Not uninspired by the Sisyphus55 video of the same title, and heading to streaming before year end as part of Gold. We talk more about the context in the end.
Today, 14 October, finds me back in Wolfsburg to my backyard Popsci Oasis, the Phaeno Interactive Science Museum, across the railroads from Volkswagen HQ. For the Lower Saxony school holidays they are running #BubbleMania, or as I would prefer to call it, UnbegrenzteSeifenwasserverfügbarkeitssituation (Unlimited Soap Water Situation). And I am glad to have been here on the opening day.
On watching an ethical debate morph into an economic one, and the remaining roles of the human mind in guiding progress. A layman’s response to both the arXiv submission cap and OpenAI’s huge pile of mathematical proofs released on 6 October.
In Series … THE APERIODICALS Local (personal, potentially shallow, and subject to change) outlooks on science, technology, growth, and occasionally culture and history. The goal is to write something every week, but whether it can make its way to FWPhys is random. Hence the series title.
As this is written in one short burst, there is less copy-editing than usual. This is not a technical Aperiodical piece. It concerns my own meta-physics as research, career, and life unfolds. No equations.
In Series … THE APERIODICALS Local (personal, potentially shallow, and subject to change) outlooks on science, technology, growth, and occasionally culture and history. The goal is to write something every week, but whether it can make its way to FWPhys is random. Hence the series title.
A translation based on a 2026 Jiangsu Gaokao essay by an anonymous examinee, reproduced here as a non-commercial translation exercise.
Copyright in the original remains with its respective rights holder(s). I format this note as a translation attempt, and some cultural footnotes. Note that this essay (and my commentary surrounding it) deals with death and personal losses.
Giant, otherworldly balls scattered along north Otago’s Moeraki Beach, the Boulders look as though they were handcrafted and placed by design. These massive concretions are a geological marvel. Formed originally within ancient sea-floor mud through the slow, steady crystallisation of calcite over millions of years.
(An express section of the NZ 2026 Photo Journal)
A note on these: the images are mine and sit outside this site’s CC-BY-NC terms.
What’s here is capped at 3 MP, which is plenty for a screen and no use at all on a wall. If you’d like a print, or a licence to hang one, say hello.
![[Photo Journal Express] Phaeno BubbleMania](https://fwphys.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/lux_7633-e1792015323436.jpg?w=1024)
![[Photo Journal Spotlight] A Magical Encounter with Rainbows at Moeraki Boulders](https://fwphys.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/wn26_-9.jpeg?w=1024)
![[LUX] 2026 Vienna Photo Marathon](https://fwphys.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/lux_6580-edited.jpg?w=1024)
