creating university courses, recording podcasts, and delivering exuberant public rants. https://matthewjordan.ca/University-Courses Tue, 28 Feb 2023 01:43:07 +0000 Matthew Jordan https://matthewjordan.ca/University-Courses University Courses Innovate 1Z03 – Artificial Intelligence A course I created on the social issues around Artificial Intelligence, which I taught during the winter, summer, and fall of 2020. I turned my lectures into a podcast, which you can listen to on Spotify and Apple Podcasts by searching “Innovate 1Z03”. <img width="660" height="160" width_o="660" height_o="160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5de3863a2b551462133253659a135d2347b974196abfc535f33496ba7bb617d3/spotify-podcast-badge-blk-grn-660x160.png" data-mid="170191003" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/660/i/5de3863a2b551462133253659a135d2347b974196abfc535f33496ba7bb617d3/spotify-podcast-badge-blk-grn-660x160.png" /> <img width="165" height="40" width_o="165" height_o="40" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b27bb7b712d4bcccf895ab34f3c3869645d0ca1e49abd31c74862934eea6ca38/badge.svg" data-mid="170191063" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/165/i/b27bb7b712d4bcccf895ab34f3c3869645d0ca1e49abd31c74862934eea6ca38/badge.svg" /> Here’s a preview of the show. As a textbook, we read Melanie Mitchell’s book Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans. Additional readings included: Henry Shevlin, Karina Vold, Matthew Crosby, Marta Halina – The Limits of Machine Intelligence (2019)John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, Claude Shannon –&nbsp;A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project (1955)Dave Gershgorn – The data that transformed AI research, and possibly the world (2019)Gary Marcus – The Next Decade of AI (2020)3Blue1Brown – What is a neural network? (2017)Miles Brundage et al. – The Malicious use of Artificial Intelligence (2018)Rolnick et al. – Tackling Climate Change With Machine Learning (2019)Eric Topol – High performance medicine: the convergence of human and artificial intelligence (2019)Joy Buolamwini – Gender Shades (2018)Karen Hao &amp; Jonathan Stray – Can you make AI safer than a judge? (2019)Maciej Ceglowski – Superintelligence: The Idea that Eats Smart People (2016) Arts &amp; Science 4HS3&nbsp; – History of Science Inquiry A small (15 student) upper-year seminar on the history of science. The course spanned a huge and potentially ill-advised range of subjects. Here were the topics and readings. What is science? AF Chalmers – What is this Thing Called Science? (1976) From the closed world to the infinite universe&nbsp;Alexandre Koyré – Galileo and the Scientific Revolution of the Seventeenth Century (1943)Roy Porter – The Scientific Revolution: A Spoke in the Wheel? (1986) Science, colonialism, and empire&nbsp;Francis Bacon – The New Atlantis (1623)Francis Bacon – Novum Organon (1620)Rob Iliffe – Science and Voyages of Discovery (2003)John Gasciogne – The Royal Society, natural history and the peoples of the ‘New World(s)’, 1660–1800 (2009) <img width="1618" height="2789" width_o="1618" height_o="2789" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b1c9862a0d556599c79fd6379374c485ad3671f4a0e25419c191a1dd4cb058ca/Houghton_EC.B1328.620ib_-_Novum_organum_scientiarum-1.jpg" data-mid="172977463" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b1c9862a0d556599c79fd6379374c485ad3671f4a0e25419c191a1dd4cb058ca/Houghton_EC.B1328.620ib_-_Novum_organum_scientiarum-1.jpg" /> The iconic cover of Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum, depicting two ships departing the Mediterranean for the “new world”. The latin inscription reads&nbsp;multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia—many will travel and knowledge shall increase. Is there a scientific method? Imre Lakatos – Science and Pseudoscience (1973)Naomi Oreskes – How do We Know We’re Not Wrong? (2018) Darwin, Galton, and eugenicsCharles Darwin – The Descent of Man, and Selection, in Relation to Sex (1871) Charles Darwin –&nbsp;On the Origin of Species (1859) Diane B. Paul – Darwin, Social Darwinism and Eugenics (2003) Scientific funding and publishingNoah Moxham and Aileen Fyfe – The Royal Society and the Prehistory of Peer Review (2018)Richard Westfall – Science and patronage: Galileo and the telescope (1985) Public health and pandemicsCE Rosenberg – What is an epidemic? AIDS in historical perspective (1989) The brain and the mind Matthew Cobb – The Idea of the Brain (Introduction) (2020)Stuart A. Umpleby – A Brief History of Cybernetics in the United States (2008) The production of scientific knowledge Harry Collins – The Seven Sexes: A Study in the Sociology of a Phenomenon, or the Replication of Experiments in Physics (1975) The rise of Big ScienceAlex Wellerstein – The Manhattan Project: Encyclopedia of the History of Science (2019) Daniel Kevles – Big Science and Big Politics in the United States: Reflections on the Death of the SSC and the Life of the Human Genome Project (1997) <img width="1612" height="907" width_o="1612" height_o="907" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b821b85aacee25d9a2c6c54f6efe5acdf3380e3e0b5106de4e2b7f09f4fa4621/ynMbNPtWB8SNpN5zScet5D.jpeg" data-mid="172979538" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b821b85aacee25d9a2c6c54f6efe5acdf3380e3e0b5106de4e2b7f09f4fa4621/ynMbNPtWB8SNpN5zScet5D.jpeg" /> Science as industrial and international: the Large Hadron Collider Science and TechnologyRobert Heilbroner – Do Machines Make History? (1967)Langdon Winner – Do Artifacts Have Politics? (1980) Critics of scienceAlan Sokal – A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies (1996) Bruce Robbins – Just Doing Your Job (1997) Maralee Harrell – On the Possibility of a Feminist Philosophy of Physics (2016) Math 2X03 – Vector Calculus When I was an undergraduate student I taught a second-year vector calculus course. I loved the subject dearly and still idly draw pictures of coordinate transformations. Here are some of my supplementary notes and exams from that class. Notes on the JacobianMidterm ExamFinal Exam <img width="664" height="327" width_o="664" height_o="327" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/af928abd9c6d489e3bef803811698585f1d10b5ec71d0d09bbb3c28d772cecb7/Maps2D02a.png" data-mid="172979912" border="0" data-scale="70" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/664/i/af928abd9c6d489e3bef803811698585f1d10b5ec71d0d09bbb3c28d772cecb7/Maps2D02a.png" /> These notes will teach you how to find the area of a transformed shape. Cooler than it sounds!! Calculus Textbook I was a teaching assistant for an undergraduate calculus class for multiple years and turned my tutorial notes into a textbook. Students tended to find it quite useful. It’s also a historical artifact of 2014-era memes. You can read it here. <img width="400" height="400" width_o="400" height_o="400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e1a814856743f34fa37d53b1d83f00760b5b65ebb0f064ee34d870ff93511bd7/4200db0b6b99cfbd86fe3f15e32097fb--two-men-ray-ban-sunglasses.jpeg" data-mid="172980701" border="0" data-scale="47" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/400/i/e1a814856743f34fa37d53b1d83f00760b5b65ebb0f064ee34d870ff93511bd7/4200db0b6b99cfbd86fe3f15e32097fb--two-men-ray-ban-sunglasses.jpeg" /> https://matthewjordan.ca/Walking-Tours Wed, 21 Jun 2023 04:42:58 +0000 Matthew Jordan https://matthewjordan.ca/Walking-Tours Hidden Rivers Tours I was born in Toronto and have lived in the GTA for most of my life. Growing up in the suburbs, coming to Toronto was always exciting—stadiums and skyscrapers, family and festivals—but living here turned out to be pretty dispiriting. Toronto felt like a place without a history.But as I began to explore by bike &amp; by foot, I realized what makes this city special. It’s much more than it first appears. It’s a city of ravines, waterways, and urban ecology. This is a city of buried waterways, ancient cliffs, and the world's largest ravine system. The colonial history is just a blip—Toronto's history stretches back to the last ice age and the arrival of humans over 10,000 years ago. No one told me! I wanted to share my newfound enthusiasm about Toronto with everyone I know. So: I stared a walking tour company. This was not a typical tourist-y tour. It’s geared towards people who grew up in the Toronto area, moved to Toronto later in life, or just want to deepen their relationship with the city. <img width="2444" height="1833" width_o="2444" height_o="1833" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1fd96c3ba5da3f1a4ead7da68834ae69852c71216573a7752d06052933077275/IMG_3983-Copy.JPG" data-mid="191736883" border="0" data-scale="90" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1fd96c3ba5da3f1a4ead7da68834ae69852c71216573a7752d06052933077275/IMG_3983-Copy.JPG" />A typical tour group The goal of the tour is to demonstrate how geography shapes this city: nature provides a “first draft” of the city, and all of our activities have to accommodate the natural world. Toronto in particular has been defined by its extraordinary ravine system. My other goal is to emphasize that cities are a designed object whose designers stretch across the centuries. Every bridge, sewage pipe, subway station, and train line represents an intuition-defying amount of human coordination and multiple lifetime’s worth of innovation in science and engineering. In May of 2023 I began posting videos on TikTok and Instagram of me excitedly marching around the city and sharing everything I knew. Much to my surprise, the videos went viral, and I very soon became a Toronto influencer of sorts. I have been astounded by the response. Thousands of people in Toronto turned out to feel the same way I did: they wanted to love Toronto but didn’t know how. It’s been a privilege to be so many people's guide to this city and to share my enthusiasm for nature &amp; infrastructure. <img width="4592" height="3448" width_o="4592" height_o="3448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4372a24611e0c93a9fa2f247512da8da7fca34073a4a891c681779b3ed17cfb3/P1240351-2.JPG" data-mid="191736856" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4372a24611e0c93a9fa2f247512da8da7fca34073a4a891c681779b3ed17cfb3/P1240351-2.JPG" /> <img width="4192" height="2795" width_o="4192" height_o="2795" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/859c0b52ac13730a1d3cc756dc67b2e4d463596b38c6e1cffe3a309f7606caf5/Matthew-A7402993-Edit-high-res-Copy-1.JPG" data-mid="191736867" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/859c0b52ac13730a1d3cc756dc67b2e4d463596b38c6e1cffe3a309f7606caf5/Matthew-A7402993-Edit-high-res-Copy-1.JPG" /> <img width="4592" height="3448" width_o="4592" height_o="3448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/795bed6e3c109936d2b79f35e5cdfee7f1257a36d57583cb920434a56c1ad1f6/P1240345.JPG" data-mid="191736860" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/795bed6e3c109936d2b79f35e5cdfee7f1257a36d57583cb920434a56c1ad1f6/P1240345.JPG" /> <img width="1787" height="1340" width_o="1787" height_o="1340" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fc44da8c30c5ee58b66ef8350ae6cc989b7c7b33f63a54a068198eae985a22fc/IMG_3809.png" data-mid="191737101" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fc44da8c30c5ee58b66ef8350ae6cc989b7c7b33f63a54a068198eae985a22fc/IMG_3809.png" /> <img width="2893" height="1657" width_o="2893" height_o="1657" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3436798b518b2d9286d3ea414e09c0d0bed40e35e7be5d6a822db330b347667e/IMG_3566-Copy.JPG" data-mid="191737104" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3436798b518b2d9286d3ea414e09c0d0bed40e35e7be5d6a822db330b347667e/IMG_3566-Copy.JPG" /> <img width="4192" height="2795" width_o="4192" height_o="2795" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/73a8e294b9e528268ea4234271564ffbc51bbe4204cdfb5ab18e3ad20a2422a2/A7402365-high-res-1.jpg" data-mid="191736876" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/73a8e294b9e528268ea4234271564ffbc51bbe4204cdfb5ab18e3ad20a2422a2/A7402365-high-res-1.jpg" /> <img width="718" height="871" width_o="718" height_o="871" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4b56de9729960e67bb4cffb20af025a0e432314cfe922f37329c45c834b9096e/87BED84C-4A87-4DFC-BF05-D4E7E0536B1E.jpg" data-mid="191737066" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/718/i/4b56de9729960e67bb4cffb20af025a0e432314cfe922f37329c45c834b9096e/87BED84C-4A87-4DFC-BF05-D4E7E0536B1E.jpg" /> My main takeaway from the summer of tour guiding was this: life becomes more meaningful when you understand the unique history of the place you live. It’s an amazing thing to be rooted in geology &amp; ecology. I felt alienated in my city, but millennia-old ravines &amp; rivers gave me a sense of place. Here’s my TikTok video that first went viral: In the summer of 2024 I returned to Toronto to run my tours for a second time. This time around, I decided to create a different tour route every other week, hoping that people would come back multiple times. What happened blew my mind: a community of around 100 people ended up becoming devoted followers, and joined me on all of my new tours. Many of these people ended up befriending each other, and used Hidden Rivers as a social community that helped them feel connected to the city of Toronto. I capped off the summer with a picnic, where I gave awards to some of the people who made these tours an especially welcoming environment. <img width="976" height="645" width_o="976" height_o="645" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0bf7d665fa1fcb7a5055826253f686b857e9729deceabaac242d4087c048366a/IMG_3899.JPG" data-mid="217638910" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/976/i/0bf7d665fa1fcb7a5055826253f686b857e9729deceabaac242d4087c048366a/IMG_3899.JPG" /> https://matthewjordan.ca/Interact Wed, 01 Mar 2023 21:58:18 +0000 Matthew Jordan https://matthewjordan.ca/Interact Interact Since 2019 I have been helping run Interact, a fellowship program for young technologists and emerging research &amp; education institution. I applied to the fellowship program in 2018 and was inspired to meet a new class of person for me: thoughtful, high-integrity entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, and builders who cared deeply about technology and its role in our collective future. After the retreat, I volunteered on the admissions committee, and ran that committe the following year.&nbsp;During that time, Interact was primarily a social community, connecting hundreds of people who had participated in the program since 2012. Starting in 2020, however, Interact began to pivot to something much larger: a research and education institution that offers programs beyond the fellowship for 18-23 year-olds. I joined a small full-time team to help lead this transition. In this role, I helped create a grants program, supported Interacters’ projects, organized a 200-person retreat, scaled our admissions process, and supervised a number of writing projects, including&nbsp;Letters to a Young Technologist. Most imporantly, I created a course on the philosophy of technology for incoming Interact fellows. This course (which I cannot share publicly just yet) runs in parallel in 5 different cities, where Interact Fellows&nbsp; meet weekly to discuss a shared set of readings about what it means to be a technologist in the 21st century.&nbsp; <img width="4608" height="2112" width_o="4608" height_o="2112" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2a1b469df968a2a561de60b0ae0b9ee8e712f1c0f0bf089ff23c41b824333283/IMG_20210911_083054.jpg" data-mid="171171987" border="0" data-scale="95" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2a1b469df968a2a561de60b0ae0b9ee8e712f1c0f0bf089ff23c41b824333283/IMG_20210911_083054.jpg" /> Camp Navarro, the site of the 2022 Interact retreat I handed the role to Santi at the start of 2022. I am still highly&nbsp; involved with Interact, and have been organizing book clubs. Thus far we have read Games: Agency as Art by C. Thi Nguyen, and Aspiration by Agnes Callard. <img width="1031" height="482" width_o="1031" height_o="482" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/32dfff6d68f2322b27831660755f87d5f1146ee77e8312140379344889388fa7/Screen-Shot-2023-02-06-at-6.19.06-PM.png" data-mid="171172080" border="0" data-scale="87" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/32dfff6d68f2322b27831660755f87d5f1146ee77e8312140379344889388fa7/Screen-Shot-2023-02-06-at-6.19.06-PM.png" /> Book club conversation with C. Thi Nguyen https://matthewjordan.ca/History-of-Science Tue, 28 Feb 2023 01:43:05 +0000 Matthew Jordan https://matthewjordan.ca/History-of-Science History of Science Master’s Thesis My Master’s thesis was on the role of game-playing in the history of computing. I argued that games like checkers (called “draughts” in the UK) and chess were not a mere frivolity. The computer scientists who wrote chess and checkers programs were among the most innovative and accomplished intellectuals of their time, and they viewed these games as core to their work. Many of the central developments in artificial intelligence (including the first-ever use of the term “machine learning”) came from games. <img width="409" height="404" width_o="409" height_o="404" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7d46244adbd0786a1332ad39d267d2608089d6b30d731bf22bc13aeb8ee6db98/checkers.png" data-mid="170211662" border="0" data-scale="43" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/409/i/7d46244adbd0786a1332ad39d267d2608089d6b30d731bf22bc13aeb8ee6db98/checkers.png" /> A game of draughts (checkers) illuminated by cathode ray tubes. Build by Christopher Strachey in Manchester in 1948. <img width="960" height="577" width_o="960" height_o="577" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/67319aaa1ade224dbfc5ffd6dada45e90b58950002d643ba56cc4ea12f1178e8/John-McCarthy.jpeg" data-mid="171162489" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/960/i/67319aaa1ade224dbfc5ffd6dada45e90b58950002d643ba56cc4ea12f1178e8/John-McCarthy.jpeg" /> <img width="1200" height="970" width_o="1200" height_o="970" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c7eb89198f5ea41c171cc74272be46be60410d81267c3ee9d0ac6eb5d1dbd147/Arthur-Samuel.jpeg" data-mid="171167879" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c7eb89198f5ea41c171cc74272be46be60410d81267c3ee9d0ac6eb5d1dbd147/Arthur-Samuel.jpeg" /> Left: The birth of machine learning. Arthur Samuel’s self-improving checkers program.RIght: John McCarthy, who coined the term “artificial intelligence”, was an avid (albeit mediocre) chess player and programmer. The second theme that ran through my thesis was the&nbsp; relationship between chess, computing, and the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union were two adversaries, sitting on opposite sides of a geopolitical chessboard, each trying to out-maneuver the other. Scientists like Norbert Weiner, Herb Simon, and John von Neumann modelled these adversarial dynamics computationally, using the same computers and same techniques they used to program chess. This was the birth of game theory: the study of mult-player zero-sum games, from chess to nuclear war. You can read the full thesis as a Google Doc or download it as a PDF. Electrical Analogies One of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read was Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander <img width="318" height="422" width_o="318" height_o="422" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/160ef4b64feace5098288108e2b29d65d031a646a61337fa9162639e239daa54/18634801.jpeg" data-mid="173833478" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/318/i/160ef4b64feace5098288108e2b29d65d031a646a61337fa9162639e239daa54/18634801.jpeg" /> It argues, through an absolute torrent, an utter tidal wave of examples upon examples upon examples, that analogy is core to every single aspect of human thought. Every act of language, every scientific breakthrough, every musical idea is rooted in finding similarities between familiar situations and new ones. Our language is permeated with words borrowed from other contexts, and our minds are infinitely flexible in their ability to draw connections (see, for example, the way I just used the words “permeated”, “borrowed”, “flexible”, and “draw”). I wanted to apply this framework to physics, where analogies abound. Everything in physics—like everything everywhere—is analogies. We think of particles as springs, electricity as current, batteries as...batteries (the word “battery” comes from the fact that Benjamin Franklin put a bunch of electric jars beside each other and connected them together to have them “fire” at the same time, just like a battery of weapons on a war ship). <img width="1240" height="930" width_o="1240" height_o="930" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ed34c1d8b02e707360e1d209715b3bdd408c0e2ced6ec30279dc51cdbebba47d/origin.jpeg" data-mid="173835972" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ed34c1d8b02e707360e1d209715b3bdd408c0e2ced6ec30279dc51cdbebba47d/origin.jpeg" /> <img width="400" height="400" width_o="400" height_o="400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fa176b80d08405983f94fd945cbdef5785f23578580c2d6184d660b5461ae7a4/QJS5p.png" data-mid="173837040" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/400/i/fa176b80d08405983f94fd945cbdef5785f23578580c2d6184d660b5461ae7a4/QJS5p.png" /> A battery of Leyden Jars and a depiction of the flow of electricity. The more you dig into analogies in the history of electricity, the more you realize they’re inescapable. “Electric” means “similar to amber” (a tree sap that can easily cause an electric shock); “Current” is an explicit fluid analogy; the idea of particles being “negative” or “positive” comes from an extended banking analogy; “charge” comes from loading a rifle; “anion” literally means “that which goes up” because Michael Faraday’s put one rod above another to separate charged particles. My favorite analogy, however, comes from legendary Scottish physicist and night owl James Clerk Maxwell. <img width="2048" height="638" width_o="2048" height_o="638" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8101195aafd3f80fa75113263b92d2b9e9128181a4eb5e5af2b2e9e90be93912/Ep92EBFVoAIwxAL.jpeg" data-mid="173840638" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8101195aafd3f80fa75113263b92d2b9e9128181a4eb5e5af2b2e9e90be93912/Ep92EBFVoAIwxAL.jpeg" /> Maxwell conceived of electricity and mangetism as some kind of stretching or tension or pressure in the luminiferous aether, a hypothetical fluid that pervades all of physical space. He then used this model of molecular vortices to deduce that (1) “a changing magnetic field induces an electric current, and vice-versa; the electric and magnetic fields can be thought of as waves at ninety degrees to each other”, and (2) “light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.” A grand unified theory of electromagnetism and light from a little toy model. Not half bad. <img width="850" height="720" width_o="850" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/eeac8debd5e8451e16428ed65c5b06c32a7293ef3aa1e4f3e075e761d6228085/Maxwells-drawing-of-the-vortex-idle-wheel-medium-Maxwell-1890-Vol-I-Plate-VII-copy.png" data-mid="173857209" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/850/i/eeac8debd5e8451e16428ed65c5b06c32a7293ef3aa1e4f3e075e761d6228085/Maxwells-drawing-of-the-vortex-idle-wheel-medium-Maxwell-1890-Vol-I-Plate-VII-copy.png" /> Maxwell’s Molecular Vortices You can read the full paper here. Charles Babbage During my second year of undergrad I developed a minor obsession with Charles Babbage, the irascible mathematician who was responsible for designing the first mechanical computer. The following semester, I went on exchange and spent a bunch of time trying to find Babbage’s childhood home and trace back his legacy at various museums. Those foibles led me to give a TEDx talk at McMaster on the lessons I’d learned along the way Babbage was such an interesting figure to me because he was two things I am not: grumpy and visionary. He saw the idea of a digital programmable computer with such clarity, but he also yelled at kids on the street for having too much fun. He reinvigorated the fields of economics and statistics from a 19th century stupor, but he also wrote a letter to the Poet Laureate saying that the line “every minute dies a man / every minute one is born” is factually inaccurate and a more accurate line would be “every minute dies a man / and one and a sixteenth is born”. King. Here’s the full paper. <img width="800" height="1048" width_o="800" height_o="1048" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/aab92fce407be23a0bc741a47b27067fdc24b6815681415c9780cc60c95efd2c/Charles_Babbage_-_1860.jpeg" data-mid="173831941" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/aab92fce407be23a0bc741a47b27067fdc24b6815681415c9780cc60c95efd2c/Charles_Babbage_-_1860.jpeg" /> My guy Charles Babbage https://matthewjordan.ca/Psychology-Research Tue, 28 Feb 2023 01:43:06 +0000 Matthew Jordan https://matthewjordan.ca/Psychology-Research Psychology Research Mathematical Intuitions In 2017 I joined the Lab for the Developing Mind at NYU to research a simple question: can people tell whether a path connecting two points on the surface of a sphere is the shortest path between the points? It’s not as easy at it seems! We have all seen pictures of planes taking surprising routes across the globe. <img width="600" height="340" width_o="600" height_o="340" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e6638e435797babb2289141d32cb5d9d1d8d392a756a69fd902eeb40eb70301c/levy_circle_route_01-600x340.jpeg" data-mid="170368375" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/e6638e435797babb2289141d32cb5d9d1d8d392a756a69fd902eeb40eb70301c/levy_circle_route_01-600x340.jpeg" /> Get this: the red route is faster by plane than the yellow route. The reason is fairly straightforward: on a sphere (like the Earth), the shortest distance between two points is the path which, if it were to continue all the way around the sphere, would slice the sphere in half. This is called a geodesic or great circle. This map of a flight between New York and Madrid gives a good sense for how you find this great circle distance between two points. <img width="550" height="448" width_o="550" height_o="448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5237a833ed519904474c31eb288793aa5076e3aca1d9f311abb0c8a649aadaf5/GreatCircle-NewYork-Madrid-3-550x448.png" data-mid="171024111" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/550/i/5237a833ed519904474c31eb288793aa5076e3aca1d9f311abb0c8a649aadaf5/GreatCircle-NewYork-Madrid-3-550x448.png" /> Constructing a great circle:&nbsp;a path which, if continued, would slice the circle in half. In our study, we showed children and adults pictures of two points on a sphere, with two different options of paths between them. They had to pick the shorter path. For example, they might see this: <img width="570" height="358" width_o="570" height_o="358" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b68be4f43853caf6080b123bc28df42c66b116ec0dd4802e56072474610d6e82/IGEO-comparison-1.png" data-mid="171036635" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/570/i/b68be4f43853caf6080b123bc28df42c66b116ec0dd4802e56072474610d6e82/IGEO-comparison-1.png" /> Which of these paths is shorter? I already told you how this works, so you know the answer is the path on the right, which would slice the circle in half. How about this one: <img width="567" height="357" width_o="567" height_o="357" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1188e00ca14934ed84aa513f52aac8732fb3767b06b1aec43fb93fbed39ebe60/IGEO-Comparison-2.png" data-mid="171036396" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/567/i/1188e00ca14934ed84aa513f52aac8732fb3767b06b1aec43fb93fbed39ebe60/IGEO-Comparison-2.png" /> Which of these paths is shorter? Should be fairly straightforward: the path on the left will wrap around the circle, whereas the one on the right will slice off a little cap. Notice this unusual situation: even though the path on the right looks “linear”, it’s not the shortest path between the two points on the sphere. On a sphere, the “straight line” between two points is actually curved. So how did kids and adults do at this task? Generally speaking, quite well! When shown two curved paths, as in the first example above, both kids and adults were quite good at identifying the correct response: kids were correct 70% of the time; adults 87% of the time. However, when shown a curved path compared to a straight one, the kids fell for the trap: they thought the straight-looking path was the shorter one 23% of the time. Adults fell for it too, but impressively, still got it right 65% of the time. Here is all of that information in a graph. <img width="1250" height="923" width_o="1250" height_o="923" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/798dbc062811ad7a517f5306413501b48d85e835956f53f74c27e9b51de03f36/igeo-graph-.png" data-mid="171039349" border="0" data-scale="65" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/798dbc062811ad7a517f5306413501b48d85e835956f53f74c27e9b51de03f36/igeo-graph-.png" /> Conclusion: Children and adults are both pretty good at spherical geometry, but children get fooled when a straight line is involved. All of this was written up into a formal scientific paper. Here’s the official citation. Huey, H., Jordan, M., Hart, Y., &amp; Dillon, M. R. (2023). Mind-bending geometry: Children’s and adults’ intuitions about linearity on spheres. Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001509. Email me if you don’t have access to the paper and want a copy! Morality and Emotion on Twitter During my Master’s degree, I came across a study showing that tweets with moral-emotional language are more widely shared. Moral-emotional language refers to words like “disgust”, “shame”, and “hate”—words that have a moral connotation (make an ethical judgement) and an emotional connotation (express a feeling). <img width="897" height="557" width_o="897" height_o="557" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e55b7b9e662022fb5188cecc2b341b2f726bcca55abccb2c360dc40de7c7984f/Moral---Emotional-Words.png" data-mid="171028938" border="0" data-scale="78" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/897/i/e55b7b9e662022fb5188cecc2b341b2f726bcca55abccb2c360dc40de7c7984f/Moral---Emotional-Words.png" />Moral words (left) make an ethical judgment; emotional words (right) express a feeling. Moral-emotional words (center) do both. The 2017 study showed that for each additional moral-emotional word in a tweet, the tweet would receive 20% more retweets. The study was gaining some traction at the time, complemented by Molly Crocket’s work on moral outrage. I was a bit of a skeptic. I had spent the prior year deeply invested in the replication crisis, and had joined ReproducibiliTea, a journal club in Oxford. I decided that for my Master’s thesis, I would attempt to replicate the study, and see if merely adding moral-emotional words to a tweet really make it more likely to be retweeted. Here’s how the original study worked. They collected tweets on three topics: same-sex marriage, gun control, and climate change. They found these tweets by using certain keywords (e.g. “NRA”, “gay marriage”, “global warming”) and scraping Twitter for 20-40 days. They then ran statistical analyses to see the relationship between retweets and the presence of moral, emotional, and moral-emotional words. The result was this graph: <img width="1280" height="656" width_o="1280" height_o="656" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7d3514515065c9fcfa578f1bb3375bcd96e699ae9ccc679b4d3cd9b1e5a7a4bc/pnas.1618923114fig01.jpeg" data-mid="172959955" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7d3514515065c9fcfa578f1bb3375bcd96e699ae9ccc679b4d3cd9b1e5a7a4bc/pnas.1618923114fig01.jpeg" /> It’s a very neat result: moral words do not lead to more retweets, but moral-emotional words consistently do. The goal of my thesis was to replicate these results, except I chose three different topics: Brexit, nuclear power, and transgender rights. Aside from the subject matter (and the keywords I used to find tweets about the topics), my methodology was otherwise identical. Here was my final result: <img width="2800" height="1400" width_o="2800" height_o="1400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3b8a9ee4334bcff9f0927e8d70399cb5b3d3a6ac2c37c2e8f4f68d8d05cf5979/thesis-graph.png" data-mid="172966785" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3b8a9ee4334bcff9f0927e8d70399cb5b3d3a6ac2c37c2e8f4f68d8d05cf5979/thesis-graph.png" /> Not quite as clean! There were no consistent relationships for any of these topics or words. For Brexit, every kind of word increased retrweets; for nuclear, moral-emotional words did the trick (the only clear replication of the original study), and for transgender, only moral words increased retweets. So while the general pattern still held, and while there is definitely something to be said about the relationship between moral &amp; emotional language and retweets, I personally am a skeptic of any straightforward claim about how this stuff works. For more info about my Master’s thesis, check out the Open Science Foundation page or you can download the PDF. Speech Errors It is a truth universally acknowledged that when people make speech errors, the errors are more likely to be real words than gibberish. You’re likely to say “darn” in place of “barn”; you’re unlikely to say “plock” in place of “clock”. We know this because of experiments where we give people tongue twisters and try to elicit speech errors. In these experiments, errors are more likely to be real words. My undergraduate thesis asked the question: is this also true when the error is a swear word? Can we elicit speech errors that are also swear words? We did this by asking people to read error-prone phrases like “kiss pick” (very liable to result in accidental inappropriate word) or “kit pick” (liable for an error, but a G-rated one) and seeing how the two compared. Turns out people do not like to swear. They were significantly more likely to stop their speech utterances when they were at risk of saying a swear word, relative to how often they made a regular ol’ speech error. I am now deeply suspicious of just about every aspect of this study. I’m suspicious of the statistical methods. I’m suspicious of the tiny sample size. I’m suspicious of the idea of getting undergraduate students to swear. I would take almost nothing in here as scientifically valid. But it was fun to do at the time! Here’s the full paper. https://matthewjordan.ca/Math-Science-Tutoring Tue, 28 Feb 2023 01:43:07 +0000 Matthew Jordan https://matthewjordan.ca/Math-Science-Tutoring Math &amp; Science Tutoring I have 15 years of experience tutoring high school and university students in Canada, the US, and the UK in math, physics, and general science. In my experience, students often think they are naturally bad at a subject, but in reality they’ve just never been given a reason to care about it. I believe that any student can succeed if they feel that the material they are learning is exciting, meaningful, and interesting. My job as a tutor is to provide that motivation, and to support students in building a deep &amp; lasting understanding of the material at hand. I also tutor students who already find joy in their subject but just need some extra help. Students often need a space to think through problems out loud, or need ideas reframed in a subtly different way in order to unlock their understanding. Please email me at matthewjordan@live.ca to set up an initial free consultation. https://matthewjordan.ca/Essays-Publications Wed, 01 Mar 2023 22:03:30 +0000 Matthew Jordan https://matthewjordan.ca/Essays-Publications Essays &amp; Publications Letters to a Young Technologist This project was a collaboration with an extraordinary group: Anna Mitchell, Tammy Winter, Saffron Huang, Jasmine Wang, and Maran Nelson. Working together as an Interact Circle we wrote a collection of essays called Letters to a Young Technologist. To quote from the About page:This project began as a hope for reflection, and a desire for collaboration. We wanted to reflect on our roles and lives as young technologists, and to kindle broader conversations about these topics. We were driven by the realization that technologists hold an increasingly important position in society, with the capability to change billions of peoples’ life experiences through the tools they build. But the set of ideologies or life-philosophies currently on offer to most people pursuing a career in technology are surprisingly shallow, as is many technologists’ understanding of their field’s history.This is one small step towards something different: an ethic that prioritizes technologists’ agency, the need for self-reflection, and the importance of historical inquiry. You can read the full set of essays here. The Psychological Roots of Political Polarization I have always been interested in understanding why people believe what they believe, especially when they believe things that are contentious or conspiratorial. For a few years in the mid-2010s I was particularly interested in psychological theories of people’s beliefs (I am now substantially more interested in the role of culture and institutions). I ended up writing an article on ths topic with Mishti Sharma. Here it is:&nbsp;Why We Can’t All Get Along: The Psychological Roots of Politial Polarization. Exponentiation: Cooler Than You Thought One of my favorite things about math is taking simple concepts like exponentiation and applying them to things that don’t initially appear exponentiable. It’s all well and good to raise something to power of 3, but what would it mean to raise something to the power of....a matrix? Or to the power of...the derivative operator? I explore that question in the Exponentiation: Cooler than you Thought, which I wrote for the Canadian Undergraduate Mathematical Society’s publication Notes from the Margin in 2018. <img width="801" height="502" width_o="801" height_o="502" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8b4ba1668a80fc5f8d951c65371ca0b5afd59c9e335e4047396fd875e5c53a7f/LieGroup.png" data-mid="173308916" border="0" data-scale="76" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/801/i/8b4ba1668a80fc5f8d951c65371ca0b5afd59c9e335e4047396fd875e5c53a7f/LieGroup.png" /> Incite Magazine During undergrad I wrote a few essays for Incite Magaizne, typically about math. Here are a couple pieces I wrote: Euler’s Seven Bridges: How Island Hopping Changed Math Forever (October 2014)Lying Words and Pairs of Ducks (November 2014) <img width="397" height="231" width_o="397" height_o="231" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7253ffe1b34e8916a14ee2cf6d9442adeeeca7d5ba1d373a8227a7522313ed1d/Islands-copy.png" data-mid="173310349" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/397/i/7253ffe1b34e8916a14ee2cf6d9442adeeeca7d5ba1d373a8227a7522313ed1d/Islands-copy.png" />An artistic rendering of the Seven Bridges of&nbsp;Königsberg, the inspiration for the mathematical field of graph theory Old Blogs &amp; Websites My old undergrad &amp; grad school blogs still have some good stuff on them but they’re also very silly. You can find them at straightfromthehood.wordpress.com (!!) and mattyj612.github.io. https://matthewjordan.ca/Book-Reviews Tue, 28 Feb 2023 01:49:28 +0000 Matthew Jordan https://matthewjordan.ca/Book-Reviews Book Reviews For the past two years I have been writing book reviews on Goodreads. Here they are, in the order that I wrote them. I’ve bolded the ones I’m particularly proud of. Julie Lythcott-Haims, Your Turn: How To Be An AdultDavid Kaiser (ed.), Well, Doc, You’re In: Freeman Dyson’s Journey Through the Universe C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency as ArtEsther Perel, The State of AffairsJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixJ. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of FireJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prizoner of AzkabanJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of SecretsJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s StoneChrystia Freeland, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone ElsePamela Paul, 100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internetbell hooks, Feminism is for Everybodybell hooks, Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and FeminismCarl Rogers, On Becoming a PersonJia Tolentino, Trick MirrorJacob Goldstein, Money: The True Story of a Made-Up ThingDavid Graeber, DebtSally Rooney, Beautiful World Where Are You?Sally Rooney, Normal PeopleHarriet Lerner, Why Won’t You Apologize?Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection Amia Srinivasan, The Right to SexKat Vellos, We Should Get TogetherDominic J. Packer &amp; Jay J. Van Bavel, The Power of UsAntony Lewis, The Basics of Bitcoins and BlockchainsJohn Gray, Men are from Mars, Women are from VenusToby Ord, The PrecipiceGretchen McCulloch, Because InternetBen Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard ThingsDonella Meadows, Thinking in SystemsBailey Richardson, Kai Sotto, Kevin Huynh, Get Together Michael Sandel, The Tyranny of MeritPriya Parker, The Art of GatheringAlice Dreger, Galileo’s Middle FingerJulie Zhou, The Making of a ManagerSarah Schulman, Conflict is not AbuseDavid Graeber, The Bully PulpitMichael Sandel, What Money Can’t BuyNicholas A. Christakis, Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way we LiveJulia Galef, The Scout MindsetRobin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of PlantsKate Fox, Watching the English https://matthewjordan.ca/Author-Interviews Wed, 01 Mar 2023 21:28:37 +0000 Matthew Jordan https://matthewjordan.ca/Author-Interviews Author Interviews I interview authors of books about physics, philosophy, psychology, and technolgy for the New Books Network podcast channel. Here are all the interviews in a Spotify playlist: <img width="300" height="300" width_o="300" height_o="300" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ee1c9a0b51bc3d3c3d7e1693b511f3482b7d3348b08250f5318ac552bedcf1af/Podcasts_iOS.svg.png" data-mid="172875905" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/300/i/ee1c9a0b51bc3d3c3d7e1693b511f3482b7d3348b08250f5318ac552bedcf1af/Podcasts_iOS.svg.png" /> Alternatively, below are all the individual episodes on Apple Podcasts. I’ve bolded the ones I’m particularly proud of. David Kaiser, Well, Doc, You’re In: Freeman Dyson’s Journey through the Universe&nbsp;Jay J. van Bavel and Dominic J. Packer, The Power of UsKate Crawford, The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial IntelligenceThomas D. Mullaney et al., Your Computer is on FireMary Beth Meehan and Fred Turner, Seeing Silicon Valley: Life Inside a Fraying AmericaNicola Raihani, The Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the WorldW. Patrick McCray, Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative CultureLee Vinsel and Andrew Russell, The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession With the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters MostKatherine Kinzler, How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do – And What It Says About YouAnton Howes, Arts &amp; Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a NationAdam Rutherford, How to Argue with a RacistSolmon Goldstein-Rose, The 100% Solution: A Plan for Solving Climate ChangeStuart Richie, Science Fictions: Exposing Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype in ScienceNadia Eghbal, Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source SoftwareKat Arney, Rebel Cell: Cancer, Evolution, and the New Science of Life’s Oldest BetrayalMarc Zimmer, The State of ScienceDavid Kaiser, Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncerain World