181 | Peter Dodds on Quantifying the Shape of Stories

181 | Peter Dodds on Quantifying the Shape of Stories

A good story takes you on an emotional journey, with ups and downs along the way. Thanks to science, we can quantify that. Peter Dodds works on understanding the structure of stories and other strings of words (including Twitter) by analyzing the valence of individual words, then studying how they are strung together in different kinds of stories. Understanding these structures offers powerful insight into how people communicate and how to reach them. As Peter says, "Never bring statistics to a story fight."

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Peter Dodds received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently a professor of computer science at the University of Vermont and Director of the Vermont Complex Systems Center. He has won multiple teaching awards, and was elected a Fellow of the Network Science Society.


Jaksot(416)

62 | Michele Gelfand on Tight and Loose Societies and People

62 | Michele Gelfand on Tight and Loose Societies and People

Physicists study systems that are sufficiently simple that it's possible to find deep unifying principles applicable to all situations. In psychology or sociology that's a lot harder. But as I say at ...

2 Syys 20191h 12min

61 | Quassim Cassam on Intellectual Vices and What to Do About Them

61 | Quassim Cassam on Intellectual Vices and What to Do About Them

All of us have been wrong about things from time to time. But sometimes it was a simple, forgivable mistake, while other times we really should have been correct. Properties that systematically preven...

26 Elo 20191h 10min

60 | Lynne Kelly on Memory Palaces, Ancient and Modern

60 | Lynne Kelly on Memory Palaces, Ancient and Modern

Memory takes different forms. Memories can be encoded in the strength of neural connections in our brains, but there's a sense in which photographs and written records are memories as well. What did p...

19 Elo 20191h 15min

59 | Adam Becker on the Curious History of Quantum Mechanics

59 | Adam Becker on the Curious History of Quantum Mechanics

There are many mysteries surrounding quantum mechanics. To me, the biggest mysteries are why physicists haven't yet agreed on a complete understanding of the theory, and even more why they mostly seem...

12 Elo 20191h 40min

58 | Seth MacFarlane on Using Science Fiction to Explore Humanity

58 | Seth MacFarlane on Using Science Fiction to Explore Humanity

Fiction shines a light on the human condition by putting people into imaginary situations and envisioning what might happen. Science fiction expands this technique by considering situations in the fut...

5 Elo 20191h 12min

57 | Astra Taylor on the Promise and Challenge of Democracy

57 | Astra Taylor on the Promise and Challenge of Democracy

"Democracy may not exist, but we'll miss it when it's gone" — or so suggests the title of Astra Taylor's new book. We all know how democracy falls short, in practice, of its lofty ideals; but we can a...

29 Heinä 20191h 23min

56 | Kate Adamala on Creating Synthetic Life

56 | Kate Adamala on Creating Synthetic Life

Scientists can't quite agree on how to define "life," but that hasn't stopped them from studying it, looking for it elsewhere, or even trying to create it. Kate Adamala is one of a number of scientist...

22 Heinä 20191h 12min

55 | A Conversation with Rob Reid on Quantum Mechanics and Many Worlds

55 | A Conversation with Rob Reid on Quantum Mechanics and Many Worlds

As you may have heard, I have a new book coming out in September, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime. To celebrate, we're going to have more than the usual number o...

15 Heinä 20191h 26min

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