Getting your head around an infinite universe (1)
Leah Crane quotes Catherine Heymans, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, as being “very happy” to hear that the idea of a cyclical universe is currently receiving some increasing acceptance. I share the feeling, because I simply cannot get my head around the ideas of infinity and infinitesimal, in the form demanded by other theories (2 May, p 20).
I know that if “time” was created as space-time at the moment of the big bang, then it is meaningless to speak of “time before the big bang”. If there was nothing before the big bang, and that nothingness existed “forever”, then what happened to change things so that time could commence? If, however, something has “always” existed cyclically, then that pesky infinity is still there, but in a form that is emotionally much easier to accept.
Getting your head around an infinite universe (2)
Roger Penrose’s conjecture is that the universe will perhaps end in a state of extreme emptiness. Another proposition is that the end will occur because of the weakening of dark energy resulting in a big crunch. The possibility that our universe will go on forever is dismissed, thankfully; I cannot imagine holding a very long piece of string that has one end but not two. I also wonder whether “begin” and “end” are the right concepts here. Does cyclic cosmology imply an infinite number of successive universes of finite length? Enlightenment please.
Backing up the grid with electric vehicles (1)
Using electric cars as a back-up for the grid is a great idea, but I doubt that EV owners could sell electricity at a premium, as Alec Luhn presumes. At the moment, in the Netherlands, you pay to put your surplus (solar) energy into the grid when the sun shines brightly. I don’t see electric companies letting go of that principle, as it is making them money. Better to use any surplus energy yourself (25 April, p 9).
Besides, at the moment, only a few cars are equipped to do vehicle-to-grid charging. Future cars could be V2G-capable, but then they will also be self-driving and that opens another vista: in the hours you don’t use your car yourself, you could “rent” it to, say, Uber, to use as a self-driving taxi, and split the proceeds with Uber. That might be more profitable than selling your energy to the electric companies.
Backing up the grid with electric vehicles (2)
In countries like Australia, EV batteries can be charged from solar panels and also supply power to the owner’s home during peak evening times. This also requires the purchasers to choose an EV that is originally adapted to that role or pay for a conversion. It would be more economical for all if it came as standard equipment. Most EV owners only use a small fraction of their battery’s capacity each day and thus this presents a great potential to increase the use of renewable energy.
Does AI really understand what it's saying?
I’m afraid that Colin Nicholson is mistaken in thinking AI understands the consequences of nuclear war. Large language models (LLMs) don’t understand anything. They just produce sequences of words that are statistically plausible. What he has probably come up against is a human-imposed guard rail that tries to stop the LLM from giving out dangerous content 鈥� “tries” being the operative word (Letters, 25 April).
Pondering the answer to unanswerable questions
I enjoyed reading Jacklin Kwan’s piece about John Pendry and his invisibility cloak. As the discussion talked about the way that the structure of metamaterials can interact with electromagnetic radiation (light), some questions entered my mind. Does empty space, with all of the virtual particles within it, have a structure? Is empty space a temporal metamaterial? The questions may never be answered, but it is good to ponder all the aspects they bring about (11 April, p 40).
Separating reality from consciousness
Have I got this right: some physicists and philosophers seem to think that reality cannot be separated from consciousness 鈥� human consciousness at that? I hope we can all agree that consciousness (not just human) is a biological phenomenon and one that arose later rather than earlier during the evolution of life. As for philosophising about wet water and red tomatoes, wet and red are just words we have coined to describe what our senses are telling us about our environment. Mrs Frog will think, “Ah, somewhere to lay my eggs”, and Mr Monkey will think, “Ah, that fruit is ripe and ready to eat” (2 May, p 36). They won’t get all emotional about it or start wondering if they are real. That’s unlike the conscious human mind, which sometimes seems to get a bit carried away and tries to complicate everything!
Scorpion stingers and ancient Greek myths
Maybe metal in scorpions’ claws and stingers inspired ancient Greek myths about creatures with metallic claws and beaks. It is possible that chemists (who were thought of as magicians at the time) came up with chemical tests for metals and found traces in scorpions’ claws and stingers. In Greek mythology, the Stymphalian birds had bronze beaks, while in some versions of Greek mythology, Medusa and the other Gorgons had claws of bronze or brass (9 May, p 8).
Learning to think differently about AI
I was completely prepared to hate Jacob Aron’s column about AI, since I have been dismally disappointed by the motivations of the companies that have trained models like ChatGPT with distressing biases towards “popular” answers that may decrease their accuracy. Aron clearly explained why AI models do this, and how he was able to focus his AI on creating useful tools using simple instructions to the model to return only factual information. Now, if only we could instruct the data centres not to use any water or create heat islands (14 March, p 19).