IF MACHINES BECOME CREATIVE

by Anaswara.J.S.(2016-2019)

anaswarajs@gmail.com

Computers of various sorts play a role in many processes of modern society. A prominent example is the personal computer which has a specific user interface, waiting for human input and delivering output in a prescribed format. Computers also feature in automated processes, for example in the production lines of a modern factory. Here the input/output interface is usually with other machinery, such as a robot environment in a car factory.
An increasingly important role is played by so-called
intelligent agents that operate autonomously in more complex and changing environments. Examples of such environments are traffic, remote space, but also the internet. The design of intelligent agents, specifically for tasks such as learning , has become a unifying agenda of various branches of artificial intelligence . Intelligence is  defined as the capability of the agent to perceive and act on its environment in a way that maximizes its chances of success. In recent years, the field of embodied cognitive sciences has provided a new conceptual and empirical framework for the study of intelligence, both in biological and in artificial entities.
A particular manifestation of intelligence is creativity.Creativity is  understood as a distinguished capability of dealing with unprecedented situations and of relating a given situation with other conceivable situations.

Artificial agent designs quantum experiments

We carry smartphones in our pockets, the streets are dotted with semi-autonomous cars, but in the research laboratory experiments are still being designed by people. However, this could change soon. . For this purpose,  projective simulation model for artificial intelligence can be used which enable a machine to learn and act creatively. The memory of this autonomous machine stores many individual fragments of experience, which are networked together. The machine builds up and adapts its memories while learning from both successful and unsuccessful experience. Quantum experiments are an ideal environment to test the applicability of AI to research.

Optimized experiments designed by an AI-agent

All starts with an empty laboratory table for photonic quantum experiments. The artificial agent then tries to develop new experiments by virtually placing mirrors, prisms or beam splitters on the table. If its actions lead to a meaningful result, the agent has a higher chance to do similar sequence of actions in the future. This is known as a reinforcement learning strategy. The artificial agent performs tens of thousands of experiments on the virtual laboratory table. When we analyze the memory of the machine, we can discover that certain structures have developed.  Some of these structures are already known to physicists as useful tools from modern quantum optical laboratories. Others are completely new and could, in the future, be tested in the lab. “Reinforcement learning” is what allows us to find, optimize and identify a huge amount of potentially interesting solutions.

Creative support in the laboratory

In the future, the scientists want to further improve their learning program. At this point, it is a tool that can autonomously learn to solve a given task. But can a machine be more than a tool? Can it provide more creative assistance to the scientists in basic research? This is what the scientists want to find out and only the future can tell what answers are in store for them.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence ( AI, also machine intelligence , MI ) is intelligence displayed by machines, in contrast with the natural intelligence ( NI ) displayed by humans and other animals. In computer science AI research is defined as the study of ” intelligent agents”: any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal.

Projective simulation model for artificial intelligence

A learning agent whose interaction with the environment is governed by a simulation-based projection, which allows the agent to project itself into future situations before it takes real action. Projective simulation is based on a random walk through a network of clips, which are elementary patches of episodic memory. The network of clips changes dynamically, both due to new perceptual input and due to certain compositional principles of the simulation process. During simulation, the clips are screened for specific features which trigger factual action of the agent. The scheme is different from other, computational, notions of simulation, and it provides a new element in an embodied cognitive science approach to intelligent action and learning. Our model provides a natural route for generalization to quantum-mechanical operation and connects the fields of reinforcement learning and quantum computation.

 

 https://youtu.be/kWmX3pd1f10

OUR SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics

https://www.sciencedaily.com/

http://discovermagazine.com/2002/feb/cover

DARK MATTER & DARK ENERGY

by Adwaith.B.S(2016-2019)

adwaithbalachandran123@gmail.com

The other “dark” substance in our universe. Dark matter,.We can’t see it and we can’t feel it, but we can test for it, and nobody knows what it is.This elusive substance has some differences to dark energy though; the only way that we have observed it is indirectly. We know that there must be more matter in the universe than we can see because we can measure its gravitational effects, but no one knows exactly what makes up this mysterious stuff.

. In spite of this, scientists think that dark energy makes up around 70% of the universe. It was imagined to explain why galaxies don’t just drift apart but instead accelerate away from each other. You can think of it as a repulsive gravity that pushes matter apart. How it works, however, is still a mystery.

(   Dr.Thanu Padmanabhan  )

Over the last decade,Dr.Thanu Padmanabhan  had defined dark energy as a mathematical term known as the ‘cosmological constant’ by slightly altering Einstein’s theory of relativity. Einstein himself had abandoned the theory after suggesting it, reports The Telegraph.

Padmanabhan also calculated a value for the cosmological constant, 1 divided by 1 followed by 123 zeroes. He, reportedly, proved this to be the number of atoms of space that can be counted in the universe.

Though Wiltshire accepted the cosmological term to have part relevance, he was sceptical about the present findings on dark energy which might be considered an accident in observation. He believed that inaccuracies might come up from a misinterpretation of non-local gravitational energy as per the report by The Times of India.

 

Neutron-star merger yields new puzzle for Astrophysicists

by Sidhi.S.L.Nair(2016-2019)

Sidnair017@gmail.com

*Afterglow from cosmic smash-up continues to brighten, confounding expectations*

January 18, 2018

McGill University

The afterglow from the distant neutron-star merger detected last August has continued to brighten – much to the surprise of astrophysicists studying the aftermath of the massive collision that took place about 138 million light years away and sent gravitational waves rippling through the universe. New observations indicate that the gamma ray burst unleashed by the collision is more complex than scientists initially imagined.

FULL STORY

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[[This graphic shows the X-ray counterpart to the gravitational wave source GW170817, produced by the merger of two neutron stars. The left image is the sum of observations with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory taken in late August and early Sept. 2017, and the right image is the sum of Chandra observations taken in early Dec. 2017. The X-ray counterpart to GW170817 is shown to the upper left of its host galaxy, NGC 4993, located about 130 million light years from Earth. The counterpart has become about four times brighter over three months. GW170817 was first observed on Aug. 17, 2017.

Credit: NASA/CXC/McGill/J.Ruan et al.]]

The afterglow from the distant neutron-star merger detected last August has continued to brighten — much to the surprise of astrophysicists studying the aftermath of the massive collision that took place about 138 million light years away and sent gravitational waves rippling through the universe.

New observations from NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, reported in Astrophysical Journal Letters, indicate that the gamma ray burst unleashed by the collision is more complex than scientists initially imagined.

“Usually when we see a short gamma-ray burst, the jet emission generated gets bright for a short time as it smashes into the surrounding medium — then fades as the system stops injecting energy into the outflow,” says McGill University astrophysicist Daryl Haggard, whose research group led the new study. “This one is different; it’s definitely not a simple, plain-Jane narrow jet.”

{ Chandra X-ray Observatory}

Cocoon theory

The new data could be explained using more complicated models for the remnants of the neutron star merger. One possibility: the merger launched a jet that shock-heated the surrounding gaseous debris, creating a hot ‘cocoon’ around the jet that has glowed in X-rays and radio light for many months.

The X-ray observations jibe with radio-wave data reported last month by another team of scientists, which found that those emissions from the collision also continued to brighten over time.

While radio telescopes were able to monitor the afterglow throughout the fall, X-ray and optical observatories were unable to watch it for around three months, because that point in the sky was too close to the Sun during that period.

“When the source emerged from that blind spot in the sky in early December, our Chandra team jumped at the chance to see what was going on,” says John Ruan, a postdoctoral researcher at the McGill Space Institute and lead author of the new paper. “Sure enough, the afterglow turned out to be brighter in the X-ray wavelengths, just as it was in the radio.”

Physics puzzle

That unexpected pattern has set off a scramble among astronomers to understand what physics is driving the emission. “This neutron-star merger is unlike anything we’ve seen before,” says Melania Nynka, another McGill postdoctoral researcher. “For astrophysicists, it’s a gift that seems to keep on giving.” Nynka also co-authored the new paper, along with astronomers from Northwestern University and the University of Leicester.

The neutron-star merger was first detected on Aug. 17 by the U.S.-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). The European Virgo detector and some 70 ground- and space-based observatories helped confirm the discovery.

The discovery opened a new era in astronomy. It marked the first time that scientists have been able to observe a cosmic event with both light waves — the basis of traditional astronomy — and gravitational waves, the ripples in space-time predicted a century ago by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Mergers of neutron stars, among the densest objects in the universe, are thought to be responsible for producing heavy elements such as gold, platinum, and silver.

 

Electric signals in human body

by Anaswara.J.S.(2016-2019)

anaswarajs@gmail.com

In reality very small electrical signals are running through our bodies that control everything we do. We know that everything is made up of Atoms and atoms contain neutron, protons and electrons. Neutron carries no charge, protons have positive charge and electrons have a negative charge. All these charged particles cancel each other effect and atom as a whole becomes a neutral particle. If this balance is disturbed an atom become either a positive or negative charged. This flow of charged particles is called electricity. As our body is composed of different atoms this means we can actually generate electricity from our body.

Our nervous system is continuously sending “Electrical signals” to brain. It means a very small magnitude of electrical signals is carrying signal to different parts of the body. An electrical charge is jumping from one cell to the next until it reaches its destination. These are electrical signal that tell our heart to speed up when we are in danger. But our heart pulse isn’t the only thing that relies on electrical impulses; almost all of our cells are capable of generating electricity.

Human Voltage

The phenomenon of electrical signals in human body is often referred to as sodium-potassium gate. In neutral condition our cells have more potassium ions inside than sodium ions. In neutral state the positive charge on sodium ion and negative charge on potassium ion cancels each other’s effect and no electrical signal is generated in neutral state.

When there is a need to send a message from one point to another the gate of the cell membrane open ups and sodium and potassium ions move freely in and out of the cell. This movement of positive and negative charges produces a switching in the form of 0 and 1 which ultimately results in an electrical pulse. This pulse triggers the gate of next cell to open and create another charge which travels all across the human body. That is how an electrical impulse moves from a nerve in your stubbed toe to your brain that senses pain.
These electrical signal are controlling our body and any breakdown in body’s electrical system is a real problem. That is why when you get an electric shock it interrupts the normal operations of your system it can result in heart palpitation (an extra heartbeat) or a lack of blood flow to the heart.
More electrical impulses are generated in one day by a single human brain than by all the phones in the world.

Boyle’s law in respiration

by Anaswara.J.S.(2016-2019)

anaswarajs@gmail.com

Just below the lungs is a muscle called the diaphragm. When a person breathes in, the lungs get air in it (or expands) . The lungs on expansion moves the diaphragm down. The diaphragm , which is a dome shaped muscle becomes more “flattened” . When the lung volume increases, the pressure in the lungs decreases (Boyle’s law). Since air always moves from areas of high pressure to areas of lower pressure, air will now be drawn into the lungs because the air pressure outside the body is higher than the pressure in the lungs.

The opposite process happens when a person breathes out. When person breathes out the diaphragm moves upwards and causes the volume of the lungs to decrease, the air inside lungs takes up lesser volume or has now higher pressure. The pressure in the lungs will increase, and the air that was in the lungs will be forced out towards the lower air pressure outside the body.

 Laplace’s law in respiration

The alveoli are all connected with each other via the alveolar ducts . When considering two differently sized alveoli that are connected to each other, we can see that the pressure in the alveoli can be described with
Laplace’s law:
P = 2 × T / r where T = wall tension, and r = radius.

The wall thickness can be neglected in this case, since it is the same with all the alveoli. Also, the surface tension ensures that the wall tension of all alveoli is equal. This brings us to the conclusion that the pressure in the smaller alveolus is greater than the one in the larger alveolus. Consequently, the gas from the smaller alveolus will be emptied into the larger alveolus in order to compensate pressure. The smaller alveolus collapses. If this happens in the entire lung, it is called atelectasis.

Mitra;India’s Proud indigenous Robot

by Abhijith.A.D(2016-2019)

https://www.facebook.com/abhijith.vjmd 

Name of the Company: Invento Robotics
Name of Founder (s): Balaji Vishwanathan, Mahalakshmi Radhakrushnan, Bharath Kumar
City: Bengaluru
Revenues: NA
Headcount: 14
Industry: Robotics
Investors Details & Amount raised: Bootstrapped, Secured Loan

Invento Robotics wants to ‘Make in India’ for the world and getting Ivanka Trump and Narendra Modi to start your marketing campaign counts as a good first step towards that objective.

At the Global Entrepreneurship Summit being held in Hyderabad, the Indian Prime Minister and the US President’s daughter will come face-to-face with Mitra – a humanoid. A humanoid made in India, for the world.

Practice, not preach
Invento Robotics came into existence last year in October 2016 after the founders pivoted from their educational startup named Invento Makerspaces. “We wanted to change education with a maker-centric approach, but it turned out to be harder than we had anticipated,” shares Balaji Vishwanathan.

It was in 2015 when a robot made by a team of Invento garnered much appreciation during a maker fair that made the founders realise that a proof of concept may work better to inspire.

The proof of concept can now be found walking in the corridors of Canara Bank and PVR Cinemas in Bengaluru, greeting consumers and telling them what they like best. Capable of face detection, face recognition, speech recognition, contextual support, and autonomous navigation; Mitra is a 5 ft tall humanoid.The 5-foot-tall is also serving humans in a few Canara Bank branches as well as PVR Cinema outlets in Bengaluru. Through http://www.mitrarobot.com, Invento Robotics allows Mitra robot for rent for interactive sessions at offices, hotels, and even private birthday parties.

“What Google does for the online world, we do for the offline world. The robot speaks to the customers, gets to know them and their preferences, and on subsequent visits makes contextual suggestions. Mitra can help businesses do better customer targeting. For instance, in supermarkets, Mitra is capable of collecting relevant data on your first visit and not only make suggestions on your corresponding visits, but also take you to that particular aisle,” explains Vishwanathan.

Mitra, adds Vishwanathan, can be used as a customer service agent in multiple domains like banks, hospitals, airports, hotels . The startup is currently focussing on two sectors – BFSI and retail sectors.

Six months after getting their first Mitra, Vishwanathan claims Canara Bank is already in the process of getting the robot working for them in 500 of their branches. “The bank has also extended a loan of Rs 80 lakh to us which would enable us to further expand and upgrade our services,” adds Vishwanathan.

The founders decided to go for a conventional route to fund their growth aspirations after the VC market in India failed to show much interest.

“Hardware ecosystem in India is very nascent and thus will take time in supporting high-end tech-savvy hardware products. Naturally, the guidance we were seeking in running a hardware startup was not easily available. The investor ecosystem also was not primarily looking for hardware products – hence funding was hard,” shares Vishwanathan.

It’s programmed to greet customers and interacts using facial and speech recognition, contextual help, and autonomous navigation.

 

 

[Ivanka Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were welcomed to the event in Hyderabad by Mitra, a robot built by Bengaluru-based Invento Robotics. Mitra was one of two of the company’s humanoid bots present at the event.]

 

 

Black hole research could aid understanding of how small galaxies evolve

by Sidhi.S.L.Nair(2016-2019)

Sidnair017@gmail.com

January 9, 2018

University of Portsmouth

Summary:

Scientists have solved a cosmic mystery by finding evidence that supermassive black holes prevent stars forming in some smaller galaxies.

FULL STORY

Size comparison of a dwarf galaxy (right inset, bottom) with a larger galaxy in the centre. Top inset: Dwarf galaxy overlain with some of the MaNGA data, revealing the winds from the supermassive black hole.

Credit: Samantha Penny (Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth) and the SDSS collaboration

Scientists have solved a cosmic mystery by finding evidence that supermassive black holes prevent stars forming in some smaller galaxies.

These giant black holes are over a million times more massive than the sun and sit in the centre of galaxies sending out powerful winds that quench the star-making process. Astronomers previously thought they had no influence on the formation of stars in dwarf galaxies but a new study from the University of Portsmouth has proved their role in the process.

The results, presented today at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, are particularly important because dwarf galaxies (those composed of up to 100 million to several billion stars) are far more numerous than bigger systems and what happens in these is likely to give a more typical picture of the evolution of galaxies.

“Dwarf galaxies  outnumber larger galaxies like the Milky Way 50 to one,” says lead researcher Dr Samantha Penny, of the University’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation. “So if we want to tell the full story of galaxies, we need to understand how dwarf systems work.”

In any galaxy stars are born when clouds of gas collapse under the force of their own gravity. But stars don’t keep being born forever — at some point star formation in a galaxy shuts off. The reason for this differs in different galaxies but sometimes a supermassive black hole is the culprit.

Supermassive black holes can regulate their host galaxy’s ability to form new stars through a heating process. The black hole drives energy through powerful winds. When this wind hits the giant molecular clouds in which stars would form, it heats the gas, preventing its collapse into new stars.

Previous research has shown that this process can prevent star formation in larger galaxies containing hundreds of billions of stars — but it was believed a different process could be responsible for dwarf galaxies ceasing to produce stars. Scientists previously thought that the larger galaxies could have been interacting gravitationally with the dwarf systems and pulling the star-making gas away.

Data, however, showed the researchers that the dwarf galaxies under observation were still accumulating gas which should re-start star formation in a red, dead galaxy but wasn’t. This led the team to the supermassive black hole discovery.

Dr Penny said: “Our results are important for astronomy because they potentially impact how we understand galaxy evolution. Supermassive black holes weren’t thought to influence dwarf systems but we’ve shown that isn’t the case. This may well have a big influence on future research as simulations of galaxy formation don’t usually include the heating effect of supermassive black holes in low-mass galaxies, including the dwarf systems we have examined in this work.”

The team of international scientists used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which has a telescope based in New Mexico, to make their observations. Using SDSS’s Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey, they were able to map the processes acting on the dwarf galaxies through the star systems’ heated gas, which could be detected. The heated gas revealed the presence of a central supermassive black hole, or active galactic nucleus (AGN), and through MaNGA the team were able to observe the effect that the AG

Black hole spin cranks-up radio volume

by Sidhi.S.L.Nair(2016-2019)

Sidnair017@gmail.com

January 12, 2018

National Institutes of Natural Sciences

Summary:

Statistical analysis of supermassive black holes suggests that the spin of the black hole may play a role in the generation of powerful high-speed jets blasting radio waves. By analyzing nearly 8000 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, research team found that the oxygen emissions are 1.5 times stronger in radio loud quasars than in radio quiet quasars. This implies that spin is an important factor in the generation of jets.

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[The rotation of the black hole may cause the high-speed jet which makes the object radio-loud.

Credit: NAOJ

Statistical analysis of supermassive black holes suggests that the spin of the black hole may play a role in the generation of powerful high-speed jets blasting radio waves and other radiation across the Universe.

Black holes absorb light and all other forms of radiation, making them impossible to detect directly. But the effects of black holes, in particular accretion disks where matter is shredded and superheated as it spirals down into the black hole, can release enormous amounts of energy. The accretion disks around supermassive black holes (black holes with masses millions of times that of the Sun) are some of the brightest objects in the Universe. These objects are called “quasi-stellar radio sources” or “quasars,” but actually this is a misnomer; only about 10% of quasars emit strong radio waves. We now know that “radio loud” quasars occur when a fraction of the matter in the accretion disk avoids the final fate of falling into the black hole and comes blasting back out into space in high-speed jets emitted from the poles of the black hole. But we still don’t understand why jets form some times and not other times.

A team led by Dr. Andreas Schulze at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan investigated the possibility that the spin of the supermassive black hole might play a role in determining if the high-speed jets form. Because black holes cannot be observed directly, Schulze’s team instead measured emissions from oxygen ions [O III] around the black hole and accretion disk to determine the radiative efficiency; i.e. how much energy matter releases as it falls into the black hole. From the radiative efficiency they were able to calculate the spin of the black hole at the center.

By analyzing nearly 8000 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Schulze’s team found that on average the O III oxygen emissions are 1.5 times stronger in radio loud quasars than in radio quiet quasars. This implies that spin is an important factor in the generation of jets.

Schulze cautions, “Our approach, like others, relies on a number of key assumptions. Our results certainly don’t mean that spin must be the only factor for differentiation between radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars. The results do suggest, however, that we shouldn’t count spin out of the game. It might be determining the loudness of these distant accreting monsters.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by National Institutes of Natural Sciences. [Note: Content may be edited for style and length].

Journal Reference:

Andreas Schulze, Chris Done, Youjun Lu, Fupeng Zhang, Yoshiyuki Inoue. Evidence for Higher Black Hole Spin in Radio-loud Quasars. The Astrophysical Journal, 2017; 849 (1): 4 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa9181

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National Institutes of Natural Sciences. “Black hole spin cranks-up radio volume.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 12 January 2018. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180112095929.htm>.

by Bharath.R.Krishnan (2016-2019)

https://www.facebook.com/bharath.krishnan.56884

(Imagination is more important than knowledge-Just physics things)