Are we just living in a giant computer simulation ala The Matrix?
The physicist Silas Beane thinks so. In an interview with New Scientist, Beane stated that odds are in favor of us living in a simulation. If the current computer trends continue, he thinks that we can simulate a universe that is as big as the current observable universe. A simulation within a simulation, how about that!
People nowadays associate invisibility cloaks with Harry Potter. I don’t know why. Invisibility cloaks have been a popular concept even before Harry Potter became the rage (am I showing my age?)
Anyway, the Canadian company Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corp claims to have developed a “Quantum Stealth” invisibility cloak that can be used by the US and Canadian military. According to the company, the Quantum Stealth metamaterial makes its wearer invisible by bending light waves around it, without the use of cameras, batteries, lights or mirrors. It is also lightweight and inexpensive and proven to work against military IR scopes and thermal optics. Furthermore, it allegedly works in 360 degrees, not just in one direction at one angle as some critics think. The company has posted the following mock-up pictures to show the concept:
The pictures are pretty impressive, but the thing is, as stated, these pictures are just mock-up pictures. The company refuses to show the actual thing and to discuss how the light bending is done. The development of the product is, we can say, cloaked in secrecy.
Skepticism abounds on the new cloak, but Hyperstealth’s CEO Guy Cramer does not mind, as “the people that need to know that it works have seen it and verified it and their opinions are the only ones that matter.” By ‘people’, he is referring to command groups from within the US and Canadian Military.
The company has also developed a countermeasure for Quantum Stealth, so if someone else figures out how it works or creates a similar technology, Hyperstealth will be able to detect it.
In the future, even aircrafts, tanks, and submarines may be made invisible using the technology.
The world has been in a big geekgasm mode the past two weeks. Higgs boson this. God particle that. I’m interested to know more about the topic but as a non-physicist and someone out of college for quite some time, I found the Wikipedia entry a bit hard to chew and digest.
Some smart people released videos and blog posts explaining the issue to us mere mortals. I checked out a few and the best one I’ve seen so far is this video from PhD Comics. It explains the Higgs boson in a way that can be understood but without overly simplifying things.
The Higgs Boson Explained from PHD Comics on Vimeo.
