Progress with long-standing problem with Quantum Mechanics

 How small is small? How large is large? Since Quantum Mechanics was developed in the 1920s, this has been one of THE questions we've had - where is the boundary between being able to treat the world with classical, Newtonian mechanics, or treating the world with QM? 

It appears that over the last 20 years, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Wojciech Zurek, has developed a theory using first principles of QM to show how many-atom objects and systems naturally yield the 'classical', everyday properties we measure. It has to do with the fact that any quantum object, such as an atom, naturally becomes 'entangled' with all other physical entities it interacts with. It is this mass entanglement process where the properties we observe behave as a continuum rather than as quantized values. 

Read the article here, if you wish. If you are a student, I have a copy of Zurek's recently published book about quantum decoherence and his theory of Quantum Darwinism. It's pretty technical, but have a look if you want! 

120 years later, we're still learning about Special Relativity!

 In class, we get into length contraction when it comes to Einstein's special theory of relativity. When objects move, their lengths shorten up by some amount in the direction of motion. This is a well-known conclusion from relativity. It is also really challenging to try and measure this at everyday speeds, because the length contraction is so tiny; not until a substantial fraction of the speed of light will it become more measurable. 

However, it turns out that what we would actually see is surprising and different from just a meter stick being a little shorter. We would see the stick, as a stationary observer with the stick flying past us really fast, rotate by some amount! This has to do with the behavior and tiny time differences of photons coming from the stick and reaching our sensors; it was calculated by two scientists about 20 years ago, and is called the Terrell-Penrose Effect. 

Now, with crazy-fast electronics and video technologies, this has actually been observed, and the real relativistic prediction confirmed, in the lab! This is a good Scientific American article, with some visuals, as to what it looks like for real! Very cool! 

Writing in the Age of AI - still need the wisdom of Socrates and Plato

 Why did Socrates not write anything down? What we know about Socrates and his thinking was written mostly by his student, Plato. 

Socrates and Plato understood that the best way to go after truth was through conversation and questioning; hence the Socratic method. Conversation allows us to question, pose possible answers, find contradictions and flaws in our thinking, critically and rigorously dive ever deeper into a topic, and so on, all is real time. Conversation provides a the best, most efficient and rigorous way to critically think through hard problems, and hopefully dig some nuggets of truth out of the problem. 

Writing is different, and not as efficient or effective. Certainly it takes longer. As we read something, we naturally (and hopefully) develop any number of questions, and needs for clarifications, and 'what if' scenarios. Reading something is open to interpretation, since we are unable to ask the author and get feedback; in so many ways, we need to try and read the mind of the author, and this requires assumptions and guesswork. The process of learning, and then questioning, and then refining our views and answers, may or may not fully happen if it is all through writing. 

Now we have AI. What would Socrates and Plato think about this? This article is interesting and provides some thoughts about it. I agree with the author of the piece that there is good and bad, depending on how we use the AI in writing. It can certainly write a student assignment or a paper we publish on websites or try to submit to other publications, and we do not have to do the heavy lifting thinking. That is NOT how we should be using AI. However, what the great philosophers would likely appreciate about AI is that it can be your debating 'partner'. You can have a conversation with an AI and do the equivalent of, or at least a good approximation, the Socratic method, where we can have a back and forth of questioning with the AI to better and more rigorously develop our thoughts. That type of use is not so different than having a human partner to debate and critically think with, and this makes AI a very useful tool in writing. 

Here are the 'Big 3' Greek philosophers that help create Western thought. Some 2500 years later, we still can use their thoughts and wisdom.

              From https://sidiropoulos.medium.com/socrates-plato-aristotle-2939c66b161f. 

Info on Clean Coal, if interested

 From the State of the Union address two nights ago, part of this administration's energy planning is to go back to burning more and more fossil fuels. This includes the dirtiest fossil fuel, coal. But of course, the talking and selling point politicians use is "clean coal". 

This is an article about Clean Coal, if interested in learning a little more about it. It is not much cleaner by any standards, and is also being priced out in many markets by solar and wind energy. But, this is part of what's going on as you read this, in different areas of the US. 

A great team effort in COMAP!

 COMAP is an applied mathematicians organization that runs an international math modeling competition. One of our teams, consisting of juniors Brynn Litus, Keira Beaudoin, Emma Reese, and Chloe Ross, were rated as a Finalist team. This goes to the teams around the world that place in the top 5% - and there are only 8 US teams that placed this high - so it's a big deal! This is out of 1100 papers in the competition, which is now dominated by Chinese high school teams since they have some focus on real-world math modeling in their math curriculum. This is something I've been wanting in US math classes for the last 20 years, but that's another story. 

Anyhow, see an Evanston Now news story about the team here! Congratulations to them, as they now prepare for both the International Math Modeling Competition (IMMC), and the MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge in the next month!

Identifying Deep Fake images and videos: Human vs AI

 A recent study found that AI algorithms identify Deep Fake images quite a bit better than humans. Humans identified them basically at 50%, which is just chance level, while an AI correctly distinguished between the images as high as 97% accuracy. However, humans still identify Deep Fake videos better than the AIs that were used in the study - the AIs were only around chance level, but humans were correct nearly two-thirds of the time. 

With this being an election year, everyone is anticipating the use of Deep Fakes will spike. We should be working in unison with AI algorithms to hopefully weed-out as many of these as possible, as it will be an ongoing battle as long as these technologies exist. Let's try to maintain as much reality in our lives as possible, as we continue on into the age of mis- and dis-information. It is becoming more challenging to pick out real from fake, to be sure. 

Which image below (of a NU professor) is real, which is fake??? 

Left is real...he put himself in battle gear on the right. Here is an article about his work. 

Effects of Social Media on Teenage Brains

 This is a NIH summary of both the benefits and harm social media has on the teen brain. Teens are at a stage of human development where the brain is active and maturing, with things like risk-taking peaking, mental health conditions like depression beginning to develop, and social consciousness and self-worth are being formed. 

It is worth checking out. One finding is that teens who spend an average of 3 hours or more per day on social media platforms are TWICE as likely as teens who don't of developing symptoms of anxiety and depression. It begins to reduce one's attention span. It makes one less social, of course, in terms of human interaction, which we need to socialize and develop skills that are necessary for our lifetime. By 2021, the average number of hours for children grades 8-10 were already at 3.5 hours. Online bullying, drops in self-esteem and body image, loss of sleep, drops in attention span and comprehension in school, and eating disorders are all rising with the increased use of social media. 

Let's try to LIVE our OWN lives a little more, by watching and reading about OTHERS living their lives a little LESS - it will bring more joy to your life! 

A favorite quote...

 One of my favorite quotes comes from the legendary physicist Richard Feynman: 

"Just because you know the name of something, does not mean you know something." 

I see this as one of the primary pathways of people believing conspiracy theories, and falling for mis- and dis-information, for instance. People throw around scientific terms and names of theories and names of ideas, as if they know what any of it means or what the consequences are - these may just be something they saw in a headline on social media or a site of a favorite 'influencer' or politician. Then they repeat it, as fact, and with confidence since they know a fancy-sounding name or idea. These instances are often based on just hearing a name or title or single idea. But as happens SO MUCH, with people consuming news and information in an age of short Tik Tok videos, Reels, or 200-character tweets or messages, about SERIOUSLY COMPLEX AND COMPLICATED ISSUES that require true expertise to begin to understand the issues, just knowing the name of something does not mean one knows, AT ALL, anything substantial or accurate about that something! 

Falling into the trap of fooling oneself they know what they are talking about because they can repeat a name or quote by an "influencer", without seriously understanding ANYTHING about the topic or issue, helps give birth to conspiracy theories, misunderstandings, and the rapid spread of mis- and dis-information. And this is, as we are seeing here and around the world, causing some serious splits in whole societies. It is also leading to a deterioration in the value of expertise, and mistrust of science itself, that has created the very technologies and ways of life of world civilizations. From climate change, to medicine and vaccinations, to evolution, new energy sources, to food science and nutrition, to advanced technologies like intelligent robotics, AI, and quantum computing, and so on, people are throwing names and ideas around they've heard from non-experts and using those as 'knowledge and facts', despite not know the details about those names and ideas. It's a dangerous practice, and has real consequences on our future.

Some wonderful projects (and ideas) for Computational Research at Wolfram

 Check out this site, for the Wolfram HS Research Program. The possibilities for research in the computational realm are endless! 

If you enjoy coding, or want to learn coding, and want to use it to explore research questions, wow, there are some cool thing you can do! Lots of options and ideas here, on our CABS page. 

Some thoughts about: EELS as class pets, and how Quantum Mechanics changed how I think about students (and humans generally)

 Go here to find deeper dives into EELS as class pets, where EELS stands for Everyday Essential Life Skills and a renaming and rebranding of SEL

Go here to find deeper dives into how Quantum Mechanics changed my view and mindset of who my students are (and humans generally), which I believe needs to happen with all educators across the country, regardless of grade levels taught. See my TED talk about some of this. 

Feel free to share on your social media platforms. Teachers, feel free to use any/all of this! 

#SEL #mindset #EduReforms #EducationMindset #education #teaching