cflamant

The folklore says seven riffle shuffles are enough to randomize a deck of cards. I trained a small transformer to guess the next card after k shuffles, gave it the deck's starting order, and let it watch every card as it was dealt. One shuffle is wildly predictable; the edge shrinks fast, but a faint, statistically real signal survives all the way out to eleven shuffles.

Many articles on physics nowadays mention symmetry—supersymmetry, symmetry breaking, symmetry groups, gauge symmetries, CPT symmetry. The term is truly everywhere. In fact, Nobel Laureate Phil Anderson once remarked, "it is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry." For the uninitiated, it is not so obvious what symmetry has to do with physics—however, there are many accessible examples of symmetry at work, perfect for getting a feel for its beautiful ties to the physical world.