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The wildly inventive physicist John Wheeler was an early explorer of this notion. In a 1989 paper, “Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links,” Wheeler takes a stab at “the age-old question: How come existence?” The answer, he speculates, might come from a fusion of physics and information theory. The former traffics in “its,” or physical things, and the latter in “bits,” defined as answers to yes-or-no questions.

Wheeler proposes that “every physical quantity, every it, derives its ultimate significance from bits, binary yes-or-no indications, a conclusion which we epitomize in the phrase, it from bit.” Noting the crucial role of measurement in the outcome of quantum experiments, Wheeler suggests that we live in a “participatory universe,” in which we bring the world into existence, and vice versa.

Picking up on Wheeler’s ideas, physicist Carlo Rovelli argues in a 1996 paper, “Relational Quantum Mechanics,” that quantum mechanics undermines “naive realism,” the notion that science discovers a reality that exists independently of our observation of it. He proposes what he calls a “relational” interpretation of quantum mechanics, which says things only exist in relation to other things. Rovelli notes that Galileo and Kant, among others, anticipated the relational perspective.

Time magazine on Monday named Tesla chief and space entrepreneur Elon Musk as its person of the year, citing his embodiment of the technological shifts but also troubling trends reshaping people’s lives.

Musk — who overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos this year to become the world’s wealthiest person — wields impact on Earth with his Tesla electric car company and beyond our planet with his SpaceX rockets.

“Musk’s rise coincides with broader trends of which he and his fellow technology magnates are part cause and part effect,” Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote.

Further exploration of the unknown worlds of the deep sea may soon be possible, along with low-energy monitoring. Engineers at Caltech, ETH Zurich, and Harvard are developing an AI that will allow autonomous drones to navigate using the ocean’s currents rather than struggling to move through them.

According to one of the authors of a recent paper published in Nature Communications 0, John O. Dabiri, communications with robots exploring at depths of 20,000 feet is near impossible. They are difficult to control via joystick, and researchers are unable to feed them data about local ocean currents. So it becomes necessary for ocean-borne drones to be able to make their own decisions and move by themselves.

Contrary to what you may think, getting old is not inevitable. And by getting old, I mean the bad parts: weakened muscles, fading memory, aching joints … or perhaps a disease such as cancer or diabetes makes an unwelcome appearance.

James Peyer, 35, is out to prove that age is, instead, like polio or tuberculosis. Those and other infectious diseases once were the biggest killers, until we developed effective vaccines or treatments.

Why, asked Peyer, co-founder of the New York longevity start-up Cambrian Biopharma, should age be any different? “Of our 100,000-year-plus history as a species, it’s been for only about 75 years that these diseases of ageing have been the primary predators of humankind.” He added: “We are rapidly zeroing in on our biggest.

Elon Musk warns that real androids are coming. Musk is one of the world wealthiest men and a tech entrepreneur. Some fear an impending catastrophe as a result of robots produced with artificial intelligence. Others speculate he is developing Neuralink to offer humans a fighting chance. Musk response video comes from Cornwall-based Engineered Arts.

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Elon Musk is Time’s Person of the Year.

The magazine said that he had been chosen for his work in space as well as on electric cars, as well as his plans to take humanity to Mars and his interest in cryptocurrency. It also noted in its announcement that Mr Musk “also likes to live-tweet his poops”, thought to be a first for a Time “Person of the Year”.

“For creating solutions to an existential crisis, for embodying the possibilities and the perils of the age of tech titans, for driving society’s most daring and disruptive transformations, Elon Musk is TIME’s 2021 Person of the Year,” the magazine wrote in its announcement.