Six STEM Tweets #55 - Dec 15 2024

Quantum computing breakthrough, asteroid flybys, square years and more

Author

Harshal Chhaya
December 15, 2024

Six STEM Tweets

Six tweets that celebrate engineering and all things STEM.

I scroll so you don’t have to.

Hi friends, if there was one piece of news or one comment or one fun fact about a number from this newsletter that you shared with someone else, please let me know. I am compiling a list of stories and information that left an impression.

Reader and fellow curious person MS wrote: Thanks for the links! On another subject, I just watched the French documentary "Notre Dame Resurrection". Absolutely fascinating engineering problem!

I know what I am watching next!

Is there an interesting documentary, book, podcast that you want to share with your fellow curious folks, please let me know.

#1 🤯 

Google announced a quantum chip that does in minutes what would take supercomputers septillions of years (that's a 1 followed by 25 zeros!).

This is still very much a lab experiment but it does show the possibility of practical quantum computing.

Quantum computers are not just faster PCs, they do things in a whole different way and solve new kinds of problems.

Additional details are at https://blog.google/technology/research/google-willow-quantum-chip/

If you have a background in this topic and have an opinion, please hit ‘reply’. I would love to learn more

#2 🤯 

The Lucy spacecraft will explore a record-breaking number of asteroids, flying by two asteroids in the solar system’s main asteroid belt and by eight Trojan asteroids that share an orbit around the Sun with Jupiter.

Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter are thought to be remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets. These primitive bodies may hold clues to the history of solar system formation. Lucy is the first mission to visit the Trojan

More details (including a live! animation) at https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/sc_lucy

#3 🤯 

We are so lucky! So so lucky!

So many different and unconnected things have to be just right for us to experience life as we know it. And they are!

#4 🤯 

Next year is a square year! \o/

Forget round numbers, I love square numbers. 😄 

A couple of days back, the date was 12/12/24 (in both formats).

I love dates with arithmetic connections - 12 + 12 = 24 😃 

#5 🤯 

Modern engineering marvel captured on a 130-year old engineering marvel

#6 🤯 

If the floppy is cloud’s dad, are tapes the grandparent? 😆 

This is issue #55 of the newsletter. Here’s a few fun facts about 55:

  • The atomic number of caesium - a soft, silvery-golden alkali metal with a melting point of 28.5 °C (83.3 °F) and symbol Cs. It is almost a liquid at room temperature. Caesium is the official spelling. It also spelled cesium in American English. Caesium was the first element to be discovered with a spectroscope, which had been invented by Bunsen and Kirchhoff only a year previously. Caesium is used as the fundamental measure of the second.

    • Since 1967, the International System of Measurements has based the primary unit of time, the second, on the properties of caesium. The 13th General Conference on Weights and Measures of 1967 defined a second as: "the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of microwave light absorbed or emitted by the hyperfine transition of caesium-133 atoms in their ground state undisturbed by external fields

  • The code for international direct dial phone calls to Brazil

  • 55 is the 10th Fibonacci number and the 10th triangular number where 10 is the sum of 55's digits.

    • In mathematics, the Fibonacci sequence is a sequence in which each number is the sum of the two numbers that precede it.

    • The sequence is typically written as: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144

    • We had a special newsletter issue on these numbers on 11/23 that are also known as Pingala numbers because they were first described in Indian mathematics as early as 200 BC in work by Pingala on enumerating possible patterns of Sanskrit poetry formed from syllables of two lengths. (thanks, RS - a reader who shared this)

Was there one specific post or one comment or one fun fact about a number from all the issues of this newsletter that stood out to you? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know.

This newsletter is my way of sharing interesting science-related news with my curious friends. I enjoy finding science and math connections in our world.

Please share this newsletter with others. Let’s encourage curiosity.

- Harshal (@hschhaya on X/Twitter)

That’s it for this issue.

Hit ‘reply’ to tell me what you think.

And hit ‘forward’ to share with your friends and family.

Let’s all celebrate science and engineering and curiosity.

Best wishes,

Harshal