Rik's Treehouse

The home page of Rik Blok

Welcome to my home page! Just a modest little site to let me air some of my crazy ideas. Here are a few things I’ve been thinking about lately:

  • Academic anecdotes

    My contact information and material from some of my courses. Look here if you want to book an appointment.

    • Contact Rik

      Want to book an appointment or reach me? Check out my office hours and contact information here.

    • Workload

      View my historical workload, automatically generated from the emails waiting in my inbox.

    • Recent courses

      Here are some recent courses I’ve taught.

    • Old courses

      Here are some courses I’ve taught in the past.

  • Computational capers

    I spend a lot of time around computers, both at work and play. Yes, I’m a card-carrying geek 😉 Here’s what I’ve picked up over the years.

    • Trends in Computing (2011)

      Years ago I heard it said that computers were doubling in performance every year or two; that is, two years from now you could buy a computer twice as powerful/fast as today for the same price or less. I was curious to see if this was true so I started tracking the prices of individual components on a monthly basis.

    • Orphanware

      This page contains software I am no longer developing or maintaining. Enter at your own risk 😉

  • Mathematical musings

    Some interesting (to me!) mathematical puzzles and problems I’ve come across.

    • Euler's constant (2014)

      I found a sequence that converges to Euler’s constant faster than Bernoulli’s formula.

    • Shared gas (2002)

      My wife and I live in a twenty eight unit condominium which shares the cost of natural gas. At what price level can we expect the residents to switch from heating with gas to heating with electricity?

    • The Pythagorean theorem (1997)

      I’ve been puzzling over a proof for this for years, and it finally dawned on me. (Eureka!) It’s all in how you draw it…

  • Research ramblings

    I’m a theoretical statistical physicist by training and a complexologist by nature. The common thread throughout my research is the search for common features of complex, irreducible systems.

    • Published

      My peer-reviewed and published articles

    • Presented

      Work I’ve presented for feedback at seminars, lab meetings, and guest lectures

    • Unpublished notes

      Here are some research-oriented technical notes I’ve written. They’re not peer-reviewed or published.

  • Scientific scribblings

    Science is both my work and my play. That doesn’t mean I’m particularly bright or hard-working, just that I’m curious. Because that’s the main ingredient for doing good science. (A healthy dose of skepticism helps, too.)

    • Models

      I’m interested in the patterns that can emerge when many (often simple) elements interact. It is often required to build models of these kinds of systems to study their behaviour.

    • Since I was born (2022)

      The world’s spinning fast. Sometimes I forget about how much science and technology have progressed in my lifetime. Here are some advances to help remind me.

    • The curious skeptic (2008)

      Here’s what drives me as a teacher.

    • The onion of Science (2002)

      I often have people ask me what I do for a living. Because my research projects are so varied I like to give a different answer each time. Nevertheless, the question has forced me to evaluate my role as a scientist. This page is an attempt to explain what I believe science is all about and where my work fits in… {class=“children children-type-tree children-sort-”}