If you happen to come across the phrase “counterfeit consciousness” in a research paper, it just might be a fake – according to an amusing news article in Nature. In it, Holly Else explains why Guillaume Cabanac at France’s University of Toulouse and colleagues believe that fake papers are being created by running plagiarised text through translation software. This results in what the researchers describe as tortured phrases including “counterfeit consciousness” – which was apparently substituted for “artificial intelligence”.
Moving on to a legitimate form of creative writing, Femi Fadugba did a MSc in physics at the University of Oxford and went on to study at the University of Pennsylvania. But today, he is a rising star in the world of young adult fiction. His book The Upper World is published by Penguin and will soon be made into a film by the Oscar-winning actor Daniel Kaluuya. It is a work of science fiction and borrows heavily from the physics of space and time – indeed, it has an appendix of equations that are relevant to the plot.
The book is set in the London neighbourhood of Peckham, where Fadugba spent much of his youth. “There’s no reason why Peckham couldn’t be the theoretical physics capital of the world,” he tells Kadish Morris in this profile in The Guardian.
Moving from South London to the western edge of the city, and there is some good news for another Oxford physics graduate. Matthew Benham is owner of Brentford Football Club, which today will play its first match in the English Premier League. I’m not an expert on the history of the club, but I think this is the first time the team has played in England’s top flight since 1947.
So, congratulations to Benham, who must feel like he has won a Nobel Prize.