Google goes Quantum Computing for AI-Development
Google macht ernst bei der Entwicklung künstlicher Intelligenz und Machine Learning, hat sich mit der NASA zusammengeschmissen und betreibt zusammen mit denen das Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab gegründet, in dem ein kommerzieller Quantenrechner von D-Wave Systems rumrechnet. Dürfte eine der ersten Früchte des Engagements von Ray Kurzweil sein, der ja seit Ende letzten Jahres dort an genau solchen Sachen arbeitet und die gestern auf der Google I/O vorgestellten Neuerungen an ihrer Suche dürften da bereits erste oberflächliche Anzeichen sein. Spannend!
Google and NASA are forming a laboratory to study artificial intelligence by means of computers that use the unusual properties of quantum physics. Their quantum computer, which performs complex calculations thousands of times faster than existing supercomputers, is expected to be in active use in the third quarter of this year.
The Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, as the entity is called, will focus on machine learning, which is the way computers take note of patterns of information to improve their outputs. Personalized Internet search and predictions of traffic congestion based on GPS data are examples of machine learning. The field is particularly important for things like facial or voice recognition, biological behavior, or the management of very large and complex systems.
NYTimes: Google Buys a Quantum Computer
Google: Launching the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab
Photos of Quantum Blackboards
Schicke Fotoserie von Alejandro Guijarro: Für sein Momentum-Projekt besucht er die weltweit führenden Institute für Quantenphysik und fotografiert Tafeln voller Formeln. Dr. Sheldon Cooper hat keine Ahnung von Kunst, aber das hier würd’ er versteh’n.
The artist travelled to the great quantum mechanics institutions of the world and, using a large-format camera, photographed blackboards as he found them. Momentum displayed the photographs in life-size.
Before he walked into a lecture hall Guijarro had no idea what he might find. He began by recording a blackboard with the minimum of interference. No detail of the lecture hall was included, the blackboard frame was removed and we are left with a surface charged with abstract equations. Effectively these are documents.
Schrödingers Cat Execution Eightball
Schrödingers Katze als Eightball für 30 Dollar bei ThinkGeek.
To use the Schrödinger’s Cat Executive Decision Maker:
1. Ask your question. Any question that can be answered in a binary fashion will do. The cat is extremely bored in the box and will listen to whatever you say. It is open to questions of an executive, legislative, or personal nature. You’ll never know the answer if you don’t ask.
2. Slide open the door. At this point, the magic will happen and you’ll see the cat flashing in flux between life and death. You’ll either find this disturbing or intensely magical. We won’t pass judgement on your character based on your reaction, we promise.
3. See your decision solidify before you. The cat will be alive (which we interpret as a “Yes”) or dead (or “No”). The almighty Schrödinger’s Cat Executive Decision Maker has spoken. Go and do its bidding. Meow.
Happy 110th, Disney & Heisenberg!
Heute wären Walt Disney und Werner Heisenberg 110 Jahre alt geworden. Der eine hat Micky Mouse und Donald Duck erfunden, der andere die Unschärferelation. Beide haben 1932 etwas gewonnen: Disney zwei Oscars (einen Ehrenoscar für Micky Mouse und einen für den ersten Farb-Trickfilm Flowers and Trees), der andere den Nobelpreis für Physik für seine Beiträge zur Quantenmechanik. Und ich kann mich nicht entscheiden, welcher von beiden wichtiger war für den Fortschritt der Menschheit, tendiere aber zu Disney.
Symphony of Science: The Quantum World
(Youtube Direktquantum, via Martin)
Hier der elfte Track aus der Symphony of Science-Serie, die sie jetzt auch zu einem Album zusammengebacken haben, das man auf Bandcamp für Pay-What-You-Want runterladen kann.
A musical investigation into the nature of atoms and subatomic particles, the jiggly things that make up everything we see. Featuring Morgan Freeman, Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, Brian Cox, Richard Feynman, and Frank Close.
“The Quantum World” is the eleventh installment in the ongoing Symphony of Science music video series. Materials used in the creation of this video are from:
Richard Feynman – Fun to Imagine
BBC Visions of the Future – the Quantum Revolution
Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman
Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking
Brian Cox TED Talk
BBC What Time is it
BBC Wonders of the Universe
BBC Horizon – What Is Reality
Sex, Drugs and Quantum Physics
David Kaisers Buch „How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival“ hört sich definitiv wie etwas an, das ich lesen muss. Es geht um Hippie-Physiker auf LSD, die in den 70ern Quantenverschränkung mit Parapsychologie unter einen Hut bringen wollten. Ich hab’ mir das Ding grade auf den Kindle geladen.
Aus dem Review im Wall Street Journal: Merry-Prankster Physicists – Trying to draw a line from LSD to ESP by way of quantum physics. Hey, it was the ’70s.
Among the many people in San Francisco taking drugs in the early 1970s were members of a maverick group of Berkeley physicists who called themselves the Fundamental Fysiks Group. The young scientists dabbled in mind-altering drugs as they searched for a quantum-physics-based explanation for such phenomena as telepathy and extrasensory perception. The scientific basis for this quest was the experimental confirmation that once two quantum entities (such as electrons) have interacted with one another, they remain connected by what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.” The connection is technically known as entanglement; if one of the entities is prodded, the other one jumps.
As David Kaiser deftly spells out in “How the Hippies Saved Physics,” these physicists based their work on good science, however drug-fogged were their aims. Entanglement is at the heart of today’s uncrackable quantum encryption; it makes the “teleporting” of particles over distances of several miles feasible; and entanglement may soon be employed in the production of quantum computers that will make the best contemporary computer look like an abacus.
The effort to harness entanglement is in itself a story worth telling, and Mr. Kaiser tells it very well. But the science is almost secondary to the book’s main focus, a romantic tale of these hippie physicists’ role in the quantum revolution. No wonder Mr. Kaiser was drawn to the story: It’s rare to find quantum physics mentioned in the same breath with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, plus religion (of a sort), shady (but strictly speaking, legal) financial dealings involving a research foundation that spent most of its money on fees for its officers, and a fugitive murderer (a leading member of the group who killed his girlfriend, went on the lam and was convicted in absentia).
Amazon-Partnerlink: How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival
Quantum Marriage
Künstler und „Experimentalphilosoph“ Jonathon Keats wird ab heute im New Yorker Art Currents Institute Quantum-Hochzeitszeremonien durchführen, indem er verschränkte Lichtwellen durch eine Serie von Prismen schickt, bricht und die unverschränkten Wellen auf die zukünftigen Quanten-Ehepaare treffen. So habe ich das zumindest verstanden. Keats will übrigens nicht nur Menschen miteinander quantenverheiraten, sondern kann sich auch eine Quanten-Ehe zwischen Gegenständen und Menschen vorstellen, weil „many people already have a more intimate relationship with their iPhones than with their spouses“. Na denn.
Von Discovery News: Let Quantum Physics Officiate Your Wedding.
For the ultimate in a nondenominational wedding ceremony, consider a quantum entanglement. The ceremony, developed by conceptual artist, Jonathon Keats, is borrowed from quantum physics, where when two or more subatomic particles become entangled, they behave as one.
Keats has designed an entangling apparatus, which, when situated in a sunny window and exposed to the full spectrum of solar radiation divides pairs of entangled photons and translates them to the bodies of a nearby couple.
Wired hat dazu ebenfalls eine Story und eine kleine Gallerie mit Bildern des Quantenhochzeitapparats:
A couple walks down a long hallway from darkness into sunlight. At hallway’s end, said couple finds two sets of footprints, on which they stand facing one another.
“Depending on their preference, they may be dressed in full formalwear or stark naked,” said Keats, who has previously created controversial concept art like god porn, depression-proof antimatter currency and a photosynthetic restaurant for plants.
The couple then looks up into a window flush with sunlight, in which is suspended a precisely calibrated entanglement apparatus employing Keats’ system of adjustable prisms. As the sunlight passes through a nonlinear crystal made of beta-barium borate (viewable in the gallery above), it is divided so that half the light shines on each person’s face. They stand for about a minute as entangled photons bombard their skin with the photoelectric effect.
Next stop: honeymoon.
Doppelspalt-Quantumexperiment in Minecraft with Chicken
(Youtube Direktchicken, via Geekosystem)
Jemand hat das berühmte Doppelspalt-Experiment in Minecraft nachgebaut und damit bewiesen, dass Pixelhühner gleichzeitig Teilchen- als auch Wellencharakter haben. „No camera tricks were used in the recording of this experiment. Many chickens were harmed.“ Von Wikipedia:
Beim Doppelspaltexperiment lässt man kohärentes Licht durch eine Blende mit zwei schmalen, parallelen Schlitzen treten. Auf einem Beobachtungsschirm hinter der Blende zeigt sich dann – durch die Interferenz des Lichtes, welches die beiden Blendenöffnungen passiert – ein Interferenzmuster.
Mit dem Doppelspaltexperiment kann man so den Welle-Teilchen-Dualismus demonstrieren, der nur im Rahmen der Quantenmechanik erklärt werden kann. Dieses Experiment gilt als das wichtigste Experiment der Quantenmechanik, es ist ein herausragendes Beispiel dafür, wie die Quantenmechanik unsere Weltanschauung verändert.
Nach dem Klick noch ein Schulprojekt, in dem ein Kind den Saturn und seine Monde in Minecraft nachgebaut hat.
Dr. Who besucht das Massachusetts Institute of Timetravel und beweisst, dass die Zukunft die Gegenwart beeinflusst.
Dr. Who ist gestern mit seiner Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space-Zeitmaschine auf einem Gebäude vom MIT gelandet. Auf dem Schild steht: „Hacker Telephone – Free for use of hackers“. Hier die Meldung auf Boston.com, hier die Prank-Site vom MIT mit allen Hacks, mehr Bilder gibt’s im Flickr-Stream von BBCAmericanGirl. (via Mister Honk)
In der Zwischenzeit haben Experimente von Quantenphysikern gezeigt, dass die Zukunft die Gegenwart beeinflusst und die Zeit wohl nicht nur vorwärts fließt beziehungsweise die Zeit in der bisherigen Vorstellung eine nette Illusion ist. Kiss your brain goodbye und: John Carpenter hatte (möglicherweise) Recht (siehe Video unten).
Tollaksen’s group is looking into the notion that time might flow backward, allowing the future to influence the past. By extension, the universe might have a destiny that reaches back and conspires with the past to bring the present into view. On a cosmic scale, this idea could help explain how life arose in the universe against tremendous odds. On a personal scale, it may make us question whether fate is pulling us forward and whether we have free will. […]
And yet, as crazy as it sounds, this notion of reverse causality is gaining ground. A succession of quantum experiments confirm its predictions—showing, bafflingly, that measurements performed in the future can influence results that happened before those measurements were ever made.
Back From the Future (via Fefe)
Hello Schrödingers Kitty-, Ödipus-Tee
Hier zwei clevere Science-Shirts, die mir gestern untergekommen sind… Ist Mythologie eigentlich Wissenschaft? Ich grenze Science ja gerne auf Naturwissenschaften ein, was allerdings Blödsinn ist. Mythologie kann man der Literatur- und Religionsgeschichte zuordnen, oder? Jedenfalls: Zwei clevere Science-Shirts mit Ödipus als the very bad Motherfucker und Hello Quantumkitty.
Oedipus Dark T-Shirt, Quantum Superpositioned on Your Shirt (via Hurkunde, Diskursdisko)
Obachloser verprügelt anderen Obdachlosen mit einem Skateboard wegen eines Streits über Quantenphysik
Tut mir ja leid, aber diese Headline musste ich mir unbedingt genau so ins Blog kleben. Nochmal, weil’s so schön war: Obachloser verprügelt anderen Obdachlosen mit einem Skateboard wegen eines Streits über Quantenphysik. Obdachlose, die über Quantenphysik streiten und sich mit Skateboards verprügeln: Wir leben wahrlich in der Zukunft.
A homeless man is on trial in San Mateo County on charges that he smacked a fellow transient in the face with a skateboard as the victim was engaged in a conversation about quantum physics, authorities said Wednesday.
Jason Everett Keller, 40, allegedly accosted another homeless man, Stephan Fava, on the 200 block of Grand Avenue in South San Francisco about 1:45 p.m. March 30.
At the time, Fava was chatting with an acquaintance, who is also homeless, about “quantum physics and the splitting of atoms,” according to prosecutors.
Keller joined in the conversation and, for reasons unknown, got upset, authorities said. He picked up his skateboard and hit Fava in the face with it, splitting his lip, prosecutors said.
Physics discussion ends in skateboard attack (via BoingBoing)
Die gedankenlesende, farbenwechselnde Quanten-Lampe
Farbenwechselnde Lampe sind ja nix besonderes, diese hier aber schon: Sie kommt von der Firma Psyleron in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research lab („Scientific Study of Consciousness-Related Physical Phenomena“… okaaaay) und sie misst den Tunneleffekt von Teilchen und errechnet, ob dieser in Mustern oder zufällig stattfindet. Findet er in Mustern statt, wechselt die Lampe die Farbe. Die Theorie ist nun, dass Muster auch dann erzeugt werden, wenn man sich auf die Lampe konzentriert. Man könnte also den Farbwechsel mit Gedankenkraft steuern. Das ist vielleicht alles Bullshit, aber verdammt, ich liebe die Idee.
Eine Farbwechsellampe, powered by the Force! Hell, yeah! Snip:
The Mind Lamp (and all of Psyleron’s technology) operates based on a random event generator. Specifically, Psyleron has a thing that sits in the base of the lamp and measures quantum tunneling electrons, which have a certain quantum probability of passing through a barrier and showing up on a sensor. As long as the sensor only detects random electrons, the lamp will stay one color. If the sensor detects any patterns (more or less electrons than there should be over a given period of time), the lamp will change color. Seems pretty straightforward, right?
Here’s the freaky part: according to Psyleron, empirical data suggests that you can influence the lamp with your mind. That is, if you sit next to the lamp with the intention of changing the color of the lamp, your intention can somehow affect whatever quantum processes are causing electrons to tunnel or not tunnel, the distribution will become less random, and the lamp will change color.
Psyleron Mind Lamp Reads Your Mind With Quantum Tunneling Electrons
The Science Of Watchmen
(Youtube Direktwatchmen, via /Film)
Hier erklärt der wissenschaftliche Berater des Films „Watchmen“ und Buchautor von „The Physics of Superheroes“ James Kakalios die Quanteneffekte, die dazu nötig wären, um Dr. Manhattans Superkräfte zu ermöglichen. Snip von Youtube:
University of Minnesota physics professor James Kakalios discusses how he was tapped to add a physics perspective to the upcoming Warner Brothers movie, Watchmen. Kakalios discusses how quantum mechanics can explain Dr. Manhattan’s super human powers in the film, and how he came to become an expert on the topic of the physics of superheroes. Check out Kakalios book at www.physicsofsuperheroes.com
Amazon-Partnerlink: The Physics of Superheroes
Edgar Allan Poes ‘Many Worlds’ Theorie von 1848
Man geht allgemein davon aus, der Erfinder der „Many Worlds“-Theorie sei Hugh Everett (vorher auf Nerdcore: Eels’ Mark Everetts Doku über seinen toten Vater, den Erschaffer paralleler Welten), jetzt habe ich einen Auszug aus Edgar Allan Poes letztem Buch „Eureka“ gefunden, indem Poe eindeutig eine „Many Worlds“-Theorie aufstellt. Hach, Poe und Quantenphysik…
Let me declare, only, that, as an individual, I myself feel impelled to the fancy — without daring to call it more — that there does exist a limitless succession of Universes, more or less similar to that of which we have cognizance — to that of which we shall ever have cognizance — at the very least until the return of our own particular Universe into Unity. If such clusters of clusters exist, however — and they do — it is abundantly clear that, having had no part in our origin, they have no portion in our laws. They neither attract us, nor we them. Their material — their spirit is not ours — is not that which obtains in any part of our Universe. They could not impress our senses or our souls. Among them and us — considering all, for the moment, collectively — there are no influences in common. Each exists, apart and independently, in the bosom of its proper and particular God.
Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Many Worlds’ theory — Published in 1848, 82 years before Hugh Everett was born
Das holographische Universum
Hier noch ein kleiner Gehirnverknoter am frühen Abend: Wenn die Wissenschaftler am GEO600 (Gravitational Wave Detector) Recht haben, dann leben wir in einem gigantischen Hologramm in space, was die aktuelle Physik gehörig auf den Kopf stellen könnte. Holodeck, anyone?
For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time – the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into “grains”, just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. “It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time,” says Hogan.
If this doesn’t blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: “If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.”
The idea that we live in a hologram probably sounds absurd, but it is a natural extension of our best understanding of black holes, and something with a pretty firm theoretical footing. It has also been surprisingly helpful for physicists wrestling with theories of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.
