Category: Quantum Stuff

Explore Watching the short film Planktonium, the latest from Dutch filmmaker Jan van IJken, can feel like a meditation. The miniscule lifeforms he films under microscope mesmerize. Planktonium feels imbued with the spirit, you might say, of another Dutchman, one from the 17th century, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the father of microbiology. “Leeuwenhoek delighted most in… Continue reading The Little Miracles in the Invisible World of Plankton

Do we need artificial intelligence to tell us what’s right and wrong? The idea might strike you as repulsive. Many regard their morals, whatever the source, as central to who they are. This isn’t something to outsource to a machine. But everyone faces morally uncertain situations, and on occasion, we seek the input of others.… Continue reading AI Is Already Making Moral Choices for Us. Now What?

How do you know you’re not in a computer simulation right now? This idea is often known as the simulation hypothesis. The simulation hypothesis says simply: “We are living in a computer simulation.” What is it to be living in a simulation? As I understand this notion, it’s all about interacting with the simulation. When… Continue reading Can We Prove the World Isn’t a Simulation?

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has some rocks stuck in its throat. Perseverance drilled and collected its sixth Red Planet rock sample late last month, but the car-sized rover hasn’t been able to seal up the titanium tube containing the material yet. “I recently captured my sixth rock core and have encountered a new challenge. Seems some… Continue reading NASA’s Perseverance Rover Chokes on Mars Pebbles while Collecting a Rock Sample

Even if you’ve never seen the original Matrix movie, you probably know the central premise: Our hero, a computer programmer named Neo, discovers that reality is not as it seems. What he understood to be his world was a simulation; he eventually awakes in a liquid-filled pod, where his body had been languishing. That, of… Continue reading The Simulated World According to David Chalmers

Irene Valenzuela, a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid, agreed. “One of the questions is if string theory is the unique theory of quantum gravity or not,” she said. “This goes along the lines that string theory is unique.” Other commentators saw that as too bold a… Continue reading In a Numerical Coincidence, Some See Evidence for String Theory

Plant-based meat alternatives are making the rounds from food blogs to five-star restaurants—and soon they may appear on menus for some decidedly different diners. A new study published in Communications Biology shows how to trick mosquitoes into eating beet juice “blood” laced with poison. Mosquito-borne diseases kill more than 700,000 people every year, with malaria… Continue reading New Bait Uses Mosquitoes’ Love of Malaria Parasite to Bite Them Back

And then there were two—maybe. Astronomers say they have found a second plausible candidate for a moon beyond our solar system, an exomoon, orbiting a world nearly 6,000 light-years from Earth.Called Kepler-1708 b-i, the moon appears to be a gas-dominated object, slightly smaller than Neptune, orbiting a Jupiter-sized planet around a sunlike star—an unusual but… Continue reading Astronomers Have Found Another Possible ‘Exomoon’ beyond Our Solar System

Extreme heat threatens to effect all of California in coming years, prompting state officials to outline life-saving measures in an adaptation report released this week. Average annual temperatures have already jumped in California by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit, and it has exceeded 2 F in some areas, according to the analysis by the California… Continue reading California Presents Plan to Prevent Extreme Heat Deaths

For sheer brilliance, it was hard to beat John von Neumann. An architect of the modern computer and inventor of game theory, von Neumann was legendary, above all, for his lightning-fast mental calculations. The story goes that one day somebody challenged him with a puzzle. Two bicyclists start at opposite ends of a road 20… Continue reading How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics