Category: Science | Page 25

Man looking at business plan at whiteboard

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News
Date
December 12, 2020

Categorized
Information Theory, Science

Tagged
Michael Egnor, Robert J. Marks, Specified Complexity}

Complexity Is Not Always a Bad Thing

_{It allows us to have an intellectual life} _{News
December 12, 2020

3

Information Theory, Science}

In a recent podcast, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and engineering prof Robert J. Marks discussed the difference between a bag of jigsaw puzzle pieces and a text message like “The city will get your car towed if you do not move it within the next 8 minutes”: Got your attention? That’s precisely what information does. It gets your attention. But what is information? How did those characters in a text message become important to you? Weren’t they just a string of letters and numbers? What, exactly, changed? https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-112-Robert-Marks.mp3 A partial transcript follows. The Show Notes and a full transcript are available below. Robert J. Marks: In terms of meaningful information, I think it’s obvious. Michael, they used to say that it Read More ›

Futuristic high speed travel through tube. could illustrate data travel

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Denyse O'Leary
Date
December 12, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science

Tagged
Science fiction}

Faster Than Light? How About Faster Than Thought?—a Film Review

_{A free sort DUST sci-fi film looks at the plight of an astronaut testing the concept} _{Denyse O'Leary
December 12, 2020

2

Arts & Culture, Science}

Science fiction can teach us useful science concepts so it is hardly a waste of time. For example, what about “faster than light”? Albert Einstein thought nothing in this universe would travel faster than light (FTL). He might be right or wrong but if we can’t beat the speed of light light, we won’t ever see a lot of possibly interesting things in the universe. It’s just too vast. So science fiction has been trying to beat the speed of light since forever. Anyhow, here’s a short film about it, “Hyperlight” by Adam Stern: “FTL”: “A lone astronaut testing the first faster-than-light spacecraft travels farther than he imagined possible,” attempting to establish communications with a colony on Mars: My favorite Read More ›

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News
Date
December 10, 2020

Categorized
Programming, Science

Tagged
Adiabatic Quantum Computing, energy, Energy efficiency, Enrique Blair, Featured, Quantum communication, Quantum Entanglement, Quantum Mechanics, Robert J. Marks}

Could Slowing Quantum Processes Lead To More Useful Computing?

_{“Adiabatic” quantum computing slows down the process, in the hope of achieving more reliable quantum positions} _{News
December 10, 2020

7

Programming, Science}

In a recent podcast, “Enrique Blair on quantum computing,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with fellow computer engineer Enrique Blair about why quantum mechanics is so strange but important to our future. They discussed the prospects of slowing down quantum computing to make it more useful (adiabatic computing). https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-110-Enrique-Blair.mp3 The discussion of quantum communication begins at approximately 58:47. The Show Notes and transcript follow. Enrique Blair (pictured): I guess the challenge with entangling massive numbers of quantum systems is that entanglement becomes much more fragile. In quantum communication, you just need pairs of photons to be entangled. One with another, that’s it. Whereas with quantum computing, you need many, many systems to be entangled, and that’s just Read More ›

burst set of random numbers glowing on a black background

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News
Date
December 8, 2020

Categorized
Data Privacy, Science

Tagged
Enrique Blair, Entanglement, Featured, photons, Quantum Computing, quantum encryption, Randomness, Robert J. Marks}

How Spooky “Quantum Collapse” Can Give Us More Secure Encryption

_{If entangled photons linked to random numbers are transmitted, parties on either end can know, via high error rates, that they’ve been intercepted.} _{News
December 8, 2020

7

Data Privacy, Science}

In a recent podcast, “Enrique Blair on quantum computing,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with fellow computer engineer Enrique Blair about why quantum mechanics is so strange but important to our future. They discussed “quantum communication” (generally, quantum encryption) and why safer quantum encryption might be easier to achieve than general quantum computing. https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-110-Enrique-Blair.mp3 The discussion of quantum communication begins at approximately 55:32. The Show Notes and transcript follow. Robert J. Marks: I know there’s lots of interesting quantum communication today. The NSF and the Department of Defense are throwing big bucks at it. What is it, just roughly? Enrique Blair: Quantum communication really is the use of quantum mechanics to share information in a secure manner. Read More ›

Cybernetic Brain. Electronic chip in form of human brain in electronic cyberspace. Illustration on the subject of 'Artificial Intelligence'.

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Gary Smith
Date
December 7, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Science

Tagged
Featured, Judea Pearl, Max Tegmark, Theory of Everything}

AI: Still Just Curve Fitting, Not Finding a Theory of Everything

_{The AI Feynman algorithm is impressive, as the New York Times notes, but it doesn’t devise any laws of physics} _{Gary Smith
December 7, 2020

8

Artificial Intelligence, Science}

Judea Pearl, a winner of the Turing Award (the “Nobel Prize of computing”), has argued that, “All the impressive achievements of deep learning amount to just curve fitting.” Finding patterns in data may be useful but it is not real intelligence. A recent New York Times article, “Can a Computer Devise a Theory of Everything?” suggested that Pearl is wrong because computer algorithms have moved beyond mere curve fitting. Stephen Hawking’s 1980 prediction that, “The end might not be in sight for theoretical physics, but it might be in sight for theoretical physicists” was quoted. If computers can now devise theories that make theoretical physicists redundant, then they are surely smarter than the rest of us. The program behind the Read More ›

Illustration of an extraterrestrial wearing a spacesuit standing on a mountaintop looking at the blue sky on an alien planet.

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post

News
Date
December 5, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science

Tagged
Exoplanets, Moore's Law, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), Seth Shostak}

Astronomer Bets a Cup of Coffee That We’ll Encounter ET by 2036

_{Seth Shostak points to the increase in the number of exoplanets identified and the increase in computing power} _{News
December 5, 2020

4

Arts & Culture, Science}

Seth Shostak, iconic astronomer who directs the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), is so confident that the vast increase in computing power, based on Moore’s Law, will make the difference in detecting signals from alien civilizations that he will bet you a cup of Starbucks coffee that we make contact by 2036. Moore’s Law (1965) originally held that computers would double in power every two years. But today’s pace is actually faster than that. And on the horizon is quantum computing and carbon computing, which would speed things up while reducing energy consumption. So Shostak (pictured) is looking at considerable reinforcements for a systematic search. He stresses that the search for ET is now largely computerized: “We don’t sit in Read More ›

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News
Date
December 5, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science

Tagged
dolphins, Douglas Adams, Exoplanets, Extraterrestrials (ET), Fermi Paradox, Fine-tuning, Matt Williams, Michael Denton, Ocean planets, Water, Water worlds}

We Won’t Find ET on Ocean Planets, Researchers Say

_{We will see few extraterrestrials if a great many promising exoplanets are Waterworlds} _{News
December 5, 2020

5

Arts & Culture, Science}

Science writer Matt Williams has been writing a series on the question of why, despite the size of our galaxy, we see no other intelligent life forms. It could be, he suggests, that “many planets out there are just too watery!” Williams points out that, although water covers 71% of Earth’s surface, it is only 0.02% of the planet’s mass. If the proportion were much higher, Earth would be an ocean planet because the water would surface. It’s an open question whether an ocean planet would feature highly technologically developed intelligent life forms. Dolphins, for example, are quite intelligent but they do not seek to use any technology. The question of whether a planet could have too much water arose, Read More ›

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News
Date
December 3, 2020

Categorized
Science

Tagged
Encryption, Enrique Blair, Featured, Quantum Computing, quantum encryption, Quantum Entanglement, quantum superposition, Robert J. Marks}

How Quantum Computing Can and Can’t Help Us Here in Macro World

_{Quantum computing could easily break down current encryption schemes} _{News
December 3, 2020

7

Science}

In last week’s podcast, “Enrique Blair on quantum computing,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with fellow computer engineer Enrique Blair about why quantum mechanics is so strange, yet an intrinsic part of the way our universe works. They discussed whether quantum computing will be in our future any time soon? In our cell phones? What difference will it make? https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-110-Enrique-Blair.mp3 The discussion of quantum computing begins at approximately 37:31. The Show Notes and transcript follow. Excerpts from the transcript: One significant thing that quantum computing could do is enable more secure encryption. Robert J. Marks: Let’s get to quantum computing. This is the thing that’s in the news everywhere. There was the announcement that Google has built Read More ›

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News
Date
December 3, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Science

Tagged
cosmology, Eric Holloway, Physics, Theory of Everything}

Can a Powerful Enough Computer Work Out a Theory of Everything?

_{Some physicists hope so even if it would put them out of work. But is it possible?} _{News
December 3, 2020

7

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Science}

Recently, prominent physicists were asked whether a sufficiently powerful computer could come up with a Theory of Everything, by the sheer power of crunching numbers. As a recent New York Times article by Dennis Overbye shows, physicists were divided and uncertain: “It might be possible, physicists say, but not anytime soon. And there’s no guarantee that we humans will understand the result.” But doubt, in the view of multiverse theorist Max Tegmark, means we are guilty of “carbon chauvinism”—the idea that humans could be smarter than computers. The late Stephen Hawking thought that computers would replace humans and was alarmed by the prospect. According to Overbye, Hawking had been warning that computers would start to replace physicists in particular since Read More ›

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News
Date
December 2, 2020

Categorized
Science

Tagged
Albert Einstein, bitcoin, Computers, cryptocurrencies, Energy efficiency, Enrique Blair, Entanglement, Featured, John Bell, nonlocality, Quantum Entanglement, qubits, Robert J. Marks, Superposition}

“Spooky Action at a Distance” Makes Sense—in the Quantum World

_{Einstein never liked quantum mechanics but each transistor in your cell phone is a quantum device} _{News
December 2, 2020

8

Science}

In last week’s podcast, “Enrique Blair on quantum computing,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with fellow computer engineer Enrique Blair about why quantum mechanics is so strange. The discussion turned to why Albert Einstein, a brilliant but orderly mathematical thinker, did not really like quantum mechanics at all and what we should learn from that: https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-110-Enrique-Blair.mp3 The discussion of Einstein and “spooky action at a distance” (his way of describing quantum particles’ behavior) starts at approximately 27:45. The Show Notes and transcript follow. Excerpts from the transcript: Robert J. Marks: Albert Einstein didn’t like quantum mechanics or certain aspects of quantum mechanics. Dd he die thinking that quantum mechanics was a fluke? Enrique Blair (pictured): That’s an Read More ›

Blue glowing quantum laser in space with rippled beam

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post

News
Date
November 30, 2020

Categorized
Science

Tagged
Enrique Blair, Erwin Schrödinger, Featured, quantum decoherence, Quantum Mechanics, quantum superposition, Robert J. Marks, Schrödinger’s cat, Superposition}

The Final Ambiguous Truth About Schrödinger’s Cat

_{Schrödinger came up with the cat illustration to explain quantum mechanics to interested people who were not physicists} _{News
November 30, 2020

7

Science}

We don’t see quantum paradoxes outside the lab because everything we see consists of far too many quantum subsystems for any one particle to stand out.

How Scientists Have Learned To Work With the Quantum World

_{It’s still pretty weird, though} _{News
November 29, 2020

7

Science}

In last week’s podcast, “Enrique Blair on quantum computing,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with fellow computer engineer Enrique Blair about why quantum mechanics is so strange. But scientists have learned to work with QM, despite many questions, like how to work with particles that can be in two different places (quantum superposition): https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-110-Enrique-Blair.mp3 [Starts at approximately 13:16.] The Show Notes and transcript follow. Excerpts from the transcript: Robert J. Marks: What’s superposition? What’s going on there? Enrique Blair: Quantum superposition is really a mathematical description. We use wave functions to describe these particles. There’s a wave function for the photon going through Slit One and a wave function for the photon going through Slit Two. To Read More ›

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post

News
Date
November 28, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science

Tagged
Drake Equation, Evolution, Extraterrestrials (ET), Fine-tuning, Michael Denton, Miracle of the Cell (book)}

Does the Slow Pace of Evolution Mean That ET Life Is Rare?

_{That’s the contention in a recent paper by astrobiologists at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute} _{News
November 28, 2020

4

Arts & Culture, Science}

In a new paper, researchers affiliated with Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute use the assumptions we make about the evolution of life on Earth to estimate the likelihood of it happening the same way elsewhere. And the numbers do not look good. As a science writer puts it: There are countless naturally occurring, but extremely lucky ways in which Earth is special, sheltered, protected, and encouraged to have evolved life. And some key moments of emerging life seem much more likely than others, based on what really did happen. Caroline Delbert, “Intelligent Life Really Can’t Exist Anywhere Else” at Popular Mechanics In the paper, the Oxford group concludes, It took approximately 4.5 billion years for a series of evolutionary transitions Read More ›

Blue glowing multidimensional energy sphere isolated on black

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post

News
Date
November 28, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science

Tagged
Breakthrough Listen, design inference, Extraterrestrials (ET)}

New Sky Catalog Reveals Most Likely Sites for Alien Technology

_{“Exotica” lists phenomena for which conventional natural explanations don’t seem to work well} _{News
November 28, 2020

7

Arts & Culture, Science}

We’ve been looking at reasons why we don’t see extraterrestrials, even though many scientists are sure they must exist. One enterprising research group has now assembled Exotica, a catalog of strange phenomena in space, which might help us search more efficiently. If extraterrestrials exist and are technologically advanced, they would leave a “technosignature,” which might at first only be seen as astrange phenomenon in space: Breakthrough Listen, the initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe, today released an innovative catalog of “Exotica”—a diverse list of objects of potential interest to astronomers searching for technosignatures (indicators of technology developed by extraterrestrial intelligence). The catalog is a collection of over 700 distinct targets intended to include “one of everything” Read More ›

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News
Date
November 26, 2020

Categorized
Science

Tagged
Copenhagen interpretation (QM), double-slit experiment, Enrique Blair, Featured, photons, Quantum Mechanics, Robert J. Marks}

Here’s Why the Quantum World Is Just So Strange

_{It underlies our universe but it follows its own “rules,” which don’t make sense to the rest of us} _{News
November 26, 2020

7

Science}

In this week’s podcast, “Enrique Blair on quantum computing,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with fellow computer engineer Enrique Blair about why Quantum mechanics pioneer Niels Bohr said, “If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.” Let’s look at some of the reasons he said that: https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-110-Enrique-Blair.mp3 The Show Notes and transcript follow. Enrique Blair: It’s really quite different from our daily experience. Quantum mechanics really is a description of the world at the microscopic scale. And it’s really weird, because there are things that initially we thought maybe were particles but then we learned that they have wave-like behaviors. And there are other things that we thought were waves and then we Read More ›

collection of alien planets in front of the Milky Way galaxy, nearby exoplanets

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post

News
Date
November 22, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Ethics, Science

Tagged
Extraterrestrial life, Louis Pasteur, Origin of life, Prime Directive, Purpose, Self-organization, Terraforming}

Why Search for Extraterrestrial Life? Why Not Make It Ourselves?

_{A NASA astrobiologist’s bold suggestion is likely to spark debate} _{News
November 22, 2020

4

Arts & Culture, Ethics, Science}

Recently, we have been looking at the question of why we don’t see aliens, with as many as 75 hypotheses offered. But one astrobiologist has a bold suggestion: Why not just seed life on various suitable exoplanets, once we have the means to do it? We need not search for extraterrestrial life if we can learn how to create it ourselves. There are a lot of reasons to think very carefully about doing something like that, as Betül Kaçar (pictured), director of the NASA Astrobiology Consortium MUSE, acknowledges: Rather than regarding the overwhelming majority of planets and moons as failures unworthy of further study, we should instead recognise them for what they are: they’re not empty. In fact, a very Read More ›

Alien arrival on planet Earth, full moon rises above the horizon

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post

News
Date
November 21, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science

Tagged
Enrico Fermi, Extraterrestrials (ET)}

Particle Physicist Offers 75 Reasons We Don’t See Aliens

_{But Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute gives high odds that we are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy} _{News
November 21, 2020

8

Arts & Culture, Science}

Recently, we’ve been looking at Matt Williams’s admirable collection of hypotheses as to why we do not see intelligent extraterrestrials, despite the size of our universe. But particle physicist Stephen Webb collected many more such theses, in a book published in 2002, If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life (2002). A revised edition was published by Springer, a big science publisher, in 2015, offering 75 hypotheses. Webb calls his collection of hypotheses the “Fermi solutions,” in honor of Italian physicist Enrico Fermi (1901–1954), whose famous question was “Where are They?” “Fermi realized that any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology and an Read More ›

Cat looking to little gerbil mouse on the table. Concept of prey, food, pest.

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Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 20, 2020

Categorized
Information Theory, Neuroscience, Science

Tagged
Agency, Animals, Erwin Schrödinger, hard problem of consciousness, Information, mind, Philip Ball, Plants, Purpose}

Can We Find Purpose in a Universe With No Underlying Purpose?

_{That’s the ambitious goal of a prominent science writer} _{Denyse O'Leary
November 20, 2020

8

Information Theory, Neuroscience, Science}

British science writer Philip Ball offers us a guide to a very interesting project: an attempt to “naturalize” the idea of agency, that is, make the desire to do things—the mouse’s desire to escape the cat— explainable from a fully materialist perspective. That’s much harder than it seems. Rocks don’t desire anything. So we can’t just start from the bottom. It’s also not enough to say that the mouse wants to avoid getting killed. That’s true but it doesn’t really explain anything. For example, a person looks both ways before crossing the street to avoid getting run over. But, by itself, that doesn’t explain why she tries to avoid getting run over. One must factor in her memory, background knowledge, Read More ›

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post

News
Date
November 18, 2020

Categorized
Neuroscience, Science

Tagged
human brain, Universe}

Study: The Human Brain and the Universe Are Remarkably Similar

_{It looks as though the universe is not random but rather patterned in the way it unfolds} _{News
November 18, 2020

3

Neuroscience, Science}

Recently, Franco Vazza, an astrophysicist at the University of Bologna and Alberto Felleti, a neurosurgeon at the University of Verona, decided to compare the network of human brain cells and the network of galaxies in our universe. Even though the universe is 27 orders of magnitude bigger than a single human brain, remarkable similarities emerged: The human brain functions thanks to its wide neuronal network that is deemed to contain approximately 69 billion neurons. On the other hand, the observable universe is composed of a cosmic web of at least 100 billion galaxies. Within both systems, only 30% of their masses are composed of galaxies and neurons. Within both systems, galaxies and neurons arrange themselves in long filaments or nodes Read More ›

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Michael Egnor
Date
November 16, 2020

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind, Science

Tagged
Determinism, Featured, free will, Freedom, Jerry Coyne, John Bell, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Physics}

A Materialist Gives Up on Determinism

_{Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne undercuts his own argument against free will by admitting that quantum phenomena are real} _{Michael Egnor
November 16, 2020

5

Philosophy of Mind, Science}

Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne has denied free will for years. But most recently, he has said something that puts the whole matter in doubt. A bit of background: Free will simply cannot be real if determinism is true, that is, if everything in nature falls like dominoes after the first one is pushed: If nature is truly like that, our acts, like those of the dominoes, are wholly determined by natural history and physical laws that we do not control. Nearly all arguments against free will depend critically on determinism. But there is a central problem with determinism: It is clear from physics that determinism in nature is not true. In 1964, theoretical physicist John Bell (1928–1990) proposed relatively simple Read More ›