Marley Xiong

These are my favorite colors. My favorite time of day is balmy twilight.

My favorite physical phenomenon is dispersion. Rarely is the true nature of light apparent in our domain; that it is physical, that it is married to oscillations.

Most people don't know it yet, but noninvasive neurotechnology is possible within 10 years, and will be the most important thing that happens in our lifetimes.

1. The human brain is powerful and flexible.
   Individual differences are all noise in light of our astounding biological ability to learn. We can learn to play the oboe, a fantastically obscure map between glottal motions and sound output. We can learn to echolocate. Provided the right feedback, humans can learn to increase firing of a single, arbitrarily chosen neuron.
   whose infrastructure is rarely exploited by our interfaces.
2. We haven't nearly reached the boundary of neurotechnologies permitted by physics.
   With kHz-switching micromirrors, we can adaptively beamform light to focus it through the skull. If we can measure the arrival times of photons through the head, we can construct a map of neural activity. The electronics for sub-nanosecond measurements are available in iPhones and can be made for $7 a pop.
   These are engineering challenges: difficult, but physical nonetheless. And while engineering marches ever forward, AI is lowering the bar for what can be made into powerful neurotechnology.
3. Increasing communication between people is one of the most beautiful things you could do.

Why do snowflakes clump together? Can the correlation time of a light in the distance tell you about your location relative to it? fire · photons · neuro