#114: Explaining Silver's Price Surge, Most Advanced HS Math Program, Science Behind Educational Apps

Hi All!

We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com.

This week, we will take a look at the recent surge in pricing of silver, a teen who used AI to land a job at NASA, the optimistic case for the job increases in the age of AI, and more.

Let's dive in:

Teen in Most Advanced HS Math Program Lands NASA Job

​Matteo Paz is a teen researching who went viral for using his own AI model to uncover 1.5 million previously unseen cosmic objects, by using old NASA NEOWISE data. This landed him a Caltech research role, a job offer from NASA, and an offer of riding in a fighter-jet from NASA chief Jared Isaacman.

It’s an incredible feat, made possible by preparation in the most advanced high school math and computer science program in the country, led by Justin Skycak. The program was called Eurisko, and it was operating from 2020-2023.

In the words of Skycak, "It culminated in high school students doing masters/PhD-level coursework (reproducing academic research papers in artificial intelligence, building everything from scratch in Python)".

The Eurisko program ended when Skycak had to relocate, and no one else in the district had the requisite knowledge to teach it. Math Academy has all the prerequisites for Eurisko, and if you're curious you can read more about the program on Justin's blog - Math Academy's Eurisko Sequence & The Origin Story of Eurisko.

The Situation With Silver

Silver is making headlines because its price has spiked from the high-20s at the start of the year to the low-70s per ounce, about 150-170% of an increase in under 12 months. This kind of move is extreme for a major metal and reflects a 'perfect storm' of real demand, limited supply, policy shocks, and heavy speculation. It's so rare, this has also been referred to as a 4-5 Sigma event (your odds of personally being struck by lightning are 3.8)

For the average person, the effects show up indirectly. Some electronics, solar equipment, and industrial products that use silver could get more expensive or face delays if high prices and volatility persist. It also matters for savings - anyone holding silver or silver-linked ETFs has seen big gains but is now exposed to large, fast price swings that can hit portfolios and retirement accounts either way.

The key actionable takeaways (not financial advice):

• watch the physical market signals (curve + regional premiums) and size your silver exposure accordingly, instead of anchoring on spot price alone.
• The idea is to treat silver as a high‑volatility, thesis‑driven trade, not a “set and forget” safe haven.
• Use those signals ('backwardation', Shanghai premium, ETF flows) as your “traffic lights” for adding, trimming, or just sitting still, rather than reacting emotionally to big daily candles.

For those looking for additional primers on the situation, be sure to read this article from the former head of Bridgewater commodities @abcampbell and another thread from the Kobeissi Letter.

Why Most Educational Apps Fail

​Carl Hendrick is an educator and researcher in cognitive science & informed teaching, known for his work at leading schools and books on implementing learning science into practical classroom practice. He authors The Learning Dispatch, a newsletter that explores the science of learning.

His latest article argues that most education apps fail because they ignore "instructional invariants" – the non‑negotiable conditions under which real learning happens, rooted in human cognition rather than UX fashion. He contrasts sleek dashboards and engagement metrics with the invisible architecture of memory and attention that actually drives durable learning.

He outlines three key invariants:

1. The target skill must be the only way to succeed
2. Mastery must come before progress
3. Learning must require active responses rather than passive watching or recognition

When apps allow shortcuts, move students on with gaps, or rely on low‑effort tapping and multiple choice, they create “instructional theatre” where progress appears real but understanding is empty.

Hendrick argues that business incentives favor frictionless engagement over cognitive effort, so most products optimize for session time and satisfaction instead of learning (looking at you Duolingo).

He proposes a developer‑facing framework of 15–20 invariants as design specs that translate cognitive science into product rules, enabling apps that respect cognitive constraints and finally align efficacy, effectiveness, and real student learning.

Jevon's Paradox For Knowledge Work

​Jevon's Paradox remains one of the most fascinating phenomenas in economics, and it is summed up beautifully by Box CEO Aaron Levie in the start of his most recent article:

Levie applies Jevons Paradox to knowledge work, arguing that AI will massively increase, not decrease, demand for many white-collar tasks by driving the cost of executing them way down.
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He notes this pattern has already played out in areas like customer relationship management, marketing automation, and document management, where software made complex work cheaper and more accessible, expanding total activity rather than shrinking it.
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AI, he suggests, will let even small teams rapidly prototype software, launch new projects, and experiment with workflows that previously would have been too expensive or slow to attempt at all.
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However, he stresses that AI is far from fully autonomous and still needs humans to design workflows, manage agents, ensure quality, and own the outcomes.
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The key takeaway is that AI will multiply the volume and sophistication of knowledge work, shifting the bottleneck from execution to human judgment, coordination, and accountability.

Final, Meaningful Question of 2025

With 2025 coming to an end, I see many people asking for the best "year in review" exercises they can work on. In the past couple weeks, I have even been sharing a fair amount of these prompts and activities!

But I thought to myself, maybe it could be more simple. I then saw a thread with a highly liked response, and it dawned on me there is a question anyone can reflect on with an extra set of five minutes.

Ask yourself: "What made you the person you have become?"

Don't forget to actually take the time to write out a response.

It's been a joy being alongside you this year, and I hope you have a wonderful conclusion to your 2025.

Take time to honor the growth you have experienced and remember - the best is yet to come!

P.S Can you please respond to this email and bring it into your 'primary' inbox? You can say 'Hi!', tell us the last book you read recently, or what your favorite resource was from above.
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Always wishing you the best,

J.B.