Category Archives: Quantum Physics
Opinion | Forget the Multiverse. Embrace the Monoverse. – The New York Times
The patient was elderly and lived alone. She was showing signs of depression, but it was clear that something more was amiss. She insisted she was trapped in the wrong timeline.
The ward to which shed been committed was unstuck in time, she told her doctors. Outside, the future had already arrived, and it was not a good one. She described then that the world outside the ward had been destroyed, reported the doctors in Exeter, England, who wrote a report about the case in a 2019 issue of the journal Neurology and Neurosurgery.
The woman was diagnosed with a variation of Capgras syndrome. First defined a century ago, Capgras typically describes a persons belief that someone close to him or her a spouse or a child has been replaced with a duplicate impostor. But in this case, the patient believed that the whole world everything she could observe of it was a duplicate, a fake.
I know a little bit how that feels.
So do you, probably.
It seems many of us have come to feel there are multiple realities and were stuck in the wrong one. For some, this sensation was occasioned by the outcome of the 2016 presidential election as it was for Arthur Darvill, known for his role in the British television series Doctor Who, who tweeted on Nov. 9, 2016, I think we landed in the wrong timeline.
The Rev. Traci Blackmon, a Christian minister and civil rights activist who was active in protests at Ferguson, Mo., and counterprotests at Charlottesville, Va., tweeted about this feeling in 2018: I believe I am trapped in an alternative universe. At the time, I reached out to her to ask her about it. She explained that the racism shed witnessed felt like a detour from the way shed assumed history would unfold. The gains wed made in social equity and humanizing people I thought these gains would result in a different world, she said.
Now five years and one pandemic later, Everything Everywhere All at Once, a film about the idea that there are multiple universes, each containing a different version of you, swept the Oscars and struck a chord. Apparently many of us have this sense that, as Waymond Wang, played by Ke Huy Quan, says in the movie, something is off.
Its easy to see the appeal of the multiverse, even as metaphor: the notion that were surrounded by a multitude of parallel selves, one of which might be living in a better timeline than the one were stuck in. Its probably no coincidence that the idea has become so popular during an era of pandemic, climate change and political turmoil, when so many of us have felt helpless and trapped. Who doesnt want to imagine a different world?
But it can also be a dangerous way of imagining the cosmos. Like the Capgras patient, we risk becoming detached from the world we can see and touch. Regardless of whether we can prove that the multiverse exists, the idea of it can distract us from doing the work we need to do to make this world better. This timeline is the only one we have access to, and its got to be enough.
As a species, weve long been haunted by spirit realms and ghostly domains. Plato conceived of an intangible world of forms realer than anything we can touch. Plutarch reported that Alexander wept when he heard the possibility of an infinite number of worlds, having not conquered all of this one.
C.S. Lewis was an early multiverse explorer with his Narnia books, in which siblings grow to adulthood as kings and queens on the other side of their magical wardrobe in a world that exists parallel to our own. He was also paying quite a bit of attention at the time to a new branch of science known as quantum physics. In 1957, a year after Lewis published his last Narnia book, a Princeton doctoral student, Hugh Everett III, published a dissertation bringing the ancient idea of the simultaneous existence of several worlds into the realm of modern science.
Everett was trying to solve a seeming paradox in quantum theory: Certain elementary particles (say, a photon) seemed to exist mathematically in many places at once but could be detected at only one location at a time.
Perhaps, Everett suggested, the act of detecting the particle splinters reality; perhaps the observer, and indeed the universe, splits into different possible timelines, one for each possible location of the particle. This would become known as the many-worlds interpretation. Physicists recoiled at the idea at the time.
It took a while for Everetts idea to trickle into popular culture, but once it did, pulp fiction writers fell in love with it. In 1961, DC Comics published Flash of Two Worlds! in which the superfast hero vibrates his way into another universe to meet an alternate Flash. More recently, the multiverse has become the perfect framework for superhero-centric entertainment entities like Marvel Studios (and its licensees) to reiterate a seemingly endless series of franchise reboots. (A.O. Scott, writing in this newspaper, called this a conceit that promises ingenuity and narrative abundance but instead has delivered an infinite recombination of clich.) Thus, Spider-Man entered the Spider-Verse; Dr. Strange got lost in the Multiverse of Madness.
I first encountered the idea of a parallel world as a kid in the 1980s, watching the She-Ra cartoon movie. Princess Adora is separated at birth from her brother, Adam, and sent to grow up on the other side of a tridimensional portal.
I was an only child, and I was fascinated by the idea of some alternate plane where, like Prince Adam, I might discover a secret sibling, an end to loneliness.
When I was 12, my mother met a man, and suddenly the family Id imagined for myself became real. I had an older brother who loved puns and an older sister who wrote poems.
But when I was 19, my stepfather died of melanoma; within a few years of recriminations and disputes, our blended family unblended itself.
I entered adulthood bereft and wrong-footed. I felt a horrible sense of vertigo as I watched the life Id been expecting to live tilting away from me. In this new timeline, my stepsiblings were no longer my siblings; they would become, instead, just people I knew for a while in high school.
All this because a photon of sunlight had collided with a segment of my stepfathers DNA. A quantum event a whole universe of grief unfurled from a minuscule catastrophe that could just as easily not have happened.
For years, I couldnt stop thinking about other, better timelines where it didnt happen, where my stepfather was still alive and my family intact. It helped me understand what was missing, but it did not allow me to mourn what Id lost.
And thats the peril of the multiverse; I was becoming unreal to myself, nostalgic not for a time before the death happened but for a timeline in which it never happened at all. At the climax of the Narnia series, Lewis renounces his beloved fantasy land as a shadow of a copy of a newer, realer Narnia. The new one was a deeper country, he writes. Every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. A shadow of a copy thats how I felt.
In Everything Everywhere, Joy, the character played by Stephanie Hsu, has become aware of every possible timeline. She succumbs to nihilistic despair. If everything is happening, then nothing can matter. Its hard not to recall the real-life fate of Mr. Everetts daughter, Elizabeth, who ended her life in 1996, saying in her farewell note that she hoped she would go on to a correct parallel universe where both she and her father were still alive.
I reached out recently to Ms. Blackmon, the activist who tweeted about an alternate universe, to see how shes feeling about the timeline in 2023. Because she is still trapped here, she has no updates, a representative wrote back.
But its telling that Ms. Blackmon never stopped fighting for what she believes in, striving to improve this world, serving the United Church of Christ and, most recently, leading a group of religious leaders in an effort to block Missouris abortion ban. We can joke or wonder whether were in the wrong timeline. But we cant lose sight of the fact that this timeline is the only one weve got.
In my 30s, I knew I had to save myself from the enticements of alternate realities. So I envisioned a new cosmology of time. Instead of a linear, branching timeline with multiple, parallel possibilities so much more vivid than my real life I tried to imagine time as a sphere always expanding away from me in every direction, like the light leaving a star.
In this model of time, instead of the past receding behind me, it expands outward to surround me, always there and always present. The future is at the very center of the sphere, curled up infinitely small inside of me, waiting to be realized. That way, I can believe that there is nothing to come that I do not already contain.
As a cosmology, its no more tangible than the multiverse. But if we have to believe in something invisible, let me believe in a version of the universe that keeps my focus where it belongs: on the things I can touch and change.
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Opinion | Forget the Multiverse. Embrace the Monoverse. - The New York Times
The Mind-Bending Multiverse: Our Universe Is Suspiciously Unlikely … – SciTechDaily
Do universes pop up as bubbles from a multiverse?
Its easy to envisage other universes, governed by slightly different laws of physics, in which no intelligent life, nor indeed any kind of organized complex systems, could arise. Should we, therefore, be surprised that a universe exists in which we were able to emerge?
Thats a question physicists including me have tried to answer for decades. But it is proving difficult. Although we can confidently trace cosmic history back to one second after the Big Bang, what happened before is harder to gauge. Our particle accelerators simply cant produce enough energy to replicate the extreme conditions that prevailed in the first nanosecond.
But we expect that its in that first tiny fraction of a second that the key features of our universe were imprinted.
The Big Bang theory is the most widely accepted scientific explanation for the origins of the universe. It proposes that the universe began as a singularity, an infinitely dense and hot point that expanded rapidly about 13.8 billion years ago, and has been cooling and expanding ever since.
The conditions of the universe can be described through its fundamental constants fixed quantities in nature, such as the gravitational constant (called G) or the speed of light (called C). There are about 30 of these representing the sizes and strengths of parameters such as particle masses, forces or the universes expansion. But our theories dont explain what values these constants should have. Instead, we have to measure them and plug their values into our equations to accurately describe nature.
The values of the constants are in the range that allows complex systems such as stars, planets, carbon, and ultimately humans to evolve. Physicists have discovered that if we tweaked some of these parameters by just a few percent, it would render our universe lifeless. The fact that life exists therefore takes some explaining.
Some argue it is just a lucky coincidence. An alternative explanation, however, is that we live in a multiverse, containing domains with different physical laws and values of fundamental constants. Most might be wholly unsuitable for life. But a few should, statistically speaking, be life-friendly.
What is the extent of physical reality? Were confident that its more extensive than the domain that astronomers can ever observe, even in principle. That domain is definitely finite. Thats essentially because, like on the ocean, theres a horizon that we cant see beyond. And just as we dont think the ocean stops just beyond our horizon, we expect galaxies beyond the limit of our observable universe. In our accelerating universe, our remote descendants will also never be able to observe them.
Most physicists would agree there are galaxies that we cant ever see, and that these outnumber the ones we can observe. If they stretched far enough, then everything we could ever imagine happening may be repeated over and over. Far beyond the horizon, we could all have avatars.
This vast (and mainly unobservable) domain would be the aftermath of our Big Bang and would probably be governed by the same physical laws that prevail in the parts of the universe we can observe. But was our Big Bang the only one?
The theory of inflation, which suggests that the early universe underwent a period when it doubled in size every trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second has genuine observational support. It accounts for why the universe is so large and smooth, except for fluctuations and ripples that are the seeds for galaxy formation.
But physicists including Andrei Linde have shown that, under some specific but plausible assumptions about the uncertain physics at this ancient era, there would be an eternal production of Big Bangs each giving rise to a new universe.
String theory, which is an attempt to unify gravity with the laws of microphysics, conjectures everything in the universe is made up of tiny, vibrating strings. But it makes the assumption that there are more dimensions than the ones we experience. These extra dimensions, it suggests, are compacted so tightly together that we dont notice them all. And each type of compactification could create a universe with different microphysics so other Big Bangs, when they cool down, could be governed by different laws.
The laws of nature may therefore, in this still grander perspective, be local by-laws governing our own cosmic patch.
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant Universe to date. Known as Webbs First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. However, we can only see a fraction of the universe. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
If physical reality is like this, then theres a real motivation to explore counterfactual universes places with different gravity, different physics, and so forth to explore what range or parameters would allow complexity to emerge, and which would lead to sterile or stillborn cosmos. Excitingly, this is ongoing, with recent reseach suggesting you could imagine universes that are even more friendly to life than our own. Most tweakings of the physical constants, however, would render a universe stillborn.
That said, some dont like the concept of the multiverse. They worry it would render the hope for a fundamental theory to explain the constants as vain as Keplers numerological quest to relate planetary orbits to nested platonic solids.
But our preferences are irrelevant to the way physical reality actually is so we should surely be open-minded to the possibility of an imminent grand cosmological revolution. First we had the Copernican realization that the Earth wasnt the center of the Solar System it revolves around the Sun. Then we realized that there are zillions of planetary systems in our galaxy, and that there are zillions of galaxies in our observable universe.
So could it be that our observable domain indeed our Big Bang is a tiny part of a far larger and possibly diverse ensemble?
How do we know just how atypical our universe is? To answer that we need to work out the probabilities of each combination of constants. And thats a can of worms that we cant yet open it will have to await huge theoretical advances.
We dont ultimately know if there are other Big Bangs. But theyre not just metaphysics. We might one day have reasons to believe that they exist.
Specifically, if we had a theory that described physics under the extreme conditions of the ultra-early Big Bang and if that theory had been corroborated in other ways, for instance by deriving some unexplained parameters in the standard model of particle physics then if it predicted multiple Big Bangs, we should take it seriously.
Critics sometimes argue that the multiverse is unscientific because we cant ever observe other universes. But I disagree. We cant observe the interior of black holes, but we believe what physicist Roger Penrose says about what happens there his theory has gained credibility by agreeing with many things we can observe.
About 15 years ago, I was on a panel at Stanford where we were asked how seriously we took the multiverse concept on the scale would you bet your goldfish, your dog, or your life on it. I said I was nearly at the dog level. Linde said hed almost bet his life. Later, on being told this, physicist Steven Weinberg said hed happily bet Martin Rees dog and Andrei Lindes life.
Sadly, I suspect Linde, my dog and I will all be dead before we have an answer.
Indeed, we cant even be sure wed understand the answer just as quantum theory is too difficult for monkeys. Its conceivable that machine intelligence could explore the geometrical intricacies of some string theories and spew out, for instance, some generic features of the standard model. Wed then have confidence in the theory and take its other predictions seriously.
But wed never have the aha insight moment thats the greatest satisfaction for a theorist. Physical reality at its deepest level could be so profound that its elucidation would have to await posthuman species depressing or exhilarating as that may be, according to taste. But its no reason to dismiss the multiverse as unscientific.
Written by Martin Rees, Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, University of Cambridge.
This article was first published in The Conversation.
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The Mind-Bending Multiverse: Our Universe Is Suspiciously Unlikely ... - SciTechDaily
An Alternative Theory of Inertia will Get Tested in Space – Universe Today
One of the most exciting aspects of the current era of space exploration (Space Age 2.0) is how time-honored ideas are finally being realized. Some of the more well-known examples include retrievable and reusable rockets, retrieval at sea, mid-air retrieval, single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) rockets, and kinetic launch systems. In addition, there are also efforts to develop propulsion systems that do not rely on conventional propellants. This technology offers many advantages, including lower mass and improved energy efficiency, ultimately leading to lower costs.
On June 10th, 2023, an all-electrical propulsion system for satellites (the IVO Quantum Drive) will fly to space for the first time. The system was built by North Dakota-based wireless power company IVO, Ltd., and will serve as a testbed for an alternative theory of inertia that could have applications for propulsion. The engine will launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of a dedicated rideshare (Transporter 8) hosted by commercial partner Rogue Space Systems. If the technology is validated, the Quantum Drive could trigger a revolution in commercial space and beyond. And if not, then we can relax knowing that the laws of physics are still the laws of physics!
It is no secret that the world is undergoing a major transition in terms of energy, transport, manufacturing, and infrastructure. In addition to advancements in computing, 3D printing, and artificial intelligence, a major driving force behind these changes is the desire for cleaner, more sustainable alternatives. This has led to innovations like wireless internet and devices, electric cars, EV charging stations, and miniaturized solar cells and wind turbines. Unfortunately, these innovations rely on toxic batteries and unsafe charging technologies.
Founded in 2017 by Richard Mansell, Ken Mansell, Daniel Telehey, and Matthew Silbernagel, IVO was launched to address the major issues facing technology and innovation today. To this end, IVO has focused on developing wireless energy transmission solutions using a technology known as Capacitive Based Aerial Transmission (CBAT). This flexible, scalable technology allows manufacturers to reduce their battery size by up to 50% and is on track to disrupt the green energy industry.
In addition, the past decade has seen a sharp increase in the number of commercial space companies, leading to innovations like reusable rockets and microsatellites. Because of this, space has become far more accessible, with more nations, companies, and academic institutions sending payloads to orbit. Alas, the space industry is still reliant on propellants that are toxic (or produce toxic byproducts) or produce huge amounts of greenhouse gas. Using kerosene and methane-based fuels, rocket launches can release up to 100 times more CO2 into the atmosphere (per passenger) than a long-distance flight.
In 2021, IVO began to develop a new all-electrical propulsion system that leveraged an alternate theory about inertia. Known as the IVO Quantum Drive, this proposed system relies on the theory ofQuantized Inertia (QI), a controversial idea that many physicists view as a fringe theory.
The theory of QI was first proposed in 2007 by University of Plymouth physicist Mike McCulloch as an alternative to the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model. This theory was an attempt to reconcile General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Field Theory (QFT) to explain the rotational curves of galaxies in a way that did not require Dark Matter (and as an explanation for the Pioneer Anomaly). The theory comes down to two essential elements:
McCulloch also claimed that this theory could provide a foundation for launching space vehicles without fuel. The theory has been challenged repeatedly, and in 2012, astrophysicists solved the Anomaly by concluding that non-uniform heat emission from the spacecraft slowed their speed. Nevertheless, in recent years, McCullough and his colleagues were awarded a DARPA grant to conduct experiments to investigate QI in a laboratory setting. With the launch of the IVO Quantum Drive, the theory will be tested in space for the first time.
If validated, such a system would provide multiple advantages over conventional propellants, the most notable of which is extreme efficiency. According to IVO, a single Quantum Drive can achieve up to 52 millinewtons (mN) of thrust from a single watt of electricity supplied via a combination of onboard power storage and solar power. This would be a considerable improvement over Hall-Effect thrusters (ion engines), which can achieve 25250 mN of thrust, have lower energy efficiency (65-80%), and require more power 17 kilowatts (kW).
Another benefit, according to IVO, is the modular design of the thruster, which allows multiple units to be stacked (and on multiple axes) to achieve greater thrust and meet the needs of individual spacecraft. On top of that, a typical Hall-Effect thruster will weigh more than 200 kg (440 lbs), while a single external and internal Quantum Drive unit weighs just 186.6 grams and 103.5 grams (6.6 and 3.65 oz), respectively. As co-founder Telehey, now the Chief Operating Officer of IVO Ltd., told Universe Today via email:
The IVO Quantum Drive really is a total departure from the current limitations of modern space propulsion. It is the first pure electric propulsion device, meaning it requires only electricity to run. Gone are the days of complex fuel systems which require special fuel solutions to propel the spacecraft. As long as we have electricity, we have thrust, which is why unlimited Delta-V is possible for the first time ever. Due to its self-contained nature, this is the first propulsion device that can be completely internal to a spacecraft.
The self-contained thruster can also be mounted in any orientation, offering up to 6 degrees of freedom. Eliminating propellants would also eliminate the need for bulky and heavy storage tanks, reducing a spacecrafts overall mass and increasing its payload capacity. Lastly, a propulsion system that doesnt require propellant removes the need for satellite refueling or deorbiting due to fuel limitations. Said Telehey, these advantages will drive the most dramatic shift in terms of cost reduction that the space industry has ever seen.
Already, IVO Ltd. has worked with E-Labs (a Virginia-based testing and evaluation facility) to validate the Quantum Drive in a simulated space environment. As Mansell described it:
The Quantum Drive was tested and the thrust was measured within high vacuum chambers (down to 410-6 Torr) in multiple configurations to eliminate possible artifact forces such as electromagnetic, electrostatic, Lorentz, Corona discharge, ion wind, etc. Control Drives were also produced to provide baseline measurements. All test setups were evaluated by third-party individuals. All Quantum Drives showed thrust consistent with predicted Quantized Inertial calculations. Control Drives confirmed that thrust measurements were not consistent with any other known forces.
To test their propulsion system in space, IVO Ltd. has teamed up with orbital robotics developer Rogue Space Systems. Rogue is engineering the first generation of Orbital Robots (known as OrbotsTM) to facilitate humanitys growing presence in space. The Orbot family currently consists of the Laura Orbot, designed to inspect, monitor and observe, and Fred, designed to move satellites and other assets to and from different orbits. A third spacecraft is planned, the details of which are to be announced sometime later this year.
All three spacecraft are supported by an operating system that incorporates machine learning and autonomous capability the AI-Enabled Sensory Observation Platform (AESOP). This system allows the Orbots to operate autonomously, compensating for communication lags and periods when the spacecraft is not visible to control stations on the ground. It also provides collision avoidance and proximity tracking, allowing the Orbot to position itself automatically near a target satellite and determine how to service it properly.
Our partnership with Rogue Space Systems stems from our shared passion for innovation and an ultimate objective to expand human capability, said Telehey. Humanity has been looking up at the stars for thousands of years with wonder and curiosity. Now, for the first time in the history of humanity, we have the ability to reach out and touch these distant places. Our organizations take this seriously and, together, IVO and Rogue intend to make history.
Naturally, the news of this test and the companys claims have been met with considerable skepticism by many scientists. Notably, theres Andrew Higgins, a professor of mechanical engineering at McGill University and the leader of the Interstellar Flight Experimental Research Group. In 2018, Higgins published a paper titled Reconciling a Reactionless Propulsive Drive with the First Law of Thermodynamics, where he demonstrated that an electromagnetic drive that does not use propellant was not physically sound.
According to Higgins, electromagnetic devices that do not rely on propellant can generate no more than 3.33 micronewtons per kilowatt (?N/kW) of thrust, or else they end up being a kind of perpetual motion machine. This is due to the fact that applying constant force results in constant acceleration, which means that the objects kinetic energy increases quadratically over time, whereas the energy input increases linearly. As a result, the objects kinetic energy will exceed the energy input, and (if this energy is collected via deceleration) there would be a net gain in energy.
In short, the concept violates the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that the internal energy (E) of a system is equal to the difference between the heat transfer (Q) into a system and the work (W) done by the system expressed mathematically as E2-E1=Q-W. As Higgins told Universe Today via email:
My take on the IVO Quantum Drive is the same as the EM drive, the Woodward Mach effect thruster, or any other device that claims to take a power input and generate thrust output, with no other interactions with a reaction mass or some other mass to push against. It is trivial to show such a device can be converted into a perpetual motion machine of the first kind. That is, a machine that just generates power from a black box, with no other interactions.
In response, Mansell has stated that the Quantum Drive is not a reactionless system and is not comparable to the EM Drive. The Theory of Quantised Inertia provides for some unique ways to move spacecraft without fuel and without violating Newtons laws of motion, he said. The Quantum Drive uses electricity and our patent pending configuration to move spacecraft. This configuration has been tested as much as it can on Earths surface. The next and definitive test will be in LEO.
Based on current levels of growth, the commercial space sector is projected to reach a total value of $1.4 trillion by 2030. Similarly, the green energy sector is projected to reach $1.4 trillion before the end of the decade. These parallel developments illustrate the potential for companies in space, where accessibility is increasing, and the demand for cleaner, safer, and more efficient alternatives is high. And therein lies the point of this demonstration, which is to test the system and the theoretical physics on which it is based.
If it fails, scientists can rest easy that the laws of physics dont need to be revised. If it succeeds, it will open the door to tremendous opportunities. Ultimately, it seems fair to say that everyone (pro or con) is excited to see what comes of it!
The launch is scheduled for June 10th and will be live-streamed via SpaceXs Youtube feed. You can also watch the countdown and track the launch via the IVO Ltd website.
Further Reading: IVO Ltd., Rogue Space Systems
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An Alternative Theory of Inertia will Get Tested in Space - Universe Today
Machine intelligence and humanity benefit from spiral of mutual learning, says AI researcher and proponent of cognitive physics – Newswise
Newswise Deyi Li from the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence believes that humans and machines have a mutually beneficial relationship. His paper on machine intelligence, which was published Feb. 15 inIntelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal, builds on five groundbreaking works by Schrdinger, the father of quantum mechanics, Turing, the father of artificial intelligence, and Wiener, the father of cybernetics.
Schrdinger and beyond: Machines can think and interact with the world as time goes by.
Inspired by Schrdingers book What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell, Li believes that machines can be considered living things. That is, like humans, they decrease the amount of entropy or disorder in their environment through their interactions with the world.
The machines of the agricultural age and the industrial age existed only at the physical level, but now, in the age of intelligence, machines consist of four elements at two different levels: matter and energy at the physical level, and structure and time at the cognitive level. The machine can be the carrier of thought, and time is the foundation of machine cognition, Li explained.
Turing and beyond: Machines can think, but can they learn?
In 1936, Turing published what has been called the most influential mathematics paper, establishing the idea of a universal computing machine able to perform any conceivable computation. Such hypothetical computers are called Turing machines. His 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence introduced what is now known as the Turing test for measuring machine intelligence, sparking a debate over whether machines can think. A proponent of thinking machines, Turing believed that a child machine could be educated and eventually achieve an adult level of intelligence.
However, given that cognition is only one part of the learning process, Li pointed out two limitations of Turings model in achieving better machine intelligence: First, the machines cognition is disconnected from its environment rather than connected to it. This shortcoming has also been highlighted in a paper by Michael Woodridge titledWhat Is Missing from Contemporary AI? The World.Second, the machines cognition is disconnected from memory and thus cannot draw on memories of past experiences. As a result, Li defines intelligence as the ability to engage in learning, the goal of which is to be able to "explain and solve actual problems."
Wiener and beyond: Machines have behavioral intelligence.
In 1948, Wiener published a book that served as the foundation of the field of cybernetics, the study of control and communication within and between living organisms, machines and organizations. In the wake of the success of the book, he published another, focusing on the problems of cybernetics from the perspective of sociology, suggesting ways for humans and machines to communicate and interact harmoniously.
According to Li, machines follow a control pattern similar to the human nervous system. Humans provide missions and behavioral features to machines, which must then run a complex behavior cycle regulated by a reward and punishment function to improve their abilities of perception, cognition, behavior, interaction, learning and growth. Through iteration and interaction, the short-term memory, working memory and long-term memory of the machines change, embodying intelligence through automatic control. In essence, control is the use of negative feedback to reduce entropy and ensure the stability of the embodied behavioral intelligence of a machine, Li concluded.
The strength of contemporary machines is deep learning, which still requires human input, but leverages the ability of devices to use brute force methods of solving problems with insights gleaned directly from big data.
A joint future: from learning to creating
Machine intelligence cannot work in isolation; it requires human interaction. Furthermore, machine intelligence is inseparable from language, because humans use programming languages to control machine behavior.
The impressive performance of ChatGPT, a chatbot showcasing recent advances in natural language processing, proves that machines are now capable of internalizing human language patterns and producing appropriate example texts, given the appropriate context and goal. Since AI-generated texts are increasingly indistinguishable from human-written texts, some are saying that AI writing tools have passed the Turing test. Such declarations provoke both admiration and alarm.
Li is among the optimists who envision artificial intelligence in a natural balance with human civilization. He believes, from a physics perspective, that cognition is based on a combination of matter, energy, structure and time, which he calls hard-structured ware, and expressed through information, which he calls soft-structured ware. He concludes that humans and machines can interact through multiple channels and modes to gain wisdom and intelligence, respectively. Despite their different endowments in thinking and creativity, this interaction allows humans and machines to benefit from each other's strengths.
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Time reflections sound like science fiction, but they were just proven … – BGR
For more than 50 years, scientists have theorized that a special kind of reflection known as time reflections have existed in the realm of quantum mechanics. However, proving the existence of this intriguing mechanic has always seemed impossible, at least until recently.
While the term time reflection might bolster images of time-traveling movies and science fiction, these reflections arent really time travel. Instead, a time reflection occurs whenever an entire medium in which an electromagnetic wave travels completely changes course. This causes a part of the wave to reverse, transforming its frequency.
But these reflections require what scientists call a uniform variation across their entire electromagnetic field. Because of this, scientists have always believed that time reflections would require too much energy for us to observe them in action. However, scientists from the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City have successfully observed such a reflection.
To accomplish this spectacle, the researchers sent broadband signals through a strip of metal filled with electronic switches, all connected to reservoir capacitors. This allowed the researchers to trigger the switches whenever they wanted, increasing the impedance throughout the metal strip. The sudden change then caused the signals to carry time reflections successfully.
The researchers published the results of these findings in a paper in the journal Nature Physics. Accomplishing such a feat wasnt easy, but the discovery here could completely change how some scientists approach this intriguing mechanic in the future. If nothing else, proving the existence of time reflections is a huge step forward in the field of quantum mechanics. And it answers a question that has nagged scientists for over five decades.
The researchers note that these special quantum reflections also behave differently than our standard spatial reflections. As such, the time reflections echo the last part of the signal first. That means if you were to stare into a time mirror, you wouldnt see your face looking back at you. Instead, youd be staring at your back.
The study of time travel isnt a new one, and neither is the quest to prove the existence of time reflections. But now that scientists have managed to reverse time on a quantum level, and even showcase how time reflections happen, perhaps well see additional breakthroughs in this field popping up over the next several years.
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Time reflections sound like science fiction, but they were just proven ... - BGR
Dark energy fills the cosmos. But what is it? – Popular Science
The universe has a dark sideits filled with dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter is the unseen mass floating around galaxies, which physicists have searched for using giant vats of ice, particle colliders, and other sophisticated techniques. But what about dark matters stranger sibling, dark energy?
Dark energy is the term given to something that is causing the universe to expand faster and faster as time goes on. The great puzzle facing cosmologists today is figuring out the identity of that something.
We can tell you a lot about the properties of dark energy and how it behaves, says astrophysicist Tamara Davis, a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. However, we still dont know what it is. Thats the big question.
Astronomers have long known that the universe is expanding. In the early 1900s, Edwin Hubble observed galaxies in motion and created Hubbles Law, which relates a galaxys velocity to its distance from us. At the end of the 20th century, though, new detections of supernovae in far-off galaxies revealed a conundrum: The expansion of the universe isnt constant, but is instead speeding up.
The fact that the universe is accelerating caught us all by surprise, says University of Texas at Austin astrophysicist Katherine Freese. Unlike the attractive force of gravity, dark energy must create some sort of repulsive behavior, driving things apart from one another more and more quickly, adds Freese.
Many observations since the 1990s have confirmed that the universe is accelerating. Exploding stars in distant galaxies appear fainter than they should have been in a steadily-expanding universe. Even the cosmic microwave backgroundthe remnant light from the first clear moments in the universes historyshows fingerprints of dark energys effects. To explain the observed universe, dark energy is a necessary component of our mathematical models of cosmology.
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The term dark energy was coined in 1998 by astrophysicist Michael Turner to match the nomenclature of dark energy. It also conveys that the universes accelerating expansion was a crucial, unsolved problem. Many scientists at the time thought that Albert Einsteins cosmological constanta fudge factor he included in general relativity to make the math work out, also known as lambdawas the perfect explanation for dark energy, since it fit nicely into their models.
It was my belief that it was not that simple, says Turner, now a visiting professor at UCLA. He views the accelerating universe as the most profound problem and the biggest mystery in all of science.
The Lambda-CDM model, which says we live in a universe that consists of only 5 percent normal mattereverything youve ever seen or touchedplus 27 percent dark matter and a whopping 68 percent dark energy, is the current paradigm in cosmology, says Yale astrophysicist Will Tyndall. It rather ambitiously seeks to incorporate (and explain) all of cosmic history, he says. But it still leaves a lot unexplained, including the nature of dark energy. After all, how can we have so little understanding of something that supposedly constitutes 68 percent of the universe we live in? adds Tyndall.
Dark energy is also a major deciding factor in our universes ultimate fate. Will the universe be torn apart in a Big Rip, in which everything is shredded apart atom by atom? Or will it end in a whimper?
These scenarios depend on whether dark energy changes with time. If dark energy is just the cosmological constant, with no variation, our universe will expand eternally into a very lonely place; in this scenario, all the stars beyond our local cluster of galaxies would be invisible to us, too red to be detected.
If dark energy gets stronger, it might lead to the event known as the Big Rip. Maybe dark energy weakens, and our universe crunches back down, starting the cycle all over with a new big bang. Physicists wont know which of these scenarios lies ahead until they have a better handle on the nature of dark energy.
Dark energy shows up in the mathematics of the universe as Einsteins cosmological constant, but that doesnt explain what physically causes the universes expansion to speed up. A leading theory is a funky feature of quantum mechanics known as the vacuum energy. This is created when pairs of particles and their antiparticles quickly pop into and out of existence, which happens pretty much everywhere all the time.
It sounds like a great explanation for dark energy. But theres one big issue: The value of the vacuum energy that scientists measure and the one they predict from theories are wildly and inexplicably different. This is known as the cosmological constant problem. Put another way, particle physicists models predict that what we think of as nothing should have some weight, Turner says. But measurements find it weighs very little, if anything at all. Maybe nothing weighs nothing, he says.
[Related: An ambitious dark energy experiment just went live in Arizona]
Cosmologists have raised other explanations for dark energy over the years. One, string theory, claims that the universe is made up of tiny little string-like bits, and the value of dark energy that we see just happens to be one possibility within many different multiverses. Many physicists consider this to be pretty human-centric in its logicwe couldnt exist in a universe with other values of the cosmological constant, so we ended up in this one, even if its an outlier compared to the others.
Other physicists have considered changing Einsteins equations for general relativity altogether, but most of those attempts were ruled out by measurements from LIGOs pioneering observations of gravitational waves. In short, we need a brilliant new idea, says Freese.
New observations of the cosmos may be able to help astrophysicists measure the properties of dark energy in more detail. For example, astronomers already know the universes expansion is acceleratingbut has that acceleration always been the same? If the answer to this question is no, then that means dark energy hasnt been constant, and the lives of physics theorists everywhere will be upended as they scramble to find new explanations.
One project, known as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument or DESI, is already underway at Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona. This effort searches for signs of varying acceleration in the universe by cosmic cartography. It is like laying grid-paper over the universe and measuring how it has expanded and accelerated with time, says Davis.
Even more experiments are upcoming, such as the European Euclid mission launching this summer. Euclid will map galaxies as far as 10 billion light-years awaylooking backward in time by 10 billion years. This is the entire period over which dark energy played a significant role in accelerating the expansion of the universe, as its mission website states. Radio telescopes such as CHIME will be mapping the universe in a slightly different way, tracing how hydrogen spreads across space.
New observations wont solve everything, though. Even if we measure the properties of dark energy to infinite precision, it doesnt tell us what it is, Davis adds. The real breakthrough that is needed is a theoretical one. Astronomers have a timeline for new experiments, which will keep marching forward, recording better and better measurements. But theoretical breakthroughs are unpredictableit could take one, ten, or even a hundred-plus years. In science, there are very few true puzzles. A true puzzle means you dont really know the answer, says Turner. And I think dark energy is one of them.
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Dark energy fills the cosmos. But what is it? - Popular Science
Carl Jung: How to Stay Calm in Anxious Times – Exploring your Mind
Life, as Carl Jung told us, is a constant paradox. One minute it can be miserable and the next pure joy. To deal with these ups and downs. we must embrace the inherent chaos that defines our existence. But, how do we do it?
Last update: 17 March, 2023
Wolfgang Pauli was one of the pioneers in the study of quantum physics. He won the Nobel Prize for proposing the theory of the exclusion principle and establishing studies on the neutrino. We could say that he was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century in the field of physics. However, his personal and emotional life was extremely chaotic. For this reason, in 1932, he began therapy with Carl Jung.
That meeting, which began for clinical reasons, gave way to one of the most unique and productive friendships in the world of psychology and science. Arthur I. Miller, in the book Deciphering the Cosmic Number ( 2009), tells in detail about many of their meetings in Jungs Gothic mansion on the shores of Lake Zurich.
Carl Jung was renowned for helping people take their inner worlds seriously. He claimed it didnt matter how brilliant an individual is if theyre ruled by feelings of discouragement. Therefore, his goal was to guide his patients and friends to understand that anyone can escape the darkest of times by following some specific guidelines.
Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law.
-Carl Jung-
The reasons why the Nobel laureate, Wolfgang Pauli asked Carl Jung for help can be found in another book; Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958. This book contains an exchange of letters between both figures. Pauli had been going through a really stressful time that had led him to drink and relinquish many of his relationships. He also suffered from extremely turbulent nightmares.
Carl Jung not only guided him to escape his pit of suffering and anguish. In addition, as a physicist and psychologist, he forged an extremely productive intellectual alliance with him. In fact, their relationship gave shape to some interesting theories. For instance, the concept of synchronicity. This is the study of acausal events and significant coincidences.
However, in this case, were interested in learning how the father of analytical psychology guided his patients to remain calm in turbulent periods. Those in which, sometimes, the worst of ourselves emerge. If you want to know how. to do it, follow these guidelines.
In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.
-Carl Jung-
As a human being, some of your greatest difficulties are accepting the elements of adversity and vital stress. Jung himself once remarked that For many of us, myself included, chaos can be scary at best, paralyzing at worst. Indeed, it isnt easy to accept that you dont always have control over your future or that tomorrow will be as balanced as today.
In fact, the unpredictable and the chaotic are ingredients of existence itself. Resisting these fluctuations only increase stress and anxiety. You have to trust that those worries that suddenly appear along the way are just occasional moments, storm clouds that, sooner or later, will clear up.
Whats more, when you look back and discover everything youve overcome, you tend to find meaning in your own existence. In effect, theres a certain order in the midst of what seems to you, at first glance, to be chaotic and disorderly.
It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how things are in themselves.
-Carl Jung-
The book, Selected Letters of CG Jung 1909 1961, contains the correspondence that the Swiss psychiatrist maintained with his patients. One of them asked him, metaphorically, how to cross the river of life. Jung replied that, in reality, theres no correct way to live, we just have to live as we can. Each circumstance leads us to our destiny.
To keep calm in anxious times, he recommended paying attention to the way we interpret each experience. However, this is where a problem arises. Because many of us cross the river with unhealed wounds and repressed emotions. If you let yourself be carried away by the inertia of your impulses and your shadows, your life will be filled with greater obstacles. In effect, youll drown in the waters of daily life.
Jung said that we need to add light to the shadow if we want to regain confidence in ourselves. Therefore, you need to perceive things as they are and not through the lens of fear.
I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to be.
-Carl Jung-
To stay calm in anxious times of endless pressure, you must look within and not so much at what surrounds you. Its there where all your truths reside, and where your strengths are sleeping. As Jung wrote in one of his letters, But if you want to go your individual way, it is the way you make for yourself, which is never prescribed, which you do not know in advance, and which simply comes into being by itself when you put one foot in front of the other.
Individuation was one of Jungs key concepts. It defines the ability to build a strong and independent psyche. It means discovering who you are, a creative being. This is another goal that you must keep working on. Youre what you do in your daily life, not what you were in the past.
You must bear in mind that youre a self-aware being with great potential. Moreover, you must always remember who you are if you want to stay calm in anxious times when everything seems to be going wrong.
The creation of something new is not carried out by the intellect, but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
-Carl Gustav Jung-
Carl Jung pointed out that neurosis would disappear if we developed broader and freer personalities. However, we often become so obsessed with fitting in and looking for acceptance that we often end up getting sick. We need to give our minds oxygen and make them more flexible. This will allow us to take broader perspectives.
Jung coined the term active imagination to describe getting in touch with a more spontaneous, playful, and above all creative self. Activities such as art in all its forms, as well as mediation, are practices that the Swiss psychiatrist recommended. They dont just reduce stress. They allow you to discover new psychological plots.
Finally, if youre going through an anxious time, these resources might be useful. After all, Carl Jungs thinking never goes out of style.
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Carl Jung: How to Stay Calm in Anxious Times - Exploring your Mind