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Research Engineering Alchemy

Turn important questions into rigorous research, experiments, systems and evidence.

courseunder wayscience · engineering

An engraving of laboratory apparatus on a long table: a large vessel, tubes, flasks and a gauge connected by pipes.
Plate from Traité élémentaire de chimie, Antoine Lavoisier; plates drawn and engraved by Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier, 1789. Internet Archive book scan, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
For
Researchers, research engineers and problem solvers who run experiments
You will be able to
  • Predict an experiment's outcome before running it, with a stated confidence
  • Explain which theory bears on a result — scaling laws, dynamical systems, complexity science
  • Design experiments and small proxies that reveal how large runs behave
  • Run language-model and research experiments reproducibly within a compute budget
  • Read surprising results for phase transitions, emergence and measurement artefacts
  • Calibrate — keep score of predictions and update beliefs from evidence

The testing half of a pair with The Art of Problem Solving in the Age of Superintelligence: predict how an experiment will turn out, then run it and keep score.

Questions about this course, or a case that argues with it? Write to mepc3197@columbia.edu · the title goes in the subject line

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