The Future of fMRI in Cognitive NeuroscienceCognitive neuroscience has witnessed two decades of rapid growth, thanks in large part to the continued development of fMRI methods. In my talk, I will question what this work has told us about brain function, and will propose that cognitive neuroscience needs to change in at least three ways. First, ...
Quantum physics and quantum engineering in atomically thin crystalsIn quantum materials, the interplay of symmetry, topology, quantum geometry and interactions can produce new phases of matter with fundamentally new electronic and optoelectronic properties. Two dimensional van der Waals materials, with highly tunable symmetry, band structure, carrier density and interactions, allow for reaching previously inaccessible experimental parameter regimes. Such ...
Early in his career as a theoretical physicist, Einstein fashioned an identifiable working philosophy of physical theory that, in broad essentials, never changed. It is a "philosophy of principles" and in crucial respects, it is responsible for his greatest triumph, the relativistic theory of gravitation, as well as his greatest ...
RADIATIVE DRIVERS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: KNOWN KNOWNS AND KNOWN UNKNOWNSWhat do we know for sure regarding the greenhouse gases and their effects on our climate, and what remains to be settled? Are there still grounds for reserving scientific judgment on the causes of global warming? Dr. William Collins' talk highlights the latest observational and theoretical advances in our understanding ...
Where: Rohnert ParkCost: Free
The Fascinating Quantum World of Atomically Thin 1D & 2D Materials: Symmetry, Interaction and Topological EffectsSymmetry, interaction and topological effects, as well as environmental screening, dominate many of the quantum properties of reduced-dimensional systems and nanostructures. These effects often lead to manifestation of counter-intuitive concepts and phenomena that may not be so prominent or have not been seen in bulk materials. In this talk, I ...
Eight years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. Steady progress has been made towards the reconstruction of Fukushima, repopulation of surrounding areas, and the decommissioning of the plant, of which Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) must shoulder 16 trillion ...
NASA's recent Kepler Mission discovered that most stars in our Milky Way Galaxy host planets. Among those planets, Earth-size worlds are remarkably common. But the conditions for planets around their host stars vary with both distance from the star and mass of the star. Astronomer Gibor Basri will explore the ...
Where: NovatoCost: Free
Why Deep Learning Works: Implicit Self-Regularization in Deep Neural NetworksRandom Matrix Theory (RMT) is applied to analyze the weight matrices of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), including both production quality, pre-trained models and smaller models trained from scratch. Empirical and theoretical results clearly indicate that the DNN training process itself implicitly implements a form of self-regularization, implicitly sculpting a more ...
Where: SunnyvaleCost: Free
Nerd Night East Bay: Exercise Recovery, the Albany Bulb, SETIGood to Go: The Strange Science of Exercise Recovery (Christie Aschwanden, author)History of the Albany Bulb: Why a Former Dump is the Best Park Ever (Susan Moffat, UC Berkeley)Is Anybody Out There (Dan Werthimer, SETI)
Where: OaklandCost: $8 Advance, $10 at door
Possible MindsJohn Brockman is a literary agent and author specializing in scientific literature. He founded the Edge Foundation, an organization aimed to bring together people working at the edge of a broad range of scientific and technical fields.He introduced the "third culture" consisting of "those scientists and other thinkers in the ...
