Gordon J. Köhn
solving questions that move atoms.
Software engineer building knowledge systems at PlantingSpace
Side: market making in the long-tail of web3
Techno-optimist solving hard problems in space, bio, energy, defense tech
- long thoughts:Forging Loops on Substack
- short thoughts:gordon_koehn on X
Solar drag is uninsurable — and not because the risk is small
As far as I can find, no policy pays when the solar cycle drags a working satellite out of orbit early. Storms are a dot; the solar cycle is the band, and it deals one hand every eleven years.
Essays
· ECON · BIOLate Pharma, Early Bio
Reading Basel's architecture as a real-time signal of pharma's peak: Roche's last towers, the rising biotech cluster, the closed-loop labs replacing both.
· ECON · TECHFinding the Edges of Prediction Markets
Will prediction markets go broader? Markets for everything? a16z's predictions for 2026 got me curious. Pulled spread and volume data across Polymarket, Kalshi, and crypto exchanges. Short answer: we're already testing the limits.
· ECON · TECHThe Economics of Escaping Earth
SpaceX's Starship could plummet launch costs beyond imagination, igniting industries we can't yet envision. I mapped space ventures by Mass vs. Launch Cost—one plot to rule them all!
Research & projects
· RESEARCH · DEVW-ASAP: Building Switzerland's Viral Wastewater Surveillance Platform
From cluster-based workflows to browser-based exploration. 17 months building national-scale genomic infrastructure at ETH Zurich.
· RESEARCHSpeeding up Single Cell Tumor Mutation Tree Inference
Deep Dive into Computational Statistic in Cancer Genomics
· RESEARCHConnectivity Inference of Neuronal Networks
Towards the Brain-Computer-Interface
· RESEARCHSpace Weather Simulations
Successive Interacting Coronal Mass Ejections: How to Create a Perfect Solar Storm?
· RESEARCHSolving the Time-Dependent-Schroedinger Equation
Evolution of a particle in different potentials: free, step, square, harmonic
· ENGPhotos from Stratosphere
Kickstarter Funded Weather-balloon photography from 38.5 km above sea level
· DEVAndroid Casual Game: Linearity
Development of a monetized mobile game in a team of 5