Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists look around the universe and see amazing structure. There are objects and processes of fantastic complexity. Every action in our universe follows exact laws of nature that are perfectly expressed in a mathematical language. These laws of nature appear fine-tuned to bring about life, and in particular, intelligent life. What exactly are these laws of nature and how do we find them?

The universe is so structured and orderly that we compare it to the most complicated and exact contraptions of the age. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the universe was compared to a perfectly working clock or watch. Philosophers then discussed the Watchmaker. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the most complicated object is a computer. The universe is compared to a perfectly working supercomputer. Researchers ask how this computer got its programming.

How does one explain all this structure? Why do the laws seem so perfect for producing life and why are they expressed in such exact mathematical language? Is the universe really as structured as it seems?

Continue reading “Chaos Makes the Multiverse Unnecessary” »

NASA engineers are using some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world to design rotary wing vehicles that combine both piloted and autonomous operations. Urban Air Mobility is a safe and efficient system that can transport a small number of passengers and cargo, without the need for long runways. Check it out: https://go.nasa.gov/2FvGPfH

The U.S. is now home to the two fastest supercomputers in the world, according to a newly released ranking of the top 500 systems.

NVIDIA’s playing a bigger role in high performance computing than ever, just as supercomputing itself has become central to meeting the biggest challenges of our time.

Speaking just hours ahead of the start of the annual SC18 supercomputing conference in Dallas, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang told 700 researchers, lab directors and execs about forces that are driving the company to push both into “scale-up” computing — focused on large supercomputing systems — as well as “scale-out” efforts, for researchers, data scientists and developers to harness the power of however many GPUs they need.

Continue reading “SC18: HPC Demand Surges, Accelerated” »

SpiNNaker was built under the leadership of Professor Steve Furber at The University of Manchester, a principal designer of two products that earned the Queen’s Award for Technology —the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor, and the BBC Microcomputer.

“The ultimate objective for the project has always been a million cores in a single computer for real time brain modelling applications, and we have now achieved it, which is fantastic.” — Professor Steve Furber, The University of Manchester

Inspired by the human brain, the SpiNNaker is capable of sending billions of small amounts of information simultaneously. The SpiNNaker has a staggering 1 million processors that are able to perform over 200 million actions per second.

Continue reading “World’s Largest Neuromorphic Supercomputer Activated” »

Lattice QCD is not only teaching us how the strong interactions lead to the overwhelming majority of the mass of normal matter in our Universe, but holds the potential to teach us about all sorts of other phenomena, from nuclear reactions to dark matter.

Later today, November 7th, physics professor Phiala Shanahan will be delivering a public lecture from Perimeter Institute, and we&s;ll be live-blogging it right here at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT. You can watch the talk right here, and follow along with my commentary below. Shanahan is an expert in theoretical nuclear and particle physics and specializes in supercomputer work involving QCD, and I&s;m so curious what else she has to say.

Continue reading “At Last, Physicists Understand Where Matter’s Mass Comes From” »

Imagine building a machine so advanced and precise you need a supercomputer to help design it. That’s exactly what scientists and engineers in Germany did when building the Wendelstein 7-X experiment. The device, funded by the German federal and state governments and the European Union, is a type of fusion device called a stellarator. The new experiment’s goal is to contain a super-heated gas, called plasma, in a donut-shaped vessel using magnets that twist their way around the donut.

The firm will pit its Bristlecone quantum processor against a classical supercomputer early next year and see which comes out on top.

Can the origin of life be explained with quantum mechanics? And if so, are there quantum algorithms that could encode life itself?

We’re a little closer to finding out the answers to those big questions thanks to new research carried out with an IBM supercomputer.

Encoding behaviours related to self-replication, mutation, interaction between individuals, and (inevitably) death, a newly created quantum algorithm has been used to show that quantum computers can indeed mimic some of the patterns of biology in the real world.

Continue reading “Scientists Just Created Quantum Artificial Life For The First Time Ever” »