Category Archives: Quantum Physics

This past weekend, a couple of my friends and I went to see Everything Everywhere All at Once. I went in knowing two things about it: The first was that the very talented and fantastic Michelle Yeoh was in it; and the second was that it involved the multiverse.

As the credits rolled, with tears trickling into my mask, I had a hard time discerning what was making me emotional. I say emotional because it wasnt just one feeling, but a strange mix of several: joy, wistfulness, catharsis, yearning, hope.

Without giving too much away, the very simple gist of this maximalist, fantastic tornado of a movie is about the choice to exist, to fully live within the present moment. Its about finding the beauty in our small, odd lives, even as we constantly compare what we have to our unfulfilled fantasies. The movie also examines how we take solace in the personal disasters weve narrowly avoided. But what makes Everything Everywhere All at Once so powerful is the multiverse, a dazzling antidote to the fact that real life these days feels like its been designed to blur and pummel our emotions into dullness.

What is the multiverse? A world full of endless potential; multiple parallel universes spinning in synchronicity; and the possibility of alternate, powerful, seemingly better versions of ourselves. At a time when a pandemic, wars, and political cruelty have become constant, inevitable presences in our daily lives, its the ultimate fantasy for this moment. And thats not just because Marvel, the most powerful entertainment company in the world, has gone all-in and made the multiverse a cornerstone of its current storytelling.

Rather, Marvel is just one take, one depiction of a limitless and alluring fantasy thats impossible to pin down. Movies like Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure, Back to the Future, Sliding Doors, About Time and even Its a Wonderful Life have all played with the idea of alternate or parallel timelines and futures.

In an attempt to better understand why I was so moved by Everything Everywhere All at Once and also ascertain just how realistic the idea of the multiverse is (and ostensibly how invested I should be in the idea of a better, more successful me existing in a non-pandemic timeline), I reached out to Spyridon Spiros Michalakis, a mathematical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. He studies how the universe works at a quantum level, and actually served as the science consultant for Marvels Ant-Man, a movie about a man who can shrink, and who can also affect space and time.

Which is to say, Michalakiss scientific knowledge informed Marvels multiverse. While he possesses a vast understanding of physics that dwarfs mine at several points in our chat I told him he was absolutely blowing my mind it was his very human understanding of the multiverse and the hope it presents to worn down, burned out humans that made me understand it, and, I think, my own post-movie delirium, better.

Thanks for speaking with me. I know youre busy and have World Quantum Day tomorrow!

Absolutely! The multiverse is my bread and butter. In fact, I may be responsible for it.

Wait, elaborate what do you mean responsible?

Im the science consultant for Ant-Man and I introduced the quantum realm there. Then it was also in Ant-Man and the Wasp, and then Avengers: Endgame and everything else. So youre talking to the right person.

Perfect! Wow, look how that worked out.

So as you know, the multiverse in Marvel is based in the idea that theres a central timeline, but every decision made more or less sprouts off new timelines. Everything is constantly breaking off from that central timeline. Could you talk a little bit about your initial ideas of the concept, and how you infused what you know from science into it?

The irony of all of this, is that the multiverse may have emerged literally from the tiniest of places. When I consulted with Paul Rudd and Peyton Reed, they wanted to know what happens when you shrink.

I think if you really shrink this gets really interesting you get to the source code of reality itself. Thats what the quantum realm is. Space and time just dont operate the same way at that level. I tried to infuse the movies with as much actual science as possible. At some point, the writers were more excited about the real science than the hocus pocus-like stuff.

No offense to Doctor Strange.

Yes! No offense!

The multiverse emerged from there, from the fact that you have a very basic concept in quantum physics known as quantum superposition. Quantum superposition basically says that what we think of as a single universe, the quantum superposition, is the interference of an infinite number of universes. Each one of them has different things that are happening at some microscopic level. When you zoom out from our microscopic human perspective, we get to see certain patterns like space and time and matter emerge, and particles that have some more definite positions, in both space and time.

Marvel took to heart the idea that we can use the quantum realm to reverse-engineer that single universe and split it apart into threads, and then explore each of these timelines individually, for dramatic effect.

I want to ask you about real science. Is it super silly for me to think that theres a different Alex in another alternate universe? Or is that a leap too far?

I really do think that this is absolutely what is going on.

Oh no! What if theres a better Alex somewhere?

No, youre the very best version of every Alex ever.

Wait. How do we know that? Are you just being nice?

Because I just said so, and thats all that matters.

But I do want to know what we see on screen is one thing, but whats the actual science like? Can you please explain it to me in the simplest way possible?

Have you heard about the double slit experiment, one of the famous quantum experiments?

I majored in English. I most definitely have not.

This is one of the famous quantum experiments, before quantum was even a thing. This gave us an inkling for the first time in human history that something was amiss with the way we thought about the universe.

We thought you could shoot single electrons or photons, just single particles, toward a wall where you had put two slits. They could go either on the left side or the right side, through the slit, and then hit a wall behind it.

Got it.

You can imagine, like bullets or billiard balls, a bunch of them would either go through the right slit or through the left slit. Then you would see, on the back wall, a bunch of them hitting the right or the left. They actually tried to do that experiment, and what they saw was that on the back wall, you did not have the pattern you expected.

You had waves you had the electron or the photon going through both slits at the same time, interfering with itself behind that wall, and then hitting the other wall as if it was a wave.

Think about it like you have water waves going through these two slits, and then you can see the crests rising and falling, depending on how the interference flows. Thats what was happening with actual physical particles, one at a time.

I think I got it the outcome wasnt expected, and everything, including the probability, was off. Full disclosure: The last time I took physics was in college.

So, theyre thinking: How the hell is it possible that one thing was going through two places at the same time?

Then, [Nobel Prize-winning physicist] Richard Feynman was like, Wait a minute, what if we had a third slit, and the fourth one, and the fifth one?

Sure enough, you would see an even more complex pattern in the back as if the electron was going through all four or five of them at the same time. He realized, wait a minute, if you keep making slits, at some point, the wall with all the slits disappears and becomes just the empty space through which light and matter travels anyway.

It travels through everything it takes every path, at all times. Its actually a perfect analogy to the title of the movie. Like, the title of the movie is scientifically accurate.

Everything Everywhere All at Once?

That is exactly how the universe works. Space and time are one single, singular construct. Theres not like you have space and then time; its space x time. Moreover, quantum space time is a superposition: a quantum superposition of an infinite number of space times, all happening at the same time.

This illusion basic physical reality is the fact that human beings have very specific points of view, ways of observing the superposition.

We all agree that, like, theres a car in front of us, or a screen were looking at, or that somebodys talking. Other points of view, though, you can access using quantum computers. Were developing those things, at places like CalTech, where you tease that apart, where you get to see underneath the hood of reality.

I think I got it!

You get it? Thats impressive.

I mean, I get it in very broad terms. Basically, if we all have the same perspective, we share a view on reality and how we see the world. But, based on your perspective or point of view, that could easily change. Like that wall with the slits!

Exactly. Exactly.

And you wouldnt know about those other perspectives, right? Thats the beauty of this. You wouldnt know, unless youre also flickering between two different realities. Which can happen also, because again, the frame rate of the human mind is so low relative to the frame rate of the universe, right?

Holy shit. What? Frame rate? So, like humans are missing an entire sequence?

Lets say we only perceive 100 frames per second, something like that. We can be aware of our lives and choices we make, but then the frame rate of the universe where you could be flickering between different timelines is 40 orders of magnitude above that. Its one with 40 zeros.

Then we make the best approximation.

Were all trying to figure out the plot of the universe by just watching the beginning and the end of the movie, the first and last frame. Were just reconstructing the in-between the best we can. Thats where the multiverse hides; it hides there in between frames. Honestly, I think that the frame rate of the universe truly is infinite, not even finite, very, very large. And were so far away from that.

That missing movie comparison my mind is absolutely blown.

The whole point, and what weve seen, is that our intuition just breaks so badly, so badly at every scale. Were just missing most of it. But we try to make the best theories about it as we can.

Whats fascinating to me, listening to this, is that were all essentially blind-guessing and again, Im not a physicist so this could be way off. Obviously this is all relative, but I have my intuitions or guesses about how the universe works. You do too, and your knowledge dwarfs mine exponentially because of quantum physics. But then yours your frame rate, intuition, your knowledge is dwarfed by the infinite magnitude of the entire universe.

The universe is going like 100 million billion frames exactly. Making fun of all of us.

I want to ask you, and I think you may have answered this implicitly, but why do you think everyones so fascinated with this concept?

First of all, from a franchise point of view, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been probably the most successful movie franchise of all time.

And the multiverse is, at its foundation, its essence, a fresh perspective: What if I had made a different choice? What if time itself is not one-dimensional? What if it is a million-dimensional? What if you can jump left and right and up and down or just back and forth in time? And if you can do that, then it means youre basically going to other realities that may look very much like yours, or different.

For scientists, weve become better at explaining concepts to our friends across the aisle on the entertainment and the Hollywood side. They feel more empowered to tell good stories, based on time travel and things in fiction like that, like the multiverse. They have the GPUs and now render these beautiful things: the multiverse, quantum realm, everything in between.

You know, being able to hop in the multiverse is also a superpower. Its such a powerful visualization, to not just break the laws of physics in this universe, but to have almost infinite choice of who you are. To escape yourself and become someone else.

I think the key word here might be fate. A lot of storytelling wrestles with the idea of destiny and our choices, and whether we have control of our future. The multiverse seems like it offers a freedom from that, in that your fate could be anything that you choose, or whatever your quantum superposition is.

Its the idea that you may not be aware of it, but there is a power of choice that you have at some microscopic level that defines your identity as a citizen of this reality, versus a parallel one: where your most important choices you made are kind of your fingerprint. This is what separates you from this other version of yourself. You made a different choice, and maybe you made the best of that other choice.

But the thing that is also pretty powerful is the possibility that you could learn from the other versions of you. What if you could meet them, and all of a sudden, you realize that you have all these latent powers, potential within you, that were actually explored? And they flourished in this other reality.

What if you were a spy over there, or a fantastic cook, or an amazing writer? Or all the things you may have wanted to become, or even better what if you could be all these things you thought you would never be good at? Its a fantasy of your best self.

The reason why this is so important, and why I was trying to introduce these ideas, is that the dream of these possibilities makes such a huge difference when everything is going to shit around the world. Im not gonna go political, but you know what I mean: everything in the pandemic, and now whats happening in Ukraine.

At some point, theres a really tempting choice to just be cynical and say theres nothing I can do and that no version of me makes a difference here.

I want people to know especially young people trying to figure out where they fit in this world that they have power to make anything happen, and make that world where they can do amazing things. They can really take control and become that version of themselves that unlocks their true potential.

I get that. I feel like the buzz phrase over the past two years has been existential crisis. Theres been a general feeling of like, I dont know why this matters. What does it even matter if I exist?

The multiverse fantasy, to me, feels like the inverse of that. Theres something beautiful in the idea of existing everywhere all at one time. The idea that this life, your life, everything everywhere matters so much right now.

There is something very powerful about just knowing, even though you may not know how, but just knowing that something is possible. Often its heroes that are the ones that first believed something was possible, and that fate was not set. Just knowing, or at least believing so strongly that something is possible, then allows you to mess around and experiment and figure out how to actually make it possible.

Thats what science tries to really do. It takes a science-fiction idea, something humanity would love to be true, and then says, lets try to understand. First, we have to believe its possible, then try to understand what we need to tweak in our understanding to get to this new point.

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Everything Everywhere All at Once, explained by a quantum physicist - Vox.com

Our universe is a ridiculous place. Its where all the silliest things were aware of happen. And chief among the silliness is the wacky idea of time.

Dont get me wrong, the metaverse is a strong second. Especially Facebooks Metas agonizingly dysfunctional approach to building it.

But times even stranger than changing the name of the worlds most widely-known technology company to something that literally means self-referential.

Time is the opposite of self-referential. If it exists in a tangible, physical form, then we might be living in a simulated universe our own bespoke layer in the metaverse. This might sound weird, but its actually pretty intuitive.

In this scenario, for whatever reason, someone or something created a simulated reality and put us in it. This reality is made of discrete chunks of spacetime. From our point of view, this spacetime is the bedrock of our universe. From the creators, its the bits that make up our data.

This all begs the question: what if time doesnt exist? What if time is just a measurement and were living in base reality? If that were true, wed have to figure out what reality is actually made of.

And thats where physics concepts such as string theory, parallel universes, and dark matter come in. Theyre all theoretical ways of explaining away the need to describe the universe in the kinds of terms we can intuit and recreate.

Its a much more interesting article, however, if we take a leap and assume that time does exist.

Weve covered the concept of timespace as discrete chunks extensively here at Neural.

Heres some recent articles touching on the subject:

However, lets suffice in saying that theres no empirical definition of time that would satisfy our desire to determine its place in our universe.

Well have to view the concept of time from a more measurable frame of reference.

Lets imagine a one-second video of a dandelion swaying in the breeze.

Even though one second is a very short duration, its still plenty of time for our eyes and brains to pick up on any motion and figure out exactly whats going on.

Go ahead, try it: close your eyes and try to picture a swaying dandelion as you count a full one-one thousand in your head. See? Its doable.

If your imagination were a standard, typical HD TV, it would be displaying that video at a refresh rate of 60hz. And if the video were recorded under the most common settings it would either display at 24 frames-per-second (FPS) or 30.

Lets add two more facts to the mix before we bring it all together and explain what these numbers mean.

If we assume the universe is made up of discrete chunks of spacetime, we can theorize a maximum frame-rate.

Unfortunately we dont currently have any way of estimating how many FPS the universe or base reality runs at. We can talk in terms of measurements, such as the speed of light or the size of a Planck unit, but we cant be sure either of those perceived extremes represent true limits in the universe.

No matter what, were stuck dealing with assumptions because of our limited perspective.

Were fish in an aquarium trying to understand our relative position to the outside world. From our point of view, the universe follows at least two different sets of rules Newtonian physics and quantum physics. But what if were only seeing a tiny fraction of the whole picture?

Spyridon Michalakis, the physicist who consulted on Marvels Ant-Man films, recently discussed the concept with Voxs Alex Abad-Santos:

Lets say we only perceive 100 frames per second, something like that. We can be aware of our lives and choices we make, but then the frame rate of the universe where you could be flickering between different timelines is 40 orders of magnitude above that. Its one with 40 zeros.

Then we make the best approximation.

Were all trying to figure out the plot of the universe by just watching the beginning and the end of the movie, the first and last frame. Were just reconstructing the in-between the best we can. Thats where the multiverse hides; it hides there in between frames. Honestly, I think that the frame rate of the universe truly is infinite, not even finite, very, very large. And were so far away from that.

Its the last line that piqued my interest: And were so far away from that. How far away is so far?

Because I remember when video games looked like this:

Now they look nearly photo-realistic. Have you seen some of the early Unreal Engine 5 demos? Theyre breathtaking.

In another 30 years, it could be impossible to differentiate between VR and reality without some form of buffer to indicate which one youre perceiving.

Right now, millions of gamers pay premium prices for displays and graphics cards capable of running games at frame-rates in excess of 120FPS and at refresh rates in excess of 120hz, despite the fact that theres no indication the human eye or brain can perceive motion at these rates.

Why? Because we can. Someone probably demonstrated some sort of secondary benefit to increasing frame-rates that made it easy enough to market these gonzo systems to overeager gamers.

At some point, if we keep pushing the limits of FPS and refresh rates, well be developing systems capable of displaying graphics at resolutions and frame-rates no human could ever perceive which seems a lot like recording an entire music album in tones and frequencies we cant hear.

But these systems could be useful in teaching AI to detect nuances at the quantum level (or in the quantum realm as Ant-Man would say) that humans couldnt even if they shrunk themselves down.

Heres the payoff: one day, maybe 30 years from now maybe 300 its possible our endeavor to build the most robust metaverse possible an immersive experience that goes far beyond merely fooling the human visual cortex will provide us with the ground truth about base reality.

If time is indeed discrete chunks, the architects of the metaverse could eventually train an AI to dial in the universes frame-rate and literally see the individual chunks.

And, by then re-building the metaverse out of digital chunks that emulate the universes timespace chunks in size, speed, and mass, we would be creating a one-for-one model of our universe, inside our universe.

This would almost certainly indicate that our universe is either part of a physical multiverse, or that its a simulation. And the multiverse we created? It would be a simulation inside of a simulation. You can see where this is going.

Then again, maybe time isnt discrete. If thats the case, then all this talk of FPS and resolution is moot. If there are no chunks, there cant be gaps between them. And that means there cant be any frames.

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How the metaverse (and quantum physics) could prove our universe is a fake - The Next Web

A team of scientists recently conducted an exciting quantum physics experiment allowing them to demonstrate that reality might actually be real.

Well, dont everybody applaud all at once. Its actually an amazing feat of science.

Lets start with a simple question. How do you demonstrate that reality is real? You can pinch yourself. But that only demonstrates that youre capable of perceiving pain.

Fictional characters can experience pain, so that doesnt give us anything to go on.

In fact, as I wrote in a recent Neural newsletter, we cant be 100% sure we dont live in a doppelganger universe or a simulation. And, because of that, theres no way for us to be certain that were not fictional characters ourselves.

However, for the sake of argument, lets just assume we are real and that our universe actually exists. If thats true, we should be able to demonstrate in some way, no matter how strange that our reality is, in fact, objective.

The problem is that reality isnt so simple as our ability to perceive it. What you or I experience as objective reality can differ significantly.

In order to truly determine whether theres an objective reality, we have to devise a way in which to demonstrate its existence without relying on our observations.

Weve already established that our senses are meaningless here. What we need are measurements.

And thats exactly what the aforementioned team of scientists, who were led by Brazilian physicist Pedro Dieguez, set out to do when they conducted the experiment that, one day, could be referred to as a keystone in our quest to define and demonstrate objective physical realism.

According to the teams research paper:

We show that, in disparity with previous proposals, our setup ensures a formal link between the output visibility and elements of reality within the interferometer.

An experimental proof-of-principle is provided for a two-spin-1/2 system in an interferometric setup implemented in a nuclear magnetic resonance platform.

We discuss how our results validate, to a great extent, Bohrs original formulation of the complementarity principle and unveil morphing reality states.

Okay, lets back up a bit and have some fun figuring out what all that means.

Measuring reality is a tricky endeavor. We cant step outside of reality to grab a snapshot of what ground-truth looks like. Were essentially like fish in a sealed aquarium trying to figure out whats beyond the confines of our perception.

Thats where quantum mechanics and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr come in.

We can imagine our universe as encompassing every physical object in existence, including us.

Quantum physics tells us that, if we zoom in on anything in our universe, well eventually unveil a complex world made up of tiny objects that interact in ways we cant observe in our everyday reality.

But heres the thing: if we can sort out how objects act at very, very small scales, we should be able to sort out how the universe works at very, very massive scales.

Bohr seemed to believe there wasnt as much difference between the two as Newtonian physics would lead us to believe.

One of the most important discoveries weve made concerning quantum physics is the fact that certain objects can function as both waves and particles at the same time.

The easiest way to visualize this is to imagine the famous double-slit experiment. Essentially, you shoot a beam of light at a piece of cardboard with two slits in it. Since the beam is bigger than the slits, the photons the tiny things light is made of have to figure out how to squeeze through the slits so they can shine on the other side.

If light was made solely of particles, wed expect it to blast through the slits and display a solid image on a background behind the cardboard. And if it was made solely of waves, we wouldnt be able to measure individual photons as discrete particles.

As my colleague Napier Lopez puts it:

Thanks to Thomas Youngsdouble-slitexperiment, we definitely know that light behaves like a wave. If you point a beam of light at a piece of paper with two slits of a particular size, itll demonstrate an interference pattern on the other side. That behavior can only happen if light behaves like a wave, as the pattern is caused by the constructive and destructive interference you expect when when waves interact.

On the other hand, Einsteins seminal 1905 paper on thephotoelectric effectmathematically proved that light comes in discrete packets: particles. That threw a curveball into physics, considering the double-slit experiment had been replicated for over a hundred years at that point.

As it turns out, later experiments showed that even if you shoot single particles through a double-slit, they will still show an interference pattern on the other side. The only explanation is that the fundamental building blocks of the universe show the properties of both particles and waves.

This has led to a lot of scientists believing in something called wave function collapse. This, essentially, says that quantum potential the moment when something can be either one thing or another collapses into what it will eventually become.

If you flip a coin, it has the potential to land on heads or tails until you observe its landing and determine the actual result. The landing, in this case, would be somewhat analogous to waveform collapse.

But our pal Niels Bohr had a slightly different view called the complementarity principle. He never mentioned anything about quantum collapse; instead, he believed objects had pairs of complementary principles that could never be measured simultaneously. This explained away the need for two different sets of physics, but it didnt solve the problem of bringing classical and quantum measurements together.

The scientists who conducted the modern experiment may have validated Bohrs principle using a clever workaround something thats never been done before while also alluding to objective reality.

We know that we cannot currently view objective reality from the perspective of an outsider. And Bohr tells us we cant measure the particle and wave function of a quantum object at the same time.

But what we can do is reverse-engineer a quantum outcome in order to demonstrate a facet of reality that confirms wave and particle function simultaneously without observation. At least, thats the premise put forth by Dieguezs team.

Per the teams paper:

Our experimental demonstration arguably show, for the first time (to the best of our knowledge), the possibility of genuinely superposing wave and particle elements of reality to an arbitrary degree.

By employing the figures of merit RW,P(), which lies solely on the time-local context defined by the composite state and observables {W,P}, thus respecting premises of standard quantum mechanics, our model avoids retro-causal inferences and suitably describe the whole.

Dieguez and their team essentially forced a quantum system to validate a portion of Bohrs principle. We can say with near total certainty that its possible to demonstrate classical outcomes through quantum measurements.

And, from there, physicists should be able to design further experiments to blur the lines between quantum and classical physics.

This could potentially lead to a grand unified theory that fills in the blanks between the quantum world, where things can teleport, be in two places at once, and cycle between states of matter without using energy, and the classical one where what goes up must come down.

This unification isnt just the most important problem in physics, its the holy grail of science.

If we can apply our ability to observe quantum effects to the cosmos at large, and square such observations with our classical reality, we may be able to figure out exactly what the universe is made of, how much of it there is, and what our true relative position in it is.

This work could be a stepping stone on the path to that enlightenment. We may yet one day figure out exactly whats outside of the aquarium were swimming in.

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New experiment demonstrates that reality might actually be real - The Next Web

Credit: B. Hayes/NIST

WASHINGTON Laurie E. Locascio was sworn in today as the fourth Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and the 17th director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo. As one of the nations oldest physical science laboratories, NIST conducts research and standards development activities that support innovation in a wide array of disciplines, including cybersecurity, manufacturing, health care, greenhouse gas measurement, and quantum physics and computing. Locascio was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 7, 2022.

We are so fortunate to have Laurie Locascio assume the leadership of NIST, said Secretary Raimondo. She is an accomplished scientist, leader and mentor. I know she will help the Department of Commerce meet its goals by ensuring the cutting-edge science and public-private partnerships that are so vital to U.S. innovation and economic security.

I am excited to return to NIST an agency with such an impactful mission filled with brilliant, dedicated public servants, said Locascio. It is an honor to be nominated by President Biden to serve in this role, and I look forward to supporting Secretary Raimondo in promoting and strengthening U.S. competitiveness at this critical time for our nation.

Locascio most recently served as vice president for research at the University of Maryland College Park and University of Maryland Baltimore, where she focused on the development of large interdisciplinary research programs, technology commercialization, innovation and economic development efforts, and strategic partnerships with industry, federal, academic and nonprofit collaborators. She also served as a professor in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the A. James Clark School of Engineering with a secondary appointment in the Department of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine.

We are so fortunate to have Laurie Locascio assume the leadership of NIST. She is an accomplished scientist, leader and mentor. I know she will help the Department of Commerce meet its goals by ensuring the cutting-edge science and public-private partnerships that are so vital to U.S. innovation and economic security. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo

Before joining the University of Maryland, Locascio worked at NIST for 31 years, rising from a research biomedical engineer to eventually leading the agencys Material Measurement Laboratory. She also served as the acting associate director for laboratory programs, the No. 2 position at NIST, providing direction and operational guidance for NISTs lab research programs.

As director, Locascio will guide NISTs collaborative efforts with industry, academia and other government agencies to develop and apply the technology, measurements and standards needed for innovative products and services. She will also oversee NISTs work on two ongoing National Construction Safety Team investigations, into the June 2021 partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida, and the impacts of 2017s Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico.

Locascios most recent honors and awards include the 2021 induction as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the 2017 American Chemical Society Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership in Chemical Research Management, and the 2017 Washington Academy of Sciences Special Award in Scientific Leadership. She has published 115 scientific papers and has received 12 patents in the fields of bioengineering and analytical chemistry. Her honors and awards also include the Department of Commerce Silver and Bronze Medal Awards, the American Chemical Society Division of Analytical Chemistry Arthur F. Findeis Award, the NIST Safety Award and the NIST Applied Research Award. She is also a fellow of the American Chemical Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Locascio has a B.S. in chemistry from James Madison University, an M.S. in bioengineering from the University of Utah, and a Ph.D. in toxicology from the University of Maryland Baltimore.

NIST was established in 1901 and since then has carried out its mission to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by making essential contributions to industry, science, public safety and national security.

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Laurie Locascio Confirmed as the 17th NIST Director - NIST

Imdeeply cracked from a combination of Talmud and LSD, says Natasha Lyonne, flicking a cigarette in her hand from the couch of her Los Angeles home, where shes been chatting by Zoom for over an hour. She is attempting to explain the underpinnings of her show Russian Doll, a metaphysical mindfuck she writes, produces, and stars in, whose second season recently dropped on Netflix. Based on a character Lyonne had long imagined essentially a hard-partying, alternate-reality version of herself named Nadia the series explores the nature of life and death, goodness and regret, of memory, ghosts, family, and the New York City she loves. It is both extremely personal and universal. And also, because its Lyonne, its fucking hilarious.

Without Lyonnes vast swath of experiences an intense early education at a Jewish yeshiva, where she learned about the Torah and the Talmud; time as an East Village junkie, seeing how much of that education she could forget she probably wouldnt have had the range for, or the interest in, building such an intricate, multi-planed universe. In fact, it was in rehab that she became deeply interested in the metaphysical aspects of existence. The thing that was most challenging for me, getting clean, is that youre supposed to rearrange your relationship to earthly things, so that youre not constantly being like, Oh, let me go smoke dope, she says. Where a lot of people find comfort in church, I started reading a lot of science books, and finding comfort there. She devoured Bill Brysons A Short History of Nearly Everything and Thomas Pynchons Against the Day. It just made me walk into the world differently and think about all the things that I didnt know, which felt very grounding.

In Russian Doll, Lyonne revisits these themes with the help of a very qualified writers room (these fucking brilliant women, just fucking Ivy League geniuses), creating a show that questions not only the world but also our place within it. If Season One was largely based on the cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadters I Am a Strange Loop, the time travel that defines the new episodes comes from physicist Carlo Rovellis The Order of Time. Its really smacking wide open this idea of What if the nature of time is not as we experience it? Lyonne explains. Its just fun as hell.

With all her accumulated expertise, we asked Lyonne to drop some knowledge on building the shows world and understanding ours.

How Time Travel Works (or Doesnt)Its really just asking the question of What is this thing that I would go and change? What is that butterfly-effect event that Im looking for? We [in the writers room] thought a lot about, what would the rules be? Is it just a kill Hitler season? And its like, well, of course, we all want to kill Hitler. But assuming we could make that machine, would you actually be able to do things like that? Nadias not actually the center of the universe, shes just another bozo on the bus. For her and [fellow time looper] Alan, it really feels like the most you want to have them be able to do is handle their own case in a way, or at least try and fail to handle their own case but come away with a deeper understanding of what it is to be alive on the other side, having walked through that epigenetic footprint that was mapped onto them in a way where now they see their own trip differently, so that they can possibly be set up to enjoy the ride. It is pretty philosophical therapeutic by way of quantum physics and high concept and multiverse, and time travel, and death loops and all these things.

Addressing the Big QuestionsHow do we know we exist? I think the bigger question is Does it matter if we dont? That sort of speaks to [the idea of us living in a] multiverse simulation as well, which is where, as a storyteller, I philosophically deviate from something that truly ends in magic. Because in a way it doesnt matter; it doesnt matter if the concept of karma is not real. Does it not seem that it would still be a life better lived to do unto others [as they would do to you]? Is it not helpful to think that its better to not be a total fucking piece of shit in your daily dealings, and expect to have a lovely life and people that care about you? Probably wise to show up with some empathy in a life, even if life has no meaning. Even if none of this is anything, weve still got to go through it.

Essentially, I guess the questions that Im always talking to my friends about, or in the books or movies that Im curious about, are what is the game? And do we have the game all wrong? And why does it cause us suffering? And its, of course, because we live in this material world I dont mean financial; I mean, we actually are of this world. Whether we can see past it or beyond it or whatever doesnt change the fact that we all have bills, and relationships, parents, and weve got these weird bodies that we carry around and stuff. So there is no idea that actually will take you past all those things in the day [youre] in. So, I think its a show that wants to pose those big questions without getting into full magic. Because if [the characters] stay in their lives, hopefully altered in some tangible way that they can actually do something with them, thats not full magic, you know?

More Than Soup for the SoulIm 42. I dont know if exercising is really going to make much impact on my vibe. Im just big hair and sunglasses. Its not [like] Im running marathons or something, Im doing low-level calisthenics. [But] not doing that for a solid week, it makes my body feel rickety. And if I just stand up and do these stretches and a little fucking jog or whatever, Im going to have a better nights sleep and wake up the next day and be like, Guess whose pants fit?

I think that the condition of ones soul is not dissimilar. The less I treat that thing and the more I say, Do I even exist?... [If Im like,] Well, fuck it, Im not participating at all, fuck this whole thing they call life, I still have to be alive and have an experience that is increasingly disconnected and dejected and nihilistic. And I might feel really cool doing it like, Boy, is this a tough aesthetic but ultimately, in my experience, somewhat sadder and [more] lonely for it. At the age I am, I dont find that aesthetic to be quite so hip as I used to anymore.

Probably wise to show up with some empathy in a life, even if life has no meaning. Even if none of this is anything, weve still got to go through it.

Evidence Theres a MetaverseMaybe I come at all of this from more of a spiritual level. In my experience, if Im in a really shady mood, I come out of the house, Im in a rush, and I go to hail a taxi, and its raining, and theres no taxis there; and now Im walking in the middle of the street, turned backwards to traffic, just looking for taxis, and Im getting poured on; and I pull out my phone, and I try to click on Uber, but the account just doesnt work; I ordered the car, but it didnt even come, and so now Im on my way to the subway; but theres fucking yellow tape there for some reason, that [entrance] is closed, [so I have to] walk three blocks over here. Now, I may as well just walk the full distance. I dont know what happened, but its officially a shitty fucking day. Another day, I justwalk outside. Everythings there, Immaking the deli guy laugh while Im ordering my coffee. I walk out the deli, boom, theres a taxi. I actually get [to where Im going] a little bit early, and something funny happens outside the building right before I walk in. I dont know what that is, but I do think that its curious. It seems like at any moment theres multiple universes you can tap into and thats going to shift how your day goes.

String Theory Explained, Sort OfIts possible that were just not seeing things correctly, and that our entire sense of the history of the universe is incorrect. I think that [string theory] really is, essentially, opening up a possibility that the world as we know it is not quite so limited. From there, it becomes a question of what we can do with all that information, what its going to mean for the future of existence as we know it. Theres a lot of questions now about building quantum computers and stuff, which would be a measure of fallout. I mean, Im ultimately the wrong person to be asking about these things. Youd be better off asking scientists.

On Where We Go When We DieIm some schnook from the block or whatever, but Im collaborating with people who can really wrap themselves around these concepts more tangibly. Do you have to fucking sit with some angel of death and play chess? Is it [like] Albert Brooks [in Defending Your Life] and youre going to be looking down at your fucking mistakes? Do you have to run into your fucking parents in the afterlife? I am genuinely spooked by a lot of these concepts, so Im just curious to go swimming around in them and see whats what.

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Do We Have the Game All Wrong?: Natasha Lyonnes Cosmic Journey Into Russian Doll Season 2 - Rolling Stone

Posted on Apr 17, 2022 in Alien Life, Astrobiology, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Black Holes, Cosmology, Dark Energy, Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial Life, Gravitational Waves, Hubble Space Telescope, Milky Way Galaxy, quantum physics, Science, Technology, Universe

Todays stories range from Astronomers Spot Most Distant Galaxy Yet, 13.5 Billion Light-Years from Earth to The Physics of Consciousness to A Bizarre, Evolutionary Missing Link Uncovered in Hubble Deep Survey of Galaxies, and, and much more. The Galaxy Report brings you news of space and science that has the capacity to provide clues to the mystery of our existence and adds a much needed cosmic perspective in our current Anthropocene Epoch.

Chinas Alternative To NASAs $10B James Webb Telescope Is Helping Beijing Rival The US In Deep Space Exploration, reports The EurAsian Times The space race between the United States (US) and China is set for a new and exciting turn as the latter is geared to challenge the mammoth American telescope with its fleet of tiny satellites as they dive into deep space. Chinas scientists are creating a fleet of small satellites to conduct cutting-edge astronomical investigations that were previously only possible with massive and costly space telescopes.

Princeton researchers find 10 new black hole mergers hiding in the data from LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors. an international group of astrophysicists re-examined the data and found 10 additional black hole mergers, all outside the detection threshold of the original analysis. The new mergers hint at exotic astrophysical scenarios that, for now, are only possible to study using gravitational wave astronomy.

Why is the Universe electrically neutral? For some reason, the charges on the electron and proton are equal and opposite, and their numbers are equal, too On all cosmic scales in the Universe, from planets to the cosmic web, its the gravitational force that determines the structures we get, not the electromagnetic or nuclear forces. But why is this so? asks Ethan Siegel for Big Think.

4 Billion-Year-Old Oort-Cloud Comet 1000x Mass of the Impactor that Caused the Extinction of the Dinosaurs, reports Maxwell Moe for The Daily Galaxy While Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein (C/2014 UN271) is far too small to blast a Moon out of Earth, it is big enough that it would cause a global catastrophe if it hit Earth. It probably has about 1000x the mass of the impactor that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. But Comet BB is definitely not going to hit Earth!, astrophysicist Gary Bernstein wrote in an email to The Daily Galaxy.

Astronomers Spot Most Distant Galaxy Yet, 13.5 Billion Light-Years from Earth The surprisingly bright galaxy, called HD1, may contain some of the universes first stars, as well as a supermassive black hole reports Scientific American.

Imagine Another World. Now Imagine 5,000 More. NASA recently announced that it had detected more than 5,000 exoplanets including Poltergeist and Phobetor, the first confirmed exoplanets ever spotted. Alexander Wolszczan and Dale Frail detected the planets orbiting a neutron star, a type of dead star, using the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. The New York Times asked astronomers, actors and an astronaut to share their favorite worlds orbiting distant stars.

Einsteins Spooky Action at a Distance Becomes even Spookier: Quantum Physicists Create a New Universe, reports The Daily Galaxy Albert Einstein was fond of saying that Imagination is everything. It is the preview of lifes coming attractions. What if our world, our universe, following Einsteins insight, is the result of a quantum-physics experiment performed by some ancient hyper-advanced alien civilization. A civilization that, as astrophysicist Paul Davies speculates, may exist beyond matter.

How Many Aliens Are in the Milky Way? Astronomers Turn to Statistics for Answers -The tenets of Thomas Bayes, an 18th-century statistician and minister, underpin the latest estimates of the prevalence of extraterrestrial life, reports Scientific American.

Dark matter could be a cosmic relic from extra dimensions, reports Robert Lea for Live Science. Massive gravitons may have formed a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, in abundances great enough to account for dark matter

Bizarre, Evolutionary Missing Link Uncovered in Hubble Deep Survey of Galaxies, reports SciTechDaily The universe is so saturated with galaxies that even the weirdest things can go unnoticed for years after Hubble Space Telescope deep-exposure observations are taken. In sort of an intergalactic Wheres Waldo, an international team of astronomers uncovered in Hubble archival data a mysterious red dot nearly in the middle of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey-North (GOODS-North).

Astronomers Describe Discovery of a Distant Cosmic Laser: Thousands of Times More Powerful Than Our Sun, reports Maxwell Moe for The Daily Galaxy. Forget about the hand-held laser guns used in Star Trek. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image above shows a megamaser, IRAS 16399-0937, located over 370 million light-years from Earth. The entire galaxy essentially acts as a cosmic laser that beams out microwave emission rather than visible light.

Dark Energy Vs. Modified Gravity: NASAs Roman Mission Will Test Competing Cosmic Acceleration Theories, reports SciTech Daily Roman will explore this mystery using multiple methods, including spectroscopy the study of the color information in light. This technique will allow scientists to precisely measure how fast the universe expanded in different cosmic eras and trace how the universe has evolved.

The Galaxy Report newsletter brings you twice-weekly news of space and science that has the capacity to provide clues to the mystery of our existence and add a much needed cosmic perspective in our current Anthropocene Epoch.

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Quantum Physicists Create a New Universe to What Might Exist On the 5000 Discovered Alien Worlds? (The Galaxy Report) - The Daily Galaxy --Great...

NEW YORK, April 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Computecoin announced that it drew over 200,000 GPUs, CPUs, and storage rigs worth of computing resources from around the world in Dome-A, phase one of its testnet that launched in Q4 2021. Computecoin strives to build on the success of Dome-A with the launch of Huygens, the second phase of the Computecoin testnet, which is scheduled to launch in Q2 2022. Computecoin is an infrastructure provider that powers Web3 and metaverse applications by aggregating data centers and mining machines.

Dome-A, phase one of Computecoins testnet, launched in November 2021. 210,112 GPUs, CPUs, and storage rigs supplied by computing and storage providers from 25 countries participated in Computecoins aggregated testnet, contributing an equivalent of 4,000 petabytes of storage space or 100,000 Nvidia 3080 graphics cards worth of computing capabilities. This figure demonstrates the massive amount of computing power hosted on the Computecoin network and underscores the need for a more realistic and attainable Web3 services solution.

Nvidia 3080 graphics cards are a popular choice for resource-intensive computation and contain up to 30.6 teraflops of computing power. Problematically, RTX 3080 graphics cards are expensive, at nearly $700 per card. Computecoin provides more affordable services compared to other legacy providers due to the way it utilizes existing computing resources. The technology developed aggregates and optimizes mainstream blockchain nodes, data centers, and solo idle computers, resulting in the ability to provide such a considerable amount of computing power in a short period.

With 100,000 Nvidia 3080 graphics cards at 30.6 teraflops per card, Computecoins testnet equals 3,060,000 teraflops, surpassing the specs for Fugaku, the worlds most powerful petascale supercomputer located at the Riken Center for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan. It became operational in March 2021, tackles heavy-duty computation, including weather simulation, pharmaceutical research and development, as well as quantum physics. Fugaku can bring 537,212 teraflops of computing power to bear. According to the New York Times, the total cost of the Fugaku project was $1 billion.

Computecoin represents an alternative to expensive, centralized sources of computing power available to developers and teams today. According to Dr. Max Li, founder and CEO of Computecoin, The costs associated with IDC servers and centralized cloud services, to say nothing of supercomputers, are not practical for a business or project (one without billions of dollars to spare) that needs to run complicated simulations, calculations and models, manage vast amounts of data, or deliver a seamless and immersive online gaming experience. Computecoin stands in the belief that there is a better solution, which the network provides.

Story continues

Multiple teams and developers, ranging from NFT creation tools to a virtual avatar studio and a mixed-reality real estate management platform, are building and deploying their projects on Computecoins testnet. Other projects that use Computecoins technology include STEM, iREAM DAO, Torii Finance, and CCNSWAP, among others. Uverse, a virtual avatar studio developed within the Computecoin ecosystem also utilizes Computecoins computing services to deploy its product, marking an important milestone in Computecoins vision of serving projects and teams development and deployment needs.

Huygens is scheduled to launch in Q2 2022. This next phase of the testnet will build on Dome-As success by expanding Computecoins base of computing and storage power and fortifying the ecosystems capabilities. Computecoins storage capabilities will draw an important focus for Huygens to support general services that enterprises and regular users need, including decentralized cloud storage solutions for streaming platforms, NFT collectors, and other sectors.

About Computecoin:

Computecoin is the next-generation infrastructure that powers Web3 and metaverse applications. Our mission is to make global, distributed computing and storage power the fuel for the metaverse available for everyone to access, use, and exchange. Computecoin network solves a critical gap in the digital asset ecosystem by allowing developers to easily deploy dApps on a decentralized infrastructure to meet the growing demand of Web3-native products. Learn more at http://www.computecoin.network.

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Web3 Infrastructure Provider Computecoin Notches Success in First Testnet Phase With Compute Capabilities Exceeding the Fugaku Supercomputer - Yahoo...

Founded in 2006 by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrm, London-based Atomico remains a force to be reckoned with. With five funds, 198 investments, and 28 exits, one might argue that the phrase Midas touch might be applicable.

Despite the rather abrupt departure of one of Atomicos most senior consiglieri Hiro Tamura earlier this year, one look at the deal flow generated by Atomicos not one, but three new appointments to Partner level demonstrate that a bump in the road isnt going to stop the firms climb to dominance.

As of this morning, Atomico has officially announced the promotions of Terese Hougaard, Sasha Vidiborskiy, and Luca Eisenstecken to the coveted positions of Partner.

As part of Atomicos venture team, Hougaard has previously served as lead investor in a number of deals, including todays (soon to be )announced Vaayu investment, as well as the Abacum Series A. Her primary areas of B2B opportunities lie in fintech, crypto, data, and climate tech. Of note, in her spare time, the active word here being, what? When? Terese also leads Atomicos angel programme.

Hailing from the University of Cambridge, Terese began her career as a marketer with American Express and Google, eventually working with Silicon Valley CMOs in an advisory position, which ultimately opened the door to a Growth Lead position at Googles late-stage investment fund CapitalG in May of 2015.

Holding degrees in both MSc in Theoretical Physics from MISIS and an MBA from Harvard Business School, former quantum physicist Sasha Vidiborskiys background includes roles on both sides of the table most notably at Y Combinator18s Synthetic Minds where he served as Chief of Staff.

Sasha's focus lies in B2B software, including developer tools, blockchain and web3, open-source and AI applications. He played an instrumental part in Atomicos investments in security platform for developers Mondoo, and virtual workspace rebundling tool, Qatalog, as well as the follow-on investments in a large-scale quantum computer, PsiQuantum, AI chip manufacturer Graphcore, and mobile data capture tool Scandit.

Rounding out the power trio, Berkeley alumni Luca Eisenstecken rises in the ranks, and recently led the firms Series B investment ChannelEngine. After spending the past two years with the Bay Areas Vector Capital Luca has played a vital role in Atomicos growth stage partnerships including open source cloud data infrastructure platform Aiven, text messaging marketing company Attentive, and the industry-standard vertical farming platform, Infarm.

Lead Image: Hermione Hodgson

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Atomico pulls off the hat trick with three new internal Partner promotions - Tech.eu

The world felt larger during the Victorian era. To the average person, it seemed to consist less of suburb-like countrieseasy to hop between for a weekend at the price of an airline specialand more like a darkened concert hall so vast, you couldnt illuminate the far corners with a candelabra. What a challengeand what an adventurefor the men and women who bore the newly minted label of scientist.

Everything from astronomy to zoology called for measuring, cataloguing, debating, tracing patterns, and identifying fundamental principles. And what instruments those scientists used in their measurements: poems in verdant velvet and polished wood, glinting brass and winking glass. Poetry suited 19th-century scientists, who still sometimes referred to their profession as natural philosophy. As scientists charted out their disciplines and defined the practice of science itself, they engaged in a grand quest. The associated sense of exploration permeates not only histories of the 1800s, but also novels that reimagine the 1800s with a fantastical twist.

Imagine that our world contained dragons in the same way that it contains dolphins and dingoes. Now, imagine that you were the scientistor natural historiantasked with introducing rigor and precision into draconic studies. Moreover, imagine that you were a Victorian woman who couldnt travel unaccompanied, who faced false accusations of canoodling with male colleagues, and who forged onward anyway, entranced by her studies. Voyage of the Basilisk is the midpoint of a five-book series whose premise struck me with its originality. Voyage, portraying the story of its heroine as she dissects sea snakes and sketches quetzalcatl, is the series most vibrant title.

In the bowels of Oxford, a young woman performs an experiment famous in our world for helping spark Einsteins theory of spacetime. Yet, this physicist draws different conclusions, building an alternative theory of light, chance, and information. Her studies initiate a conflict with Keita Mori, a Japanese watchmaker whose clockwork-driven octopus automaton seem to have a life of its own. The tension between Moris power and frailty captivates: Hes strong, yet lonely, a baron in Japan, but the victim of racism in England. Is Mori a puppeteer pulling the strings of the physicists future, or is he a casualty of her ambitions?

Early in the 19th century, four students determined to transform science: enhance its precision, professionalize it, augment the role of evidence, and harness science for the public good. In this book, historian Laura Snyder argues that they succeeded. Furthermore, the friends enchantment with all of natures facets enchanted me. In one striking image from the book, the polymath William Whewell describes how he plans to commune with a mountain: Upon sketching it from the bottom I shall climb to the top and measure its height by the barometer, knock off a piece of rock with a geological hammer to see what it is made of, and then evolve some quotation from Wordsworth into the still air above it. The book shows that this broad-mindedness and curiosity, together with rigor, determination, and collaboration, enabled the four friends to forge the modern science.

Lyra Belacqua spent her childhood in a world where adventurers travel by dirigible and clockwork flies serve as spies. She acquires an alethiometer, or truth meter, that lends its name to The Golden Compass. That acclaimed novel initiates a trilogy whose final installment I believe deserves equal renown. In it, Lyra learns how ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny: Just as early humans gained consciousness, separating from other animals, so do a girls capacities for reason and love blossom as she grows up. In a real-life fantasy of mine, I once had tea with the author, Philip Pullman, at the house of quantum physicist David Deutsch. Being a quantum-physics graduate student at the time, I was delighted to hear about how Davids research inspired the multiplicity of Lyras worlds.

Some Victorians held sances to contact spirits living beyond our three-dimensional world. Other Victorianswhose names haunt mathematics courses todayreasoned about many-dimensional objects geometrically. How can we understand objects that cannot be seen or touched, but can be said to exist, in a sense, nonetheless? Edwin A. Abbott, a 19th-century schoolmaster, shows how in Flatland. The novella follows a respectable, middle-aged square whose universe is a plane called Flatland until a sphere appears, rocking his worldview. Flatland surprises (how many books make us empathize with a shape?) and instructs, while also lampooning the Victorians underestimation of women: Taking to its absurd extreme his contemporaries assumption that women are naturally irrational, Abbott populates Flatland with women so literally narrow-minded that they consist of single lines.

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Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterdays Tomorrow by Nicole Yunger Halpern is available via Johns Hopkins University Press.

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On the Romance and Wonder of Victorian Science - Literary Hub

Some of you might remember when the app Randonautica became a trend on TikTok. Marketing itself as a Create Your Own Adventure app, Randonautica takes your current GPS coordinates and generates a new set of coordinates for you to travel to based on various keywords entered into a generator.

All you have to do is follow the directions on the screen. The endpoint you reach will hopefully relate back to whatever intention you set for yourself prior to embarking on the trip. By intention, I mean whatever trip goal you conjure up. For example, if you set your intention as puppies, you will be venturing around in hopes of finding puppies. If you focus on that intention enough, it might just come true.

To generate these new coordinates, the app uses quantum number generators a complex concept relating to the behavior of atoms. The apps creators say the adventurers intentions paired with the apps quantum theory can influence the generated coordinates.

This implies a relationship between intentionality and randomness. The potential of this relationship to exist echoes closely to manifesting thinking something into existence leading me to wonder whether our intentions truly can change our reality. An idea such as this one is difficult to articulate or prove, but it dances around the optimistic thought that we can make anything happen when we truly set our minds to it.

More tangentially, some users believe this coordinate system could be related to simulation theory, the idea that life itself is the product of a computer simulation (like in The Matrix). An app like Randonautica shows how eerily accurate a set of computer-generated coordinates can be in leading us to certain locations. Maybe Randonautica is just one small step into our simulation-based world.

By setting users out on these randomly generated pathways, we are sending a shock through the system, and maybe even revealing glitches while doing so. If we are truly living in a simulation, our day-to-day habits are very easy to anticipate. We go to the same coffee shops, walk the same sidewalks and drive the same routes. By forcing ourselves to travel to new, random places, we are doing something unpredictable that the system may not expect. These sudden changes in patterns could unveil various glitches, or maybe even allow you to cross over into somebody elses reality along the way.

Whatever the logic behind the newly generated coordinates, the app seems to work in mysterious ways. For example, creator Joshua Lengfelder was once led to an abandoned drum in the woods. Users reported being led to the graves of two of their unknown relatives, a grandfathers grave and the location where a man was just shot.

One of the most alarming locations the one that made the apps popularity explode was the group of friends who were led to a suitcase with human remains inside. Lengfelder called this a shocking coincidence and discoveries such as this one were never what [he] intended.

Although there have been many unusual and chilling findings, many users report entertaining and exciting adventures. Some of these adventures include being led to a table of free food, a friendly puppy and an inspiring sign that says its your time.

Other times, the coordinates lead users to absolutely nothing significant, such as a dumpster. However, sometimes it is the journey that matters and not the destination. The grandiosity of the adventure is a large part of Randonauticas appeal, so it is not necessarily a failure to ultimately arrive at nothing. Cofounder Auburn Salcedo claims there is no way to find nothing; there is something in everything.

Despite these neutral and positive experiences, I personally lean toward the side of caution. Due to all the negative stories I have read or watched about, I personally have not tried this app. At one point, there were even rumors circling regarding the app being used for human trafficking. Though there are no credible reports of this, the potential was enough to make me steer clear.

The platform does, however, emphasize bringing a friend on journeys, having a fully charged phone and staying out of private properties and dangerous areas. Their privacy policy also ensures the app does not collect user data; it stores destination coordinates but no starting point locations.

If you are interested in reading a bit on your own, Randonautica encourages users to report on their findings. Because of this, there are many Reddit forums regarding the topic with virtually unlimited firsthand accounts.

Maybe the app is onto something the science behind quantum physics and how we can use that science to create our own adventures. Or, maybe there is nothing behind it. It is quite possible that the human tendency to draw patterns between unrelated occurrences is what drives these adventures and unusual coincidences more than the app does itself.

Various mental processes such as the self-fulfilling prophecy could be partially responsible for the results experienced when Randonauting. Another possibility is the priming we go through by setting our own intentions. By setting the intention before the journey, we are primed to look for phenomena which confirm it. This causes our minds to filter out the unrelated occurrences and selectively focus on the ones that match our original intention. Confirmation bias, or the tendency to buy into information which confirms our existing beliefs, is closely linked to these concepts.

While I have not toyed with Randonautica myself, of the stories I have read, it seems a large amount of these experiences lead the user to something that if not coincidental, is outright strange.

Whether Randonautica is actually working scientific magic behind the screen or if it is all an illusion that plays on our pattern-building tendencies, it does a phenomenal job of getting people out of the house and into the real world to live a new experience. Because we are living in an era riddled with technology, we have lost the desire to leave the house to entertain ourselves in other ways. Randonautica encourages users to spend time outside exploring, and this is something we could all use more of.

Anna Trupiano is an Opinion Columnist and can be reached at annatrup@umich.edu.

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What the eerie adventuring app Randonautica can teach us - The Michigan Daily