Group items tagged

Of the many ideas for new physics that can be tested at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), supersymmetry is one of the most promising. The theory proposes that each fundamental fermion particle has a heavier bosonic superpartner (and vice versa for each fundamental boson) and by doing so, offers an extension of the standard model of particle physics that fixes many of its problems. None of the known particles appear to be superpartners, however, which leads to the daunting conclusion that if supersymmetry is correct, there are more than twice as many fundamental particles as we thought, but we have only been left with the lightest partners; that is, supersymmetry is broken.

A central point to understanding string theory is that it cannot be formulated the way all other fundamental theories are, by giving the dynamical variables and the equations they obey. We do not know what the fundamental dynamical variables of string theory are, nor the equations they obey.

December 9th, 02005 - Sam Harris"The View From The End Of The World"This is an audio only presentation. This talk took place in the Conference Center Golden Gate Room, San Francisco. Quote: With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response? Harris began with Christianity. In the US, Christians use irrational arguments about a soul in the 150 cells of a 3-day old human embryo to block stem cell research that might alleviate the suffering of millions. In Africa, Catholic doctrine uses tortured logic to actively discourage the use of condoms in countries ravaged by AIDS. "This is genocidal stupidity," Harris said. Faith trumps rational argument. Common-sense ethical intuition is blinded by religious metaphysics. In the US, 22% of the population are CERTAIN that Jesus is coming back in the next 50 years, and another 22% think that it's likely. The good news of Christ's return, though, can only occur following desperately bad news. Mushroom clouds would be welcomed. "End time thinking," Harris said, "is fundamentally hostile to creating a sustainable future." Harris was particularly critical of religious moderates who give cover to the fundamentalists by not challenging them. The moderates say that all is justified because religion gives people meaning in their life. "But what would they say to a guy who believes there's a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in his backyard? The guy digs out there every Sunday with his family, cherishing the meaningthe quest gives them." "I've read the books," Harris said. "God is not a moderate." The Bible gives strict instructions to kill various kinds of sinners, and their relatives, and on occasion their entire towns. Yet slavery is challenged nowhere in the New or

The fruit fly has evolved a method for arranging the tiny, hair-like structures it uses to feel and hear the world that's so efficient a team of scientists in Israel and at Carnegie Mellon University says it could be used to more effectively deploy wireless sensor networks and other distributed computing applications.

the educational Internet platform of the German Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam. Starting in September you will be able to take part in our worldwide social learning network based on interactive online courses covering different subjects in Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Enter a fascinating world of knowledge with our free open online courses. Meet other participants from around the world and familiarize yourself with fundamental and current topics in ICT, computer science and IT systems engineering.

The Neuromorphics Lab studies biological intelligence and embeds the derived fundamental principles in bio-inspired computers and robots.

"Es gibt tatsächlich etwas, das genetische Integrität heißt. Bei Pflanzensorten, die schon existieren und die sich wenig verändern sollten, wenn man sie vermehrt. Das ist wichtig für den Erhalt der Biodiversität. In der Pflanzenzucht aber geht es immer um Veränderung. Sie ist das Fundament, auf dem sich bessere Sorten mit neuen Eigenschaften entwickeln lassen, eine größere Vielfalt. Da ist es vom Grundsatz her egal, ob man im Klostergarten Erbsen miteinander kreuzt, um dickere Schoten zu generieren. Oder ob man in einem Hightech-Labor mit Genscheren wie Crispr-Cas9 den Code im Erbgut der Hülsenfrüchte umschreibt. Keiner der Prozesse schützt die genetische Integrität der Erbse. Beide Vorgänge bringen das gleiche Ergebnis. Nur dass moderne Gentechniken schneller sind, Ressourcen schonen, weniger Kollateralschäden im Erbgut erzeugen."

"KnuEdge is an innovation hub whose mission is to lead fundamental transformations, and deliver next-generation technologies that will alter how humans interact with machines - ranging from robust voice recognition and authentication to machine learning."

The Rhizomik initiative is inspired by the rhizome metaphor when working with knowledge from a scientific, technological but also philosophical point of view. This metaphor has accompanied us in our research about knowledge in many different fields, fundamentally Semantic Web, Human-Computer Interaction, Web Science, Complex Systems and Cognitive Science.

EnAKTing is an EPSRC-funded project dedicated to solving fundamental problems in achieving an effective web of linked data.

"The Niche Audience Problem One of the most basic, most fundamentally wrong, assumptions many nonprofit organizations make is that lots of people should care a lot about their mission. It's just not true, and that's because people have finite attention."

ATLAS is a particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The ATLAS detector is searching for new discoveries in the head-on collisions of protons of extraordinarily high energy. ATLAS will learn about the basic forces that have shaped our Universe since the beginning of time and that will determine its fate. Among the possible unknowns are the origin of mass, extra dimensions of space, unification of fundamental forces, and evidence for dark matter candidates in the Universe.

Our passion for developing e-learning material for the automotive sector allows us to realize the full potential of what computers and the Internet can achieve. The Electude team is driven by a vision that we must fundamentally change the way people acquire and retain knowledge and skills - by making it fun, effective and efficient.

course teaches the engineering fundamentals for long-lived software using the highly-productive Agile development method for Software as a Service (SaaS) using Ruby on Rails.

The seminar begins with an examination of the fundamental vocabulary and concepts related to metrology. Topics include: accuracy, precision, calibration, and "uncertainty ratios". Several of the standard methods for analyzing measurement variation are then described and explained, as derived from AIAG's Measurement System Analysis reference book. The methods include: Gage R&R (ANOVA method, for 3 gages, 3 persons, 3 replicates, and 10 parts), Gage Correlation (for 3 gages), Gage Linearity, and Gage Bias. The seminar ends with an explanation of how to combine all relevant uncertainty information into an "Uncertainty Budget" that helps determine the appropriate width of QC specification intervals (i.e., "guard-banded specifications"). Spreadsheets are used to demonstrate how to perform the methods described during the seminar.

The shrinking of the transistor has approached fundamental physical limits. Increasingly, transistor manufacturers grapple with subatomic effects, like the tendency for electrons to "leak" across material boundaries. The leaking electrons make it more difficult to know when a transistor is in an on or off state, the information that makes electronic computing possible. They have also led to excess heat, the bane of the fastest computer chips.

For centuries, some of the greatest names in math have tried to make sense of partition numbers, the basis for adding and counting. Many mathematicians added major pieces to the puzzle, but all of them fell short of a full theory to explain partitions. Instead, their work raised more questions about this fundamental area of math. Emory mathematician Ken Ono is unveiling new theories that answer these famous old questions.

COULD the structure of space and time be sketched out inside a cousin of plain old pencil lead? The atomic grid of graphene may mimic a lattice underlying reality, two physicists have claimed, an idea that could explain the curious spin of the electron. Graphene is an atom-thick layer of carbon in a hexagonal formation. Depending on its position in this grid, an electron can adopt either of two quantum states - a property called pseudospin which is mathematically akin to the intrinsic spin of an electron. Most physicists do not think it is true spin, but Chris Regan at the University of California, Los Angeles, disagrees. He cites work with carbon nanotubes (rolled up sheets of graphene) in the late 1990s, in which electrons were found to be reluctant to bounce back off these obstacles. Regan and his colleague Matthew Mecklenburg say this can be explained if a tricky change in spin is required to reverse direction. Their quantum model of graphene backs that up. The spin arises from the way electrons hop between atoms in graphene's lattice, says Regan. So how about the electron's intrinsic spin? It cannot be a rotation in the ordinary sense, as electrons are point particles with no radius and no innards. Instead, like pseudospin, it might come from a lattice pattern in space-time itself, says Regan. This echoes some attempts to unify quantum mechanics with gravity in which space-time is built out of tiny pieces or fundamental networks (Physical Review Letters, vol 106, p 116803). Sergei Sharapov of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kiev says that the work provides an interesting angle on how electrons and other particles acquire spin, but he is doubtful how far the analogy can be pushed. Regan admits that moving from the flatland world of graphene to higher-dimensional space is tricky. "It will be interesting to see if there are other lattices that give emergent spin," he says.

ScienceDaily (May 13, 2011) - Parents know the unparalleled joy and wonder of hearing a beloved child's first words turn quickly into whole sentences and then babbling paragraphs. But how human children acquire language-which is so complex and has so many variations-remains largely a mystery. Fifty years ago, linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky proposed an answer: Humans are able to learn language so quickly because some knowledge of grammar is hardwired into our brains. In other words, we know some of the most fundamental things about human language unconsciously at birth, without ever being taught.