Artificial intelligence challenged physicists!

Just take a look at physics books, there are formulas lined up one after another explaining how things spin, move, slide and stop. In fact, these formulas describe things that can be seen, but behind the curtain of each one, there is a set of factors that cannot be immediately understood at a glance! In this regard, it might be interesting for you to know that a program based on artificial intelligence has recently been developed by researchers at Columbia University, which apparently follows alternative physics at will!

Artificial intelligence describes physical phenomena in its own style!

In general, during the experiments conducted on artificial intelligence, the researchers found that by showing videos of the physical phenomena of the earth to this intelligent program, this system does not recreate the current variables that physicists use to explain such phenomena; Instead, it uses new variables to explain what was displayed.

Of course, this does not mean that our current physics models are incomplete or that there are better models to explain the world around us; Because, for example, Einstein’s laws or any other laws have been proven to the scientific community with mathematics and extremely strong principles. But at the same time, you should note that these laws are based on previous theories and everything that was written centuries ago. Even today, despite new technologies in imaging black holes or identifying distant galaxies, these laws (of course, the world of quantum mechanics is a completely different story and is not the subject of our current discussion!) have been and still are.

On the other hand, considering this background, the question arises whether if there is an alternative time course in which the mind deals with issues in a different way, it is still possible to see the surrounding world (in the same way as before) within the framework of classical mechanics. ) defined? Of course, before providing further explanations, we must emphasize that the artificial intelligence in this research can only look at a few videos of physical phenomena; Therefore, in no way can he present a new physics to explain the world or enter the scientific community as a better Einstein.

This new program based on artificial intelligence is able to explain few phenomena using new variables; So it can in no way be expected to provide a new physics to explain the universe or to contribute to the scientific community as a smarter Einstein.

Can artificial intelligence introduce new physics to the world of science?

Following the previous discussion, you may also be wondering if we meet intelligent space aliens in the future, do they understand the laws of physics in the same way that we do, or may they describe the universe in a different way? be This story is just like what artificial intelligence presents us in this research! In fact, in the experiments of this research group, the number of variables describing a phenomenon was the same every time the artificial intelligence was restarted, but the specific variables were different each time; Therefore, we can conclude that there are alternative methods to describe the world and it is possible that our methods are not the most complete and the best ways to describe the world!

There are also other areas for further exploration in this research, for example, can AI really discover new variables? In such a case, this mysterious creature can help us to explain new and complex phenomena that we currently do not have the necessary theoretical understanding about. For example, every day we are faced with new data from the Large Hadron Collider that may point to new physics! In such a case, there may be other rules that we have missed simply because of the lack of access to the necessary variables.

Maybe in the future, artificial intelligence can remind us of variables that are far from the eyes in various phenomena and help us create new rules for the world!

Playing with artificial intelligence to explain swinging pendulums!

But you may also wonder how artificial intelligence can provide new physics? In order to answer this question, the Columbia University research team fed the program (artificial intelligence) certain video clips of phenomena they already understood and asked the system just one simple question: What are the minimum fundamental variables needed to explain what is happening?

The first video showed two swinging pendulums, which included four state variables, two angles and two angular velocities; After showing this video to the system, artificial intelligence examined the video and the question for several hours and then gave its answer: 4.7 variables are needed to explain this phenomenon!

This number is close enough to the four variables we know, but it still doesn’t explain what the AI ​​thinks about what those variables are. So the team tried to match the known variables with the ones the AI ​​had chosen. During this matching, it was found that two of these variables are in agreement with the angles of the pendulums, but the other two variables remained a mystery! However, AI could provide accurate predictions about what will happen to this phenomenon in the future; Therefore, researchers realized that artificial intelligence is probably involved in variables and parameters that are not completely understandable for them!

The AI’s response to the minimum fundamental variables to describe two swinging pendulums was 4.7 variables, which is close enough to the four variables we know. Also, this intelligent system can make accurate predictions about the future of swinging pendulums!

One of the researchers of this project, Boyuan Chen, who is now an assistant professor at Duke University, says: “Our team tried to find other variables or anything that we thought was related to this phenomenon, such as angular and linear velocities, to match kinetic and potential energy and various combinations of quantities we know. But nothing seemed to match the AI ​​variables perfectly! So it seems we still don’t understand the mathematical language of artificial intelligence!”

After the first video, the research team went on to show other cases of artificial intelligence. The first was a video of an arm dancing in the air with wind, which the artificial intelligence gave eight variables in response to its minimal fundamental variables. Also, this intelligent system presented eight variables after watching the lava lamp movie and introduced 24 variables in response to the clip of flames returning to earth!

The lava lamp consists of a special mixture of colored wax inside a glass container, which is placed on a base with an incandescent bulb; By applying heat from the lamp to the mixture, a temporary decrease in wax density and surface tension is created, resulting in the heated wax rising through the liquid, cooling, and falling to the bottom of the container. Then this cycle is repeated as the mixture is heated.

last word

Such a research is truly surprising because the artificial intelligence algorithm identifies the state variables in that phenomenon without any knowledge of the physics of the phenomena and only by observing the dynamics of the problem. As a result, we can hope that in the future, artificial intelligence can potentially help us understand the basis of new concepts that we are not currently aware of!

You can read the research in full in Nature Computational Science.

Source: science alert

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