Basic ideas for the laymen. Accurate, but not much new.
It demands we be both “brave” and responsible, DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis says.
An international team of researchers stumbled upon an exploding supernova in a distant spiral galaxy, using data from the first year of interstellar observation by the James Webb Space Telescope.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers longer wavelengths of light, with greatly improved sensitivity, allowing it to see inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today as well as looking further back in time to observe the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.
As scientist extraordinaire and author of an empire of science-fiction books, Arthur C. Clarke is one of the farthest-seeing visionaries of our time. His pithy quotations tug harder than those of most futurists on our collective psyches for their insights into humanity and our unique place in the cosmos. And none do so more than his famous Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
This observation stimulated me to think about the impact the discovery of an extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) would have on science and religion. To that end, I would like to immodestly propose Shermer’s Last Law (I don’t believe in naming laws after oneself, so as the good book says, the last shall be first and the first shall be last): “Any sufficiently advanced ETI is indistinguishable from God.”
God is typically described by Western religions as omniscient and omnipotent. Because we are far from possessing these traits, how can we possibly distinguish a God who has them absolutely from an ETI who merely has them copiously relative to us? We can’t. But if God were only relatively more knowing and powerful than we are, then by definition the deity would be an ETI!
Julian Barbour, physicist, talks the illusion of time, the origin of the universe, and what is reality. He also discusses his newest book, “The Janus Point: A New Theory of Time,” which makes the radical argument that the growth of order drives the passage of time — and shapes the destiny of the universe.
Read “The Janus Point”: https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/julian-barbour/the-janus-point/9780465095469/
Julian Barbour’s Website: http://www.platonia.com/
Continue reading “Julian Barbour on Time, the Universe, and Reality | Closer To Truth Chats” »
According to reports from Spanish newspaper El País, researchers have discovered a way to speed up, slow down, and even reverse quantum time by taking advantage of unusual properties within a quantum world in specific ways. It’s a huge breakthrough, which the researchers have detailed in a series of six new papers featured in Advancing Physics.
The papers were originally published in 2018, and they detail how researchers were able to rewind time to a previous scene, as well as even skip several scenes forward. Being able to reverse and even control quantum time is a huge step forward, especially as we’ve seen increasing movements into quantum simulators.
The realm of quantum physics is a complex one, no doubt, and with analog quantum computers showing such promise at solving intense problems, it only seens fitting that research into controlling and reversing quantum time would prove so fruitful. The researchers say that the control they can acquire on the quantum world is very similar to controlling a movie.
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The event that shaped the world of Blade Runner is an event you’ve probably never heard of: World War Terminus. CJ explores the origin of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’s environmental desolation and asks: did it happen in the movie, too?
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Continue reading “World War Terminus Explained | Blade Runner 2049” »
Biocomputers powered by human brain cells may be the futuristic result of a new field called “organoid intelligence.” Scientists envision brain organoids, grown in labs using human cells, that could lead to advances in medicine and computing.
MIT researchers customized a Microsoft Hololens to let them view objects using radio frequencies. If you have ever wanted to possess the superpower of x-ray vision, you may have thought it was only possible if you were from Krypton. However, thanks to a new technology, you may be barking up the wrong tree while thinking about Supergirl, as the reality of seeing through objects lies more with tech, making Iron Man or Batman a more appropriate idea.
