Beauty and Patterns

I was interested to read on the School of Life site that one approach to beauty was to classify it as the sweet spot between order and chaos. It’s main thrust was architecture, something that affects us all. Too much order and things look boring whilst a chaotic situation (say a heavily built up main street) can come over as confusing:

“It’s very helpful to think about why we don’t like either boring or chaotic places.  It’s to do with how our brains work. Our brains are all the time searching to find patterns in things and to make sense of what’s going on around us. If something is very, very simple our brains find the pattern immediately and we lose interest. It’s dull and tedious…but if the pattern is too difficult to see – or if there’s no pattern at all – our brains get frustrated and annoyed…but there’s an ideal midway-point between the extreme of too little order and the opposite extreme of too much order.”

Personal Bias

“Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works… We’re all biased to our own personal history.” – Morgan Housel

Applications of Complexity

I’ve written previously on various aspects of complexity (eg here) as it’s an interest of mine (I did data visualisation in this area quite a while ago when I worked at the IBM Scientific Centre in Winchester, see below).

One post, from 2009, gave an overview poster for the development of the key ideas starting from the 1940-50s and ending at 2009 with Web Science (see below). 

I’ve just checked to see if there is an updated version and here it is (up to 2018):

There’s another recent poster for the techniques used to handle complex systems. I’ve found it helpful to use such perspectives to think through problems (even if you are not an expert in the methods) as they can motivate new insights simply through a fresh way of looking at things.

Delivering Results

Interesting tweet from the productivity writer James Clear:

“Results = (Hard Work*Time)^Strategy

Working hard is important, but working on the right thing is more important. A great strategy can deliver exponential results.

Of course, the best strategy is worth nothing if you never get to work. Zero to the millionth power is still zero.”

Note the power law for strategy! So worth reviewing whether other strategies are possible.

Revisiting Imperial College London

The main entrance to Imperial College London

Recently I went to Imperial College to hear an Athena lecture by Margaret Heffernan on Scientific Leadership. This lecture is given annually by a prominent female scientist or entrepreneur to celebrate the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and medicine. It should be on YouTube soon and I’ll put a link up and make some comments about it then.

This year I became an Alumnus of Imperial College (having got my doctorate there many years ago). I’m keen to get involved in one way or another so attending the lecture was a good start as it allowed me to have a look around to see how the College has changed. Here’s some photos that give a flavour, showing the modernisations, two famous physicists I knew and the delightful and surprising mews area nearby.

The impressive Faculty Building

The Bessemer Building (Engineering)

I decided to go to the Physics Department where I spent 3 years of my life carrying out research for a doctorate in theoretical high energy physics. The head of the theory group at that time was Tom Kibble (who ‘almost’ got the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2013). Abdus Salam, who was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in 1979, was also there as he held positions at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy (which he helped set up) and Imperial. It was an especially exciting time to be doing research as a lot of breakthroughs were made in understanding the fundamental particles and their interactions (quarks, the Higgs boson etc).

I’ve previously written about an interesting conversation I had with Salam that sparked my interest in giving advice and following different paths in life. The point being that when someone makes a suggestion that’s not in your current plans, it’s quite hard to really appreciate it or take advantage of it. However not doing so might be the loss of a major if unconventional opportunity (more details here).

Professor Abdus Salam (Nobel Prize for Physics 1979)

Professor Tom Kibble

Not far from the hustle and bustle of the university are a number of delightful mews. I have a memory of a small pub which we used to drink in in this area. I tried to track it down but to no avail. Perhaps it had been changed into a house or perhaps my memory was mistaken.

A delightful mews very near to imperial College

Another nearby mews

In hindsight, it was quite a privilege to be at Imperial at this time, great people and a wonderful location.

Carving Out Personal Time

Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche by Edvard Munch, 1906

“Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.” – Nietzsche

Quite a provocative quote and I’ve been mulling about it ever since I read it a couple of weeks ago. It’s always good to have contrarian views to get you thinking!

The Sleep Business

I suffer from insomnia so am always interested to read the latest thinking on the subject plus (hopefully) some new ideas or approaches. It’s now become apparent, with the flood of articles, books and courses on the subject, that it is also now a booming business niche. It may be that all this attention is in some ways counter-productive.

There’s a thought-provoking piece by Darian Leader in the Guardian on this topic. Here’s a couple of extracts:

Just as we are both evaluated and pushed to self-evaluate in so many other areas of life, so now sleep itself becomes the first point of our daily review. We wake up not simply to worry about the tasks of the day but, first of all, to assess whether we have had our required hours and then, inevitably, worry about the consequences of our failure. A few decades ago, variety shows on Saturday night would showcase performers singing and dancing, but today we also get a panel of judges evaluating. How long would it be, indeed, before this merciless culture of evaluation came to colonise other aspects of our lives, including sleep?…

The sleep industry needs a reality check here. Although many of us have our own individual problems with sleeping, this should not act as an excuse to move attention away from our political landscape. In a world of massive job insecurity, long commutes, economic precarity and the pressure to maintain a positive image, how well can we really be expected to sleep? Should we be blaming ourselves and our mattresses, allowing ourselves to be duped in this latest chapter of marketing the human condition?