Draft post:
Teacherless Learning in Education 5.0
This post is largely driven by the opening words in the preface to Prof John Ziman’s book “ Principles of the theory of Solids”. The frontiers of knowledge (to coin a phrase) are always on the move. Today’s discovery will tomorrow be part of the mental furniture of every research worker. By the end of next week it will begin every course of graduate lectures. Within the month, there will be a clamour to have it in the undergraduate curriculum. Next year, I do believe, it will seem so commonplace that it may be assumed to be known to every schoolboy.
It has also been inspired by an anecdote attribute to Albert Einstein. The story is told of how Albert Einstein one day gave his students a final exam that was a year old. In fact, Einstein had given his students the exact same final exam the year before. His assistant noticed the “error” and timidly made the famous physicist aware of his mistake. Einstein looked closer at the newly distributed sheet and answered: “You’re right, these are the same questions as last year – but the answers have changed.”
And more recently the futurist Thomas Frey made an important observation ( https://youtu.be/McV9AMV2LiI ) that if we continue to insert a teacher in between ourselves and everything that we need to learn, we cannot possibly learn fast enough to meet the demands of the future.
I have been for sometime now evangelising and advocating the use of Internet and allied technologies, including the often maligned social media as a means of self-directed learning. I am sharing here a list of 10 topics at the frontiers of new knowledge on which one can get useful information, which as Thomas Frey says you are unlikely to get from a CBSE recognised School, a UGC approved University or an AICTE/ NAAC degree awarding Institution, whether public or private. And if you are not ready with new relevant knowledge, you have your place reserved in what Yuval Noah Harari describes as the “ useless class”: https://youtu.be/OMDlfNWM1fA
- Time crystals : Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal
- Matter-anti-matter asymmetry : charge-parity asymmetry: https://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beamline/26/1/26-1-sather.pdf
- Tetraneutrons : https://phys.org/news/2022-06-theoretical-now-confirmed-tetraneutron-exotic-state.html?fbclid=IwAR2wtV1SObXnHOWa3THF__-GHNO29DV4EfBR-Ba1unihkp8YMD0AqAep-Bs&fs=e&s=cl
- Quantum Breakthroughs : https://www.innovationaus.com/homegrown-quantum-breakthrough-answers-63-year-science-challenge/
- Genomics Breakthroughs : https://informeddna.com/three-genetic-discovery-trends/
- What is Philosophy of Biology : https://www.closertotruth.com/series/what-philosophy-biology
- Theories of Consciousness: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-022-00587-4?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_campaign=CONR_JRNLS_AWA1_GL_SCON_SMEDA_NATUREPORTFOLIO&fbclid=IwAR2FkdfpWTWUaRQncG0c8PHwHhz_PpuHj-f6DyKbEUcaN5Ha_RHaLYsSevA&fs=e&s=cl
- The future of farming ( growing food indoors): https://www.freethink.com/environment/future-of-farming?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3mFHgg8oG7G-486CiTdZvZe5UWgct0W4Wv7ahsMKLN2quKha-B6vlwYr4&fs=e&s=cl#Echobox=1655995784
- From simple linear expressions to transformer models : https://medium.com/etermax-technology/from-a-x-b-to-the-most-powerful-transformer-in-10-minutes-reading-14a594589ba0?fs=e&s=cl
- The science of how Earth will meet its ultimate end: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/science-earth-end/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3lrtcuepMwCkQb-rduEElR-kmq_EPe5MSa01rt8VBKA3RLvrifoxnLaBw#Echobox=1656044514
