Atomic Drift
"The future belongs to those who can manipulate entropy.."
Surveyors Of Latent Space
In many ancient & medieval cultures, the idea of a standardised minimum essential education for an elite member of society was considered important. Whether it was the quadrivium in Europe, paideia in Greece, the four arts of China, vedanga in India, edubba in Mesopotamia…the idea persisted across history.
The Chinese scholar-gentleman required the mastery of a stringed musical instrument (guqin), the board game Go, calligraphy, and painting. The Six Arts learned by the 72 famous disciples of Confucius included archery, equestrianism, and most notably - mathematics .
The goal of these ancient scholars, of the Renaissance and those today has remained unchanged, it is invariant in time - to observe and predict. The archer in order to aim must survey the latent space of possibilities and foresee.
What kind of knowledge is the minimum essential in the year 2025?
Most people—even smart, educated people—are completely unprepared for what's coming. What we now call AI is mathematical physics (that is where the word “model” comes from) applied to information. Moreover, we are living in a highly uncertain world, and therefore we need to understand the science of uncertainty and stochasticity - randomness.
This isn't about learning how to code. It's about grasping why your coffee cup is actually a probability cloud. It's about seeing the mathematical scaffolding that holds up everything from market dynamics to cosmic evolution. From 2025 onwards, that's not theoretical knowledge—it's survival gear.
Contents
The Course
Here is a sample module: The Land Of Oz-illations This crash course takes the idea of a point particle ( an “atom”) and places it in different contexts with each successive module. Through these imaginary models we explore fundamental ideas like waves and rhythms in nature (the simple harmonic oscillator), randomness in the art of Jackson Pollock, building up to more complex phenomenon like earthquakes inside stars , the seizures of financial markets (time series analysis, Markov chains), and emergence. Along the way you will gain a footing in calculus and linear algebra, two of the most powerful tools for mathematical modelling of anything.
Founder
Rohit Gupta (49, He/Him), better known as @fadesingh on X/twitter is an independent historian of science and mathematics. After graduating in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (1999) his early work as a science writer included encounters with Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose & other luminaries. Here is a 20min talk and Q&A at Mindscape Festival, 2017 (YouTube). His work has been featured in global outlets such as WIRED, NPR, BBC and is the subject of a PhD thesis at SOAS, London.
Who Should Join?
Open to anyone in the world, above 21 years of age. You must be familiar with high-school algebra, and basic concepts of programming in Python. The course contains 15 modules in the form of interactive Google Colab notebooks ( also known as Jupyter ) with text and Python code. You can finish them in a fortnight or a few months, on your own time.
Registration
For further questions or registration, email fadebox@gmail.com . There are two plans: A) Self Study ( USD 299 ): Perennial access to all editions of course material, limited email support, and 1 hour of Zoom/GMeet. B) Guided ( USD 499 ): includes an additional 8 hours of Zoom/GMeet, and priority email support.