Piero Giovanni Luca Porta-Mana
Field of work
If you're a student and have questions or curiosities about physics, maths, or probability theory; or if you're interested in pursuing some project related to them – then let's have a chat! Drop me a line.
Please see https://portamana.org for research areas, CV, publications, teaching material.
"Finally, I said that I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything."
"I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding; they learn by some other way – by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!"
– Richard P. Feynman, 1985, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"
"Do we, in our schools and colleges, foster the spirit of inquiry, of skepticism, of adventurous thinking, of acquiring experience and reflecting on it? Or do we place a premium on docility, giving major recognition to the ability of the student to return verbatim in examinations that which he has been fed? [...] Do we really believe that science is the synthesis of human experience, gathered by all sincere individuals who practice Galileo's methods, or do we look on it as a compromise of human opinions based on the dialectic skill or social and political status of those who hold the opinions?"
– Ralph E. Gibson, 1964, "Our heritage from Galileo Galilei"
"In the popular treatise, whatever shreds of the science are allowed to appear, are exhibited in an exceedingly diffuse and attenuated form, apparently with the hope that the mental faculties of the reader, though they would reject any stronger food, may insensibly become saturated with scientific phraseology, provided it is diluted with a sufficient quantity of more familiar language. In this way, by simple reading, the student may become possessed of the phrases of the science without having been put to the trouble of thinking a single thought about it. The loss implied in such an acquisition can be estimated only by those who have been compelled to unlearn a science that they might at length begin to learn it."
– James Clerk Maxwell, 1878, "Tait's “Thermodynamics”''
Courses taught
- Undergraduate physics: trying a new approach to give students a broader understanding of modern physics, and at the same time prepare them for an easier transition into specialized fields like continuum thermomechanics and fluid dynamics, relativity theory, nuclear physics, numerical-simulation methods.
Draft of lecture notes: The Seven Wonders of the World
- MSc course: ADA511: Data Science and AI prototyping
Draft of lecture notes: Data Science and AI prototyping
Research areas
Research interests and activities in:
- general relativity
- continuum mechanics & thermodynamics
- quantum theory
- Bayesian probability theory, decision theory, machine learning
- statistical mechanics
- differential geometry (especially visual approaches to it)
Please see https://portamana.org for research areas, CV, publications, teaching material.
Publications
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What's special about 89% credibility intervals?
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Pinference: Probability Inference for Propositional Logic
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The Seven Wonders of the World: Notes on 21st-century physics
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Foundations of data science and data-driven engineering
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TEACHING HIGHLIGHT: Foundations of data science and data-driven engineering
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Don't guess what's true: choose what's optimal. A probability transducer for machine-learning classifiers
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Does the evaluation stand up to evaluation? A first-principle approach to the evaluation of classifiers
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Personalized prognosis & treatment using optimal predictor machines: An example study on conversion from Mild Cognitive Impairment to Alzheimer's Disease
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Dimensional analysis in relativity and in differential geometry (updated)
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Brain Tumor Segmentation from Multiparametric MRI Using a Multi-encoder U-Net Architecture
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Dimensional analysis in relativity and in differential geometry
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The rule of conditional probability is valid in quantum theory
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Affine and convex spaces: blending the analytic and geometric viewpoints
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A relation between log-likelihood and cross-validation log-scores
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Sampling on the simplex
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Inferring health conditions from fMRI-graph data
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Quantum theory within the probability calculus: a there-you-go theorem and partially exchangeable models
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Unlearning and Seyab's theorem: a dialogue about updating probability
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Maximum-entropy and representative samples of neuronal activity: a dilemma
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On the Extraction and Analysis of Graphs From Resting-State fMRI to Support a Correct and Robust Diagnostic Tool for Alzheimer's Disease
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26th Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2017): Part 2
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Perfect detection of spikes in the linear sub-threshold dynamics of point neurons
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Pairwise maximum-entropy models and their Glauber dynamics: bimodality, bistability, non-ergodicity problems, and their elimination via inhibition
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Geometry of maximum-entropy proofs: stationary points, convexity, Legendre transforms, exponential families
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Maximum-entropy from the probability calculus: exchangeability, sufficiency
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Scale-aware deterministic and stochastic parametrizations of eddy-mean flow interaction
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Inferences from a network to a subnetwork and vice versa under an assumption of symmetry
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Toward a stochastic parametrization of ocean mesoscale eddies
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On two recent conjectures in convex geometry
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Conjectures and questions in convex geometry: of interest for quantum theory and other physical statistical theories
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In favour of the time variable in classical thermoDYNAMICS
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On the relation between plausibility logic and the maximum-entropy principle: a numerical study
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Effects of the g-factor in semi-classical kinetic plasma theory
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Studies in plausibility theory, with applications to physics
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The Laplace-Jaynes approach to induction
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Numerical Bayesian state assignment for a quantum three-level system. II. Average-value data with a constant, a Gaussian-like, and a Slater prior
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Numerical Bayesian state assignment for a three-level quantum system. I. Absolute-frequency data, constant and Gaussian-like priors
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'Plausibilities of plausibilities': an approach through circumstances
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On distinguishability, orthogonality, and violations of the second law: contradictory assumptions, contrasting pieces of knowledge
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Distinguishability of non-orthogonal density matrices does not imply violations of the second law
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Schrödinger-cat states: size classification based on evolution or dissipation
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Probabilistic properties of non-deterministic physical systems (probability tables)
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A size criterion for macroscopic superposition states
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Why can states and measurement outcomes be represented as vectors?
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Consistency of the Shannon entropy in quantum experiments
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Hamiltonians for a general dilaton gravity theory on a spacetime with a non-orthogonal, timelike or spacelike outer boundary