Math, sociology, and a unified theory by Dr Guillermina Jasso

Can social forces be quantified? According to NYU sociology professor Dr Guillermina Jasso, who discussed just such a question at this NYU Abu Dhabi public lecture, not only can they be quantified, they can even be figured into a mathematical "unified theory"of sociology and social psychology that can be used to make real-world predictions. I found this talk consistently fascinating, not in the least because modeling of social forces is of professional interest to me.

Dr Jasso's introduced the leanings and engines of societies, and their permutations, and went on to talk about her "New Unified Theory" in terms of its constituent social forces: justice, status, and power. I don't have nearly as deep a background in sociology, but her descriptions of how these forces could be measured and their dynamics fitted to familiar mathematical functions seemed quite plausible.

Things got even more interesting when it came down to applications. Dr Jossa's portfolio of validated predictions based on her models was impressive, listing several predictions per slide about how the theory could be applied to model outcomes in matters of war, crime, family, marriage, politics, etc. It might be worth keeping an eye on related developments.

Corals and Crochet at NYUAD

To provide some context to its two-month-long exhibition of "crochet coral", beginning this week, NYU Abu Dhabi is hosting two panel discussions on crochet art, one of which I attended.

Each of the three crochet artists in the panel introduced their very different approaches to crocheting.

Shauna Richardson (left), spoke about her "crochetdermy" of animal forms with dense "skins" of crochet, including some inspired by public figures, and large outdoor projects like the three over-sized lions of Lionheart. As she confirmed, she does them in aggressive poses and natural colors, in order to avoid the toy look.

Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam's (center) presentation drew many amused reactions from the audience, since her contrasting use of bright colors and playful shapes in huge, heavy-duty, netting-type crochet installations made them popular as jungle gyms for kids (and some adults), as many of her pictures showed. These and some of her less physically interactive works additionally employed interesting use of layering, as well as deliberate anchoring and weighting for dramatic surface contortion.

Finally, Christine Wertheim (right) began her segment with a fascination comparison of crochet to the ferrite core memory boards used in computers nearly half a century ago, pointing out that contemporary women's handicraft skills made them naturals when it came to weaving core memory boards, and supporting her opening statement that "crochet is a digital technology". She is also a co-founder of the Institute for Figuring and its Crochet Coral Reef project, assembling brightly colored, organic-looking hyperbolic crochet surfaces that bunch up into forms that resemble corals. She described how the artists' allowing variation in the crochet "formula" resulted in diversity akin to that found in nature due to genetic mutations, and how they preserved their plastic waste for years to weave them into the project's "toxic reefs".

After the event, I had a look around the reef exhibition. You had to go up close to see the use of various waste materials -- such as plastic piping, cable ties, and bags -- among the brightly-colored yarn coral bunches, balls and stalks, and even some full-blown crochet marine fauna. There was much variation in size and shape as well, and some also included beads and other effects. A beautiful exhibition, and worth checking out on the Saadiyat campus before it closes on December 4th.

NYUAD Saadiyat Campus and Hamama screening

One of the first events of the NYUAD public programs season was a screening of the Emirati documentary film Hamama. I rarely pass up opportunities to watch a nice local film, so I signed up. Also, it would be a good opportunity to check out NYUAD's new campus on Saadiyat Island, to which its public events have been moved from various locations around Abu Dhabi city, and which also happens to be more conveniently located for me.

The campus is impressive: large, fitted well, decorated subtly and interesting architecturally, with broad paths, big courtyards, and spacious interiors. There is still some work going on in the area surrounding, but the inside seems about completed.

The film was introduced by a faculty member (top left) and screened (right) in a conference center auditorium, followed by Q&A with director/producer Nujoom al Ghanem and writer/researcher Khalid al Budoor (bottom left). While I think the POV shots detracted from the documentary style followed otherwise in the film (I'm sure blindness could have been conveyed in other ways, or established in a single fade shot), and some of the setups looked a little implausible (shayla on head with bare belly?), the film was overall a pleasant watch, with sharp cinematography, some interesting characters, a bit of humor, and good lighting, transitions and sound.

Dr K.R. Sreenivasan on our shuddering sun

Dr K.R. Sreenivasan of the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering today presented on solar turbulence and helioseismology in the fascinating NYU Abu Dhabi public talk "Tempest in the Sun". I got in quite late because of crash traffic along the way, but I arrived by the time he started talking about deep convection and Erika Böhm-Vitense's mixed length theory. He then explained his work on using observations of ripples bouncing around the solar mass to peer into the sun's internal dynamics, and how differences in the expecting timing of waves indicate the underlying flow rate in the photo-opaque, but acoustically resonant sun.

Dark matter explored at NYUAD

Dark matter is a physics concept that's as complicated as it is fascinating. Fortunately, NYU Abu Dhabi brought it NYU cosmology/astrophysics researcher, Professor Glennys Farrar, to explain it to us, with the added bonus of her infectious enthusiasm. In the course of the public talk, she expounded the background physics and presented the astrophysicist's case for dark matter's existence, as well as what she considers an "equally exciting" alternative: that current theories of physics are themselves in need of modification.

Piquing interest with a really cool video of dark matter in cosmic collisions way out in the Bullet Cluster (almost like a ballistics video, except over billions of years instead of fractions of seconds), she spoke about the challenges in detecting, as well as theoretically describing and modeling dark matter; she mentioned the Large Hadron Collider in this regard. She also spoke about contemporary hypotheses for explaining dark matter, such as the WIMPs and the H-dibaryon, and touched upon both dark energy and baryon asymmetry (topics deserving separate talks, it would seem).

Civil wars then and now

NYU Abu Dhabi's latest public talk featured Yale polisci professor Stathis Kalyvas presenting a history and academic analysis of domestic conflict (he prefers not to call it "civil war"). The talk was very broad, from the reasons for the recent 1.5 decades of intensified interest in domestic conflict to the various perspectives regarding triggers and motivation. He also presented some useful primer points on the topic, such as categorization of domestic conflicts based on tactics used by the factions, and presented a still broad but extensive summary matrix of the four major periods of modern domestic conflicts against common defining characteristics of ideology, trans-national movements, and such. A good talk, with much to discuss during the Q&A.

Mathematics for the masses

Looking at the his large spider brooch and vintage necktie, I knew this NYU Abu Dhabi public talk was going to be interesting at the very least. But while his curious demeanor and deadpan quips did, in fact, do much to entertain, Institut Henri Poincaré director Dr Cédric Villani can talk math to educate just as well. He took us on a journey through the history of modern mathematics, from Riemann to Boltzmann to Kantorovich, illustrating concepts like geodesics, entropy, and linear programming with what I thought were fairly easily-digestible analogies and visuals, and using examples from real life to show how mathematical topics popularly regarded as distant and abstract have actually long been part of the familiar world. He also gave us an first-hand insight into the world of academic mathematics and the lives of mathematicians.

Understanding Ethics talk with NYUAD

Part of a broader workshop series, NYUAD's Matthew Silverstein delivered a public talk on the subject of ethics, which has been one of my topics of interest since my college days with the philosophy club. The talk was somewhat brief: an example-laden primer on ethical questions, descriptions of four schools of meta-ethics, and an introduction of Dr Silverstein's project to develop a "constructivism sans relativism" theory of meta-ethics; I was able to pick out from the consequently-longer Q&A that it was based on a rational model of humans, and included a Kantian angle.

The Robert Hooke revival by Dr J. Michael McBride at NYUAD

I had read a little about Robert Hooke, but Dr J. Michael McBride's talk about this English polymath at New York University Abu Dhabi really blew my mind. Dr McBride has definitely done a thorough job of researching the man, covering practically every milestone in life of this under-appreciated giant of the Royal Society and science history.

Apart from being a gifted illustrator from an early age (and a would-be painter, but for his physiological aversion to oil paint), as Dr McBride showed with several slides of Hooke's incredibly detailed scientific drawings, Hooke was also responsible for seminal work on optics (including microscopy and telescopy), physics (making him the namesake of a spring action law) and mechanics (including the anchor escapement, the universal joint and helical gears, the latter two of which are practically indispensable in automobiles). His talent was noticed early on, as he was picked up in his youth as an assistant to the famous Robert Boyle, building him instrumental scientific equipment.

Hooke was also heavily involved in rebuilding London after the Great Fire, and had a strong grasp of the theory of gravity, a lot of the credit for the both of which were taken by Christopher Wren and Isaac Newton; one would emerge from the talk with a rather unflattering opinion of Wren and Newton, and an appreciation of both the genius and the humility of Hooke. Dr McBride also gave us insight into the crazy schedule of a man who had to birth a discovery or at least conduct a major experiment practically every other day, was a cannabis proponent, and had a thing for using anagrams to encode his ideas. Hooke was apparently also the first to use the word "crystallization", and to employ the word "cell" in a biological sense.

Unfortunately for himself, Hooke kept a low profile and annoyed a few powerful rivals, and has therefore been relegated to relative anonymity in history - something that scholars like Dr McBride hope to change. 

Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu on Modern Islam and Science

The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, spoke at New York University Abu Dhabi last week, on the topic "Modern Islam and Science".

Although he did start with the obligatory introduction of science in the early Islamic world, he eventually moved on to what turned out to be a very statistics-oriented talk. He produced slide after slide of bar charts about the world and the OIC with regards to scientific output and investment.

Interestingly, Tunisia leads in terms of investment in R&D at 2.45% , while Turkey leads in terms of overall scientific publications (the only GCC country in the top 10 of either list is Saudi Arabia)  Also, probably due to social and cultural factors, the pool of research scientists in OIC countries includes a relatively healthy female representation of 33%. As expected, a majority of R&D funding in the OIC countries comes from government sources, with Malaysia leading the way in privatization.