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The Jersey Drones Are Likely Drones

neurologicablog Feed - Mon, 12/23/2024 - 4:58am

The latest flap over drone sightings in New Jersey and other states in the North East appears to be – essentially nothing. Or rather, it’s a classic example of a mass panic. There are reports of “unusual” drone activity, which prompts people to look for drones, which results in people seeing drones or drone-like objects and therefore reporting them, leading to more drone sightings. Lather, rinse, repeat. The news media happily gets involved to maximize the sensationalism of the non-event. Federal agencies eventually comment in a “nothing to see here” style that just fosters more speculation. UFO and other fringe groups confidently conclude that whatever is happening is just more evidence for whatever they already believed in.

I am not exempting myself from the cycle either. Skeptics are now part of the process, eventually explaining how the whole thing is a classic example of some phenomenon of human self-deception, failure of critical thinking skills, and just another sign of our dysfunctional media ecosystem. But I do think this is a healthy part of the media cycle. One of the roles that career skeptics play is to be the institution memory for weird stuff like this. We can put such events rapidly into perspective because we have studied the history and likely been through numerous such events before.

Before I get to that bigger picture, here is a quick recap. In November there were sightings in New Jersey of “mysterious” drone activity. I don’t know exactly what made them mysterious, but it lead to numerous reportings of other drone sightings. Some of those sightings were close to a military base, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, and some were concerned of a security threat. Even without the UFO/UAP angle, there is concern about foreign powers using drones for spying or potentially as a military threat. This is perhaps enhanced by all the reporting of the major role that drones are playing in the Russian-Ukraine war. Some towns in Southern New Jersey have banned the use of drones temporarily, and the FAA has also restricted some use.

A month after the first sightings Federal officials have stated that the sightings that have been investigated have all turned out to be drones, planes mistaken for drones, and even stars mistaken for drones. None have turned out to be anything mysterious or nefarious. So the drones, it turns out, are mostly drones.

Also in November (which may or may not be related) a CT police officer came forward and reported a “UFO” sighting he had in 2022. Local news helpfully created a “reenactment” of the encounter (to accompany their breathless reporting), which is frankly ridiculous. The officer, Robert Klein, did capture the encounter on his smart phone video. The video shows – a hovering light in the distance. That is all – 100% consistent with a drone.

So here’s the bigger picture – as technology evolves, so does sightings to match that technology. Popular expectations also match the sightings. Around the turn of the century it was anticipated that someone would invest a flying machine, so there were lots of false sightings of such machines. After the first “flying saucer” was reported in 1947, UFO sightings often looked like flying saucers. As military aircraft increased in number and capability, sightings would track along with them, being more common near military air bases. When ultralight aircraft became a thing, people reports UFOs of silent floating craft (I saw one myself and was perplexed until I read in the news what it was). As rocket launches become more common, so do sightings of rocket launches mistaken for “UFOs”. There was the floating candle flap from over a decade ago – suddenly many people were releasing floating candles for celebrations, and people were reporting floating candle “UFOs”.

And now we are seeing a dramatic increase in drone activity.  Drones are getting better, cheaper, and more common, so we should be having more drone sightings. This is not a mystery.

Interestingly there is one technological development that does not lead to more sightings but does lead to more evidence – smart phones. Most people are now walking around all the time with a camera and video. Just like with the CT cop, we not only have his sensational report but an accompanying video. What does this dramatic increase in photo and video evidence show? Mundane objects and blurry nothings. What do they not show? Unambiguous alien spacecraft. This is the point at which alien true-believers insert some form of special pleading to explain away the lack of objective evidence.

This pattern, of sightings tracking with technology, goes beyond alien activity. We see the same thing with ghost photos. It turns out that the specific way in which ghosts manifest on photographic film is highly dependent on camera technology. What we are actually seeing is different kinds of camera artifacts resulting from specific camera technology, and those artifacts being interpreted as ghosts or something paranormal. So back in the day when it was possible to accidentally create a double-exposure, we had lots of double-exposure ghosts. Those cameras that can create the “golden door” illusion because of their shutter created golden door phenomena. Those cameras with camera straps create camera strap ghosts. When high-powered flashes became common we started to see lots of flashback ghosts. Now we are seeing lots of AI generated fakes.

All of this is why it is important to study and understand history. Often those enamored of the paranormal or the notion of aliens are seeing the phenomenon in a tiny temporal bubble. It seems like this is all new and exciting, and major revelations are right around the corner. Of course it has seemed this way for decades, or even hundreds of years for some phenomena. Meanwhile it’s the same old thing. This was made obvious to me when I first read Sagan’s 1972 book, UFOs: A Scientific Debate. I read this three decades after it was first published – and virtually nothing had changed in the UFO community. It was deja vu all over again. I had the same reaction to the recent Pentagon UFO thing – same people selling the same crappy evidence and poor logic.

New cases are occasionally added, and as I said as the technology evolves so does some of the evidence. But what does not change is people, who are still making the same poor arguments based on flimsy evidence and dodgy logic.

 

 

The post The Jersey Drones Are Likely Drones first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Categories: Skeptic

Whales may hone their singing skills by practising out of season

New Scientist Feed - Mon, 12/23/2024 - 4:00am
The songs of male humpback whales seem to become more complex in the months before they look for a mate, suggesting a rehearsal period may be important for good performance
Categories: Science

Mathematicians spent 2024 unravelling proof almost no one understands

New Scientist Feed - Mon, 12/23/2024 - 2:00am
The geometric Langlands conjecture poses deep questions for mathematicians, and a 1000-page proof published this year has left them both celebrating and puzzled
Categories: Science

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is NOT a “vaccine skeptic.” He is antivax. Period.

Science-based Medicine Feed - Mon, 12/23/2024 - 12:00am

I wish I didn't have to write this post, but the press won't stop referring to RFK Jr. as a "vaccine skeptic." He is not. He is antivax.

The post Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is NOT a “vaccine skeptic.” He is antivax. Period. first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.
Categories: Science

Quantum Correlations Could Solve the Black Hole Information Paradox

Universe Today Feed - Sun, 12/22/2024 - 4:34pm

The black hole information paradox has puzzled physicists for decades. New research shows how quantum connections in spacetime itself may resolve the paradox, and in the process leave behind a subtle signature in gravitational waves.

For a long time we thought black holes, as mysterious as they were, didn’t cause any trouble. Information can’t be created or destroyed, but when objects fall below the event horizons, the information they carry with them is forever locked from view. Crucially, it’s not destroyed, just hidden.

But then Stephen Hawking discovered that black holes aren’t entirely black. They emit a small amount of radiation and eventually evaporate, disappearing from the cosmic scene entirely. But that radiation doesn’t carry any information with it, which created the famous paradox: when the black hole dies, where does all its information go?

One solution to this paradox is known as non-violent nonlocality. This takes advantage of a broader version of quantum entanglement, the “spooky action at a distance” that can tie together particles. But in the broader picture, aspects of spacetime itself become entangled with each other. This means that whatever happens inside the black hole is tied to the structure of spacetime outside of it.

Usually spacetime is only altered during violent processes, like black hole mergers or stellar explosions. But this effect is much quieter, just a subtle fingerprint on the spacetime surrounding an event horizon.

If this hypothesis is true, the spacetime around black holes carries tiny little perturbations that aren’t entirely random; instead, the variations would be correlated with the information inside the black hole. Then when the black hole disappears, the information is preserved outside of it, resolving the paradox.

In a recent paper appearing in the journal preprint server arXiv, but not yet peer-reviewed, a pair of researchers at Caltech investigated this intriguing hypothesis to explore how we might be able to test it.

The researchers found that these signatures in spacetime also leave an imprint in the gravitational waves when black holes merge. These imprints are incredibly tiny, so small that we are not yet able to detect them with existing gravitational wave experiments. But they do have a very unique structure that stands on top of the usual wave pattern, making them potentially observable.

The next generation of gravitational wave detectors, which aim to come online in the next decade, might have enough sensitivity to tease out this signal. If they see it, it would be tremendous, as it would finally point to a clear solution of the troubling paradox, and open up a new understanding of both the structure of spacetime and the nature of quantum nonlocality.

The post Quantum Correlations Could Solve the Black Hole Information Paradox appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Science

M87 Releases a Rare and Powerful Outburts of Gamma-ray Radiation

Universe Today Feed - Sun, 12/22/2024 - 1:12pm

In April 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration made history when it released the first-ever image of a black hole. The image captured the glow of the accretion disk surrounding the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of the M87 galaxy, located 54 million light-years away. Because of its appearance, the disk that encircles this SMBH beyond its event horizon (composed of gas, dust, and photons) was likened to a “ring of fire.” Since then, the EHT has been actively imaging several other SMBH, including Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way!

In addition, the EHT has revealed additional details about M87, like the first-ever image of a photon ring and a picture that combines the SMBH and its relativistic jet emanating from its center. Most recently, the EHT released the results of its latest observation campaign. These observations revealed a spectacular flare emerging from M87’s powerful relativistic jet. This flare released a tremendous amount of energy in multiple wavelengths, including the first high-energy gamma-ray outburst observed in over a decade.

The EHT is an international collaboration of researchers from thirteen universities and institutes worldwide that combines data from over 25 ground-based and space-based telescopes. The research, which was recently published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, was conducted by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, the Event Horizon Telescope- Multi-wavelength science working group, the Fermi Large Area Telescope Collaboration, the H.E.S.S. Collaboration, the MAGIC Collaboration, the VERITAS Collaboration, and the EAVN Collaboration.

The observatories and telescopes that participated in the 2018 multiband campaign to detect the high-energy gamma-ray flare from the M87* black hole. Credits: EHT Collaboration/Fermi-LAT Collaboration/H.E.S.S. Collaboration/MAGIC Collaboration/VERITAS Collaboration/EAVN Collaboration

The study presents the data from the second EHT observational campaign conducted in April 2018 that obtained nearly simultaneous spectra of the galaxy with the broadest wavelength coverage ever collected. Giacomo Principe, the paper coordinator, is a researcher at the University of Trieste associated with the Instituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) and the Institute Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). As he explained in a recent EHT press release:

“We were lucky to detect a gamma-ray flare from M87 during this EHT multi-wavelength campaign. This marks the first gamma-ray flaring event observed in this source in over a decade, allowing us to precisely constrain the size of the region responsible for the observed gamma-ray emission. Observations—both recent ones with a more sensitive EHT array and those planned for the coming years—will provide invaluable insights and an extraordinary opportunity to study the physics surrounding M87’s supermassive black hole. These efforts promise to shed light on the disk-jet connection and uncover the origins and mechanisms behind the gamma-ray photon emission.”

The second EHT and multi-wavelength campaign leveraged data from more than two dozen high-profile observational facilities, including NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope-Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT), the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. This was combined with data from the world’s three largest Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope arrays – the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), the Major Atmospheric Gamma-Ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC), and the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS).

During the campaign, the Fermi space telescope gathered data indicating an increase in high-energy gamma rays using its LAT instrument. Chandra and NuSTAR followed by collecting high-quality data in the X-ray band, while the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and the East Asia VLBI Network (EAVN) obtained data in radio frequencies. The flare these observations revealed lasted approximately three days and occupied a region roughly three light-days in size, about 170 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth (~170 AU).

Light curve of the gamma-ray flare (bottom) and collection of quasi-simulated images of the M87 jet (top) at various scales obtained in radio and X-ray during the 2018 campaign. Credits: EHT Collaboration/Fermi-LAT Collaboration/H.E.S.S. Collaboration/MAGIC Collaboration/VERITAS Collaboration/EAVN Collaboration

The flare itself was well above the energies typically detected around black holes and showed a significant variation in the position angle of the asymmetry of the black hole’s ‘event horizon’ and its position. As Daryl Haggard, a professor at McGill University and the co-coordinator of the EHT multi-wavelength working group, explained, this suggests a physical relation between these structures on very different scales:

“In the first image obtained during the 2018 observational campaign, we saw that the emission along the ring was not homogeneous, instead it showed asymmetries (i.e., brighter areas). Subsequent observations conducted in 2018 and related to this paper confirmed that finding, highlighting that the asymmetry’s position angle had changed.”

“How and where particles are accelerated in supermassive black hole jets is a long-standing mystery,” added University of Amsterdam professor Sera Markoff, another EHT multi-wavelength working group co-coordinator. “For the first time, we can combine direct imaging of the near event horizon regions during gamma-ray flares caused by particle acceleration events and thus test theories about the flare origins.”

This discovery could create opportunities for future research and lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of the Universe.

Further Reading: EHT, Astronomy & Astrophysics

The post M87 Releases a Rare and Powerful Outburts of Gamma-ray Radiation appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Science

Astronomers Find a Black Hole Tipped Over on its Side

Universe Today Feed - Sun, 12/22/2024 - 9:22am

Almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole churning away at its core. In most cases, these black holes spin in concert with their galaxy, like the central hub of a cosmic wagon wheel. But on December 18, 2024, NASA researchers announced they had discovered a galaxy whose black hole appears to have been turned on its side, spinning out of alignment with its host galaxy.

The galaxy, NGC 5084, was discovered centuries ago by German astronomer William Herschel, but it took new techniques, recently developed at NASA’s Ames Research Center, to reveal the unusual properties of the black hole.

The new method is called SAUNAS (Selective Amplification of Ultra Noisy Astronomical Signal). It enables astronomers to tease out low-brightness X-ray emissions that were previously drowned out by other radiation sources.

When the team put their new technique to the test by combing through old archival data from the Chandra X-ray observatory – a space telescope that acts as the X-ray counterpart to Hubble’s visible-light observations – they found their first clue that something unusual was going on in NGC 5084.

Four large X-ray plumes, made visible by the new technique, appeared in the data. These streams of plasma extend out from the centre of the galaxy, two in line with the galactic plane, and two extending above and below.

While plumes of hot, charged gas are not unusual above or below the plane of large galaxies, it is unusual to find four of them, rather than just one or two, and even more unusual to find them in line with the galactic plane.

NGC 5084, as seen by in visible light. Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona.

To make sure that they weren’t just seeing some error or artifact in the Chandra data, they started looking more closely at other images of the galaxy, including both the Hubble space telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).

These observations revealed a dusty inner disk spinning in the centre of the galaxy at a 90-degree angle to the rest of NGC 5084.

The team also looked at the galaxy in radio wavelengths using the NRAO’s Expanded Very Large Array. All together, these observations painted a picture of a very strange galactic core.

“It was like seeing a crime scene with multiple types of light,” said Ames research scientist Alejandro Serrano Borlaff, lead author of the paper published this week in The Astrophysical Journal. “Putting all the pictures together revealed that NGC 5084 has changed a lot in its recent past.”

Borlaff’s coauthor and astrophysicist at Ames, Pamela Marcum, added that “detecting two pairs of X-ray plumes in one galaxy is exceptional. The combination of their unusual, cross-shaped structure and the ‘tipped-over,’ dusty disk gives us unique insights into this galaxy’s history.”

The plumes of plasma suggest that the galaxy has been disturbed in some way during its lifetime. It might be explained, for example, by a collision with another galaxy, which caused the black hole to tip on its side.

With this discovery, SAUNAS has demonstrated that it can bring new life to old data, uncovering new surprises in familiar galaxies. This surprise twist on a galaxy we’ve known about since 1785 offers tantalizing hope that there might be other weird and wonderful discoveries to come, even in places we thought we’d seen everything.

Learn more:

NASA Finds ‘Sideways’ Black Hole Using Legacy Data, New Techniques.” NASA.

Alejandro S. Borlaff et al. “SAUNAS. II. Discovery of Cross-shaped X-Ray Emission and a Rotating Circumnuclear Disk in the Supermassive S0 Galaxy NGC 5084.” The Astrophysical Journal.

The post Astronomers Find a Black Hole Tipped Over on its Side appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Science

An unconvincing attack on Robert Sapolsky’s argument for determinism

Why Evolution is True Feed - Sun, 12/22/2024 - 8:00am

I’ve mentioned before Robert Sapolsky’s recent book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Willa 528-page behemoth that at times is a bit of a slog and at other times an inspiration. (See here, here, here, and here for previous posts about it.) I found his argument against libertarian free will convincing, but of course I already believed that there is no good argument for libertarian (“you-could-have-done-otherwise”) free will (LFW), so I was on his side from the outset. I’m a hard determinist, and that’s based on seeing that the laws of physics obtain everywhere. But people are still maintaining not just that we can confect some form of free will despite the truth of determinism (these people are called “compatibilists”), but that we have real libertarian free will. They are wrong.

The video below, arguing for LFW, came in an email from Quillette touting their most popular articles of 2024.  But this was a short (4.5-minute) video, not an article, and I don’t think the video was one of the top items. Perhaps the note referred to a Quillette article by Stuart Doyle (below) on which the video is based, but that article was published in 2023.

At any rate, listen to the video first, and then, if you want to see what I consider an unconvincing argument against free will (though it does make some fair criticisms of Determined), click on the headline below to read Doyle’s argument that we have “not disproven free will.”

The narrator of the video isn’t named, but she pretty much parrots what’s in Doyle’s essay, emphasizing an argument for free will that Doyle considers dispositive, but to me seems irrelevant.

You may notice some problems with the “rebuttal” described in the video. For example, it seems irrelevant to argue that “just because a neuron doesn’t have free will doesn’t mean that the bearer of a collection of neurons (a person) doesn’t have free will.”  This is an argument that the emergent property of LFW can still appear even if neurons themselves behave according to physical law (a large argument in Sapolsky’s book).  Also, if quantum physics is truly and fundamentally unpredictable (and we don’t know this for sure), that itself, says the narrator, poses a problem for free will, because it means that, at any given moment, a quantum event may change your behavior.

There are two problems with the quantum-indeterminacy argument. First, nobody ever maintained that quantum events like the movement of an electron can result from one’s volition (“will”), so unpredictability at a given moment does not prove volition. Further, we don’t even know (and many of us doubt) that a quantum event can change human behavior or decisions on a macro level. Some people have calculated that it can’t.  So the whole issue of quantum unpredictability is irrelevant to the main problem: whether, at a given moment, you can, through your own agency, have behaved or decided differently.

This brings up the problem of predictability. The narrator’s (and Doyle’s) argument is that if you cannot predict someone’s behavior or decision—even with perfect knowledge of everything—then we have free will. As I just said, quantum physics may cause such fundamental unpredictability, but doesn’t support the notion that we have LFW  Yet the video and Doyle suggest there is another form of fundamental unpredictability that can cause a lack of predictability despite perfect physical knowledge: computational undecidability. Both the narrator and Doyle accuse Sapolsky of complete ignorance of this concept, which, they say, constitutes “a major flaw in Sapolsky’s argument.”  The narrator says that if human behavior is fundamentally unpredictable, then it supports the idea that free will exists. The premise of this criticism is, of course, is that if you can’t predict human behavior and decisions, even with perfect physical knowledge, then you can’t say that we lack free will. But these arguments using predictability are flimsy arguments against determinism, and, in fact, we’ll never have the perfect knowledge we need to predict behavior.

The problem is that quantum mechanics can in principle wreck perfect predictability of behavior, but that possibility doesn’t support free will. So does “computational undecidability”, another thing that impedes prediction, leave room for free will? I don’t think so (see below).

 

The essay by Stuart Doyle on which this video is based can be accessed by clicking the link below, or you can find it (archived here). Doyle is a graduate student in psychology at the University of Kansas.

Let me start by saying that Doyle’s essay, while it makes its points clearly and strongly, seems almost mean, as if Doyle takes great joy in telling us how stupid Sapolsky is.  And this is coming from someone (me) who’s been accused of the same thing. (I plead not guilty, at least for my published work.). But for a scholar publishing a rebuttal on a major site, it seems to me uncharitable to say stuff like this:

Sapolsky’s conclusions about morality and politics stand on nothing beyond his personal tastes. His book was marketed with such authoritative headlines as “Stanford scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don’t have free will.” In contrast to the hype, Determined is ultimately a collection of partial arguments, conjoined incoherently. And Robert Sapolsky is to blame.

Sapolsky is to blame? Well, yes, of course he is, he’s the author, but the concept of blaming someone for writing a book they don’t like, and and accusing them of incoherence (I disagree) is not civil discourse. But let’s move on.

The observation that every object in the universe obeys physical law does directly imply that there is no amorphous “will” that can affect the laws of physics, something that physicist Sean Carroll (a compatibilist) has emphasized. To me, this puts the onus on those who accept LFW to tell us what aspect of human volition is independent of the laws of physics.What form of nonphysical magic can change the output of our neurons? So far, nobody has done this.  Thus, to a large extent, I think, one can tentatively accept determinism simply from knowing that every physical object obeys well-known laws and, as Carroll has written, “The laws underlying the physics of everyday life are completely understood.”  Carroll:

All we need to account for everything we see in our everyday lives are a handful of particles — electrons, protons, and neutrons — interacting via a few forces — the nuclear forces, gravity, and electromagnetism — subject to the basic rules of quantum mechanics and general relativity. You can substitute up and down quarks for protons and neutrons if you like, but most of us don’t notice the substructure of nucleons on a daily basis. That’s a remarkably short list of ingredients, to account for all the marvelous diversity of things we see in the world.

So yes, Carroll is a determinist in a way that refutes libertarian free will, but in the link saying he’s a compatibilist, you’ll see that he says that we have a sort of free will instantiated in the emergent properties of humans acting as agents and expressing preferences. (Of course our tastes and preferences are also formed in our brain by the laws of physics.) Well, there is no real emergence that defies the laws of physics: emergence may not be predictable from lower-level phenomena, but it is consistent and derives from  lower-level phenomena. Saying, as Doyle does, that “The ‘mechanism’ that produces deliberative choices is the whole person” is to say nothing that refutes determinism.

As I reread Doyle’s paper, I realized that although he does point out some contradictions in Sapolsky’s arguments, Doyle does nothing to dispel determinism.  What appears to be the central contention of his essay is that there is another way that physical objects can behave unpredictably beyond quantum mechanics, and that way is computational decidability. But that supports LFW no more than does any unpredictability of quantum mechanics.

Here’s what Doyle says:

So what could give us the ability to surprise Laplace’s demon? Computational undecidability. This is a term describing a system that cannot be predicted, given complete knowledge of its present state. This fundamental unpredictability shows up in algorithmic computation, formal mathematical systems, and dynamical systems. Though an unpredictable dynamical system may evoke the concept of chaos, undecidability is a different sort of unpredictability. As described by one of the greatest living information theorists, C.H. Bennett:

For a dynamical system to be chaotic means that it exponentially amplifies ignorance of its initial condition; for it to be undecidable means that essential aspects of its long-term behavior—such as whether a trajectory ever enters a certain region—though determined, are unpredictable even from total knowledge of the initial condition.

If a system exhibits undecidability, then it is unpredictable even to Laplace’s demon, while a system that is merely chaotic is perfectly predictable to the demon. Chaos is only unpredictable because the initial conditions are not perfectly known. So it would be fair to dismiss that kind of unpredictability as mere ignorance—an epistemological issue, not an ontological reality. But the delineation between the epistemic and the ontic falls apart when we talk about what Laplace’s demon can’t know. An issue is “merely” epistemological when there is a fact of the matter, but the fact is unknowable. There actually is no fact about how an undecidable system will behave until it behaves. For a fact to exist, it must be in reference to some aspect of reality. But nothing about present reality could ground a fact about the future behavior of an undecidable system. In contrast, the exact actual state of present reality grounds facts about the future of chaotic systems. We just can’t know the exact actual state of present reality, thus unpredictability is “merely” epistemological in the case of chaos, but not in the case of undecidability.

Arguably, human behavior is undecidable, not just chaotic. And that would mean that human choice is free in exactly the way we’d want it to be; determined—by our own whole selves, with no fact of the matter of what we’ll choose before we choose it. But Sapolsky seems unaware of undecidability as a concept. He mislabels cellular automata as chaotic, rather than recognizing the truth that they exhibit undecidability. This is a major factual error on Sapololsky’s part.

First of all, from what I’ve read of computational undecidability, it is a phenomenon not of physical objects, but of  philosophy combined with mathematical concepts and models. As Wikipedia says (and yes, I’ve read more than that article):

There are two distinct senses of the word “undecidable” in contemporary use. The first of these is the sense used in relation to Gödel’s theorems, that of a statement being neither provable nor refutable in a specified deductive system. The second sense is used in relation to computability theory and applies not to statements but to decision problems, which are countably infinite sets of questions each requiring a yes or no answer. Such a problem is said to be undecidable if there is no computable function that correctly answers every question in the problem set. The connection between these two is that if a decision problem is undecidable (in the recursion theoretical sense) then there is no consistent, effective formal system which proves for every question A in the problem either “the answer to A is yes” or “the answer to A is no”.

Two points here. First, Doyle gives not one example of a biological system in which “computational undecidability” would obtain.  If there was one, why didn’t he mention it? It seems to me solely a mathematical/logical concept, and my (admittedly cursory) readings have turned up nothing in biology or physics that seems “computationally undecidable”, much less in a way that would give us free will.

Second, even if there is a fundamental and non-quantum form of unpredictability in physics and biology, that doesn’t open up the possibility of free will. That would depend on whether our “will” could, in some non-physical way, affect the behavior of molecules. If it cannot happen with quantum mechanics, then how can it happen with computational undecidability? Unless Doyle tells us how this mathematical/logical idea can somehow affect our behavior according to our “will”, he has no argument against determinism and thus has no argument for free will.

Now it’s true that belief in “physical determinism—folding into that term quantum and other unpredictable effects not affected by our volition)—is largely a conclusion from observing nature. But just because we cannot absolutely prove determinism of behavior from science, we can still increase determinism’s priors by various experiments. These include recent studies showing that you can predict, using brain scanning, binary decisions that people make before they are conscious of having made them. For example, if people are given a choice of adding or subtracting two numbers, scanning their brains shows that you can, with substantial probability (60-70%), predict whether they’ll add or subtract up to ten seconds before they are conscious of having made a choice. And this is from crude methods of measuring brain activity (e.g., fMRI). Perhaps by measuring individual neurons or groups of neurons we could predict even better. But the experiments so far imply that decisions are made before people are conscious of them, and that raises the Bayesian priors that people’s behaviors are determined by physics, not by their “will”.

And there are various other experiments showing that you can both increase or decrease people’s sense of volition.  Electrical stimulation of the brain can make people think that they made a decision when in fact it’s purely the result of stimulating certain neurons. This causes people to make up stories of why they did things like raise their hand when a part of their brain is stimulated (“I decided to wave at that nurse”). But that sense of volition is bogus. This kind of post facto confabulation, which occurs very soon after you decide something or do something, is what makes us think what we have LFW. Further, there may be evolutionary reasons why we think we have libertarian free will, but I won’t get into those. Suffice it to say that I think that our feeling of having LFW is merely a very powerful illusion—an illusion that may have been installed in our brains by natural selection.

On the other hand, you can make people think that they didn’t have volition when in fact they did. A Ouija board is one example: people unconsciously move the “cursor” around to make words when they think that it’s moving independently of their will.  There are other experiments like these, all showing that you can either strengthen or weaken people’s sense of volition and will using various psychological tricks.  And they all go to refute the idea of libertarian free will

So yes, I think Sapolsky is right. His determinism agrees with nearly all the scientists (including compatibilists) who think that the notion of libertarian free will is bogus. To think otherwise is to believe that there is some kind of non-physical mental magic that can change the laws of physics.

One final point. Arguments about free will are not just philosophical wheel-spinning, for they play directly into an important part of society: reward and punishment—especially punishment. If the legal system truly embraced determinism of behavior, we could still have punishment, but it would be very different. We would punish to keep bad people off the streets, to give people a chance for rehabilitation (if they can be rehabilitated), and to deter others.  But what we would not have is retributive punishment: punishment for having made the wrong choice.

Legal systems are grounded on the notion that we are morally responsible, but under determinism we’re not. Yes, we can be responsible for an act, but “moral” responsibility is intimately connected with libertarian free will; it’s the idea that we have the ability, at any given time, to act either morally or immorally (or make any any other alternative decision, even if it doesn’t involve morality). Yes, I know there are some who think that the justice system already implicitly accepts determinism, but they are wrong. For if it did, we wouldn’t have any form of retributive punishment, including capital punishment.

As for rewarding good behavior, well, yes, you couldn’t have done otherwise than, say, saved a drowning person. But rewarding people who do good is a spur for other people to do good.  Even if the rewarded people don’t “deserve” plaudits in the sense that their accomplishments didn’t come from LFW, handing out rewards for things that society approves of is simply a good thing to do—for society.

Oh, a p.s.  Because people feel so strongly that they do have libertarian free will, I have faced more opposition when touting determinism than when touting the truth of evolution. As I always say, “It’s much harder to convince a free-willer of the truth of determinism than to convince a creationist of the truth of evolution.”  People feel so strongly that they have LFW that I have suffered two unpleasant consequences for touting determinism. I’ve told these stories before, but a big jazz musician nearly attacked me for implying that his solos were not truly extemporaneous, and that he could not have played a different solo, and on another occasion an old friend kicked me out of his house because he couldn’t abide the notion of determinism. No creationist has ever treated me in those ways!

Categories: Science

Readers’ wildlife photos

Why Evolution is True Feed - Sun, 12/22/2024 - 6:15am

This being Sunday, John Avise is here with some pictures, and remember that he’s moved on to butterflies. John’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

First, I’d like to wish all WEIT readers a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Joyous Coynezaa, or whatever else you may be celebrating during this special season.  This week continues the series on butterflies that I’ve photographed in North America.  I’m continuing to go down my list of species in alphabetical order by common name.

Bramble Green Hairstreak (Callophrys dumetorum):

Brazilian Skipper (Calpodes ethlius), underwing:

Brown Elfin, Callophrys augustinus:

Cabbage White (Pieris rapae), male:

Cabbage White, female:

Cabbage White, underwing:

California Dogface (Zerene eurydice), male underwing:

JAC: This butterfly was on a stamp:

Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Designed by Stanley Galli., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

California Dogface female underwing:

California Dogface, male upperwing:

California Dogface, female upperwing:

California Dogface, larvae on False Indigo Bush (Amorpha fruticosa):

California Hairstreak (Satyrium californica):

California Ringlet (Coenonympha california), dark morph:

California Ringlet, light morph:

California Ringlet, mating pair:

Categories: Science

Dr. Joseph Marine: “MAHA is More Than RFK and Has Little to do With Vaccines”

Science-based Medicine Feed - Sun, 12/22/2024 - 12:07am

If pro-RFK Jr. propaganda wins the day, I am confident we will soon find out a tough truth- MAHA is all about RFK and has everything to do with vaccines.

The post Dr. Joseph Marine: “MAHA is More Than RFK and Has Little to do With Vaccines” first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.
Categories: Science

NASA is Developing Solutions for Lunar Housekeeping’s Biggest Problem: Dust!

Universe Today Feed - Sat, 12/21/2024 - 5:22pm

Through the Artemis Program, NASA will send the first astronauts to the Moon since the Apollo Era before 2030. They will be joined by multiple space agencies, like the ESA and China, who plan to send astronauts (and “taikonauts”) there for the first time. Beyond this, all plan to build permanent habitats in the South Pole-Aitken Basin and the necessary infrastructure that will lead to a permanent human presence. This presents many challenges, the most notable being those arising from the nature of the lunar environment.

Aside from the extremes in temperature, a 14-day diurnal cycle, and the airless environment, there’s the issue of lunar regolith (aka moondust). In addition to being coarse and jagged, lunar regolith sticks to everything because it is electrostatically charged. Because of how this dust plays havoc with astronaut health, equipment, and machinery, NASA is developing technologies to mitigate dust buildup. Seven of these experiments will be tested during a flight test using a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket to evaluate their ability to mitigate lunar dust.

Another major problem with lunar regolith is how it gets kicked up and distributed by spacecraft plumes. With essentially no atmosphere and lower gravity (16.5% of Earth’s), this dust can remain aloft for extended periods of time. Its jagged nature, resulting from billions of years of meteor and micrometeoroid impacts and a total lack of weathering, is abrasive to any surface it comes into contact with, ranging from spacesuits and equipment to human skin, eyes, and lungs. It will also build up on solar panels, preventing missions from drawing enough power to survive a lunar night.

In addition, it can also cause equipment to overheat as it coats thermal radiators and accumulates on windows, camera lenses, and visors, making it harder to see, navigate, and acquire accurate images. Kristen John, the Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative technical integration lead at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, said in a NASA press release: “The fine grain nature of dust contains particles that are smaller than the human eye can see, which can make a contaminated surface appear to look clean.”

Addressing the Problem

These technologies were developed by NASA’s Game Changing Development program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). The “Lunar Gravity Simulation via Suborbital Rocket” flight test will study regolith mechanics and lunar dust transport in a simulated lunar gravity environment. The payload includes projects for mitigating and cleaning dust using multiple strategies. They include:

ClothBot:
This compact robot is designed to simulate and measure how dust behaves in a pressurized environment, which astronauts could bring back after conducting Extravehicular Activities (EVAs). The robot relies on pre-programmed motions that simulate astronauts’ movements when removing their spacesuits (aka “doffing”), releasing a small dose of lunar regolith simulant. A laser-illuminated imaging system will then capture the dust flow in real-time while sensors record the size and number of particles.

Electrostatic Dust Lofting (EDL):
The EDL will examine how lunar dust is “lofted” (kicked up) when it becomes electrostatically charged to improve models on dust lofting. During the lunar gravity phase of the flight, a dust sample will be released that the EDL will illuminate using a UV light source, causing the particles to become charged. The dust will then pass through a sheet laser as it rises from the surface while the EDL observes and records the results. The EDL’s camera will continue to record the dust until the mission ends, even after the lunar gravity phase ends and the UV light is shut off.

The Lunar Lab and Regolith Testbeds at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Credit: NASA/Uland Wong.

Hermes Lunar-G:
The Hermes Lunar-G project, developed by NASA, Texas A&M, and Texas Space Technology Applications and Research (T-STAR), is based on a facility (Hermes) that previously operated on the International Space Station (ISS). Like its predecessor, the Lunar-G project will rely on repurposed Hermes hardware to study lunar regolith simulants. This will be done using four canisters containing compressed lunar dust simulants. When the flight enters its lunar gravity phase, these simulants will decompress and float around in the canisters while high-speed cameras and sensors capture data. The results will be compared to microgravity data from the ISS and similar flight experiments.

Dust Mitigation Strategies

The data obtained by these projects will provide information on regolith generation rates, transport, and mechanics that will help scientists refine computational models. This will allow mission planners and designers to develop better strategies for dust mitigation for future missions to the Moon and Mars. Already, this challenge informs several aspects of NASA’s technological developments, ranging from In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) and construction to transportation and surface power. Said John:

“Learning some of the fundamental properties of how lunar dust behaves and how lunar dust impacts systems has implications far beyond dust mitigation and environments. Advancing our understanding of the behavior of lunar dust and advancing our dust mitigation technologies benefits most capabilities planned for use on the lunar surface.”

The test flight and vehicle enhancements that will enable the simulation of lunar gravity are being funded through NASA’s Flight Opportunities program.

Further Reading: NASA

The post NASA is Developing Solutions for Lunar Housekeeping’s Biggest Problem: Dust! appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Science

Where’s the Most Promising Place to Find Martian Life?

Universe Today Feed - Sat, 12/21/2024 - 4:32pm

New research suggests that our best hopes for finding existing life on Mars isn’t on the surface, but buried deep within the crust.

Several years ago NASA’s Curiosity rover measured traces of methane in the Martian atmosphere at levels several times the background. But a few months later, the methane disappeared, only for it to reappear again later in the year. This discovery opened up the intriguing possibility of life still clinging to existence on Mars, as that could explain the seasonal variability in the presence of methane.

But while Mars was once home to liquid water oceans and an abundant atmosphere, it’s now a desolate wasteland. What kind of life could possibly call the red planet home? Most life on Earth wouldn’t survive long in those conditions, but there is a subgroup of Earthly life that might possibly find Mars a good place to live.

These are the methanogens, a type of single-celled organism that consume hydrogen for energy and excrete methane as a waste product. Methanogens can be found in all sorts of otherwise-inhospitable places on Earth, and something like them might be responsible for the seasonal variations in methane levels on Mars.

In a recent paper submitted for publication in the journal AstroBiology, a team of scientists scoured the Earth for potential analogs to Martian environments, searching for methanogens thriving in conditions similar to what might be found on Mars.

The researchers found three potential Mars-like conditions on Earth where methanogens make a home. The first is deep in the crust, sometimes to a depth of several kilometers, where tiny cracks in rocks allow for liquid water to seep in. The second is lakes buried under the Antarctic polar ice cap, which maintain their liquid state thanks to the immense pressures of the ice above them. And the last is super-saline, oxygen-deprived basins in the deep ocean.

All three of these environments have analogs on Mars. Like the Earth, Mars likely retains some liquid water buried in its crust. And its polar caps might have liquid water lakes buried underneath them. Lastly, there has been tantalizing – and heavily disputed – evidence of briny water appearing on crater walls.

In the new paper, the researchers mapped out the temperature ranges, salinity levels, and pH values across sites scattered around the Earth. They then measured the abundance of molecular hydrogen in those sites, and determined where methanogens were thriving the most.

For the last step, the researchers combed through the available data about Mars itself, finding where conditions best matched the most favorable sites on Earth. They found that the most likely location for possible life was in Acidalia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern hemisphere.

Or rather, underneath it. Several kilometers below the plain, the temperatures are warm enough to support liquid water. That water might have just the right pH and salinity levels, along with enough dissolved molecular hydrogen, to support a population of methanogen-like creatures.

Now we just have to figure out how to get there.

The post Where’s the Most Promising Place to Find Martian Life? appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Science

Caturday felid trifecta: Gene for orange coat color found; the evil Icelandic Yule Cat; a hungry cat bursts through a snowbank, and lagniappe

Why Evolution is True Feed - Sat, 12/21/2024 - 8:15am

I think in the last year a trope has originated in which orange cats are said to be mischievous and weird.  I’m not sure about that, but several studies (two below) report a paper that has apparently found the gene that, when mutated, causes a cat to be orange. From the first source (click on headlines to read):

Orange cats have earned an online reputation for being chaotic, energetic rascals. But among scientists, they’ve long been known for something else: the enduring mystery of their distinctive coats.

Now, two independent studies by American and Japanese scientists have probed the genetic origins of these cats’ color—and, working separately, the teams reached the same conclusion. They suggest that orange cats have their bright, warm pelts as a result of genetic variations on their X chromosomes. The papers, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, were recently posted to the preprint server bioRxiv.

Scientists Greg Barsh from Stanford University and Hiroyuki Sasaki from Japan’s Kyushu University and their teams studied feline genomes to pinpoint which protein encoded by a cat’s genes brought out the orange hue. What they found was astonishing: a tiny deletion on the cat’s DNA influenced its entire color scheme.

“Our work provides an explanation for why orange cats are a genetic unicorn of sorts,” Kelly McGowan, a Stanford University geneticist who participated in the American study, says to Tom Howarth at Newsweek. The orange cat is a “fascinating exception” to the way orange-like color variants occur in many other domestic species, such as dogs, sheep, horses or rabbits, she adds.

In most other mammals, mutations in a protein called Mc1r lead to red hair color. But this has failed to explain orange color patterns in cats. “It’s been a genetic mystery, a conundrum,” Barsh tells Science’s Sara Reardon.

Instead, the new studies point to a gene called Arhgap36, a protein on the X chromosome. It had never been in the lineup of potential candidates for the “orange gene,” so to speak, because it controls aspects of embryonic development. As a result, scientists thought major mutations to Arhgap36 would likely kill the animal, Barsh said.

Nevertheless, Barsh’s team found that Arhgap36 in orange cats produced almost 13 times more RNA—molecules that help translate DNA into proteins the body can use—compared to the same gene in other types of cats. When they took a closer look, they saw that an increased amount of Arhgap36 in melanocytes, or skin cells that produce hair color, led to production of a light red pigment, making a cat’s fur appear orange.

From The Smithsonian Magazine (click to read):


The article below from phys.org implies (it’s never stated explicitly in the non-scientific literature) that the gene which, when mutated, causes orange-colored fur, also causes black or other coloration when it occurs in other forms. Since the genes for coloration are on the X chromosome, and males are XY (the Y carries no color genes), males can be black or orange, but never both because they have only one X chromosome=. Females, with two Xs, can show both colors, and that’s why calico and tortoiseshell cats, with black and orange, as well as white, are nearly always females, as you see below. (Rare XXY torties occur, and they’re male but show the black-and-orange pattern.

The reason why you have different-colored patches of fur in torties and calicos is because “dosage compensation” in females in effected by having one X chromosome turned off in each cell, and adjacent cells inherit that condition. Thus one gets patches of orange and black (or white) corresponding to parts of the fetal kitten in which the different X chromosomes are activated and inactivated.

Here’s a calico cat (female):

Ellisn95, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As Wikipedia notes, “A calico cat is not to be confused with a tortoiseshell, who has a black undercoat and a mostly mottled coat of black/red or blue/cream with relatively few to no white markings. ”  Here’s a tortie:

Lucashawranke, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

***********************

Iceland harbors the saga of the Yule Cat (Jólaköttur ), whose myth originated around 1862, It is a fearsome felid. As Wikipedia notes:

The Yule cat (IcelandicJólakötturinn, IPA: [ˈjouːlaˌkʰœhtʏrɪn], also called Jólaköttur and Christmas cat) is a huge and vicious cat from Icelandic Christmas folklore that is said to lurk in the snowy countryside during the Christmas season and eat people who do not receive new clothing before Christmas Eve. In other versions of the story, the cat just eats the food of people without new clothes. Jólakötturinn is closely associated with other figures from Icelandic folklore, considered the pet of the ogress Grýla and her sons, the Yule Lads.

ZME Science says the story actually originated in the Dark Ages but wasn’t written down until the mid-1800s. Here’s how the myth goes:

In Medieval Iceland, employers rewarded their employees and members of their households with new clothes and sheepskin shoes. The gifts were made as a reward for a year of hard work and as a motivator to finish the work before Christmas — particularly processing the autumn wool. Here’s the thing, though: if you didn’t have new clothes for Christmas, the dreaded Yule Cat would come out and eat you — and this was no ordinary cat.

It towers above the tallest buildings, prancing around Iceland looking for people without new clothes. It especially looks for children and inspects them to see if they have new garments. If they were too lazy to earn them, the unfortunate children might just end up on the menu of the Yule Cat.

Over time, the legend evolved. You don’t need to buy new clothes every year, one way to avoid the Yule Cat’s claws is by being generous: Gifting clothes to the less fortunate also keeps the cat at bay.

Here’s a cartoon of a girl with new clothes who gets saved from the  Jólaköttur, while her brother, bereft of new garb, seems to have been badly scratched (though not eaten):

And below is a video of Björk singing a song about the Jólaköttur.  The Icelandic lyrics are at the YouTube site, and here’s their Google translation (Listen for the word “Jólakötturrinn” in the first line.)

You know the Christmas cat
that cat was a giant
People didn’t know where he came from
or where he went

He opened his eyes
both glowing
It wasn’t for the fainthearted
to look at them

The combs were sharp as thorns
up from his back
and the claws on his hairy paws
were ugly to see

That’s why the women competed
with combs and looms and spinning wheels
and knitted colorful scarves
or little socks

Because the cat wasn’t allowed to come
and tease the children a little
They had to make clothes
from the adults

And when the lights were turned on on Christmas Eve
and the cat peeked in
the children stood there, red and excited
with their parcels

He waved the stele strongly
he jumped and he scratched and blew
and was sometimes up in the valley
or out on the headland

He hovered, hungry and fierce
in the bitterly cold Christmas snow
and made the hearts tremble
on every farm

If there was a pitiful sleigh outside
the misfortune was immediately certain
Everyone knew that he hunted men
but did not want mice

He laid down on the poor people
who did not get any new sleighs
for Christmas – and struggled and lived
in the poorest conditions

From that he took the food
at once
all of their Christmas food
and ate it most of the time almost by himself
if he could

That was why the women competed
with combs and looms and spinning wheels
and knitted colorful scarves
or little socks

Some of them got aprons
and some had received shoes
or something that was considered necessary
but that was enough

Because the cat could not eat anyone
who received some clothing
Then she hissed rather badly
and ran away

Whether she still exists, I do not know
but her path would be sad
if everyone next
had some bread

You may now have in mind
to help, if there is a need
maybe some children
who do not get anything

Perhaps, the search for those who suffer
from the lack of light in the world around
gives you a good day
and a merry Christmas

**********************

The description of this video, which appears to have gone viral, is this:

This hilarious video shows the moment a hungry moggy would not let anything get in the way of his dinner. Plume the cat bursts through a wall of snow after his owner put a dish of his favourite grub out and calls the famishing feline.

The cat, who is a sprightly 14-year-old, was caught on camera by his owner Ann Got after she noticed he tried to make a hole in previous snowdrifts. As the footage rolls, a chilly Plume can be seen outside before Ann, 25, opens the back door to reveal a pile of snow up against. Then as Ann shouts she has food seconds later Plume bashes his way through the snow drift.

Ann said: “This happened after a huge snowstorm in Gaspe, in Quebec, Canada, on February 16. “Plume had made this entrance before then I was thinking he can make it again and then after some more snow he did it again. “I have been surprised but the funny reaction, but we have had some people say he was thrown through, which he was definitely not. “He’s just a very straightforward cat.” Video licensing : agencemediafailsworld@gmail.com

 

******************

Lagniappe from Cat Memes: From Iceland, a depiction in lights of the Jólaköttur:

h/t: Russell

Categories: Science

The Skeptics Guide #1015 - Dec 21 2024

Skeptics Guide to the Universe Feed - Sat, 12/21/2024 - 4:00am
Live from Washington DC; News Items: The Science of Tipping, JonBenet Ramsey Case, Primordial Black Holes, Oldest Alphabet, Food Distribution, Goop Spiral; Live Q&A; Science or Fiction
Categories: Skeptic

Can Entangled Particles Communicate Faster than Light?

Universe Today Feed - Fri, 12/20/2024 - 4:29pm

Entanglement is perhaps one of the most confusing aspects of quantum mechanics. On its surface, entanglement allows particles to communicate over vast distances instantly, apparently violating the speed of light. But while entangled particles are connected, they don’t necessarily share information between them.

In quantum mechanics, a particle isn’t really a particle. Instead of being a hard, solid, precise point, a particle is really a cloud of fuzzy probabilities, with those probabilities describing where we might find the particle when we go to actually look for it. But until we actually perform a measurement, we can’t exactly know everything we’d like to know about the particle.

These fuzzy probabilities are known as quantum states. In certain circumstances, we can connect two particles in a quantum way, so that a single mathematical equation describes both sets of probabilities simultaneously. When this happens, we say that the particles are entangled.

When particles share a quantum state, then measuring the properties of one can grant us automatic knowledge of the state of the other. For example, let’s look at the case of quantum spin, a property of subatomic particles. For particles like electrons, the spin can be in one of two states, either up or down. Once we entangle two electrons, their spins are correlated. We can prepare the entanglement in a certain way so that the spins are always opposite of each other.

If we measure the first particle, we might randomly find the spin pointing up. What does this tell us about the second particle? Since we carefully arranged our entangled quantum state, we now know with 100% absolute certainty that the second particle must be pointing down. Its quantum state was entangled with the first particle, and as soon as one revelation is made, both revelations are made.

But what if the second particle was on the other side of the room? Or across the galaxy? According to quantum theory, as soon as one “choice” is made, the partner particle instantly “knows” what spin to be. It appears that communication can be achieved faster than light.

The resolution to this apparent paradox comes from scrutinizing what is happening when – and more importantly, who knows what when.

Let’s say I’m the one making the measurement of particle A, while you are the one responsible for particle B. Once I make my measurement, I know for sure what spin your particle should have. But you don’t! You only get to know once you make your own measurement, or after I tell you. But in either case nothing is transmitted faster than light. Either you make your own local measurement, or you wait for my signal.

While the two particles are connected, nobody gets to know anything in advance. I know what your particle is doing, but I only get to inform you at speed slower than light – or you just figure it out for yourself.

So while the process of entanglement happens instantaneously, the revelation of it does not. We have to use good old-fashioned no-faster-than-light communication methods to piece together the correlations that quantum entanglement demand.

The post Can Entangled Particles Communicate Faster than Light? appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Science

Mysteries of icy ocean worlds

Space and time from Science Daily Feed - Fri, 12/20/2024 - 4:10pm
A study introduces a novel thermodynamic concept called the 'centotectic' and investigates the stability of liquids in extreme conditions -- critical information for determining the habitability of icy moons like Europa.
Categories: Science

Researchers take 'significant leap forward' with quantum simulation of molecular electron transfer

Matter and energy from Science Daily Feed - Fri, 12/20/2024 - 4:10pm
Researchers have made a meaningful advance in the simulation of molecular electron transfer -- a fundamental process underpinning countless physical, chemical and biological processes. The study details the use of a trapped-ion quantum simulator to model electron transfer dynamics with unprecedented tunability, unlocking new opportunities for scientific exploration in fields ranging from molecular electronics to photosynthesis.
Categories: Science

Researchers take 'significant leap forward' with quantum simulation of molecular electron transfer

Computers and Math from Science Daily Feed - Fri, 12/20/2024 - 4:10pm
Researchers have made a meaningful advance in the simulation of molecular electron transfer -- a fundamental process underpinning countless physical, chemical and biological processes. The study details the use of a trapped-ion quantum simulator to model electron transfer dynamics with unprecedented tunability, unlocking new opportunities for scientific exploration in fields ranging from molecular electronics to photosynthesis.
Categories: Science

Breakthrough new material brings affordable, sustainable future within grasp

Matter and energy from Science Daily Feed - Fri, 12/20/2024 - 4:10pm
Researchers have developed a new material for sodium-ion batteries, sodium vanadium phosphate, that delivers higher voltage and greater energy capacity than previous sodium-based materials. This breakthrough could make sodium-ion batteries a more efficient and affordable alternative to lithium-ion, using a more abundant and cost-effective resource.
Categories: Science

OpenAI's o3 model aced a test of AI reasoning – but it's still not AGI

New Scientist Feed - Fri, 12/20/2024 - 3:10pm
The latest AI model from OpenAI achieved an “impressive leap in performance” but it still hasn’t demonstrated what experts classify as human-level intelligence
Categories: Science

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