For my homework I have to draw the brain and label several areas. The result looks more like a pizza with too many toppings.

I think that everybody will turn in something like that. By chance, the only other person in the library is an undergrad doing the same homework. When I walk by, I glance at her work, and, well, it looks better than the tables in the book. I go home, I’m too old for this.

His approach is to explain the problem of sustainability in terms of quantities to which every person can relate. This makes the discussion more meaningful and pragmatic. It works! Even if I’m not that good at remembering numbers, today I still remember that the average European consumes 125 KWh/day, the average American about twice than that. If I fly once internationally every year, that averages to about 25 KWh/day. The same can be done for energy sources: the output of each technology is measured in energy per square meters. For example, we learned that to supply the UK’s energy consumption with solar energy one would have to cover a huge part of the territory with solar panels.

The bottom line is that the only technologies that are sustainable, that is, they will produce energy for the next 1000 years with limited pollution, are nuclear energy, clean coal, and solar power “in other people’s deserts”. All other renewable sources just do not produce enough energy. His views are collected in a book that is available online.

It’s refreshing to see that one can start in a narrow field such as machine learning and go on to make some policy contribution for one of the main problems of mankind.

There was much variety in the complexity of the projects. We went from the classics (“how does light influence plants growth”, “what is my dog’s favorite toy”, “which kitchen paper is more absorbent”) to the more innovative (“which home surface has more bacteria”, “which bridge design bears more load”). This girl checked what was the best method to treat the discoloration of her blond air after swimming.

The most courageous effort was by a group that found a way to justify six hours of video-game playing as a science project. I tried to insist to give them a special mention, but the teacher didn’t want to. Probably she didn’t want to encourage insubordinate behavior.

High points of the past few days:

• The homework for this term ended with an Escher-textured Stanford bunny using discrete conformal mapping (homework for CS177). Maybe not that impressive, but satisfying after all that theory.

• An effort to gather a variety of images with a certain fixed focal length degenerated in something much more fun.

• I started TAing for CDS 110, the basic control course.
• I went to Cambridge, UK for my first biology conference, and I had to give a talk about fruit flies.
• I prepared the candidacy exam (passed, but still have to file the paperwork). I’m still recovering from candidacy.

And here’s a summary with webcam snapshots.

Homework despair (1): 47 sets to grade.

Homework despair (2): I see Hodge stars everywhere!

Candidacy despair (1): finishing the candidacy report after an all-nighter in the library. Photo taken at 8am.

Candidacy despair (2): preparing the candidacy talk, wondering whether all of that makes sense

May 18, 2009
TO: Caltech Community
FROM: Jean-Lou Chameau

It is with great sadness that I share the news of the death of one of our students. Brian Go, a junior studying computer science, appears to have taken his own life over the weekend. Brian was president of Page House and was a double major in computer science and applied and computational mathematics…

One month ago:

June 11, 2009
TO: The Caltech Community
FROM: Jean-Lou Chameau

It is with tremendous sorrow that I again must report the death of one of our students. Jackson Wang, a senior in Marks House, was found in his room Wednesday evening. The coroner is currently investigating the cause of death…

This week:

July 23, 2009
TO: Caltech Community
FROM: Jean-Lou Chameau

With a heavy heart I must once again relay to you the tragic news of the death of a Caltech student. Long Phan, a graduate student in chemistry, was found in his apartment Wednesday afternoon. The coroner has not yet issued a determination of the cause of death, and, out of respect for the wishes of the family, I will not address what appear to be the circumstances of Long’s death…

It is not a good period at Caltech. Since my last post, two other suicides took place: an undergrad and a graduate student in chemistry. An isolated death became a suicide cluster — even without remembering my squared chis, 3 deaths in 3 months are surely correlated. The discussion among the graduate students varies from the morbid details of the circumstances of the deaths, to the reminescences about the deaths of a decade ago, to the religious/phylosophical speculations about the admissibible justifications of suicides.

Is suicide admissible in some cases? I believe so, for example in the case of terminal illnesses, or for life-impairing conditions such as complete paralysis. Socrates’ poison hemlock death, to make his point, comes to mind as another defensible suicide. We also can understand why Alan Turing took his life by a poisoned apple, not able to bear the consequence of the chemical castration, the punishment for his homosexuality. However, it is hard to believe the deaths of these students were the result of a careful phylosophical deliberation.

Last week a Caltech undergrad committed suicide.