https://www.scmp.com/rss/76080/feed Tom Yam is a Hong Kong-based management consultant with a doctorate in electrical engineering and an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He has worked at AT&T, Ernst & Young and IBM. He is also a member of the Citizens Task Force on Land Resources, a group of professionals dedicated to broadening and facilitating the debate on critical issues including sustainable development, the optimal uses of land, and the conservation of resources. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Given Hong Kong’s fiscal deficits and dwindling reserves, clearly the government cannot simultaneously implement two colossal infrastructure projects, the Kau Yi Chau Artificial Islands and the Northern Metropolis. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po recently said that the former, a controversial reclamation project off Lantau Island, would be delayed by two to three years, though he vowed it wouldn’t be abandoned. While the government has rightly postponed the Kau Yi Chau project, it should use... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3254273/artificial-islands-project-white-elephant-thats-cheaper-abort-now?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3254273/artificial-islands-project-white-elephant-thats-cheaper-abort-now?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 07 Mar 2024 01:30:21 +0000 Fooling some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time seems to be the government’s approach in pushing for the Lantau Tomorrow Vision project. Former chief executive Leung Chun-ying proposed the project then known as East Lantau Metropolis in his 2014 policy address. That plan for 1,000 hectares of reclaimed land has evolved into a 1,700-hectare project, renamed Lantau Tomorrow Vision and presented by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in her 2018 policy... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3111159/hong-kong-must-not-be-misled-about-unneeded-lantau-tomorrow-vision?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3111159/hong-kong-must-not-be-misled-about-unneeded-lantau-tomorrow-vision?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 25 Nov 2020 04:50:48 +0000 In a valiant attempt to assert the viability of the “Lantau Tomorrow Vision” project, Development Secretary Michael Wong Wai-lun finally divulged some numbers on March 19. The problem is that they don’t add up, or are based on dubious assumptions. And that’s extremely worrying for a project that’s the most expensive, complicated and risky in Hong Kong’s history. The initial phase of Lantau Tomorrow consists of creating 1,000 hectares of land around the island of Kau Yi Chau in the central... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3003284/why-most-expensive-reclamation-project-hong-kongs-history?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3003284/why-most-expensive-reclamation-project-hong-kongs-history?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 27 Mar 2019 01:00:12 +0000 Reclamation is unavoidable, says Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor. What’s more, it must be “large scale” to create land for urgently needed housing and for long-term economic development. You can be sure a large chunk of Lam’s policy address will lay out reclamation as the solution to most, if not all, of Hong Kong's problems. But is it? Even green groups would agree that near-shore, cost-effective reclamation should be considered. But the extremely high cost, complexity, risks and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/hong-kong/article/2160509/why-lantau-reclamation-would-breed-white-elephant?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/hong-kong/article/2160509/why-lantau-reclamation-would-breed-white-elephant?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Aug 2018 21:00:45 +0000 How does a government with no popular mandate create the appearance of popular support for controversial proposals? First, set up a committee/task force/panel and appoint as most of its members qualified people from “different sectors” who can be trusted to follow the script. Call this group “representative” and give it terms of reference and other trappings of credibility. Then, present the controversial proposal to the committee to “study” and give its “recommendation”. Shortly thereafter, the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2121045/why-east-lantau-metropolis-yet-another-conjuring-trick-hong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2121045/why-east-lantau-metropolis-yet-another-conjuring-trick-hong?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 Nov 2017 06:42:39 +0000 The Hong Kong government has been putting on performances called “public consultations” for years. These costly road shows are increasingly seen by the people as pro forma exercises, as many believe neither the methodology nor the results makes any difference to government decision-making. Hong Kong people, whose taxes pay for public consultations, deserve more transparency, especially where projects will incur major capital investment. The choreography of consultations generally works like... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2104920/opposition-creating-metropolis-hong-kongs-lantau-must-be?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2104920/opposition-creating-metropolis-hong-kongs-lantau-must-be?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 01 Aug 2017 07:45:30 +0000 No sane investor commits to a project to be completed in 30 years with no data supporting the need for it, no estimate of the capital required, and no cost-benefit and risk analysis. Unless it is the Hong Kong government, using taxpayer money, to build what it calls the “East Lantau Metropolis”. This metropolis takes pride of place in the Development Bureau and Planning Department’s study, “Hong Kong 2030+: Towards a Planning Vision and Strategy Transcending 2030”, due to be presented to the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2041657/hong-kong-doesnt-need-vast-new-town-rising-seas-lantau?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2041657/hong-kong-doesnt-need-vast-new-town-rising-seas-lantau?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 01 Nov 2016 09:24:20 +0000 If an organisation misses targets, mangles statistics, mismanages capital assets, underestimates costs, undertakes trifling projects and underperforms in a critical task year after year, will it survive? The answer is a resounding “yes” if it is the Environmental Protection Department. The department’s data, used to manage ongoing programmes, is rubbish (pun intended) The Audit Commission recently issued a report on the government’s management of the garbage, officially known as municipal solid... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1885428/hong-kongs-waste-problem-stinking-trail-missed-targets-data?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1885428/hong-kongs-waste-problem-stinking-trail-missed-targets-data?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 01 Dec 2015 09:30:45 +0000 The Court of Final Appeal on November 26  will hear arguments on whether the director of the Environmental Protection Department can approve an environmental impact assessment report on an incinerator project that the department itself conducted. And having approved its own report, whether it can then issue to itself the permit for incinerator construction. Should a government department regulate itself – proposing, evaluating and approving a project? A simple analogy: should you be allowed to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1880503/proposal-build-incinerator-hong-kong-shows-flaws-government-self?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1880503/proposal-build-incinerator-hong-kong-shows-flaws-government-self?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 19 Nov 2015 09:02:04 +0000 Do you think of Lantau Island as a vital part of Hong Kong's countryside, to be preserved for everyone to enjoy, or as Hong Kong's transport and tourism gateway to be developed to its maximum economic potential? Most of us who escape from the concrete jungle to Lantau's tranquil country parks and unspoilt beaches would vote to keep them that way. But the government wants to make Lantau an economic platform for the Pearl River Delta as it strives for ever closer integration with the mainland. And... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1863586/one-million-people-living-lantau-metropolis-does-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1863586/one-million-people-living-lantau-metropolis-does-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Oct 2015 10:08:22 +0000 When I read the tragic news of John Nash's death at age 86 in a car crash last week, my first thought was not of his Nobel Prize in economics, nor of his redemptive life story dramatised in the film A Beautiful Mind. The memory that came to mind was of a summer night in 2002 and an event in the faculty club at Princeton University. The room was abuzz with anticipation: Nash was guest of honour and scheduled to make some remarks - rare for the eccentric mathematician. A hush fell. My host... https://www.scmp.com/tech/science-research/article/1813301/john-nashs-beautiful-mind-opened-whole-new-vista-mathematics?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/science-research/article/1813301/john-nashs-beautiful-mind-opened-whole-new-vista-mathematics?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 May 2015 22:55:55 +0000 Here's a tip for delegates coming to Hong Kong for an international conference on solid waste: skip our environment secretary's keynote address. Go to Disneyland instead. You'll be immersed in Fantasyland either way, but you'll have more fun with Mickey Mouse than Wong Kam-sing. Wong is expected to recite his "Hong Kong Blueprint for Sustainable Use of Resources 2013-2022". The part on waste management is as fantastical as Space Mountain, but minus the thrills. To reduce Hong Kong's Waste... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1802357/hong-kongs-plan-reduce-its-waste-enters-realm-fantasy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1802357/hong-kongs-plan-reduce-its-waste-enters-realm-fantasy?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 May 2015 09:47:07 +0000 Should a government department regulate itself? To take a specific example, should the Environmental Protection Department propose an infrastructure project that has an impact on the environment, evaluate the environmental effects of that project, then approve the project as environmentally sound? This is essentially the question before the Court of Final Appeal in a case concerning the department's proposal to build the world's most expensive incinerator off the island of Shek Kwu Chau. ... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1694760/shek-kwu-chau-incinerator-proposal-reflects-worry-over?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1694760/shek-kwu-chau-incinerator-proposal-reflects-worry-over?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 29 Jan 2015 04:29:28 +0000 Tomorrow, the Legislative Council's Finance Committee faces a crucial vote on whether to fund the Environment Bureau's mega incinerator to be built on Shek Kwu Chau island. The bureau wants HK$18.24 billion in initial capital and HK$402 million per year in recurring costs over 15 years for an incinerator capable of burning 3,000 tonnes of waste per day. Have legislators scrutinised the numbers? It's up to them to do so because, despite demanding such a staggering amount of taxpayers' money, the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1544932/taxpayers-should-not-pay-more-their-fair-share-overpriced-incinerator?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1544932/taxpayers-should-not-pay-more-their-fair-share-overpriced-incinerator?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Jul 2014 07:15:45 +0000 Will we ever again see a Newton, a Darwin or an Einstein - scientists who decoded the laws of nature using nothing more than brainpower and a few simple tools? Or can the human mind no longer make fundamental breakthroughs in science without the aid of supercomputers, space missions and enormous expenditure? Through much of human history, from the Babylonians 4,000 years ago to Einstein in the early 20th century, scientific discoveries have been made with patient observation, manual calculation,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1424178/brain-power-still-genesis-scientific-breakthroughs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1424178/brain-power-still-genesis-scientific-breakthroughs?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Feb 2014 18:56:50 +0000 Writing a science and technology column, you tend to get caught up in the newest or Next Big Thing - Big Data, big discoveries, high-speed trains, high-speed trading. And living in Hong Kong in the Pearl River Delta region of mass production and massive infrastructure, you're immersed in the mentality that bigger is better and hi-tech is best. But a recent trip to the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam is a necessary reminder that local, low-tech and small-scale work just as well. In fact they... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1413311/praise-low-tech?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1413311/praise-low-tech?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Jan 2014 20:53:06 +0000 The irony could not have been more jarring. As the world waited with bated breath while American politicians decided whether to tip the United States into debt default, three American economists were jointly awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics. Eugene Fama and Lars Peter Hansen of the University of Chicago and Robert Shiller of Yale University "laid the foundation for the current understanding of asset prices", the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. Their achievements were in... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1335332/lessons-us-politicians-nobel-winners-efficient-markets-theories?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1335332/lessons-us-politicians-nobel-winners-efficient-markets-theories?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Oct 2013 21:26:08 +0000 My wife was a "nervous Nellie" as we rode the Harmony CRH2-series high-speed train from Shanghai to Beijing last month. China's former minister of railways had just been convicted of big-time corruption in the construction of the rail network. As the train sped up to 310 kilometres an hour, she recalled the news images of China's first high-speed train disaster two years ago in Wenzhou, with its more than 230 casualties. But the Harmony CRH2 is a modified version of Japan's vaunted Shinkansen... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1299188/chinas-high-speed-rail-programme-case-too-far-too-fast?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1299188/chinas-high-speed-rail-programme-case-too-far-too-fast?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Aug 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Edward Snowden's exposé of cavalier cyberspying by the US and Britain is neither explosive nor even surprising. Intelligence-gathering on friend and foe using the most advanced technology of the day to protect national interest or achieve strategic advantage is as old as the Trojan wars. What his whistle-blowing does highlight is how technology in our digital age has changed the scale of the spying, with "big data" becoming "big brother". But we knew that already, didn't we? There is a precedent... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1271911/little-new-latest-cyberspy-drama?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1271911/little-new-latest-cyberspy-drama?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any art or science, is a young man's game," the British mathematician G.H. Hardy wrote in A Mathematician's Apology. But the older guys are now catching up. Since Hardy wrote those lines in 1940, it has been conventional wisdom that mathematical breakthroughs are most often made in a moment of brilliance by a born genius at a young age, rather than an experienced practitioner after decades of work. Last month,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1256542/zhang-yitang-proof-mathematicians-life-begins-40?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1256542/zhang-yitang-proof-mathematicians-life-begins-40?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 I arrived in Pittsburgh late at night after 24 hours of travel from Hong Kong recently to visit my daughter. We needed a stiff drink, I told my daughter who picked me up from the airport. She told her iPhone: "Find liquor stores near Pittsburgh Airport." Within seconds, a map appeared on the screen with a list of liquor stores nearest the airport. Of course I had talked to machines before - calling directory enquiries and phone banking - but the ability of her smartphone to meet my need for... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1213971/how-machines-speech-recognition-capability-has-been-evolving?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1213971/how-machines-speech-recognition-capability-has-been-evolving?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The Human Face of Big Data by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt Against All Odds Productions   Putting a "human face" on big data is no small feat. The accumulation and analysis of zettabytes of data does not lend itself to narrating on a human scale to non-techies (and for non-techies, a zettabyte is 1 followed by 21 zeros). But with compelling storytelling, insightful essays, stunning photography and cool infographics, this large-format book does an admirable, even entertaining, job of showing... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1156178/book-review-human-face-big-data-rick-smolan-and-jennifer-erwitt?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1156178/book-review-human-face-big-data-rick-smolan-and-jennifer-erwitt?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Most of us would agree that reducing waste at source, recycling and reuse is the best long-term approach to Hong Kong's waste disposal. But let's face it, given the 18,000 tonnes we generate daily, there's no way that the "three Rs" can prevent our garbage from filling up all three landfills by 2019. The landfills will have to be extended. And thermal decomposition technology will need to be employed as well. The critical questions are: what is the technology, and where should this technology be... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1139461/incinerator-isnt-our-only-choice?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1139461/incinerator-isnt-our-only-choice?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Will Henry Tang Ying-yen go to jail? The former chief secretary recently resurfaced to talk about the issue that torpedoed his bid to become Hong Kong's chief executive and could land him or his wife in prison: the illegally constructed 2,250 sq ft basement discovered at their home in February last year. The construction of the basement is now under investigation by the Buildings Department. Since then, of course, the uproar over illegal structures has grown deafening with the discovery of six... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1126524/technology-can-unearth-mysteries-henry-tangs-underground-palace?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1126524/technology-can-unearth-mysteries-henry-tangs-underground-palace?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Is the United States about to leap off its "fiscal cliff" and drag the rest of us into the economic abyss? Game theory tells us that this is not likely. President Barack Obama and the Republican-dominated US Congress created this precipice by passing a law last year to force both sides to agree on a fiscal plan by the end of 2012. Failure to agree will trigger automatic tax increases and spending cuts in 2013 that are likely to cause a 3 per cent fall in gross domestic product and a loss of 3.4... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1106288/what-chicken-game-teaches-us-about-fiscal-cliff?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1106288/what-chicken-game-teaches-us-about-fiscal-cliff?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 When you attend a lecture by an eminent scientist, a fellow of the American Society of Arts and Sciences, a recipient of the MacArthur Prize (aka the "genius grant"), among numerous other awards, you have high expectations of scientific rigour and intellectual integrity. The lecture, titled "A New Study of Global Warming: Back to 1753", was delivered at the University of Hong Kong on Monday by Professor Richard Muller, of the University of California, Berkeley. Muller, a renowned climate-change... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1071292/global-warming-converts-natural-gas-sales-push?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1071292/global-warming-converts-natural-gas-sales-push?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 How do you find Mr or Ms Right, scientifically? This year's winners of the Nobel memorial prize in economics have much to say about this question, the outcome of which is the basis of many people's happiness or misery. The dismal science is often accused of favouring abstract mathematical theories with little real-life relevance. But the work of Alvin Roth of Harvard University and Lloyd Shapley of the University of California in Los Angeles, though highly mathematical, are very practical. Roth... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1065920/nobel-winning-economists-theory-applied-finding-mate?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1065920/nobel-winning-economists-theory-applied-finding-mate?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 We all know Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, but his remarkable inventiveness did not stop there. From his early 40s until his death, he researched an astounding range of subjects at his lakeside retreat in the scenic town of Baddeck in Cape Breton, Canada. On a recent visit to the museum in Baddeck dedicated to his work, I was amazed to find that more than half the exhibits related not to telephony but to his experiments with hydrofoils, aircraft and - perhaps most... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1055423/alexander-graham-bell-more-mr-telephone?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1055423/alexander-graham-bell-more-mr-telephone?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Last month, I saw one of the world's greatest natural phenomena while lingering over dinner at a cafe beside the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada. The sun was setting over the wide marshes and tiny islands in the bay and the tide was rising, fast. Between the appetiser and dessert, high tide had all but submerged the marshland and islets. Only six hours earlier, driving along the coast during low tide, I had seen boats lying on the dry sea floor. Now they were all afloat on water that had... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1037867/tapping-oceans-inexhaustible-store-solar-and-lunar-energy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1037867/tapping-oceans-inexhaustible-store-solar-and-lunar-energy?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 As you cheer China's Olympic gold medallists, spare a thought for the winners of silver and bronze medals. They toiled as long and as hard to bring glory to the motherland, but get little or no acclaim. This state-sponsored gold fever afflicts other countries too, but at least their runners-up are often celebrated at the team level. A system that lauds only gold medals raises disturbing questions. What happened to the Olympic creed that values participation? And what does this gold fixation say... https://www.scmp.com/article/1008418/first-priority?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1008418/first-priority?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 02 Aug 2012 16:00:00 +0000 When is it better not to be No 1? Whether it's in sports, academia or business, we are conditioned to believe that success means being first. We make decisions and adopt strategies geared towards putting us in a dominant position. But there are contests where it may not be possible or even desirable to arrive at a dominant position - in the competition among companies for market share and resources, for example, or in the arms race among countries. A company's overly dominant market share... https://www.scmp.com/article/1006824/game-theory-and-south-china-sea-conflict?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1006824/game-theory-and-south-china-sea-conflict?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000 You're putting in your credit card details to make an online purchase. As you type in your card number, you feel slightly uneasy about sending it into cyberspace. How often have you wondered whether your personal information is really safe from cyber-theft despite assurances that it is a 'secured connection' and your transaction is 'verified' by so-and-so? To put it in nerdy terms, has your information been encrypted effectively so it will not be understood even if a hacker gains access to it?... https://www.scmp.com/article/1005484/cracks-code-encryption-may-be-flimsy-armour?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1005484/cracks-code-encryption-may-be-flimsy-armour?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Jun 2012 16:00:00 +0000 A cheeky boy no older than 10 high-fived me as I strolled around the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina a fortnight ago. Then he mimicked a Bruce Lee move. That was not uncommon, as boys in the Balkans, where I travelled to recently, seemed to think every Chinese man is somehow related to Bruce Lee. They then mimic that universally famous 'one-inch punch'. Astonishingly, Mostar residents are the first, even before Hongkongers, to erect a life-size statue of Lee in their city. Lee's... https://www.scmp.com/article/1004216/physics-behind-bruce-lees-one-inch-punch?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1004216/physics-behind-bruce-lees-one-inch-punch?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Jun 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Ever wonder why it's so hard to swat a fly? It's because that pesky little insect has better flight manoeuvrability than any human or any machine that humans have yet devised. The common housefly leaves the most advanced jet fighter in the dust: it turns right angles in one twentieth of a second, it reaches top speed in two-hundredths of a second and its wings flap over 200 times a second (hence the buzzing sound). The fly's flight commands originate from 100,000 neurons in its brain that can be... https://www.scmp.com/article/1000862/see-world-grain-sand?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1000862/see-world-grain-sand?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Legislators should be applauded for withholding support for a HK$15billion waste incinerator to be built on Shek Kwu Chau, leaving the issue to incoming chief executive Leung Chun-ying's administration. The current administration has clearly botched the job. Many would agree with the government that incineration is part of the solution to Hong Kong's waste disposal problem, but where to put the incinerator? The Environmental Protection Department decided it should be built on Shek Kwu Chau, and... https://www.scmp.com/article/999903/spot-fog?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/999903/spot-fog?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Opinion polling regularly hit the headlines in the run-up to the chief-executive election, and might have influenced the outcome. It's a science that should be better understood, because such 'sample surveys', as statisticians call them, are an important part of democracy. Regular opinion polls are conducted among samples of Hongkongers. These polls typically survey 600 to 1,200 people, a tiny fraction in a population of seven million. It's no small irony that in an age of massive data mining... https://www.scmp.com/article/999559/great-things-come-small-samples?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/999559/great-things-come-small-samples?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0000 If the Environmental Protection Department has its way, Hong Kong will be saddled with the world's largest waste incineration plant on a site that is the most expensive to develop (HK$14.96 billion at current prices), takes the longest time to construct, has the highest construction risk, and inflicts the most ecological damage. The plant is to be located in Shek Kwu Chau, an area of natural beauty south of Cheung Chau and Lantau. The department ignored findings by its consultants, conducted no... https://www.scmp.com/article/998122/burning-doubt?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/998122/burning-doubt?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The blink of an eye lasts 300 to 400 milliseconds. And the last time you blinked, billions of dollars were made or lost through high-frequency trading - the lightning-speed, mathematics-driven, computer-based buying and selling of huge blocks of securities. It's the way the bulk of trading is done nowadays in the United States. It's going to take over stock exchanges around the world and will leave retail investors like you and me flailing in its wake. More stock exchanges may be providing... https://www.scmp.com/article/995843/blink-and-youll-miss-it-blinding-speed-trade?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/995843/blink-and-youll-miss-it-blinding-speed-trade?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Is Facebook taking over the world? You would think so with all the hoopla over its upcoming IPO, its estimated market value of US$100 billion - a record high for any company going public - its 850 million users, its meteoric success in less than a decade. But does Facebook offer a sustainable business based on true technological innovation, or will it turn out to be a flash in the pan like the many dotcom companies that flamed out soon after their IPOs? As sceptics have pointed out, the company... https://www.scmp.com/article/993728/facebooks-us100b-assets-its-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/993728/facebooks-us100b-assets-its-us?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Predictions are rife that stock markets will continue to be volatile. Will the Hang Seng Index recover, or fall further than last year's 20 per cent? Who knows? Conventional financial theories have failed to anticipate drastic market fluctuations - failures ranging from the most recent global financial crisis of 2008 to Black Monday (October 19, 1987), when the US stock market dropped 22.6 per cent. Is there an alternative way of looking at the market: can patterns in nature teach us anything... https://www.scmp.com/article/990222/patterns-nature-can-help-track-market-swings?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/990222/patterns-nature-can-help-track-market-swings?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000 When the American economist Professor Robert Lucas and his wife divorced in 1988, a clause in their settlement stipulated that if he won a Nobel Prize within seven years of the divorce, she would receive half the prize money. In 1995 Lucas did win a Nobel Prize in economics - for his work on the theory of 'rational expectations' - and his ex-wife got 50 per cent of the US$1 million prize. Had she applied her husband's celebrated theory to extract the best deal from the divorce? The... https://www.scmp.com/article/988095/economics-about-maths-or-mind?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/988095/economics-about-maths-or-mind?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Would you rather burn or freeze to death? In the long run, humanity won't have a choice: we'll freeze, if we last that long, according to the three astronomers who will receive this year's Nobel Prize in physics in Sweden on Thursday. This was demonstrated conclusively in 1998 by the new Nobel laureates - Professor Saul Perlmutter of the University of California at Berkeley, Professor Brian Schmidt of Australian National University and Professor Adam Riess at Johns Hopkins University, ... https://www.scmp.com/article/986791/nobel-winners-predict-chilly-end-humanity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/986791/nobel-winners-predict-chilly-end-humanity?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Einstein's special theory of relativity, a central pillar of modern physics, has come under serious challenge, with far-reaching implications for everyone on the planet - and possibly beyond it. It says nothing in the universe can go faster than the speed of light. But now, at least two experiments at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) have found that subatomic particles called neutrinos may do so. The second experiment was conducted to correct a potential error, and it... https://www.scmp.com/article/986056/too-soon-say-modern-physics-turned-its-head?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/986056/too-soon-say-modern-physics-turned-its-head?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Nov 2011 16:00:00 +0000 So you've lost money in the stock market lately? Join the club. Many people I know have lost between 10 per cent and 30 per cent of their portfolio since April. We did our research, tracked stock price movements, spotted trends, perused available information to try to predict which way the markets were heading. To no avail. In the past six months, we've been buffeted by some of the greatest volatility in global financial history. During the week of August 4-11, for instance, the S&P 500 index... https://www.scmp.com/article/982643/data-mines-depths?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/982643/data-mines-depths?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Oct 2011 16:00:00 +0000 'Life is so complicated!' How often have you heard yourself or someone else say this while tackling the daily challenges of job, family, technology, bureaucracy, death, taxes and booking that holiday in the Maldives? And of course, there is the debt crisis in Europe destroying your portfolio. Complexity reigns in the real world, and increasingly in the world of science, too. Just last week, Cern, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, reported that a neutrino beam fired from a particle... https://www.scmp.com/article/980109/simple-guide-complexity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/980109/simple-guide-complexity?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Sep 2011 16:00:00 +0000 How did Stanley Ho Hung-sun, Steve Wynn and all the other casino kingpins get so rich? You may think it's because their casinos have overwhelming odds against the gamblers. In fact, the casino's edge is tiny. You may think the gaming business generates high returns with each transaction. In fact, some games produce a return of only 0.5 per cent to 2.7 per cent on average in each round of play. Any other business could not thrive on such puny returns per transaction. The gambling moguls get rich... https://www.scmp.com/article/976779/using-maths-parlay-small-edge-billions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/976779/using-maths-parlay-small-edge-billions?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Aug 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Stability is the prerequisite of all scientific inquiry. It is also the goal of all prosperous societies. Is there a deep connection between science and society in this respect? I believe there is. To draw any definitive scientific conclusion, the stability of an experiment is essential so that the same conclusion can be reached when the experiment is repeated again and again under the same conditions. Stability analysis is a branch of mathematics that focuses on the behaviour of a system when... https://www.scmp.com/article/975598/societies-science-need-stability-survive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/975598/societies-science-need-stability-survive?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Aug 2011 16:00:00 +0000 How much is success in life due to luck, chance, or what scientists call probability? After a decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, when all leads had seemed to dry up, he was found and killed by US commandoes in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Intelligence analysis suggested that there was only a 60 per cent to 80 per cent chance that bin Laden would be in the compound when the helicopters landed. It was a huge gamble that succeeded. Was it luck? The relative role of chance and determinism in outcomes... https://www.scmp.com/article/972434/lady-luck-may-trump-self-made-man?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/972434/lady-luck-may-trump-self-made-man?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 Jul 2011 16:00:00 +0000