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Category: physics – Page 4

Humanity’s fascination with the unknown is a timeless impulse, rooted in curiosity and the desire to push boundaries, uncover mysteries, and open doors to new frontiers. What were once represented by voyages and the discovery of new islands and continents are now pursued in the vastness of the Universe. As we seek answers, provoke new questions, and open doors to endless possibilities, this drive continues to inspire. It has shaped countless literary and cinematic works, transforming interstellar exploration from a science fiction concept into a vision increasingly grounded in reality. One such visionary project is Project Hyperion, spearheaded by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is), which challenges humanity to develop practical solutions for interstellar travel through a design competition. By envisioning generation ships—vast, self-sustaining habitats capable of supporting multigenerational societies on journeys spanning centuries—the project not only pushes the boundaries of technology but also sparks social innovation, stretching the limits of our collective imagination.

The exploration of outer space, which began during the Cold War space race with milestones like the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969, has driven advances in science, technology, and geopolitics. Since then, continuous efforts such as the International Space Station (ISS), launched in 1998, have provided platforms for microgravity experiments essential to research in biomedicine and physics, as well as preparation for lunar and Martian missions. Simultaneously, spacecraft have evolved from orbital missions to interplanetary exploration and, more recently, space tourism, with vehicles like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Blue Origin’s New Shepard offering unique experiences in space.

However, the challenge of interstellar exploration—journeys beyond our solar system to distant stars—presents far greater complexity and requires a radical reimagining of space technology. An interstellar spacecraft would not simply be a scaled-up version of today’s spaceships but a structure capable of sustaining journeys lasting centuries, traversing immense distances. To endure such long voyages, these ships must be self-sustaining, with closed-loop life support systems, food production, and resource recycling, creating an environment where people are born, live, and die. Beyond technological challenges, there are also social and psychological hurdles to prolonged space travel. Such a ship must be not only a high-performance machine but also a viable habitat for living, working, and fostering a society across generations. This requires rethinking how we organize coexistence, social relationships, and power dynamics in an isolated and confined environment.

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An international team of scientists has uncovered a fascinating piece of the evolutionary puzzle: the origin of the ventral nerve cord, a vital part of the central nervous system, in ecdysozoan animals—a group that includes insects, nematodes, and priapulid worms. Their study, published in Science Advances

<em> Science Advances </em> is a peer-reviewed scientific journal established by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It serves as an open-access platform featuring high-quality research across the entire spectrum of science and science-related disciplines. Launched in 2015, the journal aims to publish significant, innovative research that advances the frontiers of science and extends the reach of high-impact science to a global audience. “Science Advances” covers a broad range of topics including, but not limited to, biology, physics, chemistry, environmental science, and social sciences, making it a multidisciplinary publication.

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At Argonne National Laboratory, scientists have leveraged the Frontier supercomputer to create an unprecedented simulation of the universe, encompassing a span of 10 billion light years and incorporating complex physics models.

This monumental achievement allows for new insights into galaxy formation and cosmic evolution, showcasing the profound capabilities of exascale computing.

Breakthrough in Universe Simulation.

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Researchers have pioneered the use of parallel computing on graphics cards to simulate acoustic turbulence. This type of simulation, which previously required a supercomputer, can now be performed on a standard personal computer. The discovery will make weather forecasting models more accurate while enabling the use of turbulence theory in various fields of physics, such as astrophysics, to calculate the trajectories and propagation speeds of acoustic waves in the universe. The research was published in Physical Review Letters.

Turbulence is the complex chaotic behavior of fluids, gases or nonlinear waves in various physical systems. For example, at the ocean surface can be caused by wind or wind-drift currents, while turbulence of laser radiation in optics occurs as light is scattered by lenses. Turbulence can also occur in sound waves that propagate chaotically in certain media, such as superfluid helium.

In the 1970s, Soviet scientists proposed that turbulence occurs when sound waves deviate from equilibrium and reach large amplitudes. The theory of wave turbulence applies to many other wave systems, including magnetohydrodynamic waves in the ionospheres of stars and giant planets, and perhaps even in the early universe. Until recently, however, it has been nearly impossible to predict the propagation patterns of nonlinear (i.e., chaotically moving) acoustic and other waves because of the high computational complexity involved.

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In today’s AI news, François Chollet, an influential AI researcher, is launching a new startup that aims to build frontier AI systems with novel designs. The startup, Ndea, will consist of an AI research and science lab. It’s looking to “develop and operationalize” AGI. It’s a goalpost for many AI companies …

In other advancements, San Francisco-based Luma released Ray2, its newest video AI generation model, available now through its Dream Machine website and mobile apps for paying subscribers (to start). The model offers “fast, natural coherent motion and physics,” according to CEO Amit Jain.

And, Microsoft has been positioning Copilot as the “UI for AI.” Now, as the next step in this work, it is launching Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat — a rebranded version of its free AI chat experience for businesses, enhanced with agentic capabilities.

Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum surveyed 1,000 global employers, who collectively employ more than 14.1 million workers across 22 industries, for its Future of Jobs report—and it found that 41% of bosses think they’ll need to reduce their workforce in the next five years. Why? Because they predict there will be a pool of workers whose skills or roles become obsolete thanks to AI.

S. Get a guide to the concept of agents and multi-agent frameworks, and learn how to build complex AI applications that can drive business value. ” + s next in AI. ” + And, to kick off Possible’s fourth season, Reid and Aria sit down with world-renowned computer scientist Dr. Fei-Fei Li, whose work in artificial intelligence over the past several decades has earned her the nickname “the godmother of AI.” An entrepreneur and professor, Fei-Fei shares her journey …

Continue reading “AI Researcher François Chollet Founds A New AI Lab Focused On AGI” | >

In a bold new theory, researchers from Microsoft, Brown University, and other institutions suggest that the universe might be capable of teaching itself how to evolve. Their study, published on the preprint server arXiv, proposes that the physical laws we observe today may have emerged through a gradual learning process, akin to Darwinian natural selection or self-learning algorithms in artificial intelligence.

This radical idea challenges traditional cosmology by imagining a primitive early universe where physical laws like gravity were far simpler or even static. Over time, these laws “learned” to adapt into more complex forms, enabling the structured universe we observe today. For instance, gravity might have initially lacked distinctions between celestial bodies like Earth and the Moon. This progression mirrors how adaptable traits in biology survive through natural selection.

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What lies beyond the beginning of time? Physicists are exploring groundbreaking ideas that could reveal a hidden universe behind the Big Bang.

This mind-bending theory challenges everything we know about existence and the mysteries of our cosmic origins.

Imagine rewinding the story of our universe —back through billions of years of expansion, past the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets, to the very beginning. What if, instead of a single moment of creation, there was a cosmic reflection—a mirror image of everything we know, moving backward in time?

Continue reading “A Team Of Physicists Says There May Be Another Universe Running Backward In Time Prior To The Big Bang” | >

Collapsed dead stars, known as neutron stars, are a trillion times denser than lead, and their surface features are largely unknown. Nuclear theorists have explored mountain building mechanisms active on the moons and planets in our solar system. Some of these mechanisms suggest that neutron stars are likely to have mountains.

Neutron star “mountains” would be much more massive than any on Earth—so massive that gravity just from these mountains could produce small oscillations, or ripples, in the fabric of space and time.

Mountains, or non-axisymmetric deformations of rotating neutron stars, efficiently radiate gravitational waves. In a study published in the journal Physical Review D, nuclear theorists at Indiana University consider analogies between neutron star mountains and surface features of solar system bodies.

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In February 2016, scientists working for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) made history by announcing the first-ever detection of gravitational waves (GW). These waves, predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, are created when massive objects collide (neutron stars or black holes), causing ripples in spacetime that can be detected millions or billions of light years away. Since their discovery, astrophysicists have been finding applications for GW astronomy, which include probing the interiors of neutron stars.

For instance, scientists believe that probing the continuous gravitational wave (CW) emissions from neutron stars will reveal data on their internal structure and equation of state and can provide tests of General Relativity. In a recent study, members of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration conducted a search for CWs from 45 known pulsars. While their results showed no signs of CWs emanating from their sample of pulsars, their work does establish upper and lower limits on the signal amplitude, potentially aiding future searches.

The LVK Collaboration is an international consortium of scientists from hundreds of universities and institutes worldwide. This collaboration combines data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory’s (LIGO) twin observatories, the Virgo Observatory, and the Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector (KAGRA). The preprint of the paper, “Search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in the first part of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run,” recently appeared online.

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