Lee Phillips’ Website

11/3/2025 8:49 Solar Energy, Criticized by Trump, Claims Big U.S. Gain in 2024: The Trump administration continues to falsely claim that solar power​ can’t do what it is doing.

05/03/2025 08:03 Emmy Noether: the genius who taught Einstein: Marcus Chown’s review of my book Einstein’s Tutor in Prospect.

05/03/2025 08:03 Japanese Translation of Einstein’s Tutor: Today my publisher signed a contract with Misuzu Shobo of Tokyo to distribute a Japanese edition of my book about Emmy Noether and her eponymous theorem. Other translations on the way are Simplified Chinese, Polish, and Russian.

28/2/2025 13:42 Among world’s top researchers 10% publish at unrealistic levels, analysis finds: I know from my 22 years working in a government research lab how pervasive (and accepted) this kind of plagiarism is among the managerial classes. I’m glad to see that some are taking a systematic look at the problem.

28/2/2025 13:27 Sweetener aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation: I suppose I’m lucky in a sense in that I perceive aspartame (and other artificial sweeteners) as nastily bitter rather than sweet. This article supplies a good reason for everyone to avoid these chemicals.

24/2/2025 21:52 Wrapping up my interview at the National Portrait Gallery with Dr. Anwar Dunbar with Part Six.: We chat about learning foreign languages and our past association with a planetarium in Virginia.

24/2/2025 21:13 A short-term, high-caloric diet has prolonged effects on brain insulin action in men: This could be a very important result, but it needs replication: it’s a small study, relies on self-reporting of food consumed, and uses p-values (why do Nature journals still permit this?).

24/2/2025 18:15 Google Co-Scientist AI cracks superbug problem in two days! — because it had been fed the team’s previous paper with the answer in it: Apparently Google has some “AI” tool called “Co-Scientist”. They have been lying about how it performs. Like all “AI” programs, it’s just an elaborate copy-paste machine.

23/2/2025 9:11 The Case Against UNRWA: “UNRWA, despite its claims to be a humanitarian agency, has forged an unholy alliance with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations.”

19/2/2025 11:29 1 + 2 + 3 + … = −1/12: I’m really tired of seeing the nonsense claim that appears in the title of this article, which is a clear and concise explanation for why it is nonsense.

19/2/2025 11:18 DOGE as a National Cyberattack: Bruce Schneier’s analysis seems sound.

17/02/2025 22:19 Web Applications with Julia: My article appeared in the February edition of “ADMIN magazine”. You can buy the issue or single articles at the link, or pick up the magazine at many bookstores.

15/2/2025 16:51 Asynchronous programming in Julia: Deep and detailed study in the form of a notebook.

10/2/2025 22:36 Euler’s formula for dual numbers and double numbers: I knew about dual numbers from studying automatic differentiation, but had never heard of double numbers. John Cook reveals a surprising variation of the familiar Euler’s formula.

10/2/2025 16:26 Jean Shepherd archives on YouTube: I think I discovered Jean Shepherd’s radio show in 7^th grade. I was immediately hooked. The legendary storyteller’s late-night sessions were responsible for many sleepy schooldays. Today I learned that many of Shepherd’s broadcasts are preserved on YouTube (just search) and on archive.org. I also learned today that Shepherd more or less inspired Jerry Seinfeld to become a comedian.

6/2/2025 11:55 Hypocrisy and politics in free and open source software projects: Bottom line: do not contribute to the FreeBSD Foundation.

6/2/2025 10:46 The Return Of Doomscrolling: Rui Carmo: “the West’s former beacon of economic might is being run like a Mexican soap opera”.

5/2/2025 8:06 Julia & JuliaHub: Advancing Innovation and Growth: Brief summary of progress in Julia adoption since 2020.

31/01/2025 13:28 New horizons for Julia: My article about Julia 1.11 and new directions for the language. I talk about new tooling for installation, compilation to small binaries, Julia in browsers, and more.

24/12/2024 12:10 Teddy Blanks, the Typography Maestro Getting Calls From Greta Gerwig and Robert Eggers: He is devoted to the art of movie titles.