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Category: computing – Page 18

Venus Clouds Driven by Solar System’s Largest Waves

“Up until now, we used a global circulation model (GCM) for Venus that is similar to Earth’s, but this model doesn’t include the hydraulic jump which we have now identified,” said Dr. Takeshi Imamura. [ https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30535/venus-clouds-d…gest-waves](https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30535/venus-clouds-d…gest-waves)

What explains the unique behavior of Venus’ clouds? This is what a recent study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets hopes to address as an international team of scientists led by Japan and included the United States and Spain investigated a longstanding conundrum regarding Venus’ meteorology, specifically cloud weather patterns. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand planetary cloud patterns and what this can teach us about planetary formation and evolution.

For the study, the researchers used a series of computer models to simulate Venus’ cloud weather patterns, specifically focusing on a 6,000-kilometer-wide (3,728-mile-wide) cloud front whose behavior has puzzled scientists for years. The primary puzzlement is the origin of the massive cloud wave, which current global climate models can’t explain. Along with the puzzlement, the motivation behind the study also comes from a knowledge gap in the formation of the lower cloud regions within Venus’ atmosphere.

In the end, the researchers found that a phenomenon known as a “hydraulic jump” was responsible for producing the massive cloud wave front. This jump is caused by changes in airflow in the lower cloud regions combined with a strong updraft, resulting in sulfuric acid vapor (which comprises Venus’ clouds) to condense, forming the massive cloud wave front. This study helps explain the connection between the Venusian atmosphere motion and clouds.

This Physicist (Unexpectedly) Derived Gravity from Information

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What if gravity is just entropy in disguise? Professor Erik Verlinde joins me to argue that gravity isn’t a fundamental force—it’s thermodynamic, emerging from quantum information the way gas pressure emerges from molecules bouncing around. We explore why spacetime may be stitched together by entanglement, and how dark energy and dark matter both pop out automatically without extra particles or parameters. Verlinde explains why the cosmological constant problem is a red herring, and why there may be no final theory of physics. When asked where the universe comes from, his answer is one word: chaos.

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  • 00:00:00 — Thermodynamic Gravity and Information
  • 00:06:35 — Beyond Effective Field Theory
  • 00:13:08 — Turtles All The Way Down
  • 00:25:41 — Entropy as a Force
  • 00:36:31 — Entanglement and Spatial Connectivity
  • 00:47:31 — Deriving Inertia and F=ma
  • 00:56:41 — De Sitter Space Challenges
  • 01:02:01 — Dark Matter and Milgram
  • 01:11:51 — The Emergence of Time
  • 01:21:01 — Statistical Gravity Fluctuations
  • 01:27:01 — Quantum Computational Complexity
  • 01:36:01 — Physics Intuition and Mentorship
  • 01:47:31 — Beauty, Garbage, and Chaos

LINKS MENTIONED: Papers, books, websites:

Videos:

  • • A 2 Hour Deep Dive into Entropy
  • • The Mathematics of String Theory [Graduate…
  • • The Debate That Divides Physics: Is the Un…
  • • The Physicist Who Found Quantum Theory’s U…
  • • Retrocausality & The Transactional Interpr…
  • • The Physicist Who Proved Entropy = Gravity
  • • The Physicist Who Says Time Doesn’t Exist
  • • The Most Astonishing Theory of Black Holes
  • • The (Simple) Theory That Explains Everythi…
  • • The Crisis in String Theory is Worse Than…
  • • Dark Dimensions: NEW THEORY Unifying Dark…
  • • MIT Scientist’s Discovery: “Black Holes Mi…
  • • The Woman Who Broke Gravity | Claudia de Rham
  • • Solving the Problem of Consciousness | Ste…
  • • Frederic Schuller: The Physicist Who Deriv…
  • • The Loop Quantum Gravity Debacle: Carlo Ro…
  • • An (Elementary) Introduction to Quantum Co…
  • • Can Physics Explain Its Own Laws?
  • • The Nobel Laureate Who (Also) Says Quantum…
  • • This Cosmologist Discovered Something Stra…
  • • Michael Levin: Consciousness, Biology, Uni…

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TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 — Thermodynamic Gravity and Information 00:06:35 — Beyond Effective Field Theory 00:13:08 — Turtles All The Way Down 00:25:41 — Entropy as a Force 00:36:31 — Entanglement and Spatial Connectivity 00:47:31 — Deriving Inertia and F=ma 00:56:41 — De Sitter Space Challenges 01:02:01 — Dark Matter and Milgram 01:11:51 — The Emergence of Time 01:21:01 — Statistical Gravity Fluctuations 01:27:01 — Quantum Computational Complexity 01:36:01 — Physics Intuition and Mentorship 01:47:31 — Beauty, Garbage, and Chaos.

Continue reading “This Physicist (Unexpectedly) Derived Gravity from Information” | >

Liquid crystals enable on‑demand skyrmion formation at room temperature

Researchers have recently found a new way to summon useful structures in magnetic materials using light, heat, and electric fields. This new method, described in a new study published in Physical Review Letters, may lead to more energy-efficient and flexible technologies for data storage and optical devices.

Within the realm of condensed matter physics, scientists study how macroscopic properties emerge from the interactions of vast numbers of microscopic particles in materials. In magnetic materials, skyrmions—nanoscale, topologically stable swirling magnetic structures—arise under certain conditions.

While they have been observed in magnets, superconductors, and liquid crystals, their nucleation is often random or requires extreme conditions. Creating these structures on demand is difficult due to high energy barriers and lack of easy, reversible control.

These computer voices sound human enough to mislead, but one layer of speech still breaks the illusion

We are surrounded by computer-generated voices these days, from navigation systems and voice assistants to automated announcements. But how human do these voices actually sound? A recent study by the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, published in the journal Speech Communication, shows that our perception is affected by three things: how something is said, what is being said, and whether we understand the language.

In two consecutive experiments, the researchers investigated how people perceive the difference between real and synthetic voices. They created 16 short German sentences, such as: “The boy gave his father a hat.” The team then manipulated the sentences in three different ways by changing the word order, replacing words with similar-sounding pseudowords, and combining both changes. This resulted in four versions of each sentence. All versions were recorded by eight human speakers and eight computer-generated text-to-speech (TTS) voices.

In the first experiment, 40 German-speaking participants rated how human the voices sounded. Overall, the computer-generated voices were perceived as less human than the human voices. An analysis of the voices’ acoustic characteristics revealed objectively measurable differences in sound between human and TTS-generated voices.

This Magnetic Field Trick Creates Entirely New Forms of Matter

Scientists have shown that changing magnetic fields in precise ways can create exotic quantum matter that does not normally exist. The discovery could eventually lead to more reliable quantum technologies and powerful new computing systems.

Quantum technology is widely seen as one of the most promising future tools for processing massive and complicated amounts of information. Although most quantum systems are still confined to laboratories and research facilities, scientists are steadily working toward applications that could eventually impact industries across the economy.

Magnetic fields and exotic quantum states.

How Unknowable Math Can Help Hide Secrets

Perhaps the most famous example comes from a theorem by the logician Kurt Gödel’s celebrated result — one of two “incompleteness theorems” he published in 1931 — established that for any reasonable set of basic mathematical assumptions, called axioms, it’s impossible to prove that the axioms won’t eventually lead to contradictions. Though mathematicians continued their research much as they had before, they would never again be certain that their rules were self-consistent.

More than 50 years after Gödel’s theorem, cryptographers devised a radical new proof method in which unknowability played a very different role. Proofs based on this technique, called zero-knowledge proofs, can convince even the most skeptical audience that a statement is true without revealing why it’s true.

These two flavors of unknowability, which originated decades apart and in different fields, were long considered completely unrelated. Now the computer scientist Rahul Ilango (opens a new tab) has established a striking connection (opens a new tab) between them. While still a graduate student, he devised a new type of zero-knowledge proof in which secrecy stems from the fundamental limits of math. Ilango’s approach gets around limitations of zero-knowledge proofs that researchers have long thought insurmountable, pushing the boundaries of what such a proof can be. The work has also spurred researchers to explore other intriguing links between mathematical logic and cryptography.

Intel Resurrects On-Package Memory With Razor Lake-AX, Loading Up LPDDR6 to Hunt Down AMD’s Medusa Halo by 2028

Intel’s next-generation Razor Lake-AX chips will compete directly against AMD’s Medusa Halo while featuring on-package memory.

On-Package Memory was last used by Intel for its Lunar Lake SoCs. These SoCs were aimed at low-power mobile platforms, and while the chips themselves offered solid performance in a 30W budget, Intel’s next on-package memory solution will be a big one.

As per Haze2K1 on X, Intel Razor Lake-AX SoCs will feature on-package memory. This is a big deal as moving the DRAM closer to the chip itself has several advantages, leading to efficient & compact PCs. The type of memory isn’t disclosed, but we are likely looking at either LPDDR5X or the next-gen LPDDR6 standards.

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