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In “A Tale of Two Horizons,” Edgar Chagurian offers an intriguing alternative look at black holes and the universe at large. Of particular interest is his remark that “we must find a way to see the cosmic horizon from the outside.” But that assumes there is an outside. Moreover, if it exists, what is outside of it?
Unfortunately, trying to describe the universe in familiar terms such as the holographic principle anthropomorphizes it. Our observations require an observer, namely us. We use our senses and instruments that ultimately depend on our interpretation. Perhaps it is the boundless arrogance of man. Our species evolved not to understand the universe, but to survive on Earth. Perhaps the universe isn’t just stranger than we realize.it may be stranger than us can to understand.
Barry Maletzky Portland, Oregon.
SHAGHOULIAN ANSWER: I am a die-hard optimist: our ability to understand quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general theory of relativity goes far beyond what is required evolutionarily, and we also understand the universe. Whether there really is “outside” the cosmic horizon is a difficult question. The equation suggests it exists. However, historically, it is sometimes claimed to be metaphysical because to measure the existence of something you have to interact with it, and by definition you cannot receive signals beyond the event horizon. This is why the possibility of a non-local connection between her two sides of the event horizon is so intriguing.gain access to what was once thought to be lost forever.
Information storage
Thanks to George Musser for his article “Paradox Resolved” on the information paradox of black holes. There are questions that make us think backwards, rather than forwards, of the principles used to unravel that paradox. As Musser explains, the laws of physics require that the information necessary to undo everything that happens in the physical world must always be stored. Does this principle of information preservation mean that all information already existed at the Big Bang singularity? decrease?
G.Line Philadelphia
MUSSER’S RESPONSE: This is a very poignant question. Information preservation is synonymous with determinism. Everything that’s happening now was set to the big bang. In fact it was set in some other moment (no reason to assume it was in the past). This comes with the important caveat that the information we are talking about is a global quantum state that evolves according to the Schrödinger equation.But we see information creation or destruction in any subsystem of the universe.
the turing test is alive
Almira Osmanovic Thunström, in “AI Writes about Itself”, describes how she and her colleagues instructed the artificial intelligence algorithm GPT-3 to write a scientific paper on the subject of itself. Reading this article reminded me of a colleague of mine who wrote a toy program in the 1980s. Six randomly selected words of hers were used as input to produce syntactically correct text. He named the program “Bullshit Generator”.
Pia Giorgio Innocenti
Grand Saconnex, Switzerland
i am reading Scientific American Thunström’s article on GPT-3 writes an academic paper on GPT-3 itself. Certainly the ethical issues of the insensible author are the most compelling. And, of course, because the academic world is so competitive, what is on the minds of some scientists is the impact on who gets credit for what.
With this algorithm, everything could start to change, not just for papers, but for how we evaluate the creators of ideas. I was also struck by how humanized the use of the GPT-3 language was. It seems to pass the Turing test.
Robert Walty
Stevens City, Virginia.
novel experience
Thank you for including a work of fiction in your review. September’s column seems to appreciate the reissued classic “A Time Traveler’s Legacy” by Octavia E. Butler. [Reviews]However, over the past year or so, I’ve noticed that there have been fairly regular reviews of fiction. Over the past fifty-odd years, many issues haven’t reminded me. (Are my memories fooling me or were they? Scientific American Includes review by Thomas Pynchon gravity rainbow In 1973?) As an old English major with a curious layman’s interest in science, I appreciate the widening variety of books I recommend to my readers.
James Yarnall Pisgah Forest, North Carolina.
Editor’s reply: Yarnall’s memory is sound: Our longtime book review editor Philip Morrison writes: gravity rainbow October 1973 issue.
energy infrastructure
It’s misleading for editors to say it’s time to ‘electrify everything’ [Science Agenda; July 2022]Currently, our power sources are only partially renewable. A higher priority is to reduce the carbon content of the grid while improving reliability.
As we move to more renewable energy, we need technology to store energy. Batteries are great in some ways, but nature stores energy in chemical form. Now that we have biofuels and hydrogen, we need a little more technology to produce renewable methane. It can be used entirely with existing natural gas infrastructure and could serve as a bridge to a real all-electric future.
Max Sherman
Retired Senior Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
continental coincidence
I noticed a clever and strange coincidence in “Dynamic Seas” by Mark Fischetti, Kelly J. Benoit-Bird, Skye Morét and Jen Christiansen [Discoveries from the Deep; August 2022]: Antarctica is the center of the “Conveyor Belt” infographic. The continents are surrounded by the world’s oceans, with the red and blue lines denoting the main warm and cold currents. The arrangement of the world’s oceans surprisingly resembles a replica of the shape of Antarctica itself.
Duncan Clark
on mail
errata
“Protecting Children’s Mental Health” by Mitch Prinstein and Kathleen A. Ethier [Forum]In 2019, about 1 in 5 high school students surveyed should say they seriously considered suicide, about 1 in 11 had attempted suicide, and about 1 in 5 seriously considered suicide. I didn’t think of it or try.
“Testing Nukes” by Adam Mann and Alastair Philip Wiper [October 2022]it should be said that “some” of the $15 billion a year that the United States spends on nuclear material research and testing goes to the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, not “much” of that amount. The NIF’s current annual budget is $349 million.
“Saving the Night Sky” by Joshua Sokol [October 2022]the blue-white light fixtures used in the experiment in a New York City housing complex that began in 2016 should have been described as being left on from sunset to sunrise, rather than from sunrise to sunset. .
