answer to. I first encountered the technique in Scott Young's seminal book "Ultralearning", and have employed it in my learning process for next semester's courses. More on the pre-testing effect: learninglab.uchicago.edu/Pre-Testing_...

Some more incredible screenshots:

The deep-sea Chimaera. Electroreceptor cells on the snout of the Chimaera help them to find prey. This one, in particular, seemed to be interested in the device being used to capture the video, and came quite close to the camera.

Iridogorgia maginspiralis, a coral species found in the Marshall islands.

The faceless cusk, found in the depths of the Indian and Pacific oceans. They are known as "faceless" due to their small eyes being hidden beneath their skin.

engaging in a conversation with a conscious agent is gradually becoming more important.

refrain from anthropomorphising the AI by beginning my prompts with "Output an answer regarding how the user should....", rather than "can you tell me how I should..." for my own sake - our collective ability to remember that we're really just throwing inputs into a complicated program and not

similar things - isolated and taking antidepressants, moving at a turtle's pace through a physics/mathematics degree, and looking to interesting ideas (and people) to engage with. The prospect of doing a doctorate in mathematical physics keeps me going. Thanks for the continued inspiration Dr. Baez.

It's weirdly comforting to hear that from such an accomplished individual, and to hear that true love exists. I can definitely see why music would have been a great escape at the time, with Led Zep, Van Halen, and the like dominating the charts. Without getting too personal, I've been experiencing

cost of living, existential threats, high mental illness prevalence, and more, privilege and stability are definitely quite strong bottlenecks in determining whether one is able to healthily meet the 'full-time student' demand.

a challenging problem can be eased without explicitly asking for the answer, in ways that optimise for time but remove the opportunity for one to gradually connect the dots themselves "can I have a hint?". With the burdens of 2025's state of affairs - high population/competition, "grind" culture,

struggle to understand the big-picture relevance of a new concept and its relationship to other concepts can be outsourced in large part to ChatGPT, leaving students less able to make subtle judgements and connections on their own. Even the uncomfortable experience one has when trying to solve

For me, the most interesting part of your take was the characterisation of ChatGPT as a "de-skilling device". It is certainly quite interesting that even the students who don't adopt the explicit "generate my essay" approach may still experience atrophy in subtler ways; for instance, the initial

days or sleepless nights. I have 'Gauge Fields, Knots, and Gravity' on my reading list for next year after - looking forward to it!

Thank you John - the response and article were insightful. I think that you have a really unique temperament (perhaps a little more common within your circle of world-class mathematicians and physicists) in that, unlike most of us, you seem to be excited and curious about things even on your worst

'paper-first' approach, without access to screens. I was motivated in part by the value that I've experienced in the past when enacting the difficult process of trying to make small insightful leaps or even reinvent theory, as it were, on my own.

tasks to spend any meaningful amount of time appreciating unfamiliar subjects, and even when I'm not, I'm too tired to have the patience. Do you maybe learn about new things with a relaxed, "low friction" approach? Apologies for the rambling question, but hopefully it made some sense.

insomnia. My question is, how do you maintain the energy to be curious and passionate about so many different things, and how do you avoid going down rabbit holes/getting too distracted from your primary work? Regarding the former question, I always seem to be too occupied with life's mundane

Hi John, I'm a really big fan of your work. Reading through your posts and even your online diary, I'm wondering how you always seem to know an incredible amount about totally random things (music theory, biology, etc.) I found it interesting, too, that you visualise shapes to help you deal with