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The Evolving Quest for a Grand Unified Theory of Mathematics – Scientific American

Within mathematics, there is a vast and ever expanding web of conjectures, theorems and ideas called the Langlands program. That program links seemingly disconnected subfields. It is such a force that some mathematicians say itor some aspect of itbelongs in the esteemed ranks of the Millennium Prize Problems, a list of the top open questions in math. Edward Frenkel, a mathematician at the University of California, Berkeley, has even dubbed the Langlands program a Grand Unified Theory of Mathematics.

The program is named after Robert Langlands, a mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Four years ago, he was awarded the Abel Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in mathematics, for his program, which was described as visionary.

Langlands is retired, but in recent years the project has sprouted into almost its own mathematical field, with many disparate parts, which are united by a common wellspring of inspiration, says Steven Rayan, a mathematician and mathematical physicist at the University of Saskatchewan. It has many avatars, some of which are still open, some of which have been resolved in beautiful ways.

Increasingly mathematicians are finding links between the original programand its offshoot, geometric Langlandsand other fields of science. Researchers have already discovered strong links to physics, and Rayan and other scientists continue to explore new ones. He has a hunch that, with time, links will be found between these programs and other areas as well. I think were only at the tip of the iceberg there, he says. I think that some of the most fascinating work that will come out of the next few decades is seeing consequences and manifestations of Langlands within parts of science where the interaction with this kind of pure mathematics may have been marginal up until now. Overall Langlands remains mysterious, Rayan adds, and to know where it is headed, he wants to see an understanding emerge of where these programs really come from.

The Langlands program has always been a tantalizing dance with the unexpected, according to James Arthur, a mathematician at the University of Toronto. Langlands was Arthurs adviser at Yale University, where Arthur earned his Ph.D. in 1970. (Langlands declined to be interviewed for this story.)

I was essentially his first student, and I was very fortunate to have encountered him at that time, Arthur says. He was unlike any mathematician I had ever met. Any question I had, especially about the broader side of mathematics, he would answer clearly, often in a way that was more inspiring than anything I could have imagined.

During that time, Langlands laid the foundation for what eventually became his namesake program. In 1969Langlands famously handwrote a 17-page letter to French mathematician Andr Weil. In that letter, Langlands shared new ideas that later became known as the Langlands conjectures.

In 1969 Langlands delivered conference lectures in which he shared the seven conjectures that ultimately grew into the Langlands program, Arthur notes. One day Arthur asked his adviser for a copy of a preprint paper based on those lectures.

He willingly gave me one, no doubt knowing that it was beyond me, Arthur says. But it was also beyond everybody else for many years. I could, however, tell that it was based on some truly extraordinary ideas, even if just about everything in it was unfamiliar to me.

Two conjectures are central to the Langlands program. Just about everything in the Langlands program comes in one way or another from those, Arthur says.

The reciprocity conjecture connects to the work of Alexander Grothendieck, famous for his research in algebraic geometry, including his prediction of motives. I think Grothendieck chose the word [motive] because he saw it as a mathematical analogue of motifs that you have in art, music or literature: hidden ideas that are not explicitly made clear in the art, but things that are behind it that somehow govern how it all fits together, Arthur says.

The reciprocity conjecture supposes these motives come from a different type of analytical mathematical object discovered by Langlands called automorphic representations, Arthur notes. Automorphic representation is just a buzzword for the objects that satisfy analogues of the Schrdinger equation from quantum physics, he adds. The Schrdinger equation predicts the likelihood of finding a particle in a certain state.

The second important conjecture is the functoriality conjecture, also simply called functoriality. It involves classifying number fields. Imagine starting with an equation of one variable whose coefficients are integerssuch as x2 + 2x + 3 = 0and looking for the roots of that equation. The conjecture predicts that the corresponding field will be the smallest field that you get by taking sums, products and rational number multiples of these roots, Arthur says.

With the original program, Langlands discovered a whole new world, Arthur says.

The offshoot, geometric Langlands, expanded the territory this mathematics covers. Rayan explains the different perspectives the original and geometric programs provide. Ordinary Langlands is a package of ideas, correspondences, dualities and observations about the world at a point, he says. Your world is going to be described by some sequence of relevant numbers. You can measure the temperature where you are; you could measure the strength of gravity at that point, he adds.

With the geometric program, however, your environment becomes more complex, with its own geometry. You are free to move about, collecting data at each point you visit. You might not be so concerned with the individual numbers but more how they are varying as you move around in your world, Rayan says. The data you gather are going to be influenced by the geometry, he says. Therefore, the geometric program is essentially replacing numbers with functions.

Number theory and representation theory are connected by the geometric Langlands program. Broadly speaking, representation theory is the study of symmetries in mathematics, says Chris Elliott, a mathematician at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Using geometric tools and ideas, geometric representation theory expands mathematicians understanding of abstract notions connected to symmetry, Elliot notes. That area of representation theory is where the geometric Langlands program lives, he says.

The geometric program has already been linked to physics, foreshadowing possible connections to other scientific fields.

In 2018 Kazuki Ikeda, a postdoctoral researcher in Rayans group, published a Journal of Mathematical Physics study that he says is connected to an electromagnetic duality that is a long-known concept in physics and that is seen in error-correcting codes in quantum computers, for instance. Ikeda says his results were the first in the world to suggest that the Langlands program is an extremely important and powerful concept that can be applied not only to mathematics but also to condensed-matter physicsthe study of substances in their solid stateand quantum computation.

Connections between condensed-matter physics and the geometric program have recently strengthened, according to Rayan. In the last year the stage has been set with various kinds of investigations, he says, including his own work involving the use of algebraic geometry and number theory in the context of quantum matter.

Other work established links between the geometric program and high-energy physics. In 2007 Anton Kapustin, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology, and Edward Witten, a mathematical and theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study, published what Rayan calls a beautiful landmark paper that paved the way for an active life for geometric Langlands in theoretical high-energy physics. In the paper, Kapustin and Witten wrote that they aimed to show how this program can be understood as a chapter in quantum field theory.

Elliott notes that viewing quantum field theory from a mathematical perspective can help glean new information about the structures that are foundational to it. For instance, Langlands may help physicists devise theories for worlds with different numbers of dimensions than our own.

Besides the geometric program, the original Langlands program is also thought to be fundamental to physics, Arthur says. But exploring that connection may require first finding an overarching theory that links the original and geometric programs, he says.

The reaches of these programs may not stop at math and physics. I believe, without a doubt, that [they] have interpretations across science, Rayan says. The condensed-matter part of the story will lead naturally to forays into chemistry. Furthermore, he adds, pure mathematics always makes its way into every other area of science. Its only a matter of time.

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Meet the science teacher behind Quantum Coffee Roasters – KENS5.com

Fidel Moreno thought he was teaching his students until one of them gave him a lesson about the world of coffee roasting.

SAN ANTONIO About eight years ago, Fidel Moreno took an unexpected deep dive into the world of coffee. It all started with a student, Mohammed "Mo" Alawalla, who noticed his daily coffee habit and led Moreno to creating a small business called Quantum Coffee Roasters on the northwest side.

"(He) noticed that I would drink coffee every morning. And little did I know that he was already roasting his own coffee," Moreno said. "And he gave me about a pound of the coffee that he had roasted. And I will admit that I tasted it at first. And I really didn't care for it because it wasn't my typical commercial brand."

But the Clark High School physics teacher didn't want to waste it, so he powered through finishing the bag. He couldn't believe what would happen next.

"I went back to my original choice and really noticed the difference between coffees. There's an entire world of flavors and notes that you can pick up with really good quality coffee," he said.

Moreno started experimenting roasting out of his kitchen and then sharing his concoctions with friends. The idea of starting up a small family business kept percolating and finally evolved into a brick-and-mortar location at "Just the Drip" (located at the Point Park and Eats on Boerne Stage Road west of I-10). Moreno's daughter and son, both college students, keep the business going along with along wife, who is also a teacher.

A few months ago, Moreno's coffee caught the attention of Food Network star and chef Alton Brown, who posted a picture of him trying out Moreno's coffee when he visited San Antonio.

The name of Moreno's family business connects his passion for physics and love for quality coffee.

"The name Quantum (represents) that next level, kind of like what quantum physics is, is that next level of physics that is, you know, just being discovered that next level of coffee that we provide to people that you really can't get anywhere else," Moreno said. "We have some single-origin coffees that nobody else in the country has. So that's pretty much what we have in hopes for quantum coffee."

Quantum Coffee Roasters recently started experimenting with a popular option for coffee drinkers on the go. It was a decision Moreno weighed heavily.

Moreno was worried about the environmental impact of selling K-cup pods since the foil lids are not recyclable. So being a science teacher, he hypothesized he knew there had to be a more eco-friendly solution.

After lots of research, he found ones that can be 100% recycled by rinsing the grounds out and tossing the entire pod into the recycle bin.

"We've got coffees from everywhere anywhere from South America, Central America to African coffees... We get things from Kenya. We get things from Ethiopia, Colombia, Nicaragua, but pretty much anywhere that produces coffee," Moreno added.

The business is doing so well, that Moreno just ordered his third roaster machine, which is much larger than his current one, and is about to move to a location next door.

To learn more, click here.

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Modern Physics? Time to End the Quest – Korea IT Times

Layne Hartsell talked quantum physics in the Metaverse with Dr. Jan Krikke, spokesperson for the Dutch Institute of Advanced Physics in the Metaverse. Today, he is in Stockholm, Sweden representing the Dutch Institute at the Knorklund Institute for Alternative Physics at the Metaverse Conference

Layne Hartsell (LH):Good morning, Dr. Krikke. You are the spokesperson for the Knorklund Institute and you are attending the Metaverse Conference. Can you talk about the current ideas and who is presenting?

Jan Krikke (JK): Good morning Layne. Thanks for having me.Yes, of course. We have been deeply concerned about the direction of quantum physics in recent years. Attempts to develop a Theory of Everything that combine Einsteins Relativity Theory and the Standard Model have not had the hoped-for result in the past 100 years. So the question facing us today is whether we should continue this quest for another century, all the more so in light of recent technological and scientific developments like artificial intelligence and especially the metaverse. By the year 2122, most of the worlds population will be fully immersed in the metaverse. So, that was a big consideration for us. Metav Corporation chief technological officer Steven Stills very much agrees with our view and we invited him to give a presentation at our conference. We also have representatives from the Free Republic of Liberland, the first nation to proclaim independence in the Metaverse.

LH: Quantum mechanics is about 100 years old and there have been advances beyond General Relativity; quantum mechanics is in our computers, for example. Physicist David Deutsche says that philosophers and scientists have wondered about the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics when a tiny subset of calculations out of all possible mathematical relations make up physics. Mathematics and physics work; however, the world is not computational.

What are you seeing at the conference? Does anyone there mind the matter? I had heard that people wanted to let the Theory of Everything go and then work on something else more interesting.

JK: The conference discussed the distinction between the applied and theoretical aspects of science. When you launch a rocket into space, its mostly Newtonian physics with a bit of quantum physics thrown in. Both have their uses. But quantum theory has frankly been a mess. We build complex mathematical structures hoping to build a bridge between Relativity and the Standard Model but we build a huge mathematical edifice that was increasingly removed from experiential reality. So we say, why not explore other avenues? Thats how we got to the metaverse.

LH: So lets do away with quantum physics like the one major university in the US that closed their physics department recently saying that the metaverse is it, a new physics? Nonsense. CERN physicist, Sabine Hossenfelder has provided a clarification of quantum physics not doing away with it when she talks about being lost in mathematics.

JK: We just need a fresh start. The old approach to physics reached a ceiling. String Theory was probably our best hope but we have to be realistic. In hindsight, we can say we were grasping at straws. As a colleague at Princeton University put it to me bluntly, Forget String Theory. You dont need it in the metaverse. I fully agree. We have to look at the future.

LH: Ah, ok I get it. I mean they already got rid of politics and then they got rid of empirical reality. Why not physics? What you are saying is we need an entirely new physics. We wont get rid of physics, we will transform it in a meta kind of way. We can see it already happening? Tell me more, I am on the verge of being convinced.

JK: The physics community is reexamining everything, including its terminology. For example, we may have to get rid of the word physics. It has no place in the metaverse. The word physics belongs to Newtonian physics. It refers to things that are material, tangible, and measurable. This idea carried over into quantum physics where nothing is tangible. All that knowledge is of little value today. To give one example: Newton and Einstein had different theories about gravity, but neither theory has any application in the metaverse. We have massive funding coming in and we expect to have a metaverse theory of gravity within the next decade.

LH: That is quite a claim, a new theory of gravity and within a decade. Does Einstein, and more importantly, Bohr, still make any coherence in what is new?

JK: We have to look at this in context. Einstein's work was groundbreaking because it unified space and time. General Relativity was confirmed when scientists showed that light from distant stars is deflected by the sun before it reaches the earth. Thats why we speak of curved space. The metaverse does not have curved space. It would be too disorienting. Nor will it accommodate Bohr's Standard Model. The two theories are incompatible. The metaverse will be a harmonious, unified world without such dichotomies. We will first develop a metaverse theory of gravity and then a metaverse standard model to make sure it harmonizes with metaverse gravity. We do believe that if Einstein and Bohr were alive today, they would have enthusiastically participated in our efforts.

LH: I see. So we will let go of these notions of uniformity to nature because, really everyone knows that reality is anything goes. The scientists are all deluded with their thermodynamics, equations, and then integrations with chemistry. What is real is the metaverse and those laws that are metaversal. Am I getting the picture now?

JK: Yes, thats been the growing consensus in the physics community. Were re-imagining physics to reflect our own new reality. The thermodynamic description of gravity has a history that goes back to research on black hole thermodynamics by Hawking and Bekenstein in the mid-1970s. These studies suggest a connection between thermodynamics and gravity. But the metaverse theory of gravity will make their work irrelevant. Traditional physics became too disjointed. Scientists worked on many small pieces of the puzzle but failed to see the bigger picture. Metaverse physics will not make this error. It starts with the big picture and lets the smaller pieces fall into place. Individuals make it up as they go along. Thats a fundamentally different approach.

LH: Im really getting it now. Certainly climate change is not even a hoax, it couldnt even exist. Those people who have faith in climate change science are too simple to understand the new metaverse approach. We truly make up our own reality, create wealth and happiness in nearly an instant due to the new laws of the metaverse. I always thought that physicist and philosopher, David Albert, had missed the point. The metaverse really is magic.

JK: Yes, we could even say that in the metaverse, magic becomes reality. David Albert, like most of his peers, are really pre-metaverse thinkers. They argue mostly on the basis of mathematical logic, as if mathematics is an end in itself rather than a means to an end. Actually, the physicist Sabine Hossenfelder touched on this in her book Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray. Albert argues that the quantum world fundamentally consists of, wait for it, a complex-valued field that exists in an extremely high-dimensional space. The idea of high-dimensional space, whatever it means, exists only in the world of mathematics. It is non-Euclidean geometry gone haywire. It had no meaning in quantum physics and it will have no place in metaverse physics. We will use post-Euclidan geometry.

LH: Well, I just think they didnt quite get it; they seem to intuit the metaverse. I suppose one has to be on the extraterrestrial celebrity level of the metaverse. The metaversals are the enlightened self-interest freeing us from empirical reality.

JK: Albert looked at complex philosophical issues like a scientist. He argued that the difference between the past and the future can be understood "as a mechanical phenomenon of nature." In the metaverse, discussions about the past and future will be seen as mental distractions from "the immediacy of now." Adam Smith took baby steps that ultimately led to the metaverse, but in the metaverse, economics will be replaced by virtual abundance. The metaverse will abandon all dualities, whether demand and supply or physics and metaphysics. There are the Masters of the Metaverse. They work to ease people into a metaverse mindset. Empirical reality will be replaced by metaverse reality. Old school scientists have used empirical science to debate whether or not God exists. In the metaverse, everyone has God-like qualities, so discussions about the existence of God will no longer be relevant.

LH: Thank-you for your insights and may we all practice more mindfulness or should I say meta-mindfulness.

Jan Krikke is a former Japan correspondent for various European, American, Asian media, former managing editor of Asia 2000 in Hong Kong, and the author of five books. He has also written about the future of AI, the problems with quantum physics, and the cultural dimension of consciousness. He currently is ad-hoc chairman of The Metaverse Transition Committee based in Liberland.

Layne Hartsell is a research professor at the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and at the Asia Institute, Berlin/Tokyo. He is also a new member of the metavetic sect, working with their new nanoscience group - a meta-faith organization devoted to god knows what.

This article is satire.

Korea IT Times

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How Much Has The Price Of Cable And Streaming Gone Up In A Decade? – TheStreet

When Netflix and other streaming services started catching on with audiences at the start of the 10s, there was a lot of talk about cord-cutting, and the idea that we can finally be rid of the scourge of cable companies and pay a relatively small amount for our entertainment needs.

That did not turn out to be the case.

Large companies, especially entertainment ones, are generally are not in the business of having consumers pay less for things.

After the cord-cutting fervor died down a bit, it became very apparent that if you were a sports or cable news junkie, or you wanted to check out what was on FX or Comedy Central, you still needed a package from your local cable provider.

Plus, its much easier to earn a PHD in Quantum Physics than it is to get a representative from a cable company to cancel your account over the phone.

Thanks to the streaming wars, theres more options for entertainment lovers than ever before, but also more things to pay for.

Many people still stick to one service, or theyll hop around month to month, signing up for, say, Hulu (DIS) - Get Walt Disney Company Report for a month to catch-up on buzzed about shows, only to cancel (or churn) when they are done.

But not only is there more to pay for if you want to feel like youre on top of the latest in pop culture, were all also paying more than we were a decade ago.

A new report from CableTV.com sheds light on just how much more we are paying for both cable and streaming services these days, compared to a decade ago.

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While the streaming boom has eaten into movie ticket sales, people still like to go to the theater, usually for franchises and blockbusters.

The average movie ticket tends to cost about the same as a monthly streaming service, so the fact that the theater industry is at all competitive is testament to how ingrained the theatrical experience is in our society.

In 2012, the cost of an average movie ticket rose to a record high of $8.12, which was considered newsworthy and borderline alarmingat the time. Today, the average cost of a movie ticket is $9.17, though AMC (AMCX) - Get AMC Networks Inc. Class A Reportmight charge you more if its a really popular film like The Batman.

So why are streaming services and cable packages more expensive? In a word: Inflation.

It takes money to make money, as they say, and streaming companies and the networks that prop up cable companies have to keep investing in films and television shows to lure in new subscribers and keep existing costumers in the fold.

Plus, cable companies have maintenance costs and the rising price of infrastructure to deal with.

The ongoing recession were currently experiencing wont last forever. Even when it passes, the cost of streaming and cable will only increase over the years, though maybe not always dramatically, given the year.

But theres still ways to save, as every consumer can figure out what services need to be part of their lives, and which they can check in for a month at a time.

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Scientists conduct experiment that may change physics forever – TweakTown

A paper on the experiment titled "Experimental protocol for testing the mass-energy-information equivalence principle" has been published in the journal AIP Advances.

Dr. Melvin Vopson of the University of Portsmouth has devised an experiment which could demonstrate information as a fifth state of matter, alongside solids, liquids, gases and plasma. Dr. Vopson has previously published research which suggests that information has mass, and that all elementary particles store information in a similar way to DNA in humans.

"This would be a eureka moment because it would change physics as we know it and expand our understanding of the universe. But it wouldn't conflict with any of the existing laws of physics. It doesn't contradict quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics or classical mechanics. All it does is complement physics with something new and incredibly exciting," said Dr. Vopson.

"If we assume that information is physical and has mass, and that elementary particles have a DNA of information about themselves, how can we prove it? My latest paper is about putting these theories to the test so they can be taken seriously by the scientific community," Dr. Vopson continued.

The experiment will use particle-antiparticle collisions to detect and measure the information stored in an elementary particle. Colliding these particles will annihilate them, converting them into energy, typically gamma photons. According to Dr. Vopson, the information from the particle will have to go somewhere, and it will be converted into low-energy infrared photons which can be measured.

You can read more from the study here.

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No rocket science! Why science seems difficult and the books that can help – The Tribune India

Brimming over with challenging calculations, daunting data, and formidable formulas, science seems an intimidating prospect for many people. This seems true for both young people despite their parents' best efforts and their elders who studied it: they have either forgotten most of it, or retain a garbled or even erroneous recollection.

This comes even as STEM learning/careers are being emphasised. The basic principles of science are more important now than ever especially in our post-truth age. Scores of other disciplines, and even certain activities, seek validity by adding science to their names, or comparing themselves with it.

Why science, across its various realms, seems such a fearsome prospect can be explained by an array of psychological, social, pedagogical, and even political factors. But while examining these, the question that arises, for the purpose of this piece, is can and how books can help in the situation.

First, let us examine some of the reasons why science seems so difficult. At the outset, it must be said that the left brain (arts and humanities) / right brain (science/mathematics) theory is plainly wrong, with lateralisation of brain functions usually being unique for every individual and native language, gender, dominant hand, and so on being the key factors in this regard.

Unless there is a learning disability, almost anybody can study science with enough practice. That some may find it boring / dreary is another thing -- but then that has more to do with the quality of teaching and teaching materials, and to be fair, applicability in daily life.

Take teaching of mathematics in schools. This usually comprises five-six years of number crunching, which a basic calculator can do faster and without mistakes, followed by delving into abstract areas such as algebra and calculus. With the focus more on techniques than on applications, its basic purpose of how some real-life problems can be converted into mathematics to find a solution gets ignored.

In other sciences too, if they are just taught to pass examinations, or serve merely as pathways to careers in applied subjects such as engineering or medicine, and be jettisoned at the first opportunity, they are not going to gain many interested adherents.

And then, the socio-political factors, including distrust of experts/intellectuals. Scientific aptitude, be it prowess or just interest, postulates curiosity, the propensity to ask (lots and lots) of questions, including ones on received wisdom and current theories, and argue much, the insistence on verification, and so on. You can gauge how many of these attributes are welcome in a milieu where faith, tradition, "alternative facts", emotions, and sweeping statements meant to be taken as gospel truth are getting priority.

But, as mentioned, a lot of lack of interest in science can be attributed to a lack of insightful and relevant content to engage interest across various age groups, or what we call popular science, or science for the layperson. But this is not a recent innovation, and has existed since the early 19th century.

Scottish scientist and polymath Mary Somerville's "On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences" (1834), describing the status, in her time, of astronomy, physics, chemistry, geography, and others with minimal diagrams or mathematics was a bestseller that went through at least 10 editions and was translated into various languages.

Then, there are works by the likes of naturalist and climate change crusader Sir David Attenborough, environmentalist Rachel Carson, physicists Paul Davies, Stephen Hawking (and daughter Lucy Hawking), evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond, brain physiologist Susan Greenfield, neurologist Oliver Sacks, and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and others explaining their specialised fields for the general reader.

Closer to home, we have had Atul Gawande, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Jayant Narlikar, and V.S. Ramachandran, among others. It's unfortunate that Prof. Yash Pal never wrote a book or someone collated his pieces for publication.

Those who grew up in the 1980s might also recall a range of some invaluable popular science books at unbelievably low prices by Soviet publishers such as Progress and Mir. Dmitri Nicolaevich Trifonov's works like "Silhouettes of Chemistry", "Chemical Elements: How They Were Discovered" and "The Price of Truth: The Story of Rare-Earth Elements", among many others, were a sparkling introduction to chemistry.

It is our intention to deal with the fundamental sciences physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics and their key sub-disciplines separately over coming installments, let's begin with a few books that give an overarching idea of science over the last few centuries. Though these may deal mostly with what is called "western science" and may not focus much on the rest of the world, even that has a reason -- as we shall learn.

Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" (2016), meant for the general reader by a layman himself, is a good place to start.

Known for his travel books, he takes the same approach in covering quite a bit of science through six parts titled "Lost in the Cosmos", "The Size of the Earth", "A New Age Dawns", "Dangerous Planet", "Life Itself", and "The Road to Us", including such "arcane" subjects as thermodynamics, paleontology and cosmology. It may be a bit overwhelming to go through the sheer amount of facts, but this is made palatable through his quirky, anecdotal and humorous style.

From the first chapter, 'How to build a universe', we learn: "Incidentally, disturbance from cosmic background radiation is something we have all experienced. Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive, and about 1 per cent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe." In the same vein is physicist Leonard Mlodinow's "The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos" (2015), which lives up to its title. Divided into three parts -- "The Upright Thinkers", "The Sciences" and "Beyond the Human Senses", it traces critical eras and events in the development of science, all of which, the author persuasively shows, were driven by humankind's collective struggle to know how and why.

And its course, through the development of the human brain to the discovery of quantum physics, there are insights into culture, changing patterns of human living, the interaction between religion and state, a new rational approach to knowledge, and so on.

John Gribbin's "Science: A History" (2003) is another broad sweep, but more biographically inclined, ranging from life and the foibles of top scientists -- for instance, Louis Agassiz marching his colleagues up a mountain to prove that the Ice Ages had occurred -- to their tribulations, such as why Madame Curie was forced to study alone.

"The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution" (2016) by David Wootton is a bit provocative, or even polemical. It argues that the advancement of science in the 17th-18th centuries rested not on new discoveries or methods, but on the revolution in attitudes to authority and a paradigm shift in understanding what knowledge is.

This, it goes on to argue, radically transformed meanings of existing words, such as discovery, progress, facts, experiments, hypotheses, theories, et al to "tools with which to think scientifically".

Then for insights into a leading scientist's life, upbringing and thought process, you cannot beat Richard Feynman's anecdotal autobiography "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character" (1985), which intersperses his career as a Nobel Prize-winning physicist with his penchant for being a practical joker, amateur safe-cracker, bongo-drum player, and painter of nude portraits.

And finally, "Einstein's War: How Relativity Conquered Nationalism and Shook the World" by Matthew Stanley (2019), seeking to show how science can rise beyond human binaries and constructs, as it throws light how a leading British astronomer faced abuse and worse as he sought to champion support and experimental verification for Einstein's ground-breaking theory of relativity even as World War I raged. IANS

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March: Robust-and-Reliable-Quantum-Computing | News and features – University of Bristol

A new programme called RoaRQ and funded by a 3m grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, will establish a vibrant and cross-disciplinary community of researchers in universities - including University of Bristol - in quantum computing and computer science.

The team will collaborate to address the global challenge of delivering quantum computing that is robust, reliable, and trustworthy. With substantial recent progress internationally in building ever larger quantum computers, verifying that they do indeed perform the tasks they were designed for has become a central unsolved problem in the field.

From complex software articulated in high-level languages down to the silicon chips made in foundries, 60 years of computer science and engineering has defined and refined a tower of abstractions that constitute the solid foundations of todays classical computer systems. Challenges to reliability and correctness have been facedand overcomeat many levels in the stack, and there is a wealth of insight and expertise in the diverse community of computer science researchers who work across it. Verification and testing are done at each level, with clearly defined protocols and acceptance criteria. Decades of classical computing systems research has worked out the architectures, languages and translations that bring it all together to make reliable digital systems.

Achieving reliable quantum computation faces unique challengesnot least the fragility of quantum systems due to their interactions with their environment and the fact that the state of the system during a computation cannot be measured to confirm its correctness. The very feature that makes quantum computation powerful, the exponential size of the space of states in the number of qubits, makes it hard to emulate and hence assess behaviour.

This programme will bring quantum computation research into close contact with the scientific tools, methods and (especially) mindsets of the computer science research communityacross a broad spread of the key classical computing stacks. Together, they will define the beginnings of a general framework and advance specific solutions for robust and reliable quantum computation, at key layers across the principal quantum computing stacks needed to achieve trustworthy quantum computing systems.

Over the first year, the programme directors will invite engagement from across the UKs scientific community to co-create a portfolio of funded, cross-disciplinary projects that address this ambitious goal. A series of scoping workshops will be convened to propose and discuss technical directions and to facilitate the formation of project investigator teams. Projects selected for funding will commence from April 2023.

Prof Noah Linden of Bristols School of Mathematics: "At its most ambitious, our programmewith its focus on reliability and robustnesscould lead to a completely new view of the quantum computing stack, with implications for hardware and software at every level."

Simon Benjamin, Professor of Quantum Technologies at University of Oxford, said: Its an incredibly exciting time for quantum computing, when we need people to come together from diverse backgrounds so that these machines achieve their potential as enabling tools for everyonenot just people with doctorates in quantum physics! This project is an important step in making that happen.

Tom Melham, Professor of Computer Science at University of Oxford said: This innovative programme, funded by the EPSRC, will create an entirely new scientific community in the UK aimed at making trustworthy quantum computing a reality. Our ambition is to seed innovation in the design of reliable quantum computing systems as far reaching as the revolution in VLSI chip design of the late 1970s and 80s.

Dan Browne, Professor of Physics at University College London said: Im excited to be taking part in such an innovative research programme. Quantum computing can learn a huge amount from the know how in the established computer science community. I am looking forward to sharing ideas with this community and building new collaborations.

Paul Kelly, Professor of Software Technology at Imperial College London said: This is an unusual and exciting opportunity to reach out to, establish, expand and seed the network of UK computer systems and software researchers to exploit the capabilities of quantum computingand to bridge the gap to deliver quantum-accelerated applications to realise new computational capability across diverse application domains.

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Friend and foe: The little-known pact at the heart of cybersecurity – TechRadar

The cybersecurity industry is founded upon two types of competition: that between security vendors and cybercriminal adversaries, and that between the vendors themselves.

Whats unusual about the situation is the way in which these two battlegrounds are connected; to prevent threat actors from infecting devices with malware and infiltrating business networks, cybersecurity vendors often have to establish a temporary truce.

This balance between competition and collaboration is characterized by Jaya Baloo, CISO at antivirus company Avast, as a friendly rivalry that allows for all the largest market players to work hand-in-hand when it is important to do so.

In conversation with TechRadar Pro at MWC 2022, Baloo spoke to the unconventional relationship between vendors in the sector. She insists the cybersecurity community is focused first and foremost on shielding people against attack, and that turning a profit is a secondary consideration.

I dont really care which antivirus youre using, so long as youre using one, she told us. Were still seeing so many people attacked on so many different devices, so our biggest concern is the people who are completely unprotected.

In the coming years, there is expected to be a blending together of various emerging technologies, which will create the foundation for new digital experiences for consumers and businesses.

At MWC 2022, for example, there was plenty of talk about the interplay between 5G, AI, IoT and edge computing, a heady mixture that will enable use cases ranging from driverless cars to autonomous factories and more.

However, this level of interaction between technologies is bound to create headaches for security professionals, noted Baloo, especially if new products and services are not developed with security front-of-mind.

There is an organic and orgasmic coming together of technologies right now, she said. But this will involve an increase in complexity, and complexity is the enemy of security.

In a scenario such as this, cybersecurity companies stand the best chance of shielding customers from attack if they share intelligence on new vectors, vulnerabilities and cybercriminal groups.

Baloo highlighted the work of the Avast threat intelligence team, which publishes regular reports unpacking its discoveries. One recent report analyzed an increase in phishing attacks on Ukrainian companies in the leadup to the Russian invasion, for example, and the previous instalment covered the spike in DDoS hacktivism.

When the threat intelligence team discovers a new malware strain or route of attack, not only does Avast build protections into its own services where possible, but also offers assistance to the victims and alerts the wider community to its findings, Baloo explained.

We work with all the people youd think wed be competing against. Theres a very healthy level of dialogue across the ecosystem, she told us.

Thats why its so much fun; were collaborating with like-minded people to take down the bad guys. I love our threat intelligence work.

Asked whether there are any instances in which Avast would not share intelligence, say, if withholding information had the potential to confer a competitive advantage, Baloo gave us a disapproving shake of the head. When its information about the bad guys, we share. Its as simple as that.

Last year, the cybersecurity news cycle was dominated by the SolarWinds attack and Log4J vulnerability, both of which highlighted the dangers posed by the software supply chain, a source of risk often overlooked by businesses.

Despite the commotion that surrounded both incidents, Baloo told us she expects to see more of the same in 2022, because the necessary lessons have still not been learned.

Supply chain attacks are not going anywhere, she said. The biggest problem is that we dont fully understand our potential points of weakness.

Weve reached a certain level of maturity in terms of the technologies we use, but dont understand how they interlink to create areas of weakness.

This is an issue that affects open source software to the same extent as proprietary services, notes Baloo. The fact that code is available for anyone to pore over does not necessarily mean someone has done so with the requisite level of scrutiny, as Log4j demonstrated.

However, Baloo is optimistic that regulation requiring companies to maintain greater oversight over their software bill of materials (SBOM) could play a role in minimizing risk for their customers.

In the aftermath of the SolarWinds attack, for example, US President Biden put in place an executive order that led to new guidance that requires software vendors to provide a comprehensive SBOM as part of the government procurement process.

The US stopped short of requiring vendors to provide SBOMs to all customers, but the hope is that the practice will become more mainstream and, at the very least, that new regulation will raise the profile of supply chain-related risk.

Not only are cybersecurity companies tasked with anticipating the kinds of attacks that may threaten customers in the short-term, but they must also look further ahead and further afield.

Another developing field of technology expected to have a significant impact on the cybersecurity landscape is quantum computing, which happens to be an additional area of expertise for Baloo, who advises the World Economic Forum on the issue.

Quantum computers solve problems in an entirely different way to classical machines, exploiting a phenomenon known as superposition (whereby subatomic particles exist in multiple states at once) to perform certain calculations many times faster than is currently possible.

Although the worlds most powerful quantum processors currently offer too few quantum bits (qubits) to establish a meaningful advantage over traditional supercomputers, the maturation of quantum computing will create various problems from a security perspective.

Most significantly, large-scale quantum computers will have enough horsepower to break modern cryptography. It is a mistake, therefore, to assume that information protected by encryption today will remain secure for years to come. State-sponsored threat actors may already be collecting large quantities of encrypted data in the hope of one day being able to access it.

Quantum computing will answer fundamental needle-in-the-haystack scientific questions, noted Baloo. But were screwed as soon as we have a quantum computer capable of breaking current encryption.

To enjoy the benefits of quantum computing, we need a new set of cryptographic algorithms that will be unbreakable even with a quantum computer. As a cybersecurity community, we need to have a forward-looking defence, so were ready for these kinds of challenges.

Again, this is a problem on which security companies will have to collaborate closely in the coming years, both to develop new quantum-safe algorithms and push for regulation that ensures the most vulnerable portions of the economy are quantum ready.

In a scenario in which quantum-secure technologies do not develop apace with quantum computers, the foundations of modern cybersecurity will be compromised.

And the clock is ticking, warned Baloo.

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Friend and foe: The little-known pact at the heart of cybersecurity - TechRadar

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Probing The Inner Workings Of High-Fidelity Quantum Processors – Eurasia Review

The Science

Tiny quantum computing processors built from silicon have finally surpassed 99 percent fidelity in certain logic operations (gates). Quantum computers store information in the quantum state of a physical system (in this case, two silicon qubits) then manipulate the quantum state to perform a calculation in a manner that isnt possible on a classical computer. Fidelity is a measure of how close the final quantum state of the real-life qubits is to the ideal case. If the fidelity of logic gates is too low, calculations will fail because errors will accumulate faster than they can be corrected. The threshold for fault-tolerant quantum computing is over 99 percent.

Three research groups demonstrated more than 99 percent fidelity for if-then logic gates between two silicon qubits. This required precisely measuring failure rates, identifying the nature and cause of the errors, and fine-tuning the devices. The researchers used a technique calledgate set tomographyto achieve this in two of the three experiments. The technique combined the results of many separate experiments to create a detailed snapshot of the errors in each logic gate. The researchers were able to make a precise determination of the error generated by different sources and fine-tune the gates to achieve error rates below 1 percent.

Quantum computingmay be able to solve certain problems, such as predicting the behavior of new molecules, far faster than todays computers. To do so, researchers must build qubits, engineer precise couplings between them, and scale up systems to thousands or millions of qubits.

Researchers expect qubits made of silicon to scale up better than the qubits used in todays testbed quantum computers, which rely on either trapped ions or superconducting circuits. Achieving high-fidelity logic gates opens the door to silicon-based testbed quantum computers. It also demonstrates the power of detailed error characterization to help users pinpoint error modes then work around or eliminate them.

Qubits protected, controllable 2-state quantum systems lie at the heart of quantum computing. Quantum computing processors are built by assembling an array of at least two (and hopefully someday thousands or millions) of qubits, with an integrated control system that can perform logic gates on each qubitandbetween pairs of qubits. Their performance and capability are limited by errors in the logic gates. High-fidelity gates have low error rates. Once the error rate is less than a certain threshold which scientists believe to be about 1 percent quantum error correction can, in principle, reduce it even further. Beating this threshold in laboratory experiments is a major milestone for any qubit technology.

Whatkindsof errors are occurring is also a big deal for quantum error correction. Some errors are easier to eliminate or correct; others may be fatal. Quantum computing researchers from the Department of Energy (DOE)-fundedQuantum Performance Laboratoryworked with Australian experimental physicists to design a new kind of gate set tomography customized to a 3-qubit silicon qubit processor. They used it to measure the rates of 240 distinct types of possible errors on each of six logic gates. Of those possible errors, 95 percent did not occur in the experiments, and the remaining errors added up to less than 1 percent infidelity. Research groups in Japan and the Netherlands reported similar results simultaneously, with the Dutch group also using the DOE-fundedpyGSTigate set tomography software to confirm their demonstration.

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Probing The Inner Workings Of High-Fidelity Quantum Processors - Eurasia Review

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Quantum Computing Market Key Players, Product and Production Information analysis and forecast to 2026 – Running Africa

The business intelligence report on the Quantum Computing market contains in-depth information about factors influencing revenue generation such as prevailing and current industry trends, challenges faced by businesses, and opportunities available over 2021-2026.

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Regional bifurcation: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East & Africa, South East Asia

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Application spectrum: Medical , Chemistry , Transportation , Manufacturing and Others

Competitive dashboard: D-Wave Solutions , IBM , Google , Microsoft , Rigetti Computing , Intel , Origin Quantum Computing Technology , Anyon Systems Inc. , Cambridge Quantum Computing Limited , ColdQuanta , 1QBit , Xanadu Quantum Technologies , Honeywell , Zapata Computing , Fujitsu , QC Ware and Ion Q

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Quantum Computing Market Key Players, Product and Production Information analysis and forecast to 2026 - Running Africa

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