David Meyer

At La Jolla Shores this morning to gauge the impact of the Kelvin wave on high tide. It seems to have raised it to the level of a very high tide, but not quite a #kingtide.

David Meyer@dajmeyer.bsky.social

Second lecture on Kelvin waves in my Intro to Mathematical Modeling class @ucsdphysci.bsky.social @ucsandiego.bsky.social. Explained the “passive deep water approximation” and the Coriolis effect terms in the pressure acceleration equations.

David Meyer reposted

Ryan Williams

@rrwilliams.bsky.social

An internal model at OpenAI has produced a claimed refutation of ETH! Russell Impagliazzo, Mohan Paturi, and I have been asked to help organize an open and independent examination of this claim. 1/4

openai.comWorking with academic communities to build scientific understandingOpenAI shares model results on the Kakeya conjecture, Exponential Time Hypothesis, and quantum chromodynamics—and how researchers can verify and build on them.

OpenAI, Kakeya Conjecture true in all dimensions; Exponential Time Hypothesis false; QCD and the standard model exist in 4 dimensions openai.com/index/buildi...

nytimes.comOpinion | Should Living Be Enough ‘Lived Experience’ for a Writer? (Gift Article)Imagination, empathy and intelligence should matter as well as identity

McWhorter, Should Living Be Enough ‘Lived Experience’ for a Writer? www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/o... "the very nature of creativity is to step beyond the self, an especially valuable step in a diverse society that promotes empathy" Take that, #OwnVoices!

nytimes.comObama Issues Searing Attacks on Trump, Ramaswamy in Return to Campaign TrailThe 44th president appeared in Ohio on Saturday, kicking off a two-state swing with a rebuke of President Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor.

@timbalk.bsky.social & @emilydavies.bsky.social, Obama Issues Searing Attacks on Trump, Ramaswamy in Return to Campaign Trail nytimes.com/2026/10/24/u... “He should be on HGTV. He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory. Just gold everywhere.”

lamaterial.comThe Vicious School Board Race That Became a Battle for the Soul of Beverly HillsAccusations of woke agendas, a MAGA takeover, doxxing, dueling attempted restraining orders and lawn-sign heists are taking center stage in the famously affluent city.

@sherlyholmes.bsky.social, The Vicious School Board Race That Became a Battle for the Soul of Beverly Hills lamaterial.com/p/beverly-hi... Great story -- I can't wait to hear how it turns out!

nytimes.comOpinion | I Teach at a Business School. It’s Time to Shut Them Down. (Gift Article)Students come in with noble intentions and leave with flawed expertise.

Marquis, I Teach at a Business School. It’s Time to Shut Them Down. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/18/o... "I’ve come to a grim conclusion: The problem w/business schools is not repairable misalignment but the design itself." Sad that it took him 20yrs to figure this out, but good that he did.

Firethorn announcing Halloween is coming …

I should know the owner … #QIP @qipconference.bsky.social

Roadrunner sculpture on S. Mill Ave. in Tempe, AZ.

The Beacon of Knowledge, channeling sunlight into the underground levels of the Charles Trumbull Hayden Library at ASU. Except not today—I was not expecting rain in AZ!

A corolle by the French company Urban Canopee on the ASU campus:

Last slide at #SQuInT2026: Save the dates for #SQuInT2028, February 24–26, in Albuquerque.

A remarkably large audience for the last talk at #SQuInT2026, late Saturday afternoon. Tony Ransford @quantinuum.bsky.social is describing “Helios: A 98-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer”

A Canary Island Pine at ASU. The whole campus is an arboretum!

The mathematics building ASU, Charles Wexler Hall. Wexler was the founding Chair of the department and its *only* member 1930-1941! math.asu.edu/about/histor...

Ghost gum trees and the Palm Walk at ASU:

lamaterial.comNew White House Press Secretary is SoCal Traffic ScofflawKatie Zacharia has been cited three times in L.A. and Ventura counties since 2023 — twice for driving on her phone.

@tomokichien.bsky.social & @matt-hamilton87.bsky.social, New White House Press Secretary is SoCal Traffic Scofflaw lamaterial.com/p/katie-zach... The real reason Katie Zacharia was fired?!

Not exactly what I thought it meant but a good reminder of how old #ASU is:

Listening to Alex He talking about quantum neurons (not the biological ones, the machine learning ones!) at #SQuInT2026.

physics.mit.eduJeffrey Goldstone, pioneering theoretical physicist and MIT professor emeritus, dies at 93The Physics Department is very sorry to report that our colleague Jeffrey Goldstone, Cecil and Ida Green Professor Emeritus of Physics, died on October 12 at the age of 93. Jeffrey began his career as...

Jeffrey Goldstone, pioneering theoretical physicist and MIT professor emeritus, dies at 93 physics.mit.edu/news/jeffrey... Sorry to read this. In addition to high energy physics he made substantial contributions to quantum computing with Eddie Farhi and Sam Gutmann.

squint.unm.edu 2026 Annual SQuInT Conference :: Southwest Quantum Information and Technology | The University of New Mexico

I'm going to piggyback on attending the #SQuInT2026 conference squint.unm.edu/events/2026.... to give a talk in the Discrete Math Seminar at ASU on "The Boolean lattice B₆ is not a sphere order" arxiv.org/abs/2610.02329 on Friday math.asu.edu/node/11456 .

The messy waves from post-tropical cyclone Rachel changed the hunting tactics of these brown pelicans: their forage fish are presumably driven onshore and trapped by the churn and the pelicans can just float in the shallow water and pick them off.

Ms18 is home for fall break, so we headed to the beach. The ocean was multiple colors of blue and the waves were choppy and blown out by post-tropical cyclone Rachel.

wsj.comOpinion | Republicans Find a New Way to Lose: Attacking AsiansTexas’ Bo French jettisons meritocracy for an ethnic appeal at the expense of UT football fans.

Riley, Republicans Find a New Way to Lose: Attacking Asians www.wsj.com/opinion/repu... “Asians are another example of what America still offers people of any background who put in the work and develop the skills that free-market capitalism rewards.”

arxiv.orgThe Boolean lattice $\mathcal{B}_6$ is not a sphere orderUsing the equivalence of sphere order representations of posets with Minkowski space embeddings, we show that the Boolean lattice $\mathcal{B}_6$ is not a sphere order. This is the first explicit fini...

New paper out today: "The Boolean lattice B₆ is not a sphere order" arxiv.org/abs/2610.02329 This is the first explicit example of a finite poset that is not a sphere order, although we have known since Felsner, Fishburn & Trotter (1999) that some exist: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Explained “Being irrational” to the older kids in the San Diego Math Circle this morning: √2, e, and π. Latter required instant calculus: derivatives of polynomials and sin & cos, integral as area, and Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. A 2.5 hour marathon!

science-et-vie.comLa vague de chaleur liée à El Niño pourrait tuer plus de 450 000 personnes d'ici févrierDes scientifiques chiffrent le coût humain de la chaleur provoquée par El Niño dans les mois qui viennent région par région et mois par mois.

La vague de chaleur liée à El Niño pourrait tuer plus de 450 000 personnes d'ici février www.science-et-vie.com/nature-et-en... « Le Sahel paierait le tribut le plus lourd de cette chaleur. »

Began lecturing on Kelvin waves in my Intro to Math Modeling class @ucsdphysci.bsky.social @ucsandiego.bsky.social today.

poets.orgBlackberry EatingI love to go out in late September

Galway Kinnell, BlackBerry eating ⋮ the stalks very prickly, a penalty they earn for knowing the black art of blackberry-making; … poets.org/poem/blackbe...

youtu.be4.52 3x3 FWR/WR10 Avg Yunzhi Lian🇨🇳| 3.54 PR/WR17 Single | Wuhan Crimson Autumn 2026YouTube video by CubeRoot

6 year old Lian Yunzhi sets the women's world record for solving the 3x3x3 Rubik's cube: youtu.be/3taKdfnbU3M?...

chronicle.comHigher Ed’s Harvard ProblemAn exclusive club of colleges commands the public narrative. Does that come at a cost?

21 Sept

@karinfischer.bsky.social, "There’s no shortage of fictional characters — think Elle Woods and Will Hunting — who can be found roaming Harvard Yard." www.chronicle.com/article/high... I don't think either _Legally Blonde_ or _Good Will Hunting_ ever places its main character in Harvard Yard.

nytimes.comIn Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.

1/ @nhannahjones.bsky.social, In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/m... Short answer, yes. “Because these public schools admit students based on a single entrance test, Faraji and I have long opposed them”

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7/So unlike @nhannahjones.bsky.social, we made our daughter’s welfare our priority. She said she wanted to learn French, so we enrolled her at the San Diego French American School for 3rd grade, even though she knew no French.

8/She has thrived ever since. I’m glad @nhannahjones.bsky.social’s daughter finally got to attend a good school (& really learn algebra). If she happens to come to @ucsandiego.bsky.social for college, I hope she’s in one of my classes.

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5/We spoke out about problems; our School Board representatives came to know me well; I even confronted the Superintendent at one point.

6/By part way through 2nd grade it was clear it was hopeless. Even in this relatively good public elementary school, changes for which we pushed didn’t happen, the kids were disruptive & 2/3 of Ms18’s teachers had been ineffectual.

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3/On the 1st morning the teacher had the girls & boys in segregated seating, w/pink & blue name plaques. We confronted the Principal about it at the “sad parents coffee”, and Ms18 told us the teacher had been forced to mix the tables after lunch.

4/This gave us the impression we could influence the school. My wife volunteered in the classroom, we attended PTA meetings, I joined the school site council, and we attended school cluster meetings.

2/Longer answer: motivated by similar egalitarian, if not anti-racist, ideals, we sent Ms18 to our local elementary school (relatively good by San Diego public school standards) for kindergarten.

@claudinemonteil.bsky.social

19 Sept

I just read this paragraph in @philippullmanreal.bsky.social’s _The Secret Commonwealth_ and realized that captchas are a kind of catechism.

David Meyer reposted

Claudine Monteil

16 Sept

Hier 15 septembre 2026, nous avons célèbre les 100ans de mon père le #mathématicien JeanPierreSerre, #médailleFields 1954, qui est passé au tableau et a raconté ses souvenirs mathématiques. www.lemonde.fr/sciences/art...

lemonde.frJean-Pierre Serre, un monument des mathématiques qui fête son centenaireLe « Mozart des maths » a été mis à l’honneur d’un colloque organisé mardi à l’Institut Henri-Poincaré, à Paris. Ses travaux ont nourri plusieurs générations de mathématiciens et lui ont notamment val...

16 Sept

Heading home after a fortnight+ in England. It’s still sunny; I haven’t worn my rain jacket once!