361–370 of 1001 posts
For those experiencing this type of "black swan, but good" event for the first time, it is helpful to recognize that the human tendency to believe that all future "big events" will be dystopian downers, is statistically unsound. For a while I've kept a list of the things that could be "good" swan events, but to be fair I didn't have "room temperature superconductor on that list" :-) Other things that could happen: 1)…
So far lab replication efforts are: Two from HUST: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14p4y1V7kS/ https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV13k4y1G7i1/ One by USTC https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ex4y1X7ix/ this tiny sample can stand on its pointy side. One by Qufu Normal University https://www.zhihu.com/zvideo/1669820225079070720 One with THU background but claims a personal project https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14z4y1s7V…
I am from China. Not surprised at all.. Young researchers in China often face intense competition and pressure. While they are generally well-funded in the short-term, even more so than their counterparts in the US or Europe, the lack of long-term career security can be challenging. They must continuously chase after every potential scientific breakthrough, like LK-99, not just out of passion or curiosity, but as a n…
For those experiencing this type of "black swan, but good" event for the first time, it is helpful to recognize that the human tendency to believe that all future "big events" will be dystopian downers, is statistically unsound. For a while I've kept a list of the things that could be "good" swan events, but to be fair I didn't have "room temperature superconductor on that list" :-) Other things that could happen: 1)…
I feel our generation (I am in my mid-forties) lived through enormous technological advancements but not as many scientific breakthroughs as the previous generation. So maybe it is not surprising that we are suddenly more likely to have breakthroughs in basic science.
I hope there is a phase transition to science mode now, so we that have a chance to solve the hard pressing issues.
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1. Cure for aging 2. AGI exists and ends up being somehow, unexpectedly easy to control 3. Russia / China / North Korea eventually become democratic Some of the “good” black swans at the top of my mind…
I'm unsure if we want people living forever. While disease, illness, and senility are terrible things, as soon as people can live forever we will have eternal dictatorships (or people trying for it) as well as other questions of perpetual inequality. "Death renders all equal".
We already see the advantage age provides when building influence for US politics.
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326K (+127 deg F) and 340K (+152 deg F) for their less and more pure samples respectively. And, yes, if it's a superconductor as we understand them, that's the temperature at which it would have zero resistance as well.
53°C and 67°C. Wow.
> if the current record were to be decertified then the holder would be a tie at 54.0 °C (129.2 °F), recorded both at Furnace Creek and in Kuwait.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_temperature_recorded_o...
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It would have been more convincing if you had given real past examples rather than speculative future ones :) Although I'm pretty sure there are plenty that many people can think of, so it doesn't really detract much from your point.
Watch the Connections series.
For those experiencing this type of "black swan, but good" event for the first time, it is helpful to recognize that the human tendency to believe that all future "big events" will be dystopian downers, is statistically unsound. For a while I've kept a list of the things that could be "good" swan events, but to be fair I didn't have "room temperature superconductor on that list" :-) Other things that could happen: 1)…
Commercially viable fusion can be achieved with commercially viable source of muons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00016-009-0006-9 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.ns.39.... http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2016/ph241/yoon1/ https://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/Muon-catalyzed_fu...
> Even if muons were absolutely stable, each muon could catalyze, on average, only about 100 d-t fusions before sticking to an alpha particle, which is only about one-fifth the number of muon catalyzed d–t fusions needed for break-even, where as much thermal energy is generated as electrical energy is consumed to produce the muons in the first place, according to Jackson's rough estimate
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There is an anthropic line of reasoning over Everettian branch universes where you can actually expect these types of highly unlikely events to happen more often than chance alone would predict if they promote futures with more Born-rule weighted observer-moments.
What on earth does this mean?
https://chat.openai.com/share/c1c779c7-3b5f-4ea7-a864-38561d...
The response you posted seems to be referring to various concepts from theoretical physics and philosophy, specifically the ideas of the Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics, anthropic reasoning, and the Born rule. Let's break these down:
Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics: Also known as the Many-Worlds interpretation, it suggests that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" or "universe". In layman's terms, it's the idea that there could be countless parallel universes where every possible outcome of an event happens.
Anthropic reasoning: This is a philosophical consideration that observations of the universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it. In other words, our ability to exist and observe influences how we should interpret the universe.
Born rule: In quantum mechanics, the Born rule is a statistical law that connects the mathematical formalism of quantum theory to experimental observations. It provides the probability that a measurement on a quantum system will yield a given result.
The responder seems to suggest that in a universe with many possible futures (as the Everettian interpretation would suggest), we are more likely to observe "black swan" events that lead to more possible futures.
The idea here is that if an event significantly increases the number of possible futures (like a breakthrough that extends human lifespan), then it effectively increases the number of "observer-moments". In other words, more possibilities for observers to exist and make observations. According to anthropic reasoning, this could make these events more likely to occur than pure chance would predict, because we're only able to observe futures in which we exist.
This line of reasoning is highly speculative and philosophical in nature, touching on deep and unresolved questions in physics and philosophy. It's an interesting thought experiment, but it's important to note that this isn't widely accepted or proven in the scientific community as of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021.
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Democracy is a diversion technique honestly. “Rulers” are always a few people/corps and the fate of the people depends on them.
The key is being able to throw the bums out every 4-8 years. This gives Democracy a self-correcting feature that doesn't work with lifetime rulers.
Somewhat better than a lifetime ruler, but this is far from what Democracy are on the textbook.