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Cosmology

Artificial intelligence cannot produce a Theory of Everything

Gary Smith concludes, “Computers are much better than humans at curve fitting but still far worse at devising models that help us understand and predict the world.” Read More ›

Can a big enough computer come up with a Theory of Everything? Eric Holloway says yer dreamin’…

Bottom line: The rigorously proven No Free Lunch theorem shows that physicists will always be needed to determine the correct questions. No computer will do all our thinking for us. Read More ›

Dark matter and dark energy as 21st century Ptolemaic epicycles? – Rob Sheldon offers some thoughts

Why can’t they find dark matter, despite much search? Sheldon: The old joke is that a man is looking under a lamppost one night. The policeman asks what he is doing. "Looking for my keys" he replies. "Did you lose them here?" "No, but the light is better over here." (And the funding is better for some research than for others.) Read More ›

At Quanta: Are we looking at the end of physics?

Ah yes, the problem of dead-endedness that Sabine Hossenfelder often writes about. As does Columbia mathematician Peter Woit, on the subject of string theory. But surely much of the nonsense around string theory and the multiverse is in part due to a practical failure—the inability to find even a single particle of dark matter or similar evidence for dark energy. Read More ›

Researchers: An amino acid could have formed in space long before stars

The researchers “have shown that it is possible for glycine to form on the surface of icy dust grains, in the absence of energy, through 'dark chemistry'. The findings contradict previous studies that have suggested UV radiation was required to produce this molecule.” Hmm. This might provide support for the idea that primitive life forms can travel on comets. Read More ›