Miscellaneous
Outisde of mathematics I enjoy staying active by dancing Lindy Hop, biking, calisthenics training, bouldering, and skiing. I have interests in artifical brains, AI safety, mycelium, whiskey, and perfumery. I am active in the rationalist community and am an avid fan of the NYT Spelling Bee.
Fun Facts
Portuguese man o' wars are not actual jellyfish. They are siphonophores (an order of Hydrozoa). This means that they are collonial orgamisms formed from hundreds of zooids all of which are genetically identical but perform distinct local functions in order for the colony to operate as a single organism.
The scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix where Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) decks Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs) in the face following the line "Get away from my godson" in front of the stone archway was completely improvised by Gary Oldman.
There are exactly three words in the English language, modulo plurals and names, that begin with "dw". They are "Dwarf", "Dwindle", and "Dwell".
The standard color spectrum is obtained by taking the light spectrum and truncating it at the visible boundaries for a human eye (violet with the shortest around 380nm and red with the longest around 780nm). The color wheel is made by taking this truncation and identifying the violet end with the red end using magenta as a medium to blend the two together. At first, this may appear like an ad hoc construction but there is a natural basis for it. Magenta is a synthetic hue that cannot be produced by a single frequency of light and our red cone receptors are slightly more sensitive to the shortest wavelength of blue light. Our brain processes this as perceiving blue light as red and this is how our brain creates the perception of magenta. This is what gives the appearance that the truncated light spectrum wraps around itself even though it doesn't.
There is exactly one uninhabited standard time zone. It is UTC-12:00 and the land mass it contains consists of only two islands owned by the USA.