Topics in STEM:
Informal Lectures for Math, Science and Technology Fans!
Math and Science are for everyone!
We're sort of a support group (for anyone working in the trenches with Science, Math and Technology)
and we welcome students, professionals, amateurs, teachers
and enthusiasts who are eager and interested
in learning, using, developing and sharing practical knowledge...
along with a little skepticism, philosophy and humour.
You can contact us by email via curiosity at topics in STEM dot com
We provide brief and enjoyable workshops, lectures
and mini-seminars about interesting STEM adjacent
topics, while keeping the math and science behind
them visible.
Although we assume that you know a little algebra
and took a science class or two along the way,
we know it might have been a while.
We serve our topics Hot, Fresh and Ready to Consume -
and try to always include interesting (and sometimes controversial)
details that keep it accessible.
Just about anyone interested in the topics presented will
find something new or useful to learn or enjoy.
We always welcome STEM fans of any age or background,
including students, teachers and non-traditional learners.
We also like to meet those who work with/have worked with
the topics being discussed and can share knowledge.
Each Workshop, Lecture or Mini-Seminar is presented
in a progressive manner, at least in theory. We want to
help attendees understand some of the actual history and
have a look at the underpinnings of the topic, and to
provide a look at the math and science involved. All our
meetings are free, and are not meant to sell or market
any products or services. It's just Math and Science!
Why do you emphasize the MATH and SCIENCE so much?
Because it's there!
And since we "touch upon" rather than "work the math"
directly, most people in attendance are able to more
or less follow right along with ease and stay with us
as we outline the scientific and mathematical methods
used in problem solving.
This helps everyone to easily construct a useful map
of the topic or territory under discussion at their
own level.
Like a Traveler's Guide-Book in a foreign city or country,
having a map outlining the concepts and approaches often
makes further exploration easier and much more interesting
to ponder.
Each person can then find their own highlights to remember.
By using participatory education methods with simplified
and entertaining material, we attempt to fill in the
missing pieces by delivering practical STEM knowledge
to the very people who need it the most.
These events are not a substitute for classroom learning,
but they do improve uptake and outcomes for learners by
providing fertile ground for later instruction, exposure,
training or self-study.
Outside the academic world, learners of all ages benefit
from applying STEM skills to real-world applications.
We illustrate and review basic skills and fundamental
knowledge at each event, and this gives learners
a chance to fill in the blanks in their
understanding of the math and science that apply to our topics.
Finally, there are many STEM skills and abilities that require little
more than patience, enthusiasm, a little remedial or review work
and sometimes just a pinch of practical advice -
but these things aren't always available in the classroom due to
the usual limitations of time, staff and funding.
Some information is not easily found in classrooms,
textbooks, websites or social media providers like youtube.
Having access to other STEM enthusiasts provides a way to
absorb STEM related information through osmosis, or by
asking questions of people who often already know the
answer, or at least know how or where to look.
We want your help!
By the way, if you're an adult or bright student involved
in industry, education or any STEM adjacent field, we'd sure
welcome your knowledge, enthusiasm, advice and feedback -
that includes suggestions, criticism, experience or presentation
assistance! See "Contact Us" below.
And if you're what might be called "an amateur scientist" or have
some interest in Math, Science, Engineering or Technology and are
interested in our topics and want to listen or participate, we
welcome you with open arms!
NOTE:
This website (www.topicsinstem.com) is a mockup.
Please pardon our typos, design and grammar mistakes.
But for now, just imagine this site has a fancy modern
design and some generic AI generated stock photos just like all the
famous universities are using.
For example:
AI generated kids holding test tubes full of colored water
wearing safety glasses
Smiling teachers standing in front of students
A woman doing a power point presentation
That one guy holding a soldering iron backwards
Students smiling and pointing in glee at a laptop
Blackboards full of random equations
The actual website should be done by early August.*
* Which Year? Soon! Yeah, that's the ticket...
Upcoming Events Schedule
Our next event is displayed in yellow.
Posters and Descriptions available ~28 days prior
We hope to provide interesting
and useful resourced for anyone
learning, using, working with, or teaching others
about STEM or STEM-adjacent subjects, specifically
the parts involving math and science.
We want to fill in missing skills and knowledge!
By the way, we regard the missing bits as things that:
are not or were not covered in school
were not mastered in the time available
lacked sufficient background information
were covered, but required unavailable skills
were in fact covered, but slept through
somehow got lost in translation
Above all, we want to help people educate themselves.
We're sort of a support-group for people working in the
trenches with STEM as professionals and amateurs,
welcome students, teachers, scientists (including mad)
and engineers, technicians and amateurs of any flavor
who also seek a sense of community outside of the internet.
We welcome presentations on any topic, provided it is
properly prepared and designed to inform and entertain
a multi-demographic audience and features something
for both those who are plugged into the internet and
those who are not.
This is harder to do than you might think (just ask any
teacher or salesman) but it CAN be done with a little
thinking ahead. We believe that when it
comes to math and science, it's all
about the missing ingredients.
We want to fill in the blanks!
All are welcome...
We welcome everyone, young and old, who is interested
in math and science, or who wishes to develop, use and
share STEM and STEM adjacent knowledge. All events occur
in various public or educational locations, and always
last roughly 90 minutes.
Our lectures and presentations are designed for
people with some exposure to science and math at a
high school freshman or sophmore level. Younger and
older participants should be able to follow the
threads, and even experienced experts may benefit
by hearing things expressed in simplified form or
by seeing how the public views recent developments
in the field.
We try to keep the material simple enough for
the general public, but still touching upon
more complex ideas and aspects. We try to define
new vocabulary terms, provide insight into any
methods being used and to explain unfamiliar
concepts by building them up from basic ideas.
More advanced aspects of each topic are discussed
with consideration for STEM and foundational skills.
More complex math and science excursions are framed
as logical extensions of the basic skills used in
organized and systematic thinking.
The material should be accessible to the average 8th grader,
and yet be of interest even to dinosaurs. Very young children
(younger than grades 5 to 6) may not benefit from the seminars
and lectures.
Younger children are seldom mentally prepared for such behaviour from adults and may find it distressing. Adults with math or science related PTSD
should seek advice from a doctor before attending our seminars.
A word of advice: From time to time, adults may start laughing uncontrollably when they realize that math was actually much simpler than they were led to believe, or suddenly burst into tears when beholding the true power of N-dimensional arrays or various path-finding algorithms for the first time.
We aren't driven by NGOs, foundations or agendas of any kind.
We do it to share knowledge and help people understand STEM topics.
We have no funding. You can be a member just by showing up.
Our sponsors sometimes reimburse/defray expenses or provide support.
We use mini-seminars and lectures, and supply supporting materials.
You can leave at any time... but remember to pay for your food.
If you spot someone going without, consider helping them out.
We hope you will share what you learn with others.
Format:
Our mini-seminars are usually about 90 minutes long.
The lectures and presentations feature short breaks
They usually consist of three to five 15-25 minute sections.
Each section practical, historical or topical information
Sometimes a section may run as long as 25 minutes, or as little as 10.
We try for five minute long breaks, more or less.
Additional Notes:
Please give us feedback on anything you liked or disliked.
Suggestions are ALWAYS welcome.
You are welcome to take notes, but not to record or make videos.
Please don't take pictures of people unless you ask them first.
We encourage you to order food and drink from our hosts.
You're welcome to stick around after and ask additional questions.
Our first event, a mini-seminar in 90 minutes on June 5th, 2024 at 7PM:
This event is hosted at Denny's Restaurant at 3525 N. Division in Spokane
Everything you ever wanted to know about AI but were afraid to ask.
HOW DOES AI REALLY WORK?
The surprisingly simple
(but also ridiculously complicated)
MATH behind A.I.
and the long history of really smart people, big little advances in technology and the endless supply of wishful thinking that made it all happen!
. . . where AI = Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Vision and Speech Recognition, Generative Images and Music - plus an enormous supporting cast of many other almost but not-quite-there-yet advances in hardware, software and techniques.Get the Poster!
Most of the lecture actually concerns the history,
the concepts, the brilliant (and not-so-brilliant)
minds, the development of powerful tools and ideas,
and the border-line confidence schemes that have made AI
what it is today.
You'll learn some of the basic vocabulary, approaches and methods
used in AI. And of course, the glorious, glorious math!
...or at least the intermediate algebra equivalents of
the actual math and methods being used in businesses today.
You'll hear about models, modeling and the glory of functions,
both dedicated and universal. By the end of the seminar,
we'll see that even the most sophisticated AI solutions
are achievable with nothing more than basic hand tools,
a handful of stretched truths, a little duct tape and
(as always) copious amounts of money.
The lecture comes in five easy segments and contains about
25 minutes of mathematical fumbling somewhere in the middle,
where we'll touch on the "Hard Stuff" for a moment or two
before looking at how vision and speech recognition work.
Finally, we'll touch on the future of A.I.
in the twilight zone of propaganda, prurience and petty crime,
and long-term implications for our brave new (artificial) dystopian paradise.
WHEN:
WEDNESDAY JUNE 5th 7:00 PM
Yes, after the Memorial day weekend!
WHERE:
Denny's Restaurant at 3525 N. Division Street
in Spokane, Washington Free Parking
Close to Northtown Mall and located just a few blocks south of the intersection of Division and Wellesley. They have a spillover parking lot.
As this is a restaurant, it would be great if you could buy some food, drinks or a dessert from our hosts. It's not mandatory! Also, they make great shakes using ice cream and the burgers aren't bad at all, plus they have a variety of appetizers and soups. And iced tea!
WHY:
Because the way A.I. works isn't all that hard
to understand, even if can be somewhat tedious to master.
This is a test run (a workshop) for later presentations on the
same topic in Q4 2024. We are trying it out in a limited public
venue to get feedback on the concept and to hopefully refine the
presentation for mixed audiences.
The lecture will follow our general goals, which are:
provide a lecture that will be interesting to a wide audience
summarize the topic with a humorous and relatable twist
discuss applications and implications past, present and future
skim through the math used by today's AI methods
get useful feedback and criticism about the lecture
Sponsorship
We appreciate our supporters for providing advice,
advertising, support and suggestions.
If you'd like
to sponsor or assist us in our mission to bring
practical STEM knowledge to the public, and to
student learners and teachers, or to help us
enhance teaching effectiveness, please get in touch.
We always appreciate a helping hand!
We also want to thank our venues for providing us with
locations to give these seminars and lectures. It's very
nice to have a chance to dine with you while we learn
new things in a family friendly environment.
We want to help people who teach, train, assist or help others
master STEM skills. We're very interested in those students who
are bright yet were unmotivated to master STEM skills in school,
who accidently came to the conclusion that math is hard, or in
the adult learners who are interested in STEM and STEM-adjacent
topics for any reason.
We are preparing non-traditional resources and lesson plans
to help teach science, math and STEM topics, and to help those
who want to master the skills.
If you have feedback or suggestions for us, or
want to try and schedule a seminar or lecture for
your group, please reach out to us by email or
at a meeting. We should answer within a few days.
You'll want to contact us via curiosity at topics in STEM dot com,
which assumes you're clever enough to deduce the actual email
address (by rereading this paragraph) and then removing the spaces
and changing the word "dot" to a period. If you can figure that out
and send us email, we look forward to hearing from you - as well as
welcoming any and all comments, criticism or suggestions!
Putting "STEM CELLS" in the subject makes it easier to find our fans and critics, but isn't strictly required.
By addressing interesting and current topics
in simplified form, we hope to shake off the
perception that math and science are just too hard
or complicated to understand for people who are not specialists.
We believe this problem is caused mainly
by logistical and economic issues that
face all educators: That there just aren't
enough resources to go back and rescue the people who
accidentally tune out or dozed off at just the wrong
moment... and missed out!
We are not a K-12 STEM organization.
We're an everybody organization.
We want to help students, teachers,
business people and adult learners
understand the simple concepts and ideas
underneath today's complex STEM topics.
Our presentations are designed for enthusiastic
learners from roughly 7th Grade to the second or
third year of college... as well as adults who
want to know more, but fell off the beaten path
on the road to math and science mastery.
And while it sounds far-fetched, we
believe that by mixing equal parts
of history, humour and how-to
provides the necessary ingredients for those "a-ha!" and
even the "So that's how that works!"
moments - the ones that divide those who know
from those who don't.
For the muggles: The following is meant strictly as humour.
Some children and adults suffer from quantative diskinesia. People with this affliction should seek the advice of a doctor before attending lectures that feature Math and Science. Your doctor will tell you about new treatment options, none of which we endorse at this time.
Of course, we leave this at your discretion; if your child
(or recalcitrant adult) has regularly had too much to think but still looks forward to learning, recites
"the Elements" by Euclid (or even by Lehrer, for that matter),
inexplicibly has a poster of Gru, Einstein or Feynman on his or her wall,
independently reads non-fiction books or websites, or fixes random broken toys found outside,
we always welcome outsiders with pure unadulterated moxie, or even mild cases
of chutzpah!
Treatment and Prognosis
Although we have found that bringing a scientific calculator
and a large eraser sometimes provides relief from the mild onset
of quantative diskinesia**, more advanced cases require examination.
It can occur when someone discusses functions using both X and Y at the same time, or somehow mentions the fundamental theory of calculus.
Less commonly, it can sometimes spring up when the name Galois is brought up without first mentioning the topic of dueling.
According to educational film clips from the medical industry,
the following activities can decrease suffering after taking unspecified
medications made by pharmaceutical manufacturers:
riding a motorcycle with a partner within the limit of Z*
playing basketball with grand children wearing protective pads
attending crowded open air markets with a wicker basket in hand
slow dancing at festivals illuminated with tiny lights where
your partner has appeared in one or more commercials from rival drug manufacturers.
holding an adjustable wrench and pretending to work on a classic car
walking arm-in-arm with an ambiguous extra approaching the limit of Z*
cooking ethnic dishes with huge piles of unspecified green herbs
breathing deep and smiling in a field of flowers
finding your car keys, glasses and/or cellphone
Notes:
* Z is a function of appropriateness, the exact formula of which is too large to
write into the margins of this note. As these extras are supplied by
a modeling agency chosen by the producer who is making the commercial,
they form a sample population size of exactly 7.
The members of the set are chosen randomly according to an unknown scoring equation (known only to the casting director (and possibly his secretary and/or ex-wife) well in advance and often approximately equivalent to dividing by two and adding a constant (c) which is chosen by his peer group and possibly modified according to the shooting location.
From this group, participants are finally selected for actual onscreen roles according to the LLD (least levenshtein distance) between the actual (as opposed to stage) last name of the models and that of either the director and/or casting agent in charge of hiring.
** quantative diskinesia is an imaginary (but substantially invoked) symptom based entirely on the transformation of ordinary imaginary stomach flu
(often caused by pending big math tests for high school students) projected
into the realm of post secondary schools,
and is arbitrarily mapped into an order-r Krylov subspace using the moving average of FFT datapoints taken from industry standard poly-rhythms recorded by producer Malcom McLaren on cassette tape in Burundi circa 1977.
P.S. - If
you're interested, you can listen to them in simplified form even today: PolyRhythms in action! and if you want to see the differential calculus equivalent (warning: this is the real thing), check out the non-simplified forms transcribed from the Kouroussa originals: The real thing without the pop recording studio treatment!
While quantative diskinesia is not contagious, it is (so far) uncurable. Temporary relief can be found by taking long vacations
to sub-tropical locations where internet connections are rare.
Arrived via a poster?
Click Here for the current event!
