BREAKING NEWS
Tweets by @FQXi
George Lemaître Prize
Jun 21, 2019
FQXi's George Ellis of the University of Cape Town has received the George Lemaître Award from UCLouvain for contributions to the development and dissemination of knowledge in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, geophysics or space research. Congratulations!
APS Innovator
May 11, 2019
Congrats to FQXi's Catalina Oana Curceanu, senior researcher at the National Laboratory of Frascati (LNF), who has received a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Fundamental Physics Innovation Award from the American Physical Society. More about the winners here.
Physics-Art Flipbook
Feb 4, 2019
Quantum physicist Paul Knott and artist Joseph Namara Hollis have teamed up to create a charming illustrated book for the public investigating Our Quantum Reality, which you can read for free. Learn more about the FQXi-funded outreach project on the blog.
NEW IN BLOGS
What Will Quantum Computers Be Good For? — panel...
By ZEEYA MERALI
Over the past couple of months there’s been renewed interest, and quite some intrigue, surrounding quantum computing. As you'll know from the special edition of the podcast with quantum physicist and FQXi blogger Ian Durham we posted in October,...
Intelligence in the Physical World Grantees
By DAVID SLOAN
Fetzer Franklin Fund has partnered with FQXi to stimulate research on the role of intelligence in the physical world. Research will be funded across a host of institutions around the globe, spanning the fields of physics, chemistry, biology,...
FQXi'ers Debate the Deep Questions of Free Will
By GEORGE MUSSER
VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO—Some years ago, while visiting South Africa, I was astounded by the number of languages my friends spoke. It’s not just they knew Xhosa, Zulu, SeSotho, English, and Afrikaans, but that they moved freely among languages to...
FORUM UPDATES
Ultimate Reality
Alternative Models of Reality
By ZEEYA MERALI
If you have an unconventional, alternative model of reality, then this is the place to discuss it. (This is for contributors who have preliminary ideas and would like feedback, but do not have an academic paper or arXiv preprint and have not given a...
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
Are We Merging With Our Technology?
By WILLIAM OREM
Put this one in the Strange New World file: is it possible to use junk DNA as a repository for secret messages? The idea cropped up in science fiction some time ago, but as of now, it's also reality.
Japanese researchers at Keio University,...
What Will Quantum Computers Be Good For? — panel...
By ZEEYA MERALI
Over the past couple of months there’s been renewed interest, and quite some intrigue, surrounding quantum computing. As you'll know from the special edition of the podcast with quantum physicist and FQXi blogger Ian Durham we posted in October,...
Intelligence in the Physical World Grantees
By DAVID SLOAN
Fetzer Franklin Fund has partnered with FQXi to stimulate research on the role of intelligence in the physical world. Research will be funded across a host of institutions around the globe, spanning the fields of physics, chemistry, biology,...
FQXi'ers Debate the Deep Questions of Free Will
By GEORGE MUSSER
VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO—Some years ago, while visiting South Africa, I was astounded by the number of languages my friends spoke. It’s not just they knew Xhosa, Zulu, SeSotho, English, and Afrikaans, but that they moved freely among languages to...
NEW PODCAST EPISODES
Quantum Supremacy Milestone? Rumours abound that Google's quantum processor Sycamore has performed a task that would flummox the best classical computer — a first in quantum computing. Physicist Ian Durham assesses the claims, gives us a quantum computing primer, and discusses concerns about the term 'quantum supremacy'.
Quantum Mind Reading. Could we create a quantum experiment to predict what a person will do, without having to simulate their consciousness? Physicist Adam Brown argues a classic quantum "bomb tester" proposed in the 1990s could be modified to do just that.
Downward Causation. Cosmologist George Ellis investigates agency and argues that causation is a two-way process between the mind and lower level biological and physical functions. From the 6th FQXi meeting in Tuscany, in July.
Featured Videos:
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Dagomir Kaszlikowski |
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"One Physics To Rule Them All (This Is Physics, part 1)" Marc Séguin |
|
Xiangjun Shi |
FORUM UPDATES
Ultimate Reality
Alternative Models of Reality
By ZEEYA MERALI
If you have an unconventional, alternative model of reality, then this is the place to discuss it. (This is for contributors who have preliminary ideas and would like feedback, but do not have an academic paper or arXiv preprint and have not given a...
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
Are We Merging With Our Technology?
By WILLIAM OREM
Put this one in the Strange New World file: is it possible to use junk DNA as a repository for secret messages? The idea cropped up in science fiction some time ago, but as of now, it's also reality.
Japanese researchers at Keio University,...
NEW ARTICLES
First Things First: The Physics of Causality
By KATE BECKER • Jul 16, 2019
Why do we remember the past and not the future? Untangling the connections between cause and effect, choice, and entropy.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(238 posts)
Can Time Be Saved From Physics?
By JOHN FARRELL • Apr 27, 2019
Philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists discuss how our sense of time’s flow might arise through our interactions with external stimuli—despite suggestions from Einstein's relativity that our perception of the passage of time is an illusion.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(209 posts)
Thermo-Demonics
By M. MITCHELL WALDROP • Mar 4, 2019
A devilish new framework of thermodynamics that focuses on how we observe information could help illuminate our understanding of probability and rewrite quantum theory.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(91 posts)
Gravity's Residue
By GEORGE MUSSER • Feb 15, 2019
An unusual approach to unifying the laws of physics could solve Hawking's black-hole information paradox—and its predicted gravitational "memory effect" could be picked up by LIGO.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(12 posts)
Could Mind Forge the Universe?
By SOPHIE HEBDEN • Jan 18, 2019
Objective reality, and the laws of physics themselves, emerge from our observations, according to a new framework that turns what we think of as fundamental on its head.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(57 posts)
Dissolving Quantum Paradoxes
By KATE BECKER • Aug 31, 2018
The impossibility of building a perfect clock could help explain away microscale weirdness.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(178 posts)
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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(184 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(15 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(28 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(23 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(160 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(56 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(86 posts)
First Things First: The Physics of Causality
By KATE BECKER • Jul 16, 2019
Why do we remember the past and not the future? Untangling the connections between cause and effect, choice, and entropy.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(238 posts)
Can Time Be Saved From Physics?
By JOHN FARRELL • Apr 27, 2019
Philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists discuss how our sense of time’s flow might arise through our interactions with external stimuli—despite suggestions from Einstein's relativity that our perception of the passage of time is an illusion.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(209 posts)
Thermo-Demonics
By M. MITCHELL WALDROP • Mar 4, 2019
A devilish new framework of thermodynamics that focuses on how we observe information could help illuminate our understanding of probability and rewrite quantum theory.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(91 posts)
Gravity's Residue
By GEORGE MUSSER • Feb 15, 2019
An unusual approach to unifying the laws of physics could solve Hawking's black-hole information paradox—and its predicted gravitational "memory effect" could be picked up by LIGO.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(12 posts)
Could Mind Forge the Universe?
By SOPHIE HEBDEN • Jan 18, 2019
Objective reality, and the laws of physics themselves, emerge from our observations, according to a new framework that turns what we think of as fundamental on its head.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(57 posts)
Dissolving Quantum Paradoxes
By KATE BECKER • Aug 31, 2018
The impossibility of building a perfect clock could help explain away microscale weirdness.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(178 posts)
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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(184 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(15 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(28 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(23 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(160 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(56 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.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(86 posts)