Our ability to use mathematical modelling is accelerating breakthrough discoveries in health care and biotechnology.
Everything we know, think and feel—everything!—comes from our brains. But consciousness, our private sense of inner awareness, remains a mystery. Brain activities—spiking of neuronal impulses, sloshing of neurochemicals—are not at all the same thing as sights, sounds, smells, emotions. How on earth can our inner experiences be explained in physical terms?
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Continue reading “Peter Tse — What Makes Brains Conscious?” »
Curiosity is important for human development and learning and encourages an exploration for new information. New research published in the Journal of Individual Differences found that high dispositional curiosity is related to greater general knowledge, but not necessarily related to fluid intelligence.
Curiosity is important for both crystallized intelligence (i.e., one’s general knowledge) and fluid intelligence (i.e., one’s ability to reason and use novel information). “Seeking out new environments, being more attentive, and exploring more and more comprehensively might, in turn, also increase the probability of gaining new information,” explain study author Freda-Marie Hartung and colleagues. “Thus, it is plausible to assume that interindividual differences in epistemic curiosity are related to interindividual differences in general knowledge.”
Thus, the researchers were interested in how dispositional curiosity influences one’s acquisition of knowledge and how fluid intelligence affects this relationship. Hartung and her colleagues recruited 100 participants during lectures at a German University to complete a self-report questionnaire on the relevant personality traits (i.e., curiosity, conscientiousness, social anxiety). They also completed measures assessing their general knowledge (i.e., geography, history, math, natural sciences) and fluid intelligence (i.e., reasoning and memory tasks).
While we haven’t found any evidence of alien life yet, that doesn’t mean it’s not out there, beyond our reach. Now, a team of researchers has put together a mathematical model showing aliens could potentially be communicating across space – via quantum physics.
Efforts are well underway to make quantum communications a reality here on Earth. The idea is that quantum mechanics provide certain properties that would make information transfer inherently faster and more secure than regular systems… if we can get it to work.
One of the major hurdles to overcome before quantum networks can be established is that they’re very fragile and susceptible to interference. According to this latest study, such networks could fly across space without breaking up.
Large language models are widely adopted in a range of natural language tasks, such as question-answering, common sense reasoning, and summarization. These models, however, have had difficulty with tasks requiring quantitative reasoning, such as resolving issues in mathematics, physics, and engineering.
Researchers find quantitative reasoning an intriguing application for language models as they put language models to the test in various ways. The ability to accurately parse a query with normal language and mathematical notation, remember pertinent formulas and constants and produce step-by-step answers requiring numerical computations and symbolic manipulation are necessary for solving mathematical and scientific problems. Therefore, scientists have believed that machine learning models will require significant improvements in model architecture and training methods to solve such reasoning problems.
A new Google research introduces Minerva, a language model that uses sequential reasoning to answer mathematical and scientific problems. Minerva resolves such problems by providing solutions incorporating numerical computations and symbolic manipulation.
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Infinite sums are among the most underrated yet powerful concepts in mathematics, capable of linking concepts across math’s vast web.
A team of physicists at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Physics and Astronomy has used mathematical calculations to show that quantum communications across interstellar space should be possible. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review D, the group describes their calculations and also the possibility of extraterrestrial beings attempting to communicate with us using such signaling.
Over the past several years, scientists have been investigating the possibility of using quantum communications as a highly secure form of message transmission. Prior research has shown that it would be nearly impossible to intercept such messages without detection. In this new effort, the researchers wondered if similar types of communications might be possible across interstellar space. To find out, they used math that describes that movement of X-rays across a medium, such as those that travel between the stars. More specifically, they looked to see if their calculations could show the degree of decoherence that might occur during such a journey.
With quantum communications, engineers are faced with quantum particles that lose some or all of their unique characteristics as they interact with obstructions in their path—they have been found to be quite delicate, in fact. Such events are known as decoherence, and engineers working to build quantum networks have been devising ways to overcome the problem. Prior research has shown that the space between the stars is pretty clean. But is it clean enough for quantum communications? The math shows that it is. Space is so clean, in fact, that X-ray photons could travel hundreds of thousands of light years without becoming subject to decoherence—and that includes gravitational interference from astrophysical bodies. They noted in their work that optical and microwave bands would work equally well.
What is time? Why is it so different from space? And where did it come from? Scientists are still stumped by these questions — but working harder than ever to answer them.
St. Augustine said of time, “If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain to him who asks, I don’t know.” Time is an elusive concept: We all experience it, and yet, the challenge of defining it has tested philosophers and scientists for millennia.
It wasn’t until Albert Einstein that we developed a more sophisticated mathematical understanding of time and space that allowed physicists to probe deeper into the connections between them. In their endeavors, physicists also discovered that seeking the origin of time forces us to confront the origins of the universe itself.
Continue reading “The struggle to find the origins of time” »
Do you remember the days in schooling when we attended math classes? The most common question was when we would ever use trigonometric functions or other mumbo-jumbo in real life.
How is it possible for a virtual world to create the exact replica of a person in zeroes and ones? There is not just one technology aiding in creating the fascinating world of Metaverse and IoT is one amongst them.
Summary: A new mathematical model that identifies essential connections between neurons reveals some neural networks in the brain are more essential than others.
Source: HHMI
After a career spent probing the mysteries of the universe, a Janelia Research Campus senior scientist is now exploring the mysteries of the human brain and developing new insights into the connections between brain cells.
