Your brain deserves better than brain rot 🧠
Come learn with Big Ideas: compound eyes 🐝 eggs 🥚 bioluminescence ✨
Human made. Real scientists. Real filming.
Out now: youtube.com/watch?v=5UCQ...
from the @kqedscience.bsky.social team behind @deeplook
they use c0rpse heads to practice face lift techniques but dont use blood to test tampons/pads...make it make sense!
🎓 Started my Science Communicator Residency at @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social’s @simonsinstitute.bsky.social! I'm learning how advances in matrix multiplication shape the future of AI and turning it into a mini documentary.
🎥 A peek into my first day:
Prof. Williams now studies what happens when speed runs out.
Her field, fine-grained complexity, shows how close we are to the limits of computation and why some problems resist every shortcut.
#SimonsLive
Nearly everything in modern computing depends on matrix multiplication, and researchers are still chasing the fastest way to do it.
Virginia Vassilevska Williams helped break that speed record, then turned to understanding why some barriers can’t be broken at all.
@simonsinstitute.bsky.social
Avoiding unnecessary data movement saves energy too! Holtz showed how communication-avoiding algorithms can find a sweet spot where less motion —> lower energy use and without slowing computation.
@SimonsInstitute #SimonsLive
Most of a computer’s effort isn’t doing math, it’s moving data, aka every trip between memory & processor = costs in time & power
This is the communication cost, a framework researchers use to measure and reduce that hidden expense.
from Olga Holtz @SimonsInstitute #SimonsLive
How to make matrix multiplication practical
Mathematically:
- shrink the exponents and constants that set its speed
Hardware:
- move data less
- handle smaller chunks more efficiently
(from Oded Schwartz) @SimonsInstitute #SimonsLive
If we can multiply matrices even a little faster, the effects ripple outward. AI models could train more quickly, supercomputers could run with less energy, and data centers might draw less power from the grid. Efficiency here is environmental as much as intellectual. #SimonsLive
Matrix multiplication is the engine of modern computation. It powers neural networks, graphics, and massive data analysis. Every improvement changes what computers can do within the same energy and hardware limits. #SimonsLive
I’ll be here for the next month, following how researchers rethink one of the most fundamental operations in computing and how a small tweak in efficiency could reshape technology. #SimonsLive
This week I’m at a matrix multiplication workshop (me, not a mathematician or computer programmer) because multiplying matrices of numbers sits behind every single AI model and every big data crunch, and I want to understand these systems better. @simonsinstitute.bsky.social #SimonsLive
