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Nov 4, 2024 | 
albanystudentpress.online | Thomas Fink
By Thomas Fink | November 4, 2024University at Albany political science professors Connor Moran and Timothy Weaver differ on whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump is destined to be the U.S. president over the next four years. Nevertheless, both academics make their cases as to why they believe one candidate or the other will take the White House, what this election says about the current American political climate, and how history will remember this staggering landmark in American history.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
researchprofessionalnews.com | Thomas Fink
AI-driven discoveries will change how researchers in academia and industry work together, says Thomas FinkBefore the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm’s Blue Hall on 10 December, someone faces the unenviable task of coming up with a seating plan for the 1,300 guests. Yet it so happens that a couple of the attendees will be, in a sense, the greatest living experts at creating optimal seating plans.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Mark Galeotti |Europe Why Zelensky |Limor Simhony Philpott |Thomas Fink
After confidentially briefing it around various Western capitals, President Zelensky has unveiled — to a degree — his much-trailed “victory plan” to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. His statement on the plan came ahead of today’s meeting with the European Council. Along with three additional secret codicils shared only with certain partners, the plan has five main points. In and of themselves, none of them are implausible, and all would certainly strengthen Ukraine’s security.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Juan P. Villasmil |Leyla Sanai |Thomas Fink |Ben Domenech
For years, in the absence of a Spanish-speaking, right-leaning news channel, discussions about the need for Fox en Español have been prevalent. With the Hispanic electorate becoming the second-largest voting bloc in the country — one that is more swayable than the black voting bloc — politicos have been pitching the idea for a while. Investors, however, weren’t always convinced. Now though, things have changed.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Leyla Sanai |Juan P. Villasmil |Thomas Fink |Ian Birrell
I finished reading the third volume of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s latest series — no longer a trilogy, perhaps a sextet — in three days. The Third Realm is as unsettling, disturbing and riveting as the previous installments, and I was even disappointed that it came in at a mere 500 pages — considerably shorter than the others. But all three books are less dense than those in his celebrated My Struggle series.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Thomas Fink |Jonathan Campbell-James |Gavin Mortimer |Matthew Parris
Something extraordinary has happened. It wasn’t just the docking of a SpaceX capsule at the International Space Station, some 250 miles above the Earth, on a mission to rescue stranded astronauts. It was the sight of Americans and Russians embracing. As the new arrivals — Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov — appeared through the hatch, it was hugs all round. There are now four Russians and seven Americans manning the ISS.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Thomas Fink
Something extraordinary has happened. It wasn’t just the docking of a SpaceX capsule at the International Space Station, some 250 miles above the Earth, on a mission to rescue stranded astronauts. It was the sight of Americans and Russians embracing. As the new arrivals — Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov — appeared through the hatch, it was hugs all round.
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Oct 11, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Thomas Fink
Something extraordinary has happened. It wasn’t just the docking of a SpaceX capsule at the International Space Station, some 250 miles above the Earth, on a mission to rescue stranded astronauts. It was the sight of Americans and Russians embracing. As the new arrivals – Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov – appeared through the hatch, it was hugs all round. There are now four Russians and seven Americans manning the ISS.
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Jun 10, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Thomas Fink
In Russia, it is no longer safe for scientists to work with foreign colleagues. This is the implication of reports that since 2015 a dozen Russian physicists have been arrested on charges of “high treason”. All were working in areas related to hypersonic technology, which underpins missiles that can travel five times the speed of sound. Yet the prisoners weren’t directly involved in weapons work. Their transgression was doing research with foreigners or publishing in foreign journals.
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May 14, 2024 | 
nature.com | Thomas Fink
Giving birth to a conjecture — a proposition that is suspected to be true, but needs definitive proof — can feel to a mathematician like a moment of divine inspiration. Mathematical conjectures are not merely educated guesses. Formulating them requires a combination of genius, intuition and experience. Even a mathematician can struggle to explain their own discovery process. Yet, counter-intuitively, I think that this is the realm in which machine intelligence will initially be most transformative.
