Lifeboat Foundation

The story of modern physics has been one of reductionism. We do not need a vast encyclopedia to understand the inner workings of Nature. Rather, we can describe a near-limitless range of natural phenomena, from the interior of a proton to the creation of galaxies, with apparently unreasonable efficiency using the language of mathematics. In the words of theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner, ‘The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it.’

The mathematics of the twentieth century described a Universe populated by a limited number of different types of fundamental particles interacting with each other in an arena known as spacetime according to a collection of rules that can be written down on the back of an envelope. If the Universe was designed, it seemed, the designer was a mathematician.

Today, the study of black holes appears to be edging us in a new direction, towards a language more often used by quantum computer scientists. The language of information. Space and time may be emergent entities that do not exist in the deepest description of Nature. Instead, they are synthesized out of entangled quantum bits of information in a way that resembles a cleverly constructed computer code. If the Universe is designed, it seems, the designer is a programmer.

Year 2022 😗

A sparsified SYK model is constructed using learning techniques and the corresponding traversable wormhole dynamics are observed, representing a step towards a program for studying quantum gravity in the laboratory.

Year 2022 😗

WASHINGTON, Nov 30 (Reuters) — In science fiction — think films and TV like “Interstellar” and “Star Trek” — wormholes in the cosmos serve as portals through space and time for spacecraft to traverse unimaginable distances with ease. If only it were that simple.

Scientists have long pursued a deeper understanding of wormholes and now appear to be making progress. Researchers announced on Wednesday that they forged two miniscule simulated black holes — those extraordinarily dense celestial objects with gravity so powerful that not even light can escape — in a quantum computer and transmitted a message between them through what amounted to a tunnel in space-time.

Continue reading “Scientists build ‘baby’ wormhole as sci-fi moves closer to fact” »

Researchers have created a computer simulation of early universe in the epoch after the Big Bang. It’s designed to help them interpret real data in future.

Generative AI, the technology behind ChatGPT, is going supernova, as astronomers say, outshining other innovations for the moment. But despite alarmist predictions of AI overlords enslaving mankind, the technology still requires human handlers and will for some time to come.

While AI can generate content and code at a blinding pace, it still requires humans to oversee the output, which can be low quality or simply wrong. Whether it be writing a report or writing a computer program, the technology cannot be trusted to deliver accuracy that humans can rely on. It’s getting better, but even that process of improvement depends on an army of humans painstakingly correcting the AI model’s mistakes in an effort to teach it to ‘behave.’

Humans in the loop is an old concept in AI. It refers to the practice of involving human experts in the process of training and refining AI systems to ensure that they perform correctly and meet the desired objectives.

The-Vagabond/iStock.

And scientists have been working tirelessly to decode the mystery of dark matter.

Primordial black holes older than the big bang could rewrite cosmology by providing evidence for a previous universe. It’s a wild idea, but some physicists think we’ve got a chance of finding them.

By Bernard Carr

I read enough to realize it’s in depth enough to make it worthwhile. I’ll finish tomorrow as it’s 10:35 pm and I’m beat. I need to rest for my mother’s cardiac rehab tomorrow. She had a heart attack about a month ago.

Ray Kurzweil discusses having a universe filled with Computronium.

Continue reading “Computronium universe” »

Although neutrinos are produced abundantly in collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), until now no neutrinos produced in such a way had been detected. Within just nine months of the start of LHC Run 3 and the beginning of its measurement campaign, the FASER collaboration changed this picture by announcing its first observation of collider neutrinos at this year’s electroweak session of the Rencontres de Moriond. In particular, FASER observed muon neutrinos and candidate events of electron neutrinos. “Our statistical significance is roughly 16 sigma, far exceeding 5 sigma, the threshold for a discovery in particle physics,” explains FASER’s co-spokesperson Jamie Boyd.

In addition to its observation of neutrinos at a particle collider, FASER presented results on searches for dark photons. With a null result, the collaboration was able to set limits on previously unexplored parameter space and began to exclude regions motivated by dark matter. FASER aims to collect up to ten times more data over the coming years, allowing more searches and neutrino measurements.

FASER is one of two new experiments situated at either side of the ATLAS cavern to detect neutrinos produced in proton collisions in ATLAS. The complementary experiment, SND@LHC, also reported its first results at Moriond, showing eight muon neutrino candidate events. “We are still working on the assessment of the systematic uncertainties to the background. As a very preliminary result, our observation can be claimed at the level of 5 sigma,” adds SND@LHC spokesperson Giovanni De Lellis. The SND@LHC detector was installed in the LHC tunnel just in time for the start of LHC Run 3.