Universe Simulation on Laptop

Scientists have introduced Effort.jl, an innovative emulator that mimics the behavior of advanced cosmological models with striking accuracy, sometimes even improving on them, while running in minutes on a laptop.

Built on a neural network, the tool learns model responses and integrates known physics to cut training time, which promise to greatly deepen our knowledge of the Universe on large scales.

More information:

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-just-found-a-way-to-simulate-the-universe-on-a-laptop/

Physics Trains Robots Fast

A new open source computer simulation system that lets robots practice tasks in simulated reality 430,000 times faster than in the real world. Researchers can also use an AI agent to generate 3D physics simulations from text prompts.

The accelerated simulation means a neural network for piloting robots can spend the virtual equivalent of decades learning to pick up objects, walk, or manipulate tools during just hours of real computer time.

More information:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/12/new-physics-sim-trains-robots-430000-times-faster-than-reality/

Reality Created by Consciousness

Researchers in quantum gravity and quantum cosmology, show how observers influence the structure of our reality. Observers can dramatically affect the behavior of observable quantities both at microscopic and massive spatio-temporal scales. The world is not something that is formed outside of us, simply existing on its own and observers ultimately define the structure of physical reality itself. A network of observers is necessary and is inherent to the structure of reality. Observers live in a quantum gravitational universe and come up with a globally agreed-upon cognitive model of reality by exchanging information about the properties of spacetime.

Once you measure something the wave of probability to measure the same value of the already probed physical quantity becomes localized or simply collapses. That’s how reality comes to be consistently real to us all. Once you keep measuring a quantity over and over, knowing the result of the first measurement, you will see the outcome to be the same. In quantum terms, an observer influences reality through decoherence, which provides the framework for collapsing waves of probability, largely localized in the vicinity of the cognitive model which the observer builds in their mind throughout their lifespan.

More information:

https://bigthink.com/thinking/is-human-consciousness-creating-reality/

How Your Brain Learns Physics

Researchers scanned the brains of nine advanced physics and engineering students as they thought through 30 physics concepts such as momentum, entropy and electric current. The researchers fed the data from the scans into a machine-learning computer program, which eventually could identify which concept a volunteer was thinking about based on his or her brain activity. To take it further, the scientists then compared the scans from their study with previous research matching neural activity to thought processes.

 

They found that brain responses corresponding to the scientific concepts of frequency or wavelength occurred in the same regions that activate when people watch dancers, listen to music or hear rhythmic patterns such as a horse's gallop. And when the students thought through mathematical equations, the engaged brain areas were the same as those that process sentences. These results suggest that general neural structures are repurposed for dealing with high-level science. The findings may someday help determine which school lessons should be taught together for easiest consumption.

More information:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-your-brain-learns-physics/

Physicists - the Brain is Calling You

From modeling the biomechanics of brain development to improving neuroimaging techniques to processing and analyzing the data from studies using those techniques, physics expertise is urgently needed in all areas of neuroscience. The brain is, of course, not new ground for physicists. Two biophysicists, Aaron Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley (with John Eccles), shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering how the neuron, the brain’s basic cell, transmits signals. And the groundbreaking theoretical model of neural networks emerged from work by physicist John Hopfield and others.

 

One of the major challenges for neuroscience has been figuring out how to see what is happening inside the living brain, which is opaque and, in the case of most vertebrates, encased inside the skull. Since 1990, functional magnetic resonance imaging has enabled researchers to detect activity in specific regions of the brain, and scientists continue to push the technique toward higher power and resolution. But much of the action today involves technologies that record the activity of single neurons, potentially allowing researchers to map out entire brain circuits and explore the brain’s computational code.

More information:

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201604/brain.cfm