NEW IN BLOGS

Podcast Up: Interacting Parallel Worlds,...
By ZEEYA MERALI
A quick alert that the new podcast is up. Listen to it here.

In this edition we chat to Howard Wiseman, a physicist at the University of Brisbane, in Australia, who has come up with a new theory in which our universe is classical — and one...

Open Source Science
By ANTONY GARRETT LISI
Nature (the magazine, not the universe) recently unveiled their new, open, online preprint archive:

Nature Precedings

It's intended to be the natural science equivalent to the physics arXiv. But since they've been able to build it from...

Universe of Possibilities: Is a Theory of...
By ZEEYA MERALI
When I saw that the line up for Saturday's session on whether we have any serious chance of finding a “theory of everything” (TOE) included a mix of string theorists and a loop quantum gravity theorist (who are usually set up as being major TOE...

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Featured Videos:

	"Seeing Without Looking" Dagomir Kaszlikowski
	"One Physics To Rule Them All (This Is Physics, part 1)" Marc Séguin
	"Why Do I Study Physics?" Xiangjun Shi

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FORUM UPDATES

High Energy Physics
Ed Witten on the Nature of Reality
By ZEEYA MERALI
Natalie Wolchover has a fascinating interview with string theorist Ed Witten, in Quanta on dualities and what is real and fundamental. Thank you to Steve Agnew for suggesting that this would be a could discussion topic.

Technology
Manipulating the Quantum Vacuum
By ZEEYA MERALI
New research on manipulating the quantum vacuum has been published in Nature.

This work has been described by Fiona MacDonald, writing for Science Alert:

"According to quantum mechanics, a vacuum isn't empty at all. It's...

Technology
Hyung Choi and the nature of light explored...
By BRENDAN FOSTER
An FQXi mini-grant in 2015 helped fund a project of Member Hyung Choi of Greenville College, on "The nature of light explored through hyper-entanglement". Dr. Choi shared with us the story of his student Shuto Osawa's research journey, at this link....

 

NEW ARTICLES


Constructing a Theory of Life
By MIRIAM FRANKEL • Jul 31, 2018
An all-encompassing framework of physics could help to explain the evolution of consciousness, intelligence, and free will.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (97 posts)

Usurping Quantum Theory
By COLIN STUART • Jun 28, 2018
The search is on for a fundamental framework that allows for even stranger links between particles than quantum theory—which could lead us to a theory of everything.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (12 posts)

Fuzzballs v Black Holes
By SOPHIE HEBDEN • May 11, 2018
A radical theory replaces the cosmic crunchers with fuzzy quantum spheres, potentially solving the black-hole information paradox and explaining away the Big Bang and the origin of time.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (21 posts)

Whose Physics Is It Anyway? Q&A with Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
By NICOLA JONES • Apr 20, 2018
Why physics and astronomy communities must take diversity issues seriously in order to do good science.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (18 posts)

Why Time Might Not Be an Illusion
By NICOLA JONES • Feb 28, 2018
Einstein’s relativity pushes physicists towards a picture of the universe as a block, in which the past, present, and future all exist on the same footing; but maybe that shift in thinking has gone too far.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (138 posts)

The Complexity Conundrum
By M. MITCHELL WALDROP • Dec 5, 2017
Resolving the black hole firewall paradox—by calculating what a real astronaut would compute at the black hole's edge.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (47 posts)

Quantum Dream Time
By KATE BECKER • Nov 8, 2017
Defining a ‘quantum clock’ and a 'quantum ruler' could help those attempting to unify physics—and solve the mystery of vanishing time.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (80 posts)

Our Place in the Multiverse
By SOPHIE HEBDEN • Sep 22, 2017
Calculating the odds that intelligent observers arise in parallel universes—and working out what they might see.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (14 posts)

Sounding the Drums to Listen for Gravity’s Effect on Quantum Phenomena
By STEVEN ASHLEY • Aug 8, 2017
A bench-top experiment could test the notion that gravity breaks delicate quantum superpositions.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (133 posts)

Watching the Observers
By BRENDAN FOSTER • Jun 13, 2017
Accounting for quantum fuzziness could help us measure space and time—and the cosmos—more accurately.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (69 posts)

Bohemian Reality: Searching for a Quantum Connection to Consciousness
By COLIN STUART • Mar 24, 2017
Is there are sweet spot where artificial intelligence systems could have the maximum amount of consciousness while retaining powerful quantum properties?
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (31 posts)

Quantum Replicants: Should future androids dream of quantum sheep?
By JAYNE THOMPSON • Feb 24, 2017
To build the ultimate artificial mimics of real life systems, we may need to use quantum memory.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (22 posts)

Painting a QBist Picture of Reality
By M. MITCHELL WALDROP • Jan 22, 2017
A radical interpretation of physics makes quantum theory more personal.
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Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum (50 posts)