Monday, October 26, 2009

About Complexity

Robert Betts Laughlin (born November 1, 1950) is a professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University who, together with Horst L. Störmer and Daniel C. Tsui, was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in physics for his explanation of the fractional quantum Hall effect.

Laughlin was born in Visalia, California. He earned a B.A. in Physics from UC Berkeley in 1972, and his Ph.D. in physics in 1979 at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. In the period of 2004-2006 he served as the president of KAIST in Daejeon, South Korea.

Laughlin shares similar views to George Chapline on the existence of black holes.
See: Robert B. Laughlin

The Emergent Age, by Robert Laughlin

The natural world is regulated both by fundamental laws and by powerful principles of organization that flow out of them which are also transcendent, in that they would continue to hold even if the fundamentals were changed slightly. This is, of course, an ancient idea, but one that has now been experimentally demonstrated by the stupendously accurate reproducibility of certain measurements - in extreme cases parts in a trillion. This accuracy, which cannot be deduced from underlying microscopics, proves that matter acting collectively can generate physical law spontaneously.

Physicists have always argued about which kind of law is more important - fundamental or emergent - but they should stop. The evidence is mounting that ALL physical law is emergent, notably and especially behavior associated with the quantum mechanics of the vacuum. This observation has profound implications for those of us concerned about the future of science. We live not at the end of discovery but at the end of Reductionism, a time in which the false ideology of the human mastery of all things through microscopics is being swept away by events and reason. This is not to say that microscopic law is wrong or has no purpose, but only that it is rendered irrelevant in many circumstances by its children and its children's children, the higher organizational laws of the world.
***
In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of network theory and network science. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are reflected in this article. Definitions are often tied to the concept of a ‘system’ – a set of parts or elements which have relationships among them differentiated from relationships with other elements outside the relational regime. Many definitions tend to postulate or assume that complexity expresses a condition of numerous elements in a system and numerous forms of relationships among the elements. At the same time, what is complex and what is simple is relative and changes with time.
Some definitions key on the question of the probability of encountering a given condition of a system once characteristics of the system are specified. Warren Weaver has posited that the complexity of a particular system is the degree of difficulty in predicting the properties of the system if the properties of the system’s parts are given. In Weaver's view, complexity comes in two forms: disorganized complexity, and organized complexity. [1] Weaver’s paper has influenced contemporary thinking about complexity. [2]
The approaches which embody concepts of systems, multiple elements, multiple relational regimes, and state spaces might be summarized as implying that complexity arises from the number of distinguishable relational regimes (and their associated state spaces) in a defined system.
Some definitions relate to the algorithmic basis for the expression of a complex phenomenon or model or mathematical expression, as is later set out herein.

***


 (Click on image  to see larger version)

Was Given a link to this Complexity Map above that I find very interesting. It is a interactive Map so I suggest visiting the link provided.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Artifacts in the Exploration of Geometry



Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK

It should not be lost on individuals who have followed this blog, that there is a range of connection to Platonic Forms idealization, that such an artifact in Ashmolean Museum although modeled to represent a reality and constituent forming basis, it is by this choice,  that I exercised a" foundational attitude"  about what I can use to push my own perspective forward in science. What others were using.


"The Artist and his Museum"

The first public showing of the mastodon (also known as the "Mammoth", the American incognitum and the "animal de l'Ohio") took place next door to Independence Hall, the building in which both the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were finalized. The venue, known variously as Peale's Museum, the American Museum or simply as The Museum, was the remarkable product of a resourceful, versatile and passionate artist and showman, Charles Wilson Peale.

Peale (1741-1827) was born and raised in Maryland. A vocal opponent of the Stamp Act, he was effectively driven from his first trade, saddle making, when loyalist merchants cut off his credit. He turned to a traveling life of a self-taught, itinerant portrait painter. After a short apprenticeship with Benjamin West in London, Peale returned to Maryland in 1769 to paint wealthy patrons throughout the Chesapeake region.
In 1776 he moved to the largest city of the colonies, Philadelphia, in the hopes of further developing his career. Through his contacts made while serving as a captain of the Continental Army, Peale painted a remarkable assemblage of Revolutionary War figures, including the most comprehensive portrait series ever painted of George Washington
. See:Charles Willson Peale's Museum

After doing quite a bit of reading over the years it is surprising what one can come across as they look at the historical perspective with artifacts which sat on shelves to curious onlookers as they examine these items.

Shown here are the models in the mathematical wunderkammer located in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Arizona. Like those in most modern mathematics departments, the collection is a combination of locally-made student and faculty projects together with a variety of commercially produced models. Sadly, a century since their Golden Age, many of the models are in disrepair and much of their documentation has been lost. However, some recent detective work, with the help of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, has helped the department identify models by the American educators W. W. Ross and R. P. Baker in the collection.

Also see here for further thoughts on this




So you have in fact "forerunners of museums today" revealed in pursuits by individuals to catalog items according to the range of professions and undertakings. In this case, I was interested on geometrical forms as it was some interest to me that we could move our minds around in abstract spaces . I followed the surfaces of "dynamic movement"  issued forth by theoretical application. These would be,  modular forms or Genus figures of string theory, that raised my interest about the space we are working in.


Sylvester's models lay hidden away for a long time, but recently the Mathematical Institute received a donation to rescue some of them. Four of these were carefully restored by Catherine Kimber of the Ashmolean Museum and now sit in an illuminated glass cabinet in the Institute Common Room.

Now you must know that I do not have the education of the universities but this did not stop me from trying to understand what these artifacts in geometry actually represented. Where they were placed by theoreticians to represent the figurative evolution of what actual begins in this universe, from beyond time and space and arrived to a direction of expressions unfolding in the arrow of time. This was a recognition of the times in microseconds that had been "used in minutes" of Steven Weinberg.


A giddy craze was sweeping across Europe at the turn of the 17th century. The wealthy and the well-connected were hoarding things—strange things—into obsessive personal collections. Starfish, forked carrots, monkey teeth, alligator skins, phosphorescent minerals, Indian canoes, and unicorn tails were acquired eagerly and indiscriminately. Associations among these objects, if they were made at all, often reflected a collector's personal vision of an underlying natural "order". Critical taxonomy was rarely in evidence.

So this historical perspective of the artifacts moved my perspective to today and what is going on in mathematical abstraction. What are these shapes actually representing in reality? Is there such a thing once perception has been granted of the close correlative function of the description of that microscopic reality?

It would be that the mind has become capable of moving into the realm of the microscopic, that by measure of energy used, details the plethora of particle and constituents of that energy, that each artifact is leading toward ever finer issues of what began in the formation of the matter, to allow us to see it's constitutions as they are revealed today macroscopically.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Philemon and the Liber Novus

Giving a dream to a Jungian analyst is a little bit like feeding a complex quadratic equation to someone who really enjoys math. It takes time. The process itself is to be savored. The solution is not always immediately evident.The Holy Grail of the Unconscious


The conclusion of the whole matter is just this,—that until a man knows the truth, and the manner of adapting the truth to the natures of other men, he cannot be a good orator; also, that the living is better than the written word, and that the principles of justice and truth when delivered by word of mouth are the legitimate offspring of a man’s own bosom, and their lawful descendants take up their abode in others. Such an orator as he is who is possessed of them, you and I would fain become. And to all composers in the world, poets, orators, legislators, we hereby announce that if their compositions are based upon these principles, then they are not only poets, orators, legislators, but philosophers.
Plato, The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 1 [387 AD] PHAEDRUS.

As Socrates travel through the citizenry of the time the question of what was to issue forth from, was always held in the bated breath of Socrates, that he would hear the wisdom of the Over-soul?

How many "degrees of freedom" to see that the chance always exists that what will come forth, is the illumination of something that resides within one's own self and completely accessible.

 The upcoming publication of Carl Jung's Red Book — a record of his fantasies and hallucinations during a sort of breakdown — has excited Jungians the world over. But is Jung still relevant today?

According to a New York Times Magazine article by Sara Corbett, the psychoanalyst Jung "got lost in the soup of his own psyche" when he was 38. He said he was "menaced by a psychosis" and that visions were coming at him in an "incessant stream." "In order to grasp the fantasies which were stirring in me ‘underground,'" he wrote, "I knew that I had to let myself plummet down into them." His method of "plummeting" was to write these fantasies down in what is now called his Red Book, a volume full of cramped text and intricate paintings that his family has guarded closely until recently. Now it has been translated into English, and will be published in October. See: Does Carl Jung Matter


Some might find some faint relevance to Robert Pirsig's journey,  to find that such compulsion to materialize in figurative speech, something that arose within Pirsig himself, also arose in Carl Jung?


This is a photograph of author and philosopher Robert M. Pirsigtaken by Ian Glendinning on the eve of the Liverpool conference of 7th July 2005.
What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua...that's the only name I can think of for it...like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Part 1 Chapter 1.(Bold added by me for emphasis)

While being presented Pirsig's book for reading,  and the subsequent work that arose from that time,  also pointed toward something  real and potential within any of us in my mind, that we might considered in one context as delusional, could be an aspect of our own self as we learn to see this aspect as the higher self "manifest within our own dreams,"  to know what can exist "both delusively and real, subjectively as an imagery of creative recognition is an access to that collective unconscious. The key here is a fishing line, hook and sinker to know that the fisherman has really got "an idea on his mind" as he castes his line.

If one is to understand the "wisdom of illumination," under this context,  then it will ring more true to those who have familiarity in seeking to understand the makeup of the person we are. Some might even recognize an aspect cognitively arising in familiarity with what they observe in the real world.  For them to know that subjectively the imagination is strong and very capable in merging with the areas of  continued research in discoveries in science at the microscopic level.

It seems that anomaly by it's discovery takes keen observation and not just luck. It's a kind of observation that connects many things and not having taken the time to look, will have past the time of as an aspect of probability, and life circumstance, that really holds no meaning? It was just a "moment in time," gone unnoticed until someone close to the path of realization came  along and discovered it for them self.

That's the realization,  that in this opportunity as always existing, it was just waiting for you.




The Red Book, also known as Liber Novus (The New Book), is a 205-page manuscript written and illustrated by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung between approximately 1914 and 1930, which was not published or shown to the public until 2009. Until 2001, his heirs denied scholars access to the book, which he began after a falling-out with Sigmund Freud in 1913. The book is written in calligraphic text and contains many illuminations.

I was excited when I heard news of this book.

As some will know I am a fan of Carl Jung because of what he represented to me in terms of self discovery and understanding of what one finds when one takes  a look at what they are capable of finding inside. You will pass this off very quickly as a subjective adventure, and relevant only to what can pass off as some supernatural event within the context of science's requirements.

But what I want people to know, regardless of their background in science, that such a pursuant to understand the greater complexity of what they can find inside does not relegate them to quackery and crack pottery. It's basically learning something about them self now having taken time.

The Red Book was a product of a technique developed by Jung which he termed active imagination. As Jung described it, he was visited by two figures, an old man and a young woman, who identified themselves as Elijah and Salome. They were accompanied by a large black snake. In time, the Elijah figure developed into a guiding spirit that Jung called Philemon (ΦΙΛΗΜΩΝ, as originally written with Greek letters). Salome was identified by Jung as an anima figure. The figures, according to Jung, "brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life."[3]

The Philemon figure represented superior insight, and communicated through mythic imagery. The images did not appear to come from Jung's own experience, and Jung interpreted them as products of the collective unconscious.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Universality Can Lead too, Isostatic Adjustment


Pressure and heat melts protons and neutrons into a new state of matter - the quark gluon plasma.


Now you must know that this entry holds philosophical perspective and is the mandate of Night Light Mining Company to explore the potentials of planetary and geological data gained from scientific analysis to help the society of earth to move farther out into space, and to colonize.

Why are Planets Round?

It is always interesting to see water in space.

Image: NASA/JPL-
Planets are round because their gravitational field acts as though it originates from the center of the body and pulls everything toward it. With its large body and internal heating from radioactive elements, a planet behaves like a fluid, and over long periods of time succumbs to the gravitational pull from its center of gravity. The only way to get all the mass as close to planet's center of gravity as possible is to form a sphere. The technical name for this process is "isostatic adjustment."

With much smaller bodies, such as the 20-kilometer asteroids we have seen in recent spacecraft images, the gravitational pull is too weak to overcome the asteroid's mechanical strength. As a result, these bodies do not form spheres. Rather they maintain irregular, fragmentary shapes.



I wanted to explore the philosophical bend first, as it sets the tone for analysis not only of the potentials of planets but of what we can gained from understanding the place of values we can set around ourselves.


Two-dimensional analogy of space–time distortion. Matter changes the geometry of spacetime, this (curved) geometry being interpreted as gravity. White lines do not represent the curvature of space but instead represent the coordinate system imposed on the curved spacetime, which would be rectilinear in a flat spacetime. See: Spacetime


Be it known then, that such universality can exist in principle around this "central core" that such equatorial measures are distinctive and related to the equatorial possibility of Inverse Square Law, that as a mathematical principle, this is brought to bear on how we solidify the substance of the elemental table, that we can say, indeed, that such values can be assigned in "refractive light" to values which are built to become "round in planetary constitution."



The life cycle of a lunar impact and associated time and special scales. The LCROSS measurement methods are “layered” in response to the rapidly evolving impact environment. See: Impact:Lunar CRater Observation Satellite (LCROSS)



It becomes an evolutionary discourse then about what began from universality "in principle" can become such a state as evident in the framework of elemental consideration, that one might say indeed that it is "this constitution" that will signify the relevance to the spacetime fabric and it's settled orbit.

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See Also:

Isostatic Adjustment is Why Planets are Round?

Centroids

Friday, October 09, 2009

Plato's Nightlight Mining Company is claiming Aristarchus Crater and Surrounding Region

So what is the legality of claiming land on the moon?


What regions would you like to claim if you had the opportunity to make such a claim? Imagine  Covered Wagons racing now as spaceships. Racing, to plant their posts too include, so many acres of land.

Stampede for Oklahoma's Unassigned Lands

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Hubble Reveals Potential Titanium Oxide Deposits at Aristarchus and Schroter's Valley Rille


As a photocatalyst

Titanium dioxide, particularly in the anatase form, is a photocatalyst under ultraviolet light. Recently it has been found that titanium dioxide, when spiked with nitrogen ions, or doped with metal oxide like tungsten trioxide, is also a photocatalyst under visible and UV light. The strong oxidative potential of the positive holes oxidizes water to create hydroxyl radicals. It can also oxidize oxygen or organic materials directly. Titanium dioxide is thus added to paints, cements, windows, tiles, or other products for sterilizing, deodorizing and anti-fouling properties and is also used as a hydrolysis catalyst. It is also used in the Graetzel cell, a type of chemical solar cell.
The photocatalytic properties of titanium dioxide were discovered by Akira Fujishima in 1967[15] and published in 1972.[16] The process on the surface of the titanium dioxide was called the Honda-Fujishima effect.[15] Titanium dioxide has potential for use in energy production: as a photocatalyst, it can
  • carry out hydrolysis; i.e., break water into hydrogen and oxygen. Were the hydrogen collected, it could be used as a fuel. The efficiency of this process can be greatly improved by doping the oxide with carbon.[17].
  • Titanium dioxide can also produce electricity when in nanoparticle form. Research suggests that by using these nanoparticles to form the pixels of a screen, they generate electricity when transparent and under the influence of light. If subjected to electricity on the other hand, the nanoparticles blacken, forming the basic characteristics of a LCD screen. According to creator Zoran Radivojevic, Nokia has already built a functional 200-by-200-pixel monochromatic screen which is energetically self-sufficient.
In 1995 Fujishima and his group discovered the superhydrophilicity phenomenon for titanium dioxide coated glass exposed to sun light.[15] This resulted in the development of self-cleaning glass and anti-fogging coatings.
TiO2 incorporated into outdoor building materials, such as paving stones in noxer blocks or paints, can substantially reduce concentrations of airborne pollutants such as volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides.[18]
A photocatalytic cement that uses titanium dioxide as a primary component, produced by Italcementi Group, was included in Time's Top 50 Inventions of 2008.[19]

[edit] For wastewater remediation

TiO2 offers great potential as an industrial technology for detoxification or remediation of wastewater due to several factors.




  1. The process occurs under ambient conditions very slowly, direct UV light exposure increases the rate of reaction.






  2. The formation of photocyclized intermediate products, unlike direct photolysis
    techniques, is avoided.





  3. Oxidation of the substrates to CO2 is complete.






  4. The photocatalyst is inexpensive and has a high turnover.






  5. TiO2 can be supported on suitable reactor substrates.


***



The lunar south pole as it will appear on the night of impact. Photo Credit - NMSU / MSFC Tortugas Observatory

The impact site is crater Cabeus near the Moon's south pole. NASA is guiding the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite ("LCROSS" for short) and its Centaur booster rocket into the crater's floor for a spectacular double-impact designed to "unearth" signs of lunar water. See:LCROSS Viewer's Guide


Image Above: The dark blue and purple areas at the moons poles indicate neutron emissions that are consistent with hydrogen-rich deposits covered by desiccated regolith. These hydrogen signatures are possible indications of water in the form of ice or hydrated minerals. Feldman et al., Science, 281, 1496, 1998. Click image to enlarge Credit: NASA

Just like on Earth, water will be a crucial resource on the moon. Transporting water and other goods from Earth to the moon’s surface is expensive. Finding natural resources, such as water ice, on the moon could help expedite lunar exploration. The LCROSS mission will search for water, using information learned from the Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions.

By going to the moon for extended periods of time, a new generation of explorers will learn how to work safely in a harsh environment. A lunar outpost is a stepping stone to future exploration of other bodies in our solar system. The moon also offers many clues about when the planets were formed.

See:Backreaction: Free Falling

See Also:
Jun 06, 2009
 
Oct 12, 2009
 
Jan 18, 2008

 
Mar 12, 2007



 

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Creating the Perfect Human Being or Maybe.....

..... a Frankenstein?:)




Seriously , there are defined differences in the human being versus AI Intelligence. I think people have a tendency to blurr the lines on machinery. This of course required some reading and wiki quotes herein help to orientate.

Of course the pictures in fiction development are closely related to the approach to development, while in some respects it represents to be more the development of the perfect human being


It seems there is a quest "to develop" human beings, not just robots.


Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer scienceintelligent agents,"[1] where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximize its chances of success.[2] John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956,[3][4] which aims to create it. Textbooks define the field as "the study and design of defines it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines."
The field was founded on the claim that a central property of humans, intelligence—the sapience of Homo sapiens—can be so precisely described that it can be simulated by a machine.[5] This raises philosophical issues about the nature of the mind and limits of scientific hubris, issues which have been addressed by myth, fiction and philosophy since antiquity.[6] Artificial intelligence has been the subject of breathtaking optimism,[7] has suffered stunning setbacks[8][9] and, today, has become an essential part of the technology industry, providing the heavy lifting for many of the most difficult problems in computer science.
AI research is highly technical and specialized, deeply divided into subfields that often fail to communicate with each other.[10] Subfields have grown up around particular institutions, the work of individual researchers, the solution of specific problems, longstanding differences of opinion about how AI should be done and the application of widely differing tools. The central problems of AI include such traits as reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects.[11] General intelligence (or "strong AI") is still a long-term goal of (some) research.[12]



Rusty the Tin man

Lacking a heart.....

Knowledge representation

Knowledge representation[43] and knowledge engineering[44] are central to AI research. Many of the problems machines are expected to solve will require extensive knowledge about the world. Among the things that AI needs to represent are: objects, properties, categories and relations between objects;[45] situations, events, states and time;[46] causes and effects;[47][48] and many other, less well researched domains. A complete representation of "what exists" is an ontology[49] (borrowing a word from traditional philosophy), of which the most general are called upper ontologies. knowledge about knowledge (what we know about what other people know);
Among the most difficult problems in knowledge representation are:
Default reasoning and the qualification problem
Many of the things people know take the form of "working assumptions." For example, if a bird comes up in conversation, people typically picture an animal that is fist sized, sings, and flies. None of these things are true about all birds. John McCarthy identified this problem in 1969[50] as the qualification problem: for any commonsense rule that AI researchers care to represent, there tend to be a huge number of exceptions. Almost nothing is simply true or false in the way that abstract logic requires. AI research has explored a number of solutions to this problem.[51]
The breadth of commonsense knowledge
The number of atomic facts that the average person knows is astronomical. Research projects that attempt to build a complete knowledge base of commonsense knowledgeCyc) require enormous amounts of laborious ontological engineering — they must be built, by hand, one complicated concept at a time.[52] A major goal is to have the computer understand enough concepts to be able to learn by reading from sources like the internet, and thus be able to add to its own ontology. (e.g.,
The subsymbolic form of some commonsense knowledge
Much of what people know is not represented as "facts" or "statements" that they could actually say out loud. For example, a chess master will avoid a particular chess position because it "feels too exposed"[53] or an art critic can take one look at a statue and instantly realize that it is a fake.[54] These are intuitions or tendencies that are represented in the brain non-consciously and sub-symbolically.[55] Knowledge like this informs, supports and provides a context for symbolic, conscious knowledge. As with the related problem of sub-symbolic reasoning, it is hoped that situated AI or computational intelligence will provide ways to represent this kind of knowledge.[55]


Bicentennial man

....they wanted to embed robotic feature with emotive functions...

Social intelligence


Kismet, a robot with rudimentary social skills
Emotion and social skills[73] play two roles for an intelligent agent. First, it must be able to predict the actions of others, by understanding their motives and emotional states. (This involves elements of game theory, decision theory, as well as the ability to model human emotions and the perceptual skills to detect emotions.) Also, for good human-computer interaction, an intelligent machine also needs to display emotions. At the very least it must appear polite and sensitive to the humans it interacts with. At best, it should have normal emotions itself.



....finally, having the ability to dream:)

Integrating the approaches

Intelligent agent paradigm
An intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximizes its chances of success. The simplest intelligent agents are programs that solve specific problems. The most complicated intelligent agents are rational, thinking humans.[92] The paradigm gives researchers license to study isolated problems and find solutions that are both verifiable and useful, without agreeing on one single approach. An agent that solves a specific problem can use any approach that works — some agents are symbolic and logical, some are sub-symbolic neural networks and others may use new approaches. The paradigm also gives researchers a common language to communicate with other fields—such as decision theory and economics—that also use concepts of abstract agents. The intelligent agent paradigm became widely accepted during the 1990s.[93]

Agent architectures and cognitive architectures

Researchers have designed systems to build intelligent systems out of interacting intelligent agents in a multi-agent system.[94] A system with both symbolic and sub-symbolic components is a hybrid intelligent system, and the study of such systems is artificial intelligence systems integration. A hierarchical control system provides a bridge between sub-symbolic AI at its lowest, reactive levels and traditional symbolic AI at its highest levels, where relaxed time constraints permit planning and world modelling.[95] Rodney Brooks' subsumption architecture was an early proposal for such a hierarchical system.
So to me there is an understanding that needs to remain consistent in our views as one moves forward here to see that what is create is not really the human being that we are, but a manifestation of. I think people tend to "loose perspective" on human intelligence versus A.I. So that the issue then is to note these differences? This distinction to me rests in "what outcomes are possible in the diversity of human population matched to a purpose for personal development toward an ideal." No match can be found in terms of this creative attachment which can arise distinctive to each person's in probable outcome. The difference here is that "if" all knowledge already existed, and "if" we were to have access to this "collective unconscious per say," then how it is that such thinking cannot point toward new paradigms for personal development that are developed in society? New science? AI Intelligence already has all these knowledge factors inclusive, so it can give outcomes according to a "quantum leap??":) No, it needs human intervention, or AI can already give us that new science? You see? There would be "no need" for an Einstein?


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Thursday, September 24, 2009

DNA Computing

DNA computing is a form of computing which uses DNA, biochemistry and molecular biology, instead of the traditional silicon-based computer technologies. DNA computing, or, more generally, molecular computing, is a fast developing interdisciplinary area. Research and development in this area concerns theory, experiments and applications of DNA computing See:DNA computing

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Clifford of Asymptotia is hosting a guest post by Len Adleman: Quantum Mechanics and Mathematical Logic.


Today I’m pleased to announce that we have a guest post from a very distinguished colleague of mine, Len Adleman. Len is best known as the “A” in RSA and the inventor of DNA-computing. He is a Turing Award laureate. However, he considers himself “a rank amateur” (his words!) as a physicist.

Len Adleman-For a long time, physicists have struggled with perplexing “meta-questions” (my phrase): Does God play dice with the universe? Does a theory of everything exist? Do parallel universes exist? As the physics community is acutely aware, these are extremely difficult questions and one may despair of ever finding meaningful answers. The mathematical community has had its own meta-questions that are no less daunting: What is “truth”? Do infinitesimals exist? Is there a single set of axioms from which all of mathematics can be derived? In what many consider to be on the short list of great intellectual achievements, Frege, Russell, Tarski, Turing, Godel, and other logicians were able to clear away the fog and sort these questions out. The framework they created, mathematical logic, has put a foundation under mathematics, provided great insights and profound results. After many years of consideration, I have come to believe that mathematical logic, suitably extended and modified (perhaps to include complexity theoretic ideas), has the potential to provide the same benefits to physics. In the following remarks, I will explore this possibility.

*** 
 


See Also:
  • Riemann Hypothesis: A Pure Love of Math

  • Ideas on Quantum Interrogation

  • Mersenne Prime: One < the Power of two

  • Lingua Cosmica
  • Tuesday, September 22, 2009

    Correlating Gravitational Wave Production in LIGO



    Drawing by Glen Edwards, Utah State University, Logan, UT

    The most important thing is to be motivated by your own intellectual curiosity.KIP THORNE



    ***





    Fig. 1. The four forces (or interactions) of Nature, their force carrying particles and the phenomena or particles affected by them. The three interactions that govern the microcosmos are all much stronger than gravity and have been unified through the Standard Model

    ***




    Dr. Kip Thorne, Caltech 01-Relativity-The First 20th Century Revolution

    ***

    Why are two installations necessary?





    ***



    See: LIGO Listens for Gravitational Echoes of the Birth of the Universe

    Results set new limits on gravitational waves originating from the Big Bang; constrain theories about universe formation

    Pasadena, Calif.—An investigation by the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration has significantly advanced our understanding of the early evolution of the universe.

    Analysis of data taken over a two-year period, from 2005 to 2007, has set the most stringent limits yet on the amount of gravitational waves that could have come from the Big Bang in the gravitational wave frequency band where LIGO can observe. In doing so, the gravitational-wave scientists have put new constraints on the details of how the universe looked in its earliest moments.

    Much like it produced the cosmic microwave background, the Big Bang is believed to have created a flood of gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of space and time—that still fill the universe and carry information about the universe as it was immediately after the Big Bang. These waves would be observed as the "stochastic background," analogous to a superposition of many waves of different sizes and directions on the surface of a pond. The amplitude of this background is directly related to the parameters that govern the behavior of the universe during the first minute after the Big Bang.

    Earlier measurements of the cosmic microwave background have placed the most stringent upper limits of the stochastic gravitational wave background at very large distance scales and low frequencies. The new measurements by LIGO directly probe the gravitational wave background in the first minute of its existence, at time scales much shorter than accessible by the cosmic microwave background.
    The research, which appears in the August 20 issue of the journal Nature, also constrains models of cosmic strings, objects that are proposed to have been left over from the beginning of the universe and subsequently stretched to enormous lengths by the universe's expansion; the strings, some cosmologists say, can form loops that produce gravitational waves as they oscillate, decay, and eventually disappear.

    Gravitational waves carry with them information about their violent origins and about the nature of gravity that cannot be obtained by conventional astronomical tools. The existence of the waves was predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 in his general theory of relativity. The LIGO and GEO instruments have been actively searching for the waves since 2002; the Virgo interferometer joined the search in 2007.

    The authors of the new paper report that the stochastic background of gravitational waves has not yet been discovered. But the nondiscovery of the background described in the Nature paper already offers its own brand of insight into the universe's earliest history.

    ***


    Saturday, September 19, 2009

    Macroscopic Similarities in a Microscopic World

    Berkeley Lab Technology Dramatically Speeds Up Searches of Large DatabasesJon Bashor


    In the world of physics, one of the most elusive events is the creation and detection of “quark-gluon plasma,” the theorized atomic outcome of the “Big Bang” which could provide insight into the origins of the universe. By using experiments that involve millions of particle collisions, researchers hope to find unambiguous evidence of quark-gluon plasma.

    It's not just about "mathematical abstraction" but of seeing what good it can be used for. One can be in denial about the prospects but while it gives perspective to current situations, in that it helps to direct thinking forward instead feeling as if "you are just floating in space without being able to move."

    Helpless are we? Not considering flapping one's wings?

    Imagine indeed then,  trying to orientate direction toward the spacecraft when "floating in space" seems like having to attempt to ride a bicycle for the first time, so one should  know we must balance ourselves while doing the appropriate movements directed to where we want to go. It's something that has to be learn in theoretical enterprise while still held to earth's environ?

    There might be a middle way. String theory's mathematical tools were designed to unlock the most profound secrets of the cosmos, but they could have a far less esoteric purpose: to tease out the properties of some of the most complex yet useful types of material here on Earth.

    Both string theorists and condensed matter physicists - those studying the properties of complex matter phases such as solids and liquids - are enthused by the development. "I am flabbergasted," says Jan Zaanen, a condensed matter theorist from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. "The theory is calculating precisely what we are seeing in experiments."
    See:What string theory is really good for

    So how has this helped the idea of "minimum length?"

    Using the anti–de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence to relate fermionic quantum critical fields to a gravitational problem, we computed the spectral functions of fermions in the field theory. By increasing the fermion density away from the relativistic quantum critical point, a state emerges with all the features of the Fermi liquid. See:String Theory, Quantum Phase Transitions, and the Emergent Fermi Liquid
    So we have a beginning here for consideration within the frame work of Condense matter theorist state of existence? String theory is working along side of to direct the idea of matter formation?






    ***



    Our work is about comparing the data we collect in the STAR detector with modern calculations, so that we can write down equations on paper that exactly describe how the quark-gluon plasma behaves," says Jerome Lauret from Brookhaven National Laboratory. "One of the most important assumptions we've made is that, for very intense collisions, the quark-gluon plasma behaves according to hydrodynamic calculations in which the matter is like a liquid that flows with no viscosity whatsoever."

    Proving that under certain conditions the quark-gluon plasma behaves according to such calculations is an exciting discovery for physicists, as it brings them a little closer to understanding how matter behaves at very small scales. But the challenge remains to determine the properties of the plasma under other conditions.

    "We want to measure when the quark-gluon plasma behaves like a perfect fluid with zero viscosity, and when it doesn't," says Lauret. "When it doesn't match our calculations, what parameters do we have to change? If we can put everything together, we might have a model that reproduces everything we see in our detector."
    See:Probing the Perfect Liquid with the STAR Grid
    ***

    Looking back in time toward the beginning of our universe has been one of the things that have been occupying my time as I look through experimental procedures that have been developed. While LHC  provides a template of all the historical drama of science put forward,  it is also a platform in my mind for pushing forward perspective from "a beginning of time scenario" that helps us identify what happens in that formation. Helps us to orientate space and what happens to it.

    It provides for me a place where we can talk about a large scale situation in terms of the universe as to what it contains to help motivate this universe to become what it is.

    Cycle of Birth, Life, and Death-Origin, Indentity, and Destiny by Gabriele Veneziano

    In one form or another, the issue of the ultimate beginning has engaged philosophers and theologians in nearly every culture. It is entwined with a grand set of concerns, one famously encapsulated in an 1897 painting by Paul Gauguin: D'ou venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Ou allons-nous? "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?"
    See here for more information.

    So how did this process help orientate the things that were brought forward under the idea that the universe is a "cosmological box" that people want to talk about, while in my mind ,it became much more flexible topic when Venezianno began to talk about what came before. What existed outside that box. Abstractly, the box had six faces, to which direction of possibilities became part of the depth of this situation. It was a matter indeed of thinking outside the box.

    I know that for some,  why waste one's time, but for me it is the motivator( not God as a creator, but of what actually propels this universe) and to what can exist now that draws my attention. It has been ever so slightly pushed "back in time" to see that the universe began with "microscopic processes that defines the state of the state of the universe in the way it is now." The LHC should be able to answer this although it is still restricted by the energy valuation given to this process.



    A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor, cooled with liquid nitrogen. Theoretical physicists have now used string theory to describe the quantum-critical state of electrons that can lead to high-temperature superconductivity. (Credit: Mai-Linh Doan / Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) See:

    Physical Reality Of String Theory Shown In Quantum-critical State Of Electrons

    Quantum soup

    But now, Zaanen, together with his colleagues Cubrovic and Schalm, are trying to change this situation, by applying string theory to a phenomenon that physicists, including Zaanen, have for the past fifteen years been unable to explain: the quantum-critical state of electrons. This special state occurs in a material just before it becomes superconductive at high temperature. Zaanen describes the quantum-critical state as a 'quantum soup', whereby the electrons form a collective independent of distances, where the electrons exhibit the same behaviour at small quantum mechanical scale or at macroscopic human scale.
    See  Also:

    Fermions and the AdS/CFT correspondence: quantum phase transitions and the emergent Fermi-liquid

    A central mystery in quantum condensed matter physics is the zero temperature quantum phase transition between strongly renormalized Fermi-liquids as found in heavy fermion intermetallics and possibly high Tc superconductors. Field theoretical statistical techniques are useless because of the fermion sign problem, but we will present here results showing that the mathematics of string theory is capable of describing fermionic quantum critical states. Using the Anti-de-Sitter/Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence to relate fermionic quantum critical fields to a gravitational problem, we compute the spectral functions of fermions in the field theory. Deforming away from the relativistic quantum critical point by increasing the fermion density we show that a state emerges with all the features of the Fermi-liquid. Tuning the scaling dimensions of the critical fermion fields we find that the quasiparticle disappears at a quantum phase transition of a purely statistical nature, not involving any symmetry change. These results are obtained by computing the solutions of a classical Dirac equation in an AdS space time containing a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole, where the information regarding Fermi-Dirac statistics in the field theory is processed by quasi-normal Dirac modes at the outer horizon.

    Wednesday, September 16, 2009

    FLAMINGOS-2 Achieves First Light Milestone


    Figure 1: FLAMINGOS-2 image of the Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus) located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. A concentration of massive young stars in the very center of the cluster is causing the hydrogen gas to fluoresce due to excitation by ultraviolet light. This 3-color composite image combines the J-band (1.25 microns, blue), H-band (1.65 microns, green) and Ks-band (2.2 microns, red). The image has a total exposure (integration) of less than 10 minutes and a resolution of about 0.6 arcsecond. Credit: Gemini Observatory/University of Florida/AURA/Anthony Gonzalez
    As part of on-going acceptance testing, FLAMINGOS-2 (Florida Multi-object Infrared Grism Observing Spectrograph) obtained first light images on the Gemini South telescope. Several images from this first observing run are shown here (Figures 1 & 2) and demonstrate the instrument’s initial performance. The telescope and FLAMINGOS-2 together produced high-quality images, as good as 0.4-arcsecond FWHM. 

    The efforts of the University of Florida instrument team, led by Stephen Eikenberry, and a large number of Gemini staff made achievement of this important step possible. The initial tasks completed include basic alignment of the instrument with the telescope and initial checks of the functionality of imaging and longslit spectroscopy modes. 

    A number of significant milestones must be reached before FLAMINGOS-2 will be available for Gemini community scientific use. One severe limitation now is the lack of a science-grade detector. Several more observing runs are planned through the end of the current semester to fully commission the instrument and integrate it with the telescope, including tests of a new detector. The array will need to be fully characterized, with measurements of plate scale, linearity, and sensitivity across the usable bandpass, and then the throughput and image quality for all modes will be measured. See more here