Clipmarks | rmowery's ScienceFiction collection

Going for a blast into the real past: Time Travel Experiment

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 07:20:45 GMT

clipped by: rmowery

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Going for a blast into the real past
If the experiment works, a signal could be received before it's sent

If his experiment with splitting photons actually works, says University of Washington physicist John Cramer, the next step will be to test for quantum "retrocausality."

That's science talk for saying he hopes to find evidence of a photon going backward in time.

"It doesn't seem like it should work, but on the other hand, I can't see what would prevent it from working," Cramer said. "If it does work, you could receive the signal 50 microseconds before you send it."

Uh, huh ... what? Wait a minute. What is that supposed to mean?

Roughly put, Cramer is talking about the subatomic equivalent of arriving at the train station before you've left home, of winning the lottery before you've bought the ticket, of graduating from high school before you've been born -- or something like that.

Tags: time travel, time, subatomics, quantum retrocausilty

Is Time Travel Possible?

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 16:25:32 GMT

clipped by: rmowery

Clip Source: www.firstscience.com

Is Time Travel Possible?

Not all scientists agree but according to Einstein and quantum theory, time travel could be possible.

Imagine sitting by the Statue of Liberty and watching dinosaurs play in Manhattan or walking on the headland round Botany Bay as Captain Cook arrives to claim the new land for King George and England. Would you keep quiet at the slave markets of Savannah or save Martin Luther King from the assassin's bullet? Time travel is everywhere in the media from Star Trek to Dr Who but what can science tell us about it? Is time travel possible?

Actually, time travel is happening all around us. Hold out your hand and every second a dozen or so tiny nuclear particles called cosmic ray muons will pass straight through you. These particles are too small to feel and sometimes do damage which your body repairs. Astronauts in space can die from too much cosmic ray damage which causes radiation sickness.

Is time travel possible? According to Einstein and quantum theory it could be.

Tags: time travel, time, past, present, future, hawking, einstein

invitro mini brains control robots and more....

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 19:25:23 GMT

clipped by: rmowery

Clip Source: www.discover.com

Brain in a Dish

This is not your average petri dish: minibrains grown in vitro.

DISCOVER Vol. 27 No. 11 | November 2006 | Mind & Brain

By Jennifer Barone

In a lab dish, a culture of rat brain cells grows on an array of different-size electrodes arranged in a hexagonal pattern.

In an Atlanta lab, minibrains in dishes can control robots and computer-simulated animals. They may provide a simple model to study how the brain changes as it learns. Georgia Tech researcher Steve Potter calls his biological-mechanical hybrids Neurally Controlled Animats. Each Animat's "brain" consists of cultured rat neurons growing on a plate of electrodes. This live culture is linked to an artificial body—either a robotic animal or a computer-simulated one.

The brain cells can receive input from the synthetic critter's environment, process information, and stimulate behavior. For example, one of the Animats is linked to a robot with light-detecting sensors. Information from the sensors is sent to the brain culture, which sends a signal back to the robot instructing it to move toward the light. Other Animats can chase a target around a room, scribble simple drawings, and move around obstacles. Until recently, training Animats had been tough. The cultured brain cells kept firing in synchronized bursts that disrupted learning. Potter suspected this bursting was a symptom of sensory deprivation, since the neurons weren't receiving constant electrical input as they would in a living body. He was able to quiet the neural fireworks by applying soothing background stimulation. "Now we've seen reliably detectable changes. We think we're on the right track." Animats won't be taking over the world anytime soon, but Potter acknowledges that these "semiliving objects" are smarter than your average petri dish. "They can process information from their environment and respond to it. It's not human consciousness, but it's something."

Tags: robots, robotics, biotech, brain, hmi

Experts Fear Future Will be Like Sci-Fi Movies

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:29:25 GMT

clipped by: rmowery
clipper's remarks: Will be or already is happening?

Clip Source: slashdot.org

"In the year 2020, Luddite terrorists attack technology infrastructure and artificial intelligences dominate earth! Or at least that's what 700 experts predict in the latest poll conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (pdf). Is the future really going to be like a science fiction movie? Ars Technica provides a humorous overview of the survey results. From the article: 'Are these scenarios really indicative of future trends? Given the prevalence of many of these concepts in science fiction content, it is obvious that the ideas themselves are at least relevant enough to warrant consideration. That said, the nature of the survey and the way that the scenarios are presented makes the entire thing seem less plausible. In looking at classic science fiction films of the past, from Blade Runner to Soylent Green, one realizes that few of them really predict with any accuracy the world we live in today. Culture and technology can change in radically unpredictable ways, and today's experts may lack the foresight to perceive the future with the clarity of Hari Seldon.'"

Experts Fear Future Will be Like Sci-Fi Movies

Tags: future, technology, predictions, sci-fi

You are made of space-time

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 05:47:47 GMT

clipped by: rmowery

Clip Source: www.newsvine.com

You are made of space-time

LEE SMOLIN is no magician. Yet he and his colleagues have pulled off one of the greatest tricks imaginable. Starting from nothing more than Einstein's general theory of relativity, they have conjured up the universe. Everything from the fabric of space to the matter that makes up wands and rabbits emerges as if out of an empty hat.

It is an impressive feat. Not only does it tell us about the origins of space and matter, it might help us understand where the laws of the universe come from. Not surprisingly, Smolin, who is a theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, is very excited. "I've been jumping up and down about these ideas," he says.

The origins of loop quantum gravity can be traced back to the 1980s, when Abhay Ashtekar, now at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, rewrote Einstein's equations of general relativity in a quantum framework. Smolin and Carlo Rovelli of the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille, France, later developed Ashtekar's ideas and discovered that in the new framework, space is not smooth and continuous but instead comprises indivisible chunks just 10^-35 metres in diameter. Loop quantum gravity then defines space-time as a network of abstract links that connect these volumes of space, rather like nodes linked on an airline route map.

Tags: space, time, quantum looping, quantum theory, physics, penn state