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Researchers are working to enhance battery safety and efficiency by developing solid-state alternatives to lithium-ion batteries. These batteries offer improved energy efficiency and safety, but a major challenge has been the formation of an interphase layer at the junction of the solid electrolyte and cathode. This ultra-thin layer obstructs lithium ion and electron movement, increasing resistance and degrading battery performance.

Researchers are working to enhance battery safety and efficiency by developing solid-state alternatives to lithium-ion batteries. These batteries offer improved energy efficiency and safety, but a major challenge has been the formation of an interphase layer at the junction of the solid electrolyte and cathode. This ultra-thin layer obstructs lithium ion and electron movement, increasing resistance and degrading battery performance.

Astronauts often experience immune dysfunction, skin rashes, and other inflammatory conditions while traveling in space. A new study suggests that these issues could be due to the excessively sterile nature of spacecraft. The study showed that the International Space Station (ISS) has a much lower diversity of microbes compared to human-built environments on Earth, and the microbes that are present are mostly species carried by humans onto the ISS, suggesting that the presence of more microbes from nature could help improve human health in the space station.

Located 2.5 million light-years away, the majestic Andromeda galaxy appears to the naked eye as a faint, spindle-shaped object roughly the angular size of the full Moon. What backyard observers don't see is a swarm of nearly three dozen small satellite galaxies circling the Andromeda galaxy, like bees around a hive.

I swear, NYT columnist Ross Douthat must have a huge publicity machine, because his latest book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, is appearing everywhere, usually as excerpts.  The point of the book is to assert that religion’s decline in America is slowing, and that readers having a “God-shaped hole,” denoting a lack of religious meaning in their lives, should not just become religious, but become Christian. (Douthat thinks that Catholicism is the “right” religion, and of course he happens to be Catholic).

And by “believe,” Douthat doesn’t just mean adhering to a watered-down form of Christianity that sees the New Testament as a series of metaphors. No, he really believes the tenets of his faith, including the miracles of Jesus, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, and the existence of Satan and the afterlife. (See my posts on this delusional book here.) It is a sign of the times that this book, which calls for people to embrace claims that are palpably ridiculous and totally unevidenced—unless you take the New Testament literally, which you can’t because it’s wrong and self-contradictory—is getting not only wide press, but approbation.  Even the New Yorker summary and review of the book, which you can read by clicking below (the screenshot links to the archived version here) is pretty mild in its criticism. Author Rothman is a nonbeliever, and gives good responses to Douthat’s “evidence” for God, but at the end says the he “respects [Douthat’s effort to persuade.”  What does that mean? He respects Douthat’s efforts to proselytize people with a divisive and harmful faith, and to believe stuff without evidence? Well, the New Yorker has always been a bit soft on faith (despite the fact that most of its writers are atheists), because some of their rich and educated readers have “belief in belief”.

Rothman’s summary of the book (his words are indented):

“Believe” is different: in it, Douthat proselytizes. His intended readers aren’t dyed-in-the-wool skeptics of the Richard Dawkins variety, who find religion intellectually absurd. His main goal is to reach people who are curious about faith, or who are “spiritual” but not religious. (According to some surveys, as many as a third of Americans see themselves this way.) If you’re in this camp, you might have a general sense of the mystical ineffability of existence, or believe that there’s more to it than science can describe. You might be agnostic, or even an atheist, while also feeling that religion’s rituals, rhythms, and attitudes can enrich life and connect you to others; that its practices draw our attention to what really matters. At the same time, you might not be able to accept the idea that Jesus actually rose again on the third day.

But Douthat needs to persuade the audience that yes, Jesus rose like a loaf of bread, and more:

Douthat argues that you should be religious because religion, as traditionally conceived, is true; in fact, it’s not just true but commonsensical, despite the rise of science. His most surprising, and perhaps reckless, assertion is that scientific progress has actually increased the chances that “religious perspectives are closer to the truth than purely secular worldviews.”

From what I’ve read here and elsewhere, Douthat has two main arguments for religion. The Argument from Increasing God of the Gaps, and the Argument from Personal Experience.

In “Believe,” Douthat rebels against these attempts to adjust the scale of God; he resists both the minimizing God-of-the-gaps approach and the maximizing abstraction proposed by thinkers like Armstrong and Tillich. First of all, he maintains that the gaps are actually widening: from a survey of speculative ideas in physics, neuroscience, and biology, he draws the conclusion that a “convergence of different forms of evidence” actively points toward the existence of a traditional God. Second, he argues that, even in our supposedly secular world, it’s still eminently reasonable to believe in a supernatural God who reaches down to Earth and affects our lives. David Hume, the eighteenth-century philosopher known for his pursuit of empiricism, predicted that, as the world grew more rational and scientific, people would stop having supernatural experiences, which he thought more common among “ignorant and barbarous nations.” Douthat points out that this hasn’t happened. [JAC: No data are given, however, about any decrease over time.] About a third of Americans “claim to have experienced or witnessed a miraculous healing,” he notes, and regular people continue to have mystical experiences of various kinds. (A 2023 survey conducted by Pew Research found that nearly four in ten respondents believed that the dead can communicate with the living.) Religious experience is a “brute fact,” Douthat writes, shared among billions of people, and its “mysteries constantly cry out for interpretation” just as they always have.

Miraculous healing? Talk to me when an amputee regrows a leg, or someone without eyes regains the ability to see. Why can’t God cure ailments that medicine is impotent to cure?

I’ve discussed some of the God of the Gaps arguments made by Douthat, the two most prominent being the “fine-tuning” argument (the physical parameters of the universe were cleverly adjusted to allow our existence) and the consciousness of humans, which Douthat says cannot be explained by science.  Rothman is good at refuting both in brief responses, and I’ll let you read what he wrote. Plus remember that animals like dogs, cats, squirrels, and other primates also appear to be conscious (of course we can’t prove that), but are these other creatures made in God’s image, too?  Rothman makes a good point here:

Throughout “Believe,” the implication is that work at the frontiers of science has increased the amount of mystery in the world by uncovering impenetrable unknowns. But this is misleading. Science has vastly expanded our understanding of how things work, reducing mystery; along the way, it has inevitably shifted the landscape of our ignorance, sometimes drastically. This new landscape can feel unfamiliar; strangeness comes with the territory. But just because we don’t understand something, it doesn’t mean that we face the ultimately mysterious; we’re probably still dealing with the ordinary, earthly unknown. And if science really does hit a hard limit in certain areas, or if it discovers questions that our minds are simply unequipped to answer—what would that show? Only that we don’t know everything. The likely possibility that omnipotence is beyond us in no way suggests that our intuitive religious revelations are correct. If anything, it suggests the opposite.

That of course is the usual argument against “The Argument for God from Ignorance”: throughout history, one baffling phenomenon after another imputed to God has later been found out to be purely naturalistic (lightning, disease, epilepsy, eclipses, and so on).

The single argument by Douthat that Rothman finds somewhat persuasive is that lots of people have had religious or spiritual experiences. Why are they so common unless they’re showing us the presence of a supernatural being?

At any rate, the version of me that exists today found Douthat’s case for faith unpersuasive. But I still enjoyed “Believe,” and found myself challenged by it. Douthat is right to call attention to the “brute fact” of religious experience, which apparently remains pervasive in a supposedly secular age. In 2006, an editorial in Slate argued that Mitt Romney’s Mormonism indicated a kind of mental weakness on his part—his apparent belief in its more outlandish tenets, Jacob Weisberg wrote, revealed in Romney “a basic failure to think for himself or see the world as it is.” But if lots of people have experiences of the supernatural, then can belief in it really be understood, tout court, as proof of their fundamental irrationality? What about the award-winning journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, who, in her book “Living with a Wild God,” described a “furious encounter with a living substance that was coming at me through all things at once”? In her classic “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” she certainly saw the world as it was.

Well, many of us atheists, including me, have had spiritual experiences, though not religious ones.  I remember sleeping out in Death Valley, looking up at the fantastic display of stars unsullied by nearby human lights, and feeling drawn out of myself, a tiny speck in a huge universe. (But of course that raises the question about why there are so many celestial bodies without humans?) And I won’t get into the visions I had when I was on psychedelic drugs in college.

We are emotional beings, with emotions surely partly a result of evolution, and once the meme of religion has spread, it’s easy to ascribe intense emotions to religious experience. We are also ridden with delusions: after my cat died, I used to see it out of the corner of my eye.  I’m sorry, but if Jesus/God is so anxious for us to believe in Him/Them (he surely doesn’t want all those nonbelievers to fry forever, as Douthat thinks), why doesn’t he simply appear in a way that cannot be written off as a delusion? (We do have cameras and videotape now.) Carl Sagan himself asked this question years ago.

Further, the religious experiences had by members of different faiths correspond to the different tenets of those faiths. Muslims have dreams and visions of Muhammad, and of course Muhammad himself produced the Qur’an after having a vision of the angel Gabriel, who dictated the book to the illiterate merchant.  So if visions of God tell us that God is real, which God who is envisioned is the real one?  I’m sorry, but I don’t find experiences or visions of God/Jesus convincing given that, if he wished, Jesus could make himself available in an irrefutable way to all of humanity, and presto!, we’d all be Catholics! (He also said that he’d return within the lifetime of those who witnessed his Crucifixion. Did he come back? No dice.)

No, I’m sorry, but I don’t have any respect for the deluded, especially when they insist, as does Douthat, they they have hit on the “true” religion. (Muslims, of course, believe that Islam is the final and true religion.)  Where is Mencken when we need him? The best way to go after someone like Douthat is not with intellectual analysis and respect, as does Rothman, but with all-out satire and mockery.

Still, given the constraints of the New Yorker, Rothman’s review is about as good as it can be.

h/t: Barry

There may be logic in keeping spacecraft as sterile as possible, but this could inadvertently be affecting astronauts' health

A cloud of super-heated volcanic ash and gas exploded the brain of one Herculaneum resident and the fragments inside his skull became an extremely rare organic glass

I have two announcements this morning:

a.) First, next Monday, Mar 3 at 12:30 Chicago time (1:30 Eastern time), I am having a 1-1½-hour discussion with DIAGdemocrats  (“DIAG” stands for Democrats with an Informed Approach to Gender. And their slogan is “Liberals guiding our party back to reason and reality.” It’s tailor made for me!) Their “who we are” description is here, and the mission statement here. But there’s a lot of other stuff, including critiques of existing claims and studies involving gender. You can even send emails to your representatives in Congress from the site.

DIAGdemocrats also has a YouTube channel of previous discussions here, an Instagram page here,. and a Facebook page here.

The topic of our discussion is in the headline below, which I believe will link to the discussion on Twitter when you click on it (it will also be archived). We’ll be talking about various things, including the KerFFRFle with the Freedom From Religion Foundation that led to the resignation of Richard Dawkins, Steve Pinker, and I.  But the discussion is likely to be wide-ranging and there will be a Q&A at the end.

As you can tell from the group’s name and the website linked above, it is is dedicated to a rational, science-informed approach to gender issues.

b.) And I want to call attention to this upcoming book edited by Lawrence Krauss; it’ll be available starting July 29 (I believe there will be an audiobook later). Click on the screenshot to go to the Amazon site:

Here’s the Amazon blurb:

An unparalleled group of prominent scholars from wide-ranging disciplines detail ongoing efforts to impose ideological restrictions on science and scholarship throughout western society.

From assaults on merit-based hiring to the policing of language and replacing well-established, disciplinary scholarship by ideological mantras, current science and scholarship is under threat throughout western institutions. As this group of prominent scholars ranging across many different disciplines and political leanings detail, the very future of free inquiry and scientific progress is at risk. Many who have spoken up against this threat have lost their positions, and a climate of fear has arisen that strikes at the heart of modern education and research. Banding together to finally speak out, this brave and unprecedented group of scholars issues a clarion call for change.

I’ve put a list of the authors below. The contents include the second and unpublished part of Richard Dawkins’s essay on sex, a slightly revised version of my essay with Luana Maroja, “The Ideological Subversion of Biology,” plus a bunch of pieces appearing for the first time.  There are six sections as well as an introduction and afterword by Krauss. Keep your eye open for further announcements here or a view of the contents that will likely appear on the Amazon site.

Dorian Abbot

John Armstrong

Peter Boghossian

Maarten Boudry

Alex Byrne

Nicholas A. Christakis

Roger Cohen

Jerry Coyne

Richard Dawkins

Niall Ferguson

Janice Fiamengo

Solveig Lucia Gold

Moti Gorin

Karleen Gribble

Carole Hooven

Geoff Horsman

Joshua T. Katz

Sergiu Klainerman

Lawrence M. Krauss

Anna Krylov Luana Maroja

Christian Ott

Bruce Pardy

Jordan Peterson

Steven Pinker

Richard Redding

Arthur Rousseau Gad Saad

Sally Satel

Lauren Schwartz

Alan Sokal

Alessandro Strumia

Judith Suissa

Alice Sullivan

Jay Tanzman

Abigail Thompson

Amy Wax

Elizabeth Weiss

Frances Widdowson

Today we have backyard botanical photos from Rik Gern of Austin, Texas. Rik’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

The first is a repeat species, adding to pictures I sent you a few years ago.

Here are some scenes from a blossoming Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) that I planted as part of a hedge when I bought my house about sixteen years ago. At the time I didn’t know that it wasn’t native to the region; I just liked the way it looked. Had I known, I probably would have planted something else, but I can’t deny that I’m happy to have it in the back yard.

The next plant is a gangly-looking weed called Henbit Deadnettle (Lamium amplexicaule). It is another non-native plant, but I take no responsibility for this one; it came to my yard uninvited, but not unwelcome. Henbit Deadnettle grows to a few inches in height and is easy to mow no matter how tall it gets. (first two photos below) Here at the tip of the plant (third photo) you can see a few buds getting ready to flower. The flowers aren’t your typical pretty flowers with a symmetrical ring of petals, but they give the plant a splashy, fountain-like look (fourth photo). When I look at the last picture, I like to imagine that it’s an exotic plant about four or five feet tall, and think how thrilled I would be to see such a thing. Then I can look at the original small plant that grows plentifully in the area and still be thrilled to be able to see this example of nature’s variety without even leaving home!

I’m taking a few weeks away from the blog. So today, an open thread with a request for suggestions on topics that you feel have been unexplored by the blog. Let me (and the other contributors) know the questions you have and what subjects you want to see addressed. Or use this to comment on anything else, SBM-related. The floor is yours. […]

The post Open Thread: The Floor is Yours first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Late is better than never for the ‘Blaze Star’ T Coronae Borealis.

It was on track to be the top astronomical event for 2024… and here we are in 2025, still waiting. You might remember around this time last year, when a notice went out that T Coronae Borealis (‘T CrB’) might brighten into naked eye visibility. Well, the bad news is, the ‘Flare Star’ is officially late to the celestial sky show… but the good news is, recent research definitely shows us that something is definitely afoot.

The outburst occurs once every 80 years. First noticed by astronomer John Birmingham in 1866, T Coronae Borealis last brightened in February 1946. That’s 80 years ago, this month. Located about 2,000 light-years distant on the Hercules/Corona Borealis/Serpens Caput constellation junction border, the star spends most of its time below +10th magnitude. Typically during outburst, the star flares and tops out at +2nd magnitude, rivaling the lucida of its host constellation, Alpha Coronae Borealis (Alphecca).

Finding T Corona Borealis in the Sky

We’re fortunate that T CrB currently rises in the east around local midnight. T CrB then rides high in the pre-dawn sky. Late November would be the worst time for the nova to pop, when the Sun lies between us and the star. The situation only improves as early 2025 goes on, and the region moves into the evening sky.

The constellation Corona Borealis and the location of the ‘Blaze Star.’ Credit: Stellarium

The coordinates for T CrB are:

Declination: +25 degrees, 54’ 58”

Right Ascension: 15 Hours 59’ 30”

Looking eastward in early March, two hours after local midnight. Credit: Stellarium Rare Recurrent Novae

T CrB and other recurrent novae are typically part of a two-star system, with a cool red giant star dumping material on a hot white dwarf companion. This accretion builds up to a runaway flash point, and a nova occurs.

A chart of known recurrent novae. Adapted from The Backyard Astronomer’s Deep-Sky Field Guide by David Dickinson.

Two recent notices caught our eye concerning T Coronae Borealis: one titled T CrB on the Verge of an Outburst: H-Alpha Profile Evolution and Accretion Activity and A Sudden Increase of the Accretion Rate of T Coronae Borealis. Both hint that we may soon see some action from the latent flare star.

“My spectral analysis showed a considerable change in the strength of the H-alpha line profile, which could be considered an indicator of the possible eruption of T CrB in the near future. This change posibly resulted from a significant increase in the temperature and accretion rate,” Gesesew Reta (S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences) told Universe Today. “However, this cannot serve as definitive confirmation of the expected eruption. Novae are inherently unpredictable, and a more detailed analysis, considering broader parameters, is needed for a more accurate prediction.”

An artist’s conception of T Corona Borealis in outburst. Credit: NASA’s Visualization Studio/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez/Scott Wiessinger What to expect in 2025

First, I would manage expectations somewhat; while +2nd magnitude is bright enough to see with the naked eye, it’s not set to be the “Brightest Star…. Ever!” as touted around the web. We get naked eye galactic novae every decade or so, though recurrent novae are a rarity, with only about half a dozen known examples.

Certainly, the familiar ring-shaped northern crown asterism of Corona Borealis will look different for a few weeks, with a new rival star. Certainly, modern astrophysicists and astronomers won’t pass up the chance to study the phenomenon… I would fully expect assets including JWST and Hubble to study the star.

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Variable Star Resources

The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) also posted a recent article on current prospects for T CrB… another good quick look for the brightness of flare star is Space Weather, which posts a daily tracker for its magnitude.

Or you could simply step outside every clear March morning, and look up at Corona Borealis with your ‘Mark-1 eyeballs’ and see if anything is amiss. Hey, you might be the very first one to catch the ‘new star’ adorning the Northern Crown, during its current once-in-a-lifetime apparition.

The post Is T Coronae Borealis About to Light Up? appeared first on Universe Today.

Nature could be said to be constructed out an immense number of physical processes… indeed, that’s almost the definition of “physics”. But what makes a physical process a measurement? And once we understand that, what makes a measurement in quantum physics, a fraught topic, different from measurements that we typically perform as teenagers in a grade school science class?

We could have a long debate about this. But for now I prefer to just give examples that illustrate some key features of measurements, and to focus attention on perhaps the simplest intuitive measurement device… one that we’ll explore further and put to use in many interesting examples of quantum physics.

Measurements and Devices

We typically think of measurements as something that humans do. But not all measurements are human artifice. A small fraction of physical processes are natural measurements, occuring without human intervention. What distinguishes a measurement from some other garden variety process?

A central element of a measurement is a device, natural or artificial, simple or complicated, that records some aspect of a physical process semi-permanently, so that this record can be read out after the process is over, at least for a little while.

For example, the Earth itself can serve as a measurement device. Meteor Crater in Arizona, USA is the record of a crude measurement of the size, energy and speed of a large rock, as well of how long ago it impacted Earth’s surface. No human set out to make the measurement, but the crater’s details are just as revealing as any human experiment. It’s true that to appreciate and understand this measurement fully requires work by humans: theoretical calculations and additional measurements. But still, it’s the Earth that recorded the event and stored the data, as any measurement device should.

Figure 1: A rock’s energy, measured by the Earth. Meteor Crater, Arizona, USA; National Map Seamless Server – NASA Earth Observatory

The Earth has served as a measurement device in many other ways: its fossils have recorded its life forms, its sedimentary rocks have recorded the presence of its ancient seas, and a layer of iridium and shocked quartz have provided a record of the giant meteor that killed off the dinosaurs (excepting birds) along with many other species. The data from those measurements sat for many millions of years, unknown until human scientists began reading it out.

I’m being superficial here, skipping over all sorts of subtle issues. For instance, when does a measurement start, and when is it over? For instance, did the measurement of the rock that formed Meteor Crater start when the Earth and the future meteor were first created in the early days of the solar system, or only when the rock was within striking distance of our planet? Was it over when Meteor Crater had solidified, or was it complete when the first human measured its size and shape, or was it finished when humans first inferred the size of the rock that made the crater? I don’t want to dwell on these definitional questions today. The point I’m making here is that measurement has nothing intrinsically to do with human beings per se. It has to do with the ability to record a process in such a way that facts about that process can be extracted, long after the process is over.

The measurement device for any particular process has to satisfy some basic requirements.

• Pre-measurement metastability: The device must be fairly stable before the process occurs, so that it doesn’t react or change prematurely, but not so stable that it can’t change when the process takes place.
• Sensitivity: During the interaction between the device and whatever is being measured, the device needs to react or change in some substantial way that is predictable (at least in part).
• Post-measurement stability: The change to the device during the measurement has to be semi-permanent, long-lasting enough that there’s time to detect and interpret it.
• Interpretability: The change to the device has to be substantial and unambiguous enough that it can be used to extract information about what was measured.

Examples of Devices

A simple example: consider a small paper cup as a device for measuring the possible passage of a rubber ball. If the paper cup is sitting on a flat, horizontal table, it is reasonably stable and won’t go anywhere, barring a strong gust of wind. But if a rubber ball goes flying by and hits the cup, the cup will be knocked off the table… and thus the cup is very sensitive to the collision with the ball. The change is also stable and semi-permanent; once the cup is on the floor, it won’t spontaneously jump back up onto the table. And so, after setting a cup on a table in a windowless room near a squash court and returning days later, we can figure out from the position of the cup whether a rubber ball (or something similar) has passed close to the cup while we were away. Of course, this is a very crude measurement, but it captures the main idea.

Incidentally, such a measurement is sometimes referred to as “non-destructive”: the cup is so flimsy that its the effect of the cup on the ball is very limited, and so the ball continues onward almost unaffected. This is in contrast to the measurement of the rock that made Meteor Crater, which most certainly was “destructive” to the rock.

Yet even in this destructive event, all the criteria for a measurement are met. The Earth and its dry surface in Arizona are (and were) pretty stable over millennia, despite erosion. The Earth’s surface is very sensitive to a projectile fifty meters across and moving at ten or more kilometers per second; and the resulting deep, slowly-eroding crater represents a substantial, semi-permanent change that we can interpret roughly 50,000 years later.

In Figure 2 is a very simple and crude device designed to measure disturbances ranging from earthquakes to collisions. It consists of a ball sitting stationary within a dimple (a low spot) on a hill. It will remain there as long as it isn’t jostled — it is reasonably stable. But it is sensitive: if an earthquake occurs, or if something comes flying through the air and strikes the ball, it will pop out of the dimple. Then it will roll down the hill, never to return to the its original perch — thus leaving a long-lasting record of the process that disturbed it. We can later read the ball’s absence from the dimple, or its presence far off to the right, as evidence of some kind of violent disturbance, whereas if it remains in the dimple we may conclude that no such violent disturbance has occurred.

Figure 2: If the ball in the dip is subjected to a disturbance, it will end up rolling off to the right, thus recording the existence of the event that disturbed it.

What about measurement devices in quantum physics? The needs are often the same; a measurement still requires a stable yet sensitive device that can respond to an interaction in a substantial, semi-permanent, interpretable way.

Today we’ll keep things very simple, and limit ourselves to a quantum version of Fig. 2, employed in the simplest of circumstances. But soon we’ll see that when measurements involve quantum physics, surprising and unfamiliar issues quickly arise.

An Simple Device for Quantum Measurement

Here’s an example of a suitable device, a sort of microscopic version of Fig. 2. Imagine a small ball of material, perhaps a few atoms wide, that is gently trapped in place by forces that are strong but not too strong. (These might be of the form of an ion trap or an atom trap; or we might even be speaking of a single atom incorporated into a much larger molecule. The details do not matter here.) This being quantum physics, the trap might not hold the ball in place forever, thanks to the process known as “tunneling“; but it can be arranged to stay in place long enough for our purposes.

Figure 3: A nearly-atomic-sized object in an idealized trap; if jostled sharply, it may move past the dark ring and permanently escape.

If the ball is bumped by an atom or subatomic particle flying by at high speed, it may be knocked out of its trap, following which it will keep moving. So if we look in the trap and discover it empty, or if we find the ball far outside the trap, we will know that some energetic object must have passed through the trap. The ball’s location and motion record the existence of that passing object. (They also potentially record additional information, depending on how we set up the experiment, about the object’s motion-energy and its time of arrival.)

To appreciate a measurement involving quantum physics, it’s often best to first think through what happens in a pre-quantum version of the same scenario. Doing so gives us an opportunity to use two complementary views of the measurement: an intuitive one in physical space and more abstract one in the space of possibilities. This will help us interpret the quantum case, where an understanding of a measurement can only be achieved in the space of possibilities.

A Measurement in Pre-Quantum Physics

We’re going to imagine that an incoming projectile (which I’ll draw in purple) is moving along a straight line (which we’ll call the x-axis) and strikes the measuring device — the ball (which I’ll draw in blue) sitting inside its trap. To keep things simple enough to draw, I’ll assume that any collision that occurs will leave the ball and projectile still moving along the x-axis.

With these two objects restricted to a one-dimensional line, our space of possibilities will be two-dimensional, one dimension representing the possible positions x1 of the projectile, and the other representing the possible positions x2 of the ball. (If you are not at all familiar with the space of possibilities and how to think about it, I recommend you first read this article, which addresses the key ideas, and this article, which gives an example very much relevant to this post.)

Below in Fig. 4 is an animation showing what happens, from two viewpoints, as the projectile strikes the ball, allowing the ball’s motion to measure the passage of the projectile.

The first (at left) is the familiar viewpoint: what would happen before our eyes, in physical space, if these objects were big enough to see. The projectile moves to the right, with the ball stationary; a collision occurs, following which the projectile continues on the right, albeit a bit more slowly, and the ball, having popped out of its trap, moves off the the right.

The second viewpoint (at right) is not something we could see; it happens in the space of possibilities (or “configuration space,”) which we can see only in our minds. In this two-dimensional space, with axes that are the projectile’s and ball’s possible positions x1 and x2, the system — the combination of the projectile and ball — is at any moment sitting at one point. That point is indicated by a star; its location has as its x1 coordinate the projectile’s position at a moment in time, while its x2 coordinate is the ball’s position at that same moment in time.

Figure 4: (Left) In physical space, the projectile travels to the right and strikes the stationary ball, causing the latter to move. (Right) The same process seen in the space of possibilities; note the labels on the axes. On the diagonal line, the two objects would be coincident in physical space, with x1 = x2.

The two animations are synchronized in time. I suggest you spend some time with the animation until it is clear to you what is happening.

• Initially, the star moves horizontally. This indicates that the value of x2 isn’t changing; the ball is stationary. Both x1 and x2 are initially negative, so the star is in the lower-left quadrant.
• Notice the diagonal line, at x1 = x2 ; if the system is on that line, a collision between the two objects is occurring, since they are at the same point. It is when the star reaches this line that the ball begins to move, and the star’s motion is correspondingly no longer horizontal.
• After the collision, both the projectile and ball move to the right, which means the values of x1 and x2 are both increasing. This in turn means that the star moves up and to the right following the collision, eventually reaching the upper-right quadrant where both x1 and x2 are positive.

By contrast, if the measurement device were switched off, so that the projectile and the ball could no longer interact, the projectile would just continue its constant motion to the right, unchanged, and the ball would remain at its initial location, as in Fig. 5. In the space of possibilities, the star would move to the right as the projectile’s position x1 steadily increases, while it would remain at the same vertical level because the ball’s position x2 is never changing.

Figure 5: Same as Fig. 4 except that no collision occurs; the ball remains stationary and the projectile continues on steadily. The Same Measurement in Quantum Physics

Now, how do we describe the measurement in quantum physics? In general we cannot portray what happens in a quantum system using only physical space. Instead, our system of two objects is described by a single wave function, which is a function of the space of possibilities. That is, it is a function of x1 and x2, and also time, since it changes from moment to moment. [Important: the system is not described by two wave functions (i.e., one per object), and the single wave function of the system is not a function of physical space, with its coordinate x. There is one wave function, and it is a function of all possibilities.]

At each moment in time, and for each possible arrangement of the system — for each of the possible locations of the two objects, with the projectile having position x1 and the ball having position x2 — this function gives us a complex number Ψ(x1, x2; t). The absolute value squared of this number gives us the probability of the corresponding possibility — the probability that if we choose to measure the positions of the projectile and ball, we will find the projectile has position x1 and that the ball has position x2.

What I’m going to do now is plot for you this wave function, using a 3d plot, where two of the axes are x1 and x2 and the third axis is the absolute value of Ψ(x1, x2; t). [Not its square, though the difference doesn’t matter much here.] The colors give the argument (or “phase”) of the complex number Ψ(x1, x2; t). As suggested by recent plots where we looked at wave functions for a single particle, the flow of the color bands often conveys the motion of the system across the space of possibilities; you’ll see this in the patterns below.

Going in the reverse order from above, let’s first look at the quantum wave function corresponding to Fig. 5, when no measurement takes place and the projectile passes by the ball unimpeded. You can see that the peak in the wave function, telling us most probable values for the results of measurements of x1 and x2, if carried out at a specific time t, moves along roughly the same path as the star in Fig. 5: the most probable values of x1 increase steadily with time, while those of x2 remain fixed.

Figure 6: The wave function corresponding to a quantum version of Fig. 5, with no measurement carried out; the system is most likely to be to be found where the wave function is largest. The projectile’s most likely position x1 steadily increases while the most likely position x2 of the ball remains constant. Compare to the right-hand panel of Fig. 5.

In this situation, the ball’s behavior has nothing to do with the projectile. We cannot learn anything one way or the other about the projectile from the position or motion of the ball.

What about when a measurement takes place, as in Fig. 4? Again, as seen in Fig. 7, the majority of the wave function follows the path of the star, with the most probable values of x2 beginning to increase around the most likely time of the collision. This change in the most likely value of x2 is an indication of the presence of the projectile and its interaction with the ball. [Note: Fig. 7, unlike other quantum wave functions shown in this series, is a sketch, not a precise solution to the full quantum equations; I simply haven’t yet found a set-up where the equations can be solved numerically with enough precision and speed to get a nice-looking result. I expect I’ll eventually find an example, but it might take some time.]

Figure 7: As in Fig. 6, but including the measurement illustrated in Fig. 4. [Note this is only a sketch, not a full calculation.] The most likely position x2 of the ball is initially constant but begins to increase following the collision, thus recording the observation of the projectile. Compare to the right-hand panel of Fig. 4.

More precisely, because of the collision, the motion of the ball is now correlated with that of the projectile — their motions are logically and physically related. That by itself is not unusual; all interactions between objects lead to some level of correlation between them. But this correlation is stable; as a result of the collision, the ball is highly unlikely to be found back in its initial position. And so, when we later look at the trap and find it empty, this does indeed give us reliable information about the projectile, namely that at some point it passed through the trap. (This type of correlation, both within and beyond the measurement context, will be a major topic in the future.)

So far, this all looks quite straightforward. The motion of the star in Fig. 4 is seen in the motion of the peak of the wave function in Fig. 7. Similar behavior is seen in Figs. 5 and 6. But these are simple cases: where the projectile’s motion is well-known, its location is not too uncertain, and the measurement device is almost perfect. We will soon explore far more complex and interesting quantum examples, using this simple one as our conceptual foundation, and things won’t be so straightforward anymore.

I’ll stop here for today. Please let me know in the comments if there are aspects of this story that you find confusing; we need all to be on the same page before we advance into the more subtle elements of our quantum world.

Small nuclear reactors have been around since the 1950s. They mostly have been used in military ships, like aircraft carriers and submarines. They have the specific advantage that such ships could remain at sea for long periods of time without needing to refuel. But small modular reactors have never taken off as a source of grid energy. The prevailing opinion for why this is seems to be that they are simply not cost effective. Larger reactors,  which are already expensive endeavors, produce more megawatts per dollar. SMRs are simply too cost inefficient.

This is unfortunate because they have a lot of advantages. Their initial investment is smaller, even though the cost per unit energy is more. They are safe and reliable. They have a small footprint. And they are scalable. The military uses them because the strategic advantages are worth the higher cost. Some argue that the zero carbon on demand energy they provide is worth the higher cost, and I think this is a solid argument. Also there are continued attempts to develop the technology to bring down the cost. Arguably it may be worth subsidizing the SMR industry so that the technology can be developed to greater cost effectiveness. Decarbonizing the energy sector is worth the investment.

But there is another question – are there civilian applications that would also justify the higher cost per unit energy? I have recently encountered two that are interesting. The first is a direct extension of the military use – using an SMR to power a cargo ship. South Korean company, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, has revealed their designs for an SMR powered cargo ship, and has received “approval in principle”. Obviously this is just the beginning phase – they need to actually develop the design and get full approval. But the concept is compelling.

The SMR has a smaller footprint overall than a traditional combustion engine. They do not need space for an exhaust system or for fuel tanks. This saved space can be used for extra cargo – and that extra cargo offsets the higher cost of the SMR. The calculus here is different – you don’t have to compare an SMR to every other form of grid power, including gigawatt scale nuclear. You only have to compare it to other forms of cargo ship propulsion. You have to look at the overall cost effectiveness of the cargo delivery system, not just the production of watts. As an aside, the company is also planning on incorporating a “supercritical carbon dioxide-based propulsion system”, which is about 5% more efficient than traditional steam-based propulsion system.

Shipping accounts for about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions.  Decarbonizing this sector therefore will be critical for getting close to net zero.

The second potential civilian application is for powering datacenters. Swiss company, Deep Atomic, is developing an SMR that is purpose-built for large data centers, again by leveraging advantages specific to one application. Their design provides not only 60 MWe of power, but 60 MW worth of cooling. Apparently is can use its waste heat to power cooling systems for a data center. The SMR design is also meant to be located right next to the data center, even close to urban centers. The company also hopes to produce these SMR in a factory to help bring down construction costs.

Right now this is just a design, and not a reality, but it’s the idea that’s interesting. Instead of thinking of SMRs as just another method of providing power to the grid, they are being reimagined as being optimized for a specific purpose, which could possibly allow them to gain that extra efficiency to make them cost effective. Data centers, which are increasingly critical to our digital world, are very energy hungry. You can no longer just plug them into the existing grid and expect to get all the energy you need. Right now there is no regulatory requirement for data centers to provide their own energy. In late 2024, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm “urged” AI companies to provide their own green energy to power their data centers. Many have responded with plans to do that. But it would not be unreasonable to require them to do so.

Without a plan to power data centers their growing energy demand is not sustainable. This could also completely wipe out any progress we make at trying to decarbonize energy production, as new demand will equal or outstrip any green energy production. This is what has been happening so far. This is another reason why we absolutely need nuclear power if we are going to meet our carbon goals.

There is also the hope that these niche applications of SMRs will bootstrap the entire industry. Making SMRs for ships and data centers could create an economy of scale that brings down the cost of SMRs overall, making them viable for more and more applications.

The post Are Small Modular Reactors Finally Coming? first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

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