- Joined
- Jun 2, 2023
- Messages
- 347
- Reaction score
- 352
- Location
- SoCal
- Website
- www.sandharveststories.com
-
This forum is specifically for the discussion of factual science and technology. When the topic moves to speculation, then it needs to also move to the parent forum, Science Fiction and Fantasy (SF/F).
If the topic of a discussion becomes political, even remotely so, then it immediately does no longer belong here. Failure to comply with these simple and reasonable guidelines will result in one of the following.
- the thread will be moved to the appropriate forum
- the thread will be closed to further posts.
- the thread will remain, but the posts that deviate from the topic will be relocated or deleted.
Thank you for understanding.
From Quanta Magazine - AI and String Theory
- Thread starter David_G
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2024
- Messages
- 463
- Reaction score
- 530
Moving this over to the Science Fact forum. Hang onto your hats!
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2017
- Messages
- 3,506
- Reaction score
- 4,243
Interesting article. I note that what is actually being used to sift through the possibilities is a neural net. Those have been around a long time. IIRC, they were first studied before digital computers arrived on the scene, and are not to be confused with things like chatGPT, even though the latter has neural net layers in its architecture, as I understand it.
I remember when the neural net boat came in for the field of remote sensing. My department had a few people working on them in the late ‘80’s. By the early ‘90’s, they were well on the way to transforming the field. At a conference I saw a presentation on extracting geological information from airborne imaging spectroscopy of a mountain valley with vertical relief of a full kilometer. Suffice it to say that traditional methods of remote spectroscopy would have been brought to their knees when confronted with that problem.
That example seems like a piker compared to the string theory application. I dusted off one of my math physics texts and looked up Calabi-Yau manifolds, and sort of see where the loofah analogy comes from. I’m reminded that I really need to finish that text someday.
I had a colleague who knew both Calabi and Yau. He described Calabi as a true gentleman. His description of Yau was…not complimentary.
I remember when the neural net boat came in for the field of remote sensing. My department had a few people working on them in the late ‘80’s. By the early ‘90’s, they were well on the way to transforming the field. At a conference I saw a presentation on extracting geological information from airborne imaging spectroscopy of a mountain valley with vertical relief of a full kilometer. Suffice it to say that traditional methods of remote spectroscopy would have been brought to their knees when confronted with that problem.
That example seems like a piker compared to the string theory application. I dusted off one of my math physics texts and looked up Calabi-Yau manifolds, and sort of see where the loofah analogy comes from. I’m reminded that I really need to finish that text someday.
I had a colleague who knew both Calabi and Yau. He described Calabi as a true gentleman. His description of Yau was…not complimentary.
OoooooooH thanks for the ping! This looks suuuuper interesting!