Lifeboat Foundation

• Encryption and segmentation: These operate on the assumption some fraction of the network is already compromised. Restricting the reach and utility of any captured data and accessible networks will mitigate the damage even on breached systems.

• SBOM documentation: Regulatory compliance can be driven by industry organizations and the government, but it will take time to establish standards. SBOM documentation is an essential foundation for best practices.

If “democracy dies in darkness,” and that includes lies of omission in reporting, then cybersecurity suffers the same fate with backdoors. The corollary is “don’t roll your own crypto” even if well-intentioned. The arguments for weakening encryption to make law enforcement easier falls demonstrably flat, with TETRA just the latest example. Secrets rarely stay that way forever, and sensitive data is more remotely accessible than at any time in history. Privacy and global security affect us all, and the existence of these single points of failure in our cybersecurity efforts are unsustainable and will have unforeseeable consequences. We need to innovate and evolve the internet away from this model to have durable security assurances.

The stunning experiment, which reconstructs the properties of entangled photons from a 2D interference pattern, could be used to design faster quantum computers.

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Continue reading “Why Is 1/137 One of the Greatest Unsolved Problems In Physics?” »

How does a gambler maximize winnings from a row of slot machines? This question inspired the “multi-armed bandit problem,” a common task in reinforcement learning in which “agents” make choices to earn rewards. Recently, an international team of researchers, led by Hiroaki Shinkawa from the University of Tokyo, introduced an advanced photonic reinforcement learning method that transitions from the static bandit problem to a more intricate dynamic setting. Their findings were recently published in the journal, Intelligent Computing.

The success of the scheme relies on both a photonic system to enhance the learning quality and a supporting algorithm. Looking at a “potential photonic implementation,” the authors developed a modified bandit Q-learning algorithm and validated its effectiveness through numerical simulations. They also tested their algorithm with a parallel architecture, where multiple agents operate at the same time, and found that the key to accelerating the parallel learning process is to avoid conflicting decisions by taking advantage of the quantum interference of photons.

Although using the quantum interference of photons is not new in this field, the authors believe this study is “the first to connect the notion of photonic cooperative decision-making with Q-learning and apply it to a dynamic environment.” Reinforcement learning problems are generally set in a dynamic environment that changes with the agents’ actions and are thus more complex than the static environment in a bandit problem.

Most people think the world consists of various elements ranging from fire and water to protons and electrons. Heinrich Päs challenges this idea, arguing that quantum physics revives the ancient idea of universal oneness that Christianity unjustly excluded from our culture.

By probing the Universe on atomic scales and smaller, we can reveal the entirety of the Standard Model, and with it, the quantum Universe.

Fermionic atoms adhere to the Pauli exclusion principle, preventing more than one from simultaneously being in the same quantum state. As a result, they are perfect for modeling systems like molecules, superconductors, and quark-gluon plasmas where fermionic statistics are critical.

Using fermionic atoms, scientists from Austria and the USA have designed a new quantum computer to simulate complex physical systems. The processor uses programmable neutral atom arrays and has hardware-efficient fermionic gates for modeling fermionic models.

The group, under the direction of Peter Zoller, showed how the new quantum processor can simulate fermionic models from quantum chemistry and particle physics with great accuracy.

Researchers from Austria and the U.S. have designed a new type of quantum computer that uses fermionic atoms to simulate complex physical systems. The processor uses programmable neutral atom arrays and is capable of simulating fermionic models in a hardware-efficient manner using fermionic gates.

The team led by Peter Zoller demonstrated how the new quantum processor can efficiently simulate fermionic models from quantum chemistry and particle physics. The paper is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fermionic atoms are atoms that obey the Pauli exclusion principle, which means that no two of them can occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. This makes them ideal for simulating systems where fermionic statistics play a crucial role, such as molecules, superconductors and quark-gluon plasmas.

What happened before the Big Bang? In two of our previous films we examined cyclic cosmologies and time travel universe models. Specially, the Gott and Li Model https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79LciHWV4Qs) and Penrose’s Conformal Cyclic Cosmology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVDJJVoTx7s). Recently Beth Gould and Niayesh Afshordi of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics have fused these two models together to create a startling new vision of the universe. In this film they explain their new proposal, known as Periodic Time Cosmology.

0:00 Introduction.
0:45 NIayesh’s story.
1:15 Beth’s story.
2:25 relativity.
3:26 Gott & Li model.
6:23 origins of the PTC model.
8:17 PTC periodic time cosmology.
10:55 Penrose cyclic model.
13:01 Sir Roger Penrose.
14:19 CCC and PTC
15:45 conformal rescaling and the CMB
17:28 assumptions.
18:41 why a time loop?
20:11 empirical test.
23:96 predcitions.
26:19 inflation vs PTC
30:22 gravitational waves.
31:40 cycles and the 2nd law.
32:54 paradoxes.
34:08 causality.
35:17 immortality in a cyclic universe.
38:02 eternal return.
39:21 quantum gravity.
39:57 conclusion.

Continue reading “Before the Big Bang 11: Did the Universe Create itself? The PTC model” »