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Sep 2, 2019

Supergravity Snags Super Award: $3-Million Special Breakthrough Prize

Posted by in categories: innovation, particle physics

The theory, which emerged in the 1970s as a way to unify the fundamental forces of nature, has profoundly shaped the landscape of particle physics.

Sep 2, 2019

Theory: M-theory is a theory in physics that unifies all consistent versions of superstring theory

Posted by in categories: mathematics, quantum physics

M-theory is a theory in physics that unifies all consistent versions of superstring theory. The existence of such a theory was first conjectured by Edward Witten at a string theory conference at the University of Southern California in the Spring of 1995. Witten’s announcement initiated a flurry of research activity known as the second superstring revolution.

Prior to Witten’s announcement, string theorists had identified five versions of superstring theory. Although these theories appeared, at first, to be very different, work by several physicists showed that the theories were related in intricate and nontrivial ways. In particular, physicists found that apparently distinct theories could be unified by mathematical transformations called S–duality and T–duality. Witten’s conjecture was based in part on the existence of these dualities and in part on the relationship of the string theories to a field theory called eleven-dimensional supergravity.

Although a complete formulation of M-theory is not known, the theory should describe two- and five-dimensional objects called branes and should be approximated by eleven-dimensional supergravity at low energies. Modern attempts to formulate M-theory are typically based on matrix theory or the AdS/CFT correspondence.

Sep 2, 2019

Supersymmetry: Supersymmetry predicts a partner particle for each particle in the Standard Model, to help explain why particles have mass

Posted by in category: particle physics

Sep 2, 2019

Greta Thunberg responds to Asperger’s critics: ‘It’s a superpower’

Posted by in category: climatology

Teenage climate activist responds to criticism, saying ‘when haters go after your looks and differences … you know you’re winning’

Sep 2, 2019

Everyone remembers their first time: ESA satellite dodges a “mega constellation”

Posted by in category: satellites

Spoiler: yes, it was spacex’s starlink.

Sep 2, 2019

DNA Switch May Allow For Total Body Regeneration, Harvard Researchers Say

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Scientists have identified the mechanism that lets geckos regrow severed limbs, and they may get it to work in humans.

Sep 2, 2019

Non-Euclidean Worlds Engine

Posted by in category: media & arts

Here’s a demo of a rendering engine I’ve been working on that allows for non-euclidean geometry.

Source Code and Executable:
https://github.com/HackerPoet/NonEuclidean

Music:
“Automatic Loving” — Dee Yan-Key

Sep 2, 2019

The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol. II Ch. 34: The Magnetism of Matter

Posted by in category: physics

Dear Reader.

There are several reasons you might be seeing this page. In order to read the online edition of The Feynman Lectures on Physics, javascript must be supported by your browser and enabled. If you have have visited this website previously it’s possible you may have a mixture of incompatible files (.js,.css, and.html) in your browser cache. If you use an ad blocker it may be preventing our pages from downloading necessary resources. So, please try the following: make sure javascript is enabled, clear your browser cache (at least of files from feynmanlectures.caltech.edu), turn off your browser extensions, and open this page:

Sep 2, 2019

Quantum-level control of an exotic topological quantum magnet

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, quantum physics, transportation

This would be good for hoverboards and aircrafts.


Physicists have discovered a novel quantum state of matter whose symmetry can be manipulated at will by an external magnetic field. The methods demonstrated in a series of experiments could be useful for exploring materials for next-generation nano- or quantum technologies.

Close.

Sep 2, 2019

What’s My Best Chance of Living Forever?

Posted by in categories: alien life, life extension

This makes for a microcosm of people on the outside looking in who do not follow on a regular basis. A basic headline of living forever followed by comments of doubt or silliness and the heat death of the universe. Of the experts, I like Sinclair’s answer best.


What do hideous mall t-shirts, emo bands from the mid-aughts, and gorgeously-wrought realist novels about dissolving marriages have in common? Simply this assertion: Life Sucks. And it does suck, undoubtedly, even for the happiest and/or richest among us, not one of whom is immune from heartbreak, hemorrhoids, or getting mercilessly ridiculed online.

Still, at certain points in life’s parade of humiliation and physical decay almost all of us feel a longing—sometimes fleeting, sometimes sustained—for it to never actually end. The live-forever impulse is, we know, driving all manner of frantic, crackpot-ish behavior in the fringier corners of the tech-world; but will the nerds really pull through for us on this one? What are our actual chances, at this moment in time, of living forever? For this week’s Giz Asks, we spoke with a number of experts to find out.