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Norbert Wiener: They Said the Idea Would Never Work

Norbert Wiener: They Said the Idea Would Never Work

He was a child prodigy whose masterwork was dismissed as too abstract. How Norbert Wiener’s concept of cybernetics went from theory to reality.

UC-Berkeley Math Professor Criticizes Declining Student Standards, Blames Removal of Standardized Testing

UC-Berkeley Math Professor Criticizes Declining Student Standards, Blames Removal of Standardized Testing

Zvezdelina Stankova, a professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley, has publicly criticized the declining academic standards at the university, stating that a significant portion of her calculus students lack fundamental math skills, including fractions and basic algebra. She reports that office hours, intended for discussing advanced calculus concepts, are now frequently spent on remedial mathematics typically taught in middle school. Stankova attributes this decline to the removal of standardized testing requirements for admissions. She notes that while a diagnostic exam before 2020 showed 71% of Calculus I students were prepared, this figure dropped to 44% between 2021 and 2023. By 2022-23, over one-third of calculus students exhibited severe math deficits, with zero being the most common score on the diagnostic exam. Stankova, who founded the Berkeley Math Circle and a local math olympiad, is among thousands of faculty members advocating for the reinstatement of SAT and ACT scores in admissions.

New Simulations Challenge Assumptions on Dark Photon Heating in Early Universe

New Simulations Challenge Assumptions on Dark Photon Heating in Early Universe

A new study published in Physical Review Letters, involving researchers from Perimeter Institute and the University of Maryland, indicates that hypothetical 'dark photons,' a leading candidate for dark matter, may not have heated the early universe as previously assumed. For the past 15 years, physicists believed that if dark photons existed, they would have converted into ordinary light within the hot plasma of the early cosmos, leading to significant heating. This assumption had excluded a vast range of parameter space for dark photons based on cosmological measurements. However, new computer simulations demonstrate that this conversion process is non-linear and shuts itself off before substantial heating can occur. This finding reopens previously excluded ranges for experimental searches, suggesting that the strength of dark matter could be significantly different than previously thought.

Auburn University Mathematician Solves 15-Year Board Game Dice Problem

Auburn University Mathematician Solves 15-Year Board Game Dice Problem

Auburn University Mathematician Solves 15-Year Board Game Dice Problem

Physicists Advance Fluid Dynamics Theory Using Symmetry Principles

Physicists Advance Fluid Dynamics Theory Using Symmetry Principles

Physicists are revolutionizing the understanding of fluid dynamics by applying effective field theory, a method developed by Kenneth Wilson in the 1970s. This approach, which involves 'zooming out' to identify broad trends and symmetries, has historically been used to simplify complex physical systems. While many areas of physics, including quantum field theory and phases of matter, have benefited from Wilson's machinery, fluid dynamics remained an outlier. The breakthrough began in the 2000s when cosmologists, using Wilsonian thinking, realized that fluids break the same space-time symmetry as the expanding universe. Further insights came from identifying an unlimited number of 'swapping symmetries' in fluids, where parcels of fluid can be exchanged without energy cost, unlike solids. By integrating these symmetries, researchers, including Alberto Nicolis, derived the Euler equations for perfect fluids from fundamental principles. More recently, Hong Liu and his team at MIT, inspired by the connection bet...

Fermilab Collaboration Rules Out Large Electric Dipole Values for Muons

Fermilab Collaboration Rules Out Large Electric Dipole Values for Muons

The Muon g-2 collaboration at Fermilab has announced a new measurement regarding the electric dipole moment (EDM) of the muon. This analysis, utilizing 25% of Fermilab's experimental data, represents the most sensitive direct search for a muon EDM ever conducted. It is the first direct search for the muon EDM at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and only the third globally in the last 50 years. The experiment uses a 50-foot-diameter superconducting magnetic storage ring, repurposed from an earlier experiment at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. While the primary goal of the Muon g-2 experiment is to measure the magnetic dipole moment, the same data can be used to search for the EDM. The EDM refers to a vertical component of the muon's wobble caused by an electric field, in contrast to the magnetic dipole moment which relates to the horizontal wobble caused by a magnetic field. The current result indicates that if a muon EDM exists, it must be smaller than what the Mu...

New Ultrafast Heating Method Creates High-Performance Semiconductor Materials for Solar Energy

New Ultrafast Heating Method Creates High-Performance Semiconductor Materials for Solar Energy

Researchers have developed a novel method using ultrafast flashes of light to create high-performance semiconductor materials, potentially improving solar energy technologies. This technique involves heating a semiconductor coating to nearly 2,000°C (3,600°F) in a fraction of a millisecond, while the underlying glass substrate remains below 100°C (212°F). This rapid heating and cooling process rearranges the atoms within the semiconductor, producing a version that generates up to 50 times more electrical current from light compared to its ordinary form. The method, known as flash photonic heating, allows for the creation of desirable crystal forms that are typically unstable and difficult to preserve with conventional heating methods, which would damage the sensitive transparent conducting glass used in touchscreens and solar cells.

From Ancient Greece to Modern Labs: The Mathematician’s Journey

From Ancient Greece to Modern Labs: The Mathematician’s Journey

The role of a mathematician has undergone a significant transformation throughout history, evolving from early philosophers and polymaths to the sp...

University of Rochester Researchers Develop Advanced Time-Gating Imaging System for Deep Tissue and Dense Fog

University of Rochester Researchers Develop Advanced Time-Gating Imaging System for Deep Tissue and Dense Fog

Researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a new, lower-cost imaging system capable of seeing through challenging environments such as deep tissue and dense fog. This system addresses limitations of existing near-infrared imaging technologies, which often struggle with scattering effects in such conditions and rely on expensive specialized detectors. The new technology utilizes inexpensive silicon-based detectors and quickly converts near-infrared light to visible light, producing clearer images. The core of this innovation is a time-gating technique, refined over a decade by the laboratory of Robert Boyd, the William F. Krupke Distinguished Professor in Optics. This technique functions like a camera shutter, using ultrafast bursts of light to allow infrared photons through a gate for only about a picosecond. The gate itself is a thin film made of indium tin oxide, which converts the near-infrared photons into visible light in real-time. The research, led by Yang Xu, was published in Nature ...

Rutgers Professor David Shih Explores Agentic AI's Impact on High Energy Physics

Rutgers Professor David Shih Explores Agentic AI's Impact on High Energy Physics

David Shih, a theoretical particle physicist and Professor at the New High Energy Theory Center in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Rutgers, New Brunswick, is exploring the impact of agentic AI on high energy physics. Agentic AI, which involves powerful large language models (LLMs) autonomously planning and executing complex tasks, is transforming various sectors. Shih's research delves into two main areas: the development of fully automated agentic AI systems for tasks like anomaly detection and data analysis in particle physics, and human-AI collaboration where AI acts as a remote graduate student. He will discuss ColliderBench, a quantitative benchmark for these systems, and his experience using 'vibe physics' with Claude Code, which led to two single-author papers on symbolic simplification of mathematical expressions. Shih's work spans a broad range of topics, including dark matter, string theory, and collider phenomenology, and has been recognized with awards such as the DOE Early Career Awar...

Brown University Physicist Proposes Quantum Gravity as Driver of Universe's Accelerated Expansion

Brown University Physicist Proposes Quantum Gravity as Driver of Universe's Accelerated Expansion

Physicist Savvas Koushiappas from Brown University in the U.S. has published a new paper in Physical Review D, proposing an alternative explanation for the Universe's accelerating expansion. Instead of solely relying on dark energy, Koushiappas suggests that this acceleration could be a macroscopic imprint of an irreducible quantum uncertainty in simultaneously knowing the size and expansion rate of the Universe. This model applies a classic quantum rule—that certain pairs of properties cannot be precisely known at the same time—to the entire Universe. He posits that this quantum modification to the geometry of the Universe itself could account for some of the phenomena typically attributed to dark energy, which currently accounts for roughly 68 percent of the Universe's energy density in the standard cosmological model.

Newcleo Proposes U.S. Plutonium Fuel Factory to NRC, Reviving Past Efforts

Newcleo Proposes U.S. Plutonium Fuel Factory to NRC, Reviving Past Efforts

Newcleo, a French nuclear technology firm, has submitted a Regulatory Engagement Plan to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for licensing a facility in the United States to manufacture mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel from recycled or surplus plutonium. This move follows Newcleo's ongoing work in Italy, where it operates a 155-ton molten lead reactor demonstrator, PRECURSOR, using electric heaters instead of uranium to test the technology. The company aims to establish a supply chain for advanced reactors that require MOX fuel. This proposal comes despite a previous U.S. attempt to build a plutonium fuel plant at the Savannah River Site, which was abandoned after costing billions of dollars and remaining half-built. Newcleo's CEO, Stefano Buono, stated that this submission is a concrete step to advance their MOX fuel facility in the U.S., building on the expertise of over 100 engineers. The company has not yet announced the proposed location for the American plant.