Nova Spivack – Minding the Planet

A new twist on the classic "Double Slit" experiment, an often cited illustration of quantum mechanics, demonstrates quantum interference in time, rather than in space. Related Posts:Speed of Light Broken?Roswell Officer's Deathbed Confession: UFO's Are RealBritish Ministry of Defense Chief Resigns; Cites Concerns About UFO'sIs There Room for The Soul? – Good Article on Cognitive [...]

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have proposed a new approach to making objects invisible, by tuning special materials such that they cancel the scattering of light. The technology has a few drawbacks — it only works for specific wavelengths of light at various scales — but it’s a start. Objects that are rendered "invisible" [...]

A group of respected mainstream scientists are forming a venture to commercialize a device that can generate a gravity-like force that they call "AC Gravity" — an interesting project. Related Posts:Must-Know Terms for the 21st Century IntellectualBritish Ministry of Defense Chief Resigns; Cites Concerns About UFO'sHow to Build a LandspeederNew Quantum Propulsion Being Researched By [...]

Here is a fascinating article about DARPA’s "high risk, high payoff" quest to develop an exotic new Hafnium bomb — a new kind of weapon that emits huge amounts of gamma rays from a very small package. This thing packs the bang of a conventional nuke in a package as small as a hand grenade [...]

The New York Times has published a wonderful and fascinating set of mini-essays by leading scientists about their beliefs in the unknkown and unexplained — from consciousness, to God, to life on other worlds, and the existence of true love.  There are some terrific thoughts in it — one of thoses rare articles that breaks [...]

If you are interested in alternative energy, here’s something new to look at — a new magnetic motor based on ideas that originated with Nikola Tesla. The makers claim it is an "economical solution for the world’s power and energy needs." Well, we’ve heard that before, but it’s good to keep an open mind — [...]

Frank Drake, the originator of the present-day radio-telescope-driven search for extraterrestrial intelligence — has written an editorial suggesting that his famous Drake Equation may need an update. In short, he believes his equation should be changed because there may be a lot more intelligent life out there than has been previously suggested. Related Posts:British Ministry [...]

In an interesting convergence of scientific disciplines, physicists in Germany have turned their attention to linguistics, and have come up with a statistical model that predicts the distribution and mutation of languages over time. Related Posts:Big Thinkers' Most Dangerous IdeasGreat Article on Psychohistory and Sociophysics — Can We Predict Behavior?Must-Know Terms for the 21st Century [...]

Here’s an interesting speculation. Assume for the moment that our universe is in fact a simulation running on a vast computing system created a race of beings that is far more advanced than we can presently imagine. The next logical question would be, “Why would an advanced civilization want or need to undertake such a [...]

Change This, a project that helps to promote interesting new ideas so that they get noticed above the noise level of our culture has published my article on “A Physics of Ideas” as one of their featured Manifestos. They use an innovative PDF layout for easier reading, and they also provide a means for readers [...]

It’s official, the US Air Force has looked seriously at teleportation. This recently released Air Force report details the history of teleportation science, the present state-of-the-art, as well as several new directions for research and an extensive bibliography. Fascinating reading! Related Posts:British Ministry of Defense Chief Resigns; Cites Concerns About UFO'sBig Thinkers' Most Dangerous IdeasWater [...]

NFC. An interesting way for devices to share data, if they are within a few centimeters of one another. Sounds kind of like Bluetooth — which I have still not needed for anything. But I like the vision anyway — if all devices did this it could be very useful — I’ve always wanted to [...]

Great find from Rob Usey at Psydex Corporation: This article is a survey of the emerging field of “sociophysics” which attempts to apply statistical mechanics to predict human social behavior. It’s very cool stuff if you’re interested in social networks, memes, sociology and prediction science. The article discusses recent progress towards Isaac Asimov’s vision for [...]

Ok, just got back from seeing Primer – a very cool new indie sci-fi flick that you probably haven’t heard about yet, but will. If you liked the film, Pi, or you like your sci-fi with a double shot of science, then you are going to LOVE Primer. There are several things about this film [...]

Cool. Scientists in the US have figured out how to make transparent alumina. The link includes pictures of alumina glass. OK, it’s almost aluminum, but not quite! Related Posts:New Wireless Power Technology — No More Wires!British Ministry of Defense Chief Resigns; Cites Concerns About UFO'sAcoustic Locators and Sound MirrorsBig Thinkers' Most Dangerous IdeasNASA Makes Plans [...]

A very cool new nanotech material has been invented called Metal Rubber. It is conductive and metallic yet pliable and shape-retentive like rubber. An amazing array of new products could be created with this stuff. Related Posts:Steorn Set to Demo "Free Energy" Device TomorrowInterest Networks are at a Tipping PointRadar Networks Coming Out of Stealth [...]

This animated visualizer lets you enter a word (in the little search box on the bottom left) and then shows the word situated next to other words that are used with similar frequency in English. It’s cool — you can discover some interesting things. Read the about page for more on that. This system would [...]

I just received the following internal release from a company that starts alternative energy companies (Magnetic Power, Inc., which I am an investor in). MPI has a number of interesting alternative energy devices under development. My investment was in their superconducting project (ROOTS) — which focuses on room temperature superconducing polymers. But anyway, the article [...]

by Nova Spivack, http://www.novaspivack.com Original: July 8, 2004 Revised: February 5, 2005; February 28, 2010 (Permission to reprint or share this article is granted, with a citation to this Web Page: http://www.novaspivack.com/science/a-physics-of-ideas-measuring-the-physical-properties-of-memes) This paper provides an overview of a new approach to measuring the physical properties of ideas as they move in real-time through information [...]

Has anyone ever done a computer analysis of all known stars seen from Earth, to detect if there are any groups of stars that are identical (or linearly transformed) in different parts of the sky? For example, have they looked for identical sets, mirror image sets of stars, flipped image sets, slightly drifted but nearly [...]

Is it possible to send messages backwards in time? This may actually be a testable hypothesis today. Here is a possible way to test it. Let’s assume this is possible and that at some point in time in the future, humans on earth develop this technology. We can test whether or not this actually will [...]

Here is a fantastic article on the futuristic physics of Dr. Nikolai A. Kozyrev, the Tesla of Russia. Kozyrev’s theories are only now beginning to be understood. He made fundamental proposals related to zero-point energy (the energy of the quantum vacuum) as well as gravity and “anti-gravity” propulsion, as well as hidden reasons for various [...]

This is totally brilliant — read the description of how it works all the way to end. I am especially impressed with how they are able to make computer generated holograms 1 million times faster than previous methods, and how they figured out how to do it by interviewing people. It’s pure genius — I [...]

Draft 1.1 for Review (integrates some fixes from readers) Nova Spivack (www.mindingtheplanet.net) INTRODUCTION This article presents some thoughts about the future of intelligence on Earth. In particular, I discuss the similarities between the Internet and the brain, and how I believe the emerging Semantic Web will make this similarity even greater. DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE The Semantic [...]

Here’s an interesting article on another theory that suggests our universe is just an experiment in someone’s lab. Related Posts:British Ministry of Defense Chief Resigns; Cites Concerns About UFO'sBig Thinkers' Most Dangerous IdeasSimulated Universes and the Nature of ConsciousnessCreator of Sim City Previews Amazing New GameScientists Discuss their Beliefs in the Unknown

Here is a cool new kind of complex system I am thinking about a lot that we might call a “network-automaton” or a “graph automaton” — a system that evolves networks (graphs) over time. This rule is similar to cellular automata rules such as the famous “Life” rule discovered by John Conway, however instead of computing [...]

This is a very good article on the physics of scale-free networks such as the Web. Lately I have been getting increasingly interested in graph theory and also in knot theory. There is a similarity between networks and knots and it should be possible to do a mapping such that the theorems and algorithms of knot [...]

A new approach to computing called

An inventor in Japan has designed a new motor that uses cleverly positioned permanent magnets to consume significantly less power than it should, and even to output more power than is put in! But before you dismiss it — read this detailed investigative article. This could be a very important innovation. Related Posts:Interesting New Magnetic [...]

I have been thinking a lot recently about the distribution of prime numbers — in particular, I’ve been trying to figure out if there is a way to predict the sequence of gap sizes between primes. But anyway, in the course of that investigation I came across a really cool site about number spirals in [...]