Category: Journal

Journal | December 2018

Ahhhhh! Summer in Australia. Why did I not know about you sooner?

Eureka!

I’ve been working on a card game on and off for the past few months. Partly as an experiment and partly out of laziness, I decided to “give it away for free”. In practice, this was more work than I expected. For one, I had to learn a little bit about copyright. Long story short, it is released under the license CC-BY4.0, which means—loosely speaking—you can do anything you want with it provided you cite your sources.

One of the big cons of this approach is that you have to find your own way to print your own cards, which is either cheaply done on a desktop printer (lame!) or expensively done on high quality cardstock (ugh!). I’m not sure a way around this.

You can find the instructions for printing and playing the game here.

Reading!

Children’s Literature Recommendations

Pig the Grub by Aaron Blabey

Fun. But would you expect anything less with a Pig book? All the kids love a good Pig story.

Ada Lace Sees Red by Emily Calandrelli and Renaee Kurilla

This is the second book in the Ada Lace series and I think this one is even better than the first! There are lots of relatable elements to this story. But the science—oh, the science—for me made it all the better!

Adult Literature September Reads

Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect by Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie

OK, full disclosure. I made a huge mistake in buying the audiobook for this one. There is just too many references to figures to follow along. I made it through alright by slowing it down and already having some experience with causal networks, but I can’t really recommend, or not recommend, this one. Some of the historical anecdotes were interesting, but it was at times hard to read (errr… listen) to the author’s self-pity about not being more recognised.

Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality by Anil Ananthaswamy

Hands down the best popular account of quantum physics. This tells in beautiful detail the key issues surrounding the controversies of quantum physics. The way the author does this all from the lense of a single experiment is inspiring.

Bare Minimum Parenting: The Ultimate Guide to Not Quite Ruining Your Child by James Breakwell

Comedy mixed with unintentional parenting wisdom. The jokes and style get a bit repetitive, but overall I enjoyed the laughs.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Finally got around to reading this highly recommended book. Wish I had read it sooner. Every positive thing written about this book is probably true.

Currently reading: Woo’s Wonderful World of Maths by Eddie Woo

Writing!

Today is the day for ABCs of Engineering with Dr Sarah Kaiser. Check out my #12DaysOfEngineering over on Twitter.

While you are at it, pick up a copy of Blockchain for Babies with Marco Tomamichel.

The final cover for Cat in the Box (1 June 2019) is here. I’ve seen the internal illustrations and they are great as well! Looking forward to see this one hit the shelves next year! If you can’t quite read the book blurb, it says: Schrodinger’s famous paradox reimagined for the modern world, with more talking animals and fewer dead cats.

Arithmetic! (academic news)

Big news for the Ferrie group! Dr Clara Javaherian and Dr Shibdas Roy have joined as postdoctoral researchers. They will both be working on the AUSMURI project, which is about machine learning and quantum control. Stay tuned to hear about some exciting new science this year!

Events!

  • Vacation!

Up next!

Both Blockchain for Babies and ABCs of Engineering are released on 1 Jan 2019! But, seeing as it is still peak summer in Australian, we’ll still be at the beach 😁

Journal | November 2018

Someone told me we need another child so we can cover all 7 colours of the rainbow. As they say in Australia: yeah, nah 😁

Eureka!

The big aha! moment was seeing how much school children love YouTube stars. OK, maybe I should say “stars”. And by “stars” I mean people that have at least one YouTube video with them in it.

So, I planned on going to McCallums Hill PS to read to the Stage 1 students and do some physics activities. It was a great time and we all had a lot of fun.

But, what I didn’t expect was for the teachers and students to do a little research on me before I arrived. At some point they came across this video from the Perimeter Institute.

And, that was it, they decide I was a YouTube star 😂 When I arrive they swarmed me asking, “Are you the author from YouTube?!” Then they took turns taking pictures with me. It was all very charming and amusing.

Reading!

Children’s Literature Recommendations

Doll-E 1.0 by Shanda McCloskey

Fun illustrations and story of the technology infused world of today’s children. It’ll fit great in any bedtime picture book rotation. It also works to motivate the tinkerer in young listeners.

Ada Lace is on the Case by Emily Calandrelli and Renaee Kurilla

One of the few “first chapter books” that isn’t all about problems encountered at school. Ada, the main character, has to investigate and solve a neighborhood mystery that had my kids thinking and guessing along the way. Whereas many STEM-inspired fiction in this reading category resort to science fiction, Ada Lace sticks to real science and engineering.

Amulet 2 & 3 by Kazu Kibuishi

We continued reading the Amulet graphic novel series. It only gets better! We definitely recommend this for any age. Again, reading aloud a graphic novel may seem counterintuitive, but it definitely works!

Adult Literature September Reads

This Idea Is Brilliant: Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know by John Brockman

This is such a great book to have lying around. It is so easy to dip in and out of. Each chapter is a unique description of a new scientific idea. While they are on the shallow side (think: somewhere between a tweet and a TED talk), the book makes up for it in quantity. I really enjoyed learning about so many new scientific ideas.

Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life by Peter Gray

Read this book whether you have children or not. It’s not just a story about children and schooling, but one of Western society more generally. It really sharpened my observations of my own children’s experience in the school system. There is plenty of advice in here for parents.

Currently reading: Woo’s Wonderful World of Maths by Eddie Woo

Writing!

Wow! 8 Little Planets was named Best Children’s Book 2018 for ages 0-2 by Amazon!

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Next year, some books on engineering topics will be released. Here is the final version of the first cover! It’s ABCs of Engineering with my amazing co-author, engineer and lasers-in-space physicist, Dr Sarah Kaiser.

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It’s been a while in the making but the first translations of the new versions of the book are available. First up we have Italian! Available now are Ingegneria spaziale and Relatività generale. Next April, Ottica fisica and Fisica Quantistica will arrive.

Molto buona! I did an interview with the Italian publisher, which you can find here. (Google will do a great job translating it from Italian as well 😁)

Arithmetic! (academic news)

All this exciting children’s book news sure illustrates how slow academia moves! Of course, when trying to prove fundamental truths about the world, we are happy to take our time 😉

This month I’ve been dealing with reports from referees. Criticism is a necessary part of science and in many cases referees have provided crucial insight. But, you also have to develop a fairly thick skin.

This rather is rather timely since a podcast recorded last month with Sc-gasm about peer review just aired.

Events!

  • ACEMS 2018 Retreat Keynote titled “All your Bayes are Belong to Us”.

  • I spent a couple days in Perth talking about the children’s books and reading to a great crowd.

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Perth! You're awesome ♥️

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  • MathsCraft is workshop for high-schoolers which encourages them to “think like a research mathematician”. Each workshop brings together students, teachers, and mathematicians guide the students in their “play” at maths. It was a great experience and fun to watch the students explore their curiosity with maths.

Up next!

December in Australia combines the holiday season and summer. You’ll find me at the beach!

Journal | October 2018

Happy Halloween! We escaped the cold in Canada and are now back in Australia, ready for second summer 😁

Eureka!

The big aha! moment was seeing how much stories resonate with parents! Over the past year and a half, I’ve been reading from Rocket Science for Babies and doing some paper activities (paper airplanes, demonstrating lift, etc.). It’s been great and I think the children have lots of fun. But because it’s mostly an interaction between me and the children, perhaps some parents feel left out? Or, maybe they are just happy to sit back let their children take the lead.

This month, though, I started reading 8 Little Planets at events as well, and the response from the parents was amazing! Nothing like a good story to excite the imaginative child in all of us, I guess 😁

This month I also got some hilarious feedback on social media. Here are a few highlights:

Reading!

Children’s Literature Recommendations

What do you do with a problem by Kobi Yamada, Illustrated by Mae Besom

Inspirational story about a young person tackling a problem head on and finding beauty in it. It’s a bit abstract, meaning it might take a while for a child to “get it”, but the illustrations are beautiful and the pace was right for a bedtime read.

The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid by Dylan Thuras and Rosemary Mosco

I think adults will find this more amusing than children. My guess is that these real places are suppose to be surprisingly, well, obscure. But, to a child, these are just slightly less fantastic than what they can dream up in their own imagination. It can still keep a child’s attention and led to some interesting questions.

Amulet: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi

I was skeptical about reading a graphic novel aloud, especially the pages with no words! But, it actually worked quite well. Even the non-readers could understand the plot. The story itself is amazing. We all can’t wait to continue the series.

Adult Literature September Reads

Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies by Geoffrey West

This one is about the science of complexity and some simple rules that govern how things (from animals to suburbia) scale. There are lots of interesting tidbits in here. My favorite is an understanding, using scaling laws, for why every species of mammal has the same number of heartbeats over their lifetime, from the tiny shrew to the enormous blue whale. It can get a bit wordy and repetitive, but still worth a read.

Currently reading: This Idea Is Brilliant: Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know by John Brockman

Writing!

Big news this month was the release of 8 Little Planets! It’s super-fun and has amazing illustrations by Lizzy Doyle.

Next up is Blockchain for Babies by my UTS colleague, and blockchain expert, Marco Tomamichel. Just in time for the new year and next Bitcoin boom. HODL on for this one! It’s due 1 Jan 2019.

In terms of writing, I am working on a new ABC’s book. I don’t want to give away the details yet, but here’s a hint: it’s not a STEM topic!

Arithmetic! (academic news)

Last week I attended Quantum Gates, Jumps, and Machines, which was a workshop in honor of Gerard Milburn’s 60th birthday. If you ever get a chance to go to a “birthday workshop”, do it. The talks have great science alongside hilarious anecdotes and roasts of the guest of honor. Barry Sanders documented much of it on Twitter.

University of Technology Sydney will soon offer some undergraduate credit subjects in Quantum Computing. We’ve been having some high level discussion about organizing that and getting it approved through all the bureaucratic channels. There may even be some associated online content! Keep your eyes peeled next Spring term!

After submitting their papers, the students in the group are learning hands on the joys of peer review, including what to do about “interesting” referee reports! Look out for some publications soon.

An Honors student at the University of New South Wales submitted a thesis that I co-supervised. This was my first time officially supervising an undergraduate. It was a very rewarding process as the student was from outside of the field and wrote a thesis on quantum learning applications in statistics.

Events!

  • I read and signed some books at the Vancouver Public Library to some excited preschoolers.

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Fun at the Vancouver Public Library!

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  • Byrne and Wade from Sci-gasm Podcast came by the office and we recorded a not-so-family-friendly interview. Stay tuned for that—you might even win a signed copy of Quantum Computing for Babies.
  • Where the Wild Things Are bookshop in Brisbane hosted an event where I read and did some activities with some West Enders. I always have a good time in Brissie!
  • I joined a panel at UTS about Communicating as a researcher: Strategies for building value and reputation. It was quite interesting to contrast my fake-it-before-you-make-it style with one that was more structured, and another that was goal-oriented. Perhaps there is a useful middle ground?

Up next!

In November I’ll be visiting Melbourne and Perth. Come on out and get your science on 6 Nov!

Journal | September 2018

It was a busy month of extra-curriculars, making the most of our last weeks in Canada before returning to greet the Aussie summer.

Eureka!

The big aha! moment was finally understanding the pleas to remove “for babies” from the titles of the Baby University books. On 17 September I visited two elementary schools in the suburbs of Chicago: Rollins Elementary School and May Watts Elementary.

I had a great time at both, but I knew I had to carefully navigate “for babies”. So, I did read the title and immediately asked, “are there any babies here?” “No!” was the expected and resounding answer. I think I won them over with that. But when the cover image popped up on screen I still heard a few “hey! It says for babies” from the audience. The school avoided the “for babies” problem by selling my two picture books, Goodnight Lab and Scientist, Scientist, Who do you See?.

I can sympathize with teachers and librarians when they tell me about the difficulty in reading the “for babies” books. I am also honored that my baby books want a wider audience! In the meantime, while we figure out a solution to the “for babies” problem in the classroom, I think I’ll stick to reading the picture books at schools.

Reading!

Children’s Literature Recommendations

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I Know Exactly What You Are by Julia Kregenow and Carmen Saldaña

Filled with rhyming facts about stars that can be sung to the cadence of the classic nursery rhyme. Easy to read and look at for all ages.

How Did I Get Here? by Philip Bunting

Adorable illustrations accompany the history of the universe from the Big Bang, through conception (yep), until now. Easy for the the kids to listen to and point at.

Adult Literature September Reads

Humility Is the New Smart by Edward D. Hess and Katherine Ludwig

I found this difficult to read because it is heavy on repeating buzzwords and technobabble. There are some great nuggets of wisdom in here which are drawn from well-laid-out examples of people and companies that have put humility ahead of arbitrary measures of merit.

How not to be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg

This book is about math applied to real life. Some of the explanations are abstract and others follow closely with recent, and mostly quirky, stories. I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I suspect that the author demands a little too much from the casual reader.

Currently reading: Scale by Geoffrey West

Writing!

We are in the final editorial stages of ABC’s of Engineering, Robotics for Babies, and Neural Networks for Babies, all co-authored by my friend Sarah Kaiser. Look for these in January of 2019. They are going to be awesome. Conversations about them included the sentence, “I hate to have to tell you this… but we can’t rickroll babies.”

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One of the questions I get most is are you working on any books for older kids? Yes, yes I am. But at the moment it is too early to give anything away. Stay tuned!

I completed a few more early manuscripts in the Red Kangaroo Physics series. Next year, they will begin to be translated (or untranslated 😄) and available in English. If this is news to you, this is a series of picture books each of which discusses a topic in physics. The story follows a dialogue between me and a curious Red Kangaroo. The first 15 are available now in Chinese.

Arithmetic! (academic news)

Both my students recently submitted their first papers and presented them at an international conference this month. Congrats to Maria and Akram!

I finally got the advertisements up for two postdoctoral positions which are funded by a $3 million grant from the Australian government. This is a collaboration with Gerardo Paz Silva, Howard Wiseman, and Andrea Morello that I am keen to get going.

Mostly an exercise in catharsis, I am reminding myself to say no to every invitation to chair, organise, or join a committee. My future self won’t heed this warning—so here’s hoping it is another thing that gets easier and less time consuming with practice.

Events!

Lots of great opportunities this past month. I met many great people and learned a lot!

  • I gave a public lecture at the Institute for Quantum Computing on 13 September call Big Ideas for Little Minds. I won’t say too much about it as it will be posted online soon. I also gave the same talk at Google on 19 September, which will also appear on Talks at Google.

  • I finally met (in person) Cara Florance my co-author of ABC’s of Biology, Organic Chemistry for Babies, and Evolution for Babies! We did a joint event at the MIT Coop bookstore. How did it go? Well, Cara built a DIY cloud chamber and had a Geiger counter—’nuff said. I also met an MIT professor that bought a copy of Statistical Physics for Babies for every student in his class 😳!
  • I joined Nikola Tesla for some reading, banter, and science demonstrations at the Rochester Museum and Science Center. This was the first time I read 8 Little Planets and was really pleased with the response from both the children and parents! The science centre itself was awesome and I even got a private showing of musical Tesla coils!

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Just hanging out in a Faraday cage ⚡⚡⚡

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  • I got to visit Sourcebooks headquarters in Chicago. It was great to meet all the people behind the scenes that make the children’s books possible. Everyone I met was so passionate about making books, especially the amazing Dominique Raccah!
  • Check out a quick discussion about Baby University on Global TV’s The Morning Show. It’s a great opportunity to reach a large television audience. Too bad the time is so short and the questions so quick!
  • I did some reading and activities at the Oxford County Library in Ingersoll on 6 September. It was amazing to see how close members of a small community are with their library. The librarians even knew the interests of the children! Very eye opening as this has not been my experience in Sydney.

Up next!

October is going to be another busy month. We need to get settled back into Sydney and I don’t even want to think about the backlog of administration I have been ignoring at the uni. But I am also really excited for Quantum Gates, Jumps, and Machines and of course the release of 8 Little Planets!