Both DARPA and ERI projects focus on distinct applications in biomedical engineering and environmental monitoring, respectively, and will utilize acoustofluidic technology, but the applications and approaches will be different.
The NSF program grant supports new investigators at non-R1 institutions as they initiate their engineering research programs and advance in their careers as researchers, educators, and innovators.
“Being awarded the NSF ERI is a tremendous honor and a significant opportunity to advance our research on microplastic pollution,” said Lin.
The project that secured the NSF award – a grant of $200,000 – focuses on developing a novel microfluidic-based system for monitoring microplastics in seawater. Traditional methods of sampling and separating microplastics are often time-consuming and ineffective, especially for the smallest particles. Lin’s approach leverages the unique capabilities of acoustofluidics to sort and concentrate microplastics by adjusting the frequency and layout of surface acoustic waves. Acoustofluidic technologies utilize acoustic waves to manipulate fluids and particles within fluids, in this case microplastics, all in a contact-free and biocompatible manner.
Additionally, he and his team are integrating machine learning with Raman spectroscopy to accurately identify these microplastics, even those that have degraded over time. The goal is to create a label-free, reliable method for monitoring microplastics as small as one millionth of a meter in seawater, which could have a profound impact on how to address plastic pollution in marine ecosystems and has the potential to set a new standard in microplastic monitoring.
“These tiny microplastics are the most prevalent in our oceans, yet they are incredibly difficult to isolate and identify using traditional methods,” said Lin. “This award not only validates our research approach but also provides the resources necessary to develop innovative solutions to this global environmental issue.”
The Young Faculty Award provides funding, mentorship, and access to Department of Defense and industry contacts to support early-career researchers in developing innovative ideas to address critical national security challenges. The long-term vision of the program is to cultivate a new generation of academic leaders in science, engineering, and mathematics who will make lasting contributions to the Defense Department and national security issues.
Lin is the first faculty member at URI to receive the prestigious award, marking a significant achievement for his career. Lin will receive approximately $800,000 under this award, spanning a two-year base period with the option of extending it to a third year.
“Receiving the Young Faculty Award is an incredible honor and a significant milestone in my career. This award not only recognizes the innovative potential of our research, but also provides crucial support to explore and develop groundbreaking technologies,” said Lin.
The proposal is centered on developing a next generation microphysiologic system called the Precision Lattice Acoustofluidic Tissue Ecosystem, or PLATE. Traditional 2D cell cultures and even many 3D models often fail to replicate the intricate architecture and dynamic processes of living tissues, particularly when it comes to nutrient distribution, waste removal, and controlled delivery of growth factors.
The PLATE system addresses these limitations by integrating advanced digital acoustofluidics, acoustic bubble technology, and nanoscale 3D printing using two-photon polymerization to develop organoids engineered to replicate the functionality and complexity of real tissues, allowing him to investigate dynamic physiological processes in a controlled environment. Lin will construct these organoids with precise spatial control, starting with breast cancer tumoroids and expanding to other organoid types such as intestinal and brain organoids.
The primary objectives of the PLATE system are to enhance vascularization, optimize nutrient exchange, and enable precise spatial control of biochemical cues, which could redefine the future of tissue engineering. Lin will attend the award ceremony at DARPA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, and present his work along with the other awardees.
“I’m excited about the future of this research and grateful for the opportunity to make contributions to advance in these fields of research,” said Lin.
The best laptops for engineering students easily handle complex CAD projects and datasets. If you're getting ready for the Back to School season, these are the most powerful and lightweight laptops we recommend for any engineering course.
Our expert team of reviewers have tested of the best student laptops - and for engineering, we like the Dell XPS 15. With some great specs inside a light, compact chassis, it's ideal for taking to class. For alternatives, check out the budget HP Victus 15 and the always impressive m2-powered Apple Mac Air.
In reviewing the best laptops for engineering students, we've compared specs, benchmarked performance. We also explored core features such as ports, connectivity, and a comfortable keyboard for essay-writing, to help you find the right laptop, whichever branch of engineering you study.Best laptop for AutoCAD deals: We tracked down the best AutoCAD laptop deals around right now
"Laptop perfection" is how we described Dell's excellent XPS 15. Maintaining its outstanding classic design from previous generations, the 2022 model is a solidly built device. It's made with a brushed CNC aluminum chassis and carbon fiber palm rests that, alongside the ever-comfortable Dell keyboard design, we found comfortable for prolonged use. If you're writing a lot of essays, you'll feel the benefit of this design very quickly. We were also impressed with the extended battery life, letting you work across campus without worrying about losing charge too fast.
However, limiting portability (without the use of a laptop docking station at least) is the lack of available ports. You'll find three USB Type-C ports, which won't be ideal if you're using USB-A peripherals.
It's a small complaint, perhaps, in an otherwise great laptop. Paired with a beautiful screen, a great keyboard, and plenty of storage space, you'll blaze through your latest project. Better still, this is a Windows laptop - and many engineering programs, particularly Autodesk's line-up, only run on Windows.
It might be marketed as a gaming laptop. Still, the HP Victus 15's simple design (free from the gaudy 'gamer aesthetic' of many powerful laptops) and RTX-equipped models make it a solid choice for any engineering student who will be running graphically-demanding programs.
It's also remarkably cheap for a laptop with a discrete GPU, likely to please any budding engineer on a budget. During testing, it performed below other gaming laptops in our standard benchmarks, but not by a huge margin. We also found that it takes air circulation seriously, boasting a dual-fan setup and a large air vent at the bottom. That's going to be a major benefit when working in those resource-intensive apps and large, complex projects that really test the mettle of any engineering laptop.
A bright 15.6-inch FHD display and generally robust build quality mean that while this isn't the most lightweight laptop in the business, it's tough enough to withstand the bumps and bruises of college life. If you're looking to save space in your dorm, this machine easily pulls double-duty as a laptop and a desktop replacement. The Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) isn't just one of the best laptops Apple has ever made. It's one of the best laptops for engineering students who value portability and power. However, it's worth checking course requirements here, as depending on your discipline, many engineering classes require a Windows laptop for software compatibility.
But if it's right for you, then you'll find this machine will absolutely breeze through just about any project, thanks to its incredibly powerful M2 processor. During our time with the MacBook Air, the laptop performed incredibly well, blazing through tasks like video editing and graphic design without a single drag on performance. So, it's more than capable of handle compatible engineering apps. Better still, for those working in libraries and other busy, communal areas, we found the fan was silent under normal operating conditions (although we would expect the volume to amp up when running heavier workloads).
The laptop is thin, light, stylish, durable with an incredible battery life that lasts over 11 hours on a single charge. In other words, perfect for carrying around campus. Its screen is gorgeous, and the new-and-improved keyboard means you can effortlessly produce coursework for hours.
The Asus ROG Strix SCAR G834JY boasts an incredible array of specs that promise to make this machine rocket to the top of wishlists for engineering students looking for a laptop powerful for work and play (because college isn't all about studying, right?).
While built with gamers in mind, the G834JY is built to effortlessly handle processor and GPU-intensive workloads on engineering courses. Specs are excellent - 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13980HX processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU. RAM tops at 64 GB of DDR5-4800 MHz memory and comes equipped with 2 TB of PCIe 4x4 configured in RAID 0. So, this machine should last you throughout your course - it's not going to age-out or need upgrading.
The screen is great, too - 18-inch QHD+ 16:10, with more screen real estate to keep total oversight over your work. Especially good for designers, the display boasts 100% DCI-P3 color gamut and Pantone Validation.
On the downside, it's not ultra-portable. It's broad and heavy and you won't want to lug this laptop around college ground a lot. Cooling isn't great here. Nor did we find battery life especially good. The Asus ROG Strix SCAR G834JY is ideal, however, for setting up in one or two locations each day. Connectivity and port selection aren't great either, the only highlight being a single Thunderbolt 4 port, so you'll need a docking station if you have a lot of peripherals.
With its top-end specs and those minor shortcomings on a very high-performance laptop, this one gives us desktop alternative vibes.
Mechanical engineering PhD student Emma Pawliczak '20 works in a lab at the Engineering and Science Building at Binghamton University's Innovative Technologies Complex. Image Credit: Jonathan Cohen.
As Binghamton University enters the fall semester, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science is looking back on a productive 2023-24 academic year.
This spring, two ME faculty members were elevated to SUNY distinguished professors: SB Park and Guangwen Zhou. The title is reserved for those who have achieved national or international prominence and exemplary reputations within their disciplines. Student news
Before earning diplomas, ME undergraduates need to complete senior capstone projects. This year, one team came up with the idea of a “pedal-powered theater” operating on audience participation that would entertain children and generate interest in STEM concepts.
Damian Rode ‘24 spent the summer before his senior year in Munich, Germany, interning at BMW’s Research and Development Center. He worked on numerous projects for one of the world’s largest car manufacturers. Research news
Using spider silk as a model, Distinguished Professor Ron Miles worked with then-doctoral student, now Assistant Professor Jian Zhou ‘18 on his thesis project. They patented the bio-inspired flow microphone, now commercialized by the Canadian venture firm TandemLaunch and its spinoff company Soundskrit.
Professor Changhong Ke received a $150,000 grant through the National Science Foundation’s Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) program to find a way to make metals stronger — not weaker — through oxidation. Ke will investigate the potential of building nanotubes into additively manufactured aluminum.
Assistant Professor Rob Wagner is investigating the adaptive response of living rafts made by fire ants to survive flooding. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Wagner and his co-authors investigated how fire ant rafts responded to mechanical load when stretched, and they compared the response of these rafts to dynamic, self-healing polymers.
Assistant Professor Cosan Daskiran and his collaborators received a $607,819 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop, test and establish proof of concept for their integrated tidal desalination system, which creates drinkable water through renewable energy using the rotational power of hydrokinetic turbines rather than electrical energy.
When developing new material laws, recognizing patterns and breaking them down into simple-to-use mathematical formulas can take years — often decades — of experimentation and derivation. Assistant Professor Pu Zhang wants to speed up the material law discovery process with artificial intelligence, and a $294,992 NSF grant will fund his research.
A study in the journal Nature, led by Professor Guangwen Zhou, used transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to peer into the oxide-to-metal transformation at the atomic level. Of particular interest are the mismatch dislocations that are ever-present at the interfaces in multiphase materials and play a key role in dictating structural and functional properties. Collaborators included faculty and staff from the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Brookhaven National Lab. Faculty news
Associate Professor Scott Schiffres and PhD student Zechen Zhang are helping ChromaNanoTech by analyzing additive manufacturing technology through the Strategic Partnership for Industrial Resurgence (SPIR). Since 1994, New York State has helped fund partnerships at four State University of New York (SUNY) engineering programs — Binghamton, Buffalo, Albany and Stony Brook — that seek solutions to thorny technological problems.
In addition to his elevation to SUNY distinguished professor, SB Park also was honored for his groundbreaking work in electronics packaging when the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) named him a fellow of the organization. The honor puts him among 0.1% of its 427,000-plus membership in more than 190 countries. Alumni news
The Binghamton University Alumni Association named Gabriel Osei ’21 a winner of the BOLD (Bearcats of the Last Decade) 10 Under 10 Award earlier this year. The award honors alumni who have graduated within the last 10 years, demonstrated a very high level of career achievement since leaving campus, and show great potential for future leadership.
Ghazal Mohsenian, MS ’20, PhD ’22, came to Binghamton University determined to further her education. After graduating from the doctoral program, she was inspired by her various internship positions and secured a permanent spot at Intel Corp. working on semiconductors.
Physicists have spent decades trying to reconcile two very different theories. But is a winner about to emerge – and transform our understanding of everything from time to gravity?
It is the biggest of problems, it is the smallest of problems. At present physicists have two separate rulebooks explaining how nature works. There is general relativity, which beautifully accounts for gravity and all of the things it dominates: orbiting planets, colliding galaxies, the dynamics of the expanding universe as a whole. That’s big. Then there is quantum mechanics, which handles the other three forces – electromagnetism and the two nuclear forces. Quantum theory is extremely adept at describing what happens when a uranium atom decays, or when individual particles of light hit a solar cell. That’s small. Now for the problem: relativity and quantum mechanics are fundamentally different theories that have different formulations. It is not just a matter of scientific terminology; it is a clash of genuinely incompatible descriptions of reality.
The conflict between the two halves of physics has been brewing for more than a century – sparked by a pair of 1905 papers by Einstein, one outlining relativity and the other introducing the quantum – but recently it has entered an intriguing, unpredictable new phase. Two notable physicists have staked out extreme positions in their camps, conducting experiments that could finally settle which approach is paramount.
Basically you can think of the division between the relativity and quantum systems as “smooth” versus “chunky”. In general relativity, events are continuous and deterministic, meaning that every cause matches up to a specific, local effect. In quantum mechanics, events produced by the interaction of subatomic particles happen in jumps (yes, quantum leaps), with probabilistic rather than definite outcomes. Quantum rules allow connections forbidden by classical physics. This was demonstrated in a much-discussed recent experiment in which Dutch researchers defied the local effect. They showed that two particles – in this case, electrons – could influence each other instantly, even though they were a mile apart. When you try to interpret smooth relativistic laws in a chunky quantum style, or vice versa, things go dreadfully wrong.
Relativity gives nonsensical answers when you try to scale it down to quantum size, eventually descending to infinite values in its description of gravity. Likewise, quantum mechanics runs into serious trouble when you blow it up to cosmic dimensions. Quantum fields carry a certain amount of energy, even in seemingly empty space, and the amount of energy gets bigger as the fields get bigger. According to Einstein, energy and mass are equivalent (that’s the message of E=mc2), so piling up energy is exactly like piling up mass. Go big enough, and the amount of energy in the quantum fields becomes so great that it creates a black hole that causes the universe to fold in on itself. Oops.
Craig Hogan, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and the director of the Center for Particle Astrophysics at Fermilab, is reinterpreting the quantum side with a novel theory in which the quantum units of space itself might be large enough to be studied directly. Meanwhile, Lee Smolin, a founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, is seeking to push physics forward by returning to Einstein’s philosophical roots and extending them in an exciting direction.
To understand what is at stake, look back at the precedents. When Einstein unveiled general relativity, he not only superseded Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity; he also unleashed a new way of looking at physics that led to the modern conception of the Big Bang and black holes, not to mention atomic bombs and the time adjustments essential to your phone’s GPS. Likewise, quantum mechanics did much more than reformulate James Clerk Maxwell’s textbook equations of electricity, magnetism and light. It
provided the conceptual tools for the Large Hadron Collider, solar cells, all of modern microelectronics.
What emerges from the dust-up could be nothing less than a third revolution in modern physics, with staggering implications. It could tell us where the laws of nature came from, and whether the cosmos is built on uncertainty or whether it is fundamentally deterministic, with every event linked definitively to a cause. Small is beautiful
Hogan, champion of the quantum view, is what you might call a lamp-post physicist: rather than groping about in the dark, he prefers to focus his efforts where the light is bright, because that’s where you are most likely to be able to see something interesting. That’s the guiding principle behind his current research. The clash between relativity and quantum mechanics happens when you try to analyse what gravity is doing over extremely short distances, he notes, so he has decided to get a really good look at what is happening right there. “I’m betting there’s an experiment we can do that might be able to see something about what’s going on, about that interface that we still don’t understand,” he says.
A basic assumption in Einstein’s physics – an assumption going all the way back to Aristotle, really – is that space is continuous and infinitely divisible, so that any distance could be chopped up into even smaller distances. But Hogan questions whether that is really true. Just as a pixel is the smallest unit of an image on your screen and a photon is the smallest unit of light, he argues, so there might be an unbreakable smallest unit of distance: a quantum of space.
In Hogan’s scenario, it would be meaningless to ask how gravity behaves at distances smaller than a single chunk of space. There would be no way for gravity to function at the smallest scales because no such scale would exist. Or put another way, general relativity would be forced to make peace with quantum physics, because the space in which physicists measure the effects of relativity would itself be divided into unbreakable quantum units. The theatre of reality in which gravity acts would take place on a quantum stage.
Hogan acknowledges that his concept sounds a bit odd, even to a lot of his colleagues on the quantum side of things. Since the late 1960s, a group of physicists and mathematicians have been developing a framework called string theory to help reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics; over the years, it has evolved into the default mainstream theory, even as it has failed to deliver on much of its early promise. Like the chunky-space solution, string theory assumes a fundamental structure to space, but from there the two diverge. String theory posits that every object in the universe consists of vibrating strings of energy. Like chunky space, string theory averts gravitational catastrophe by introducing a finite, smallest scale to the universe, although the unit strings are drastically smaller even than the spatial structures Hogan is trying to find.
Chunky space does not neatly align with the ideas in string theory – or in any other proposed physics model, for that matter. “It’s a new idea. It’s not in the textbooks; it’s not a prediction of any standard theory,” Hogan says, sounding not the least bit concerned. “But there isn’t any standard theory, right?”
If he is right about the chunkiness of space, that would knock out a lot of the current formulations of string theory and inspire a fresh approach to reformulating general relativity in quantum terms. It would suggest new ways to understand the inherent nature of space and time. And weirdest of all, perhaps, it would bolster the notion that our seemingly three-dimensional reality is composed of more basic, two-dimensional units. Hogan takes the “pixel” metaphor seriously: just as a TV picture can create the impression of depth from a bunch of flat pixels, he suggests, so space itself might emerge from a collection of elements that act as if they inhabit only two dimensions.
Like many ideas from the far edge of today’s theoretical physics, Hogan’s speculations can sound suspiciously like late-night philosophising in the freshman dorm. What makes them drastically different is that he plans to put them to a hard experimental test. As in, right now.
Starting in 2007, Hogan began thinking about how to build a device that could measure the exceedingly fine graininess of space. As it turns out, his colleagues had plenty of ideas about how to do that, drawing on technology developed to search for gravitational waves. Within two years Hogan had put together a proposal and was working with collaborators at Fermilab, the University of Chicago and other institutions to build a chunk-detecting machine, which he more elegantly calls a “holometer”. (The name is an esoteric pun, referencing both a 17th-century surveying instrument and the theory that 2D space could appear three-dimensional, analogous to a hologram.)
Beneath its layers of conceptual complexity, the holometer is technologically little more than a laser beam, a half-reflective mirror to split the laser into two perpendicular beams, and two other mirrors to bounce those beams back along a pair of 40m-long tunnels. The beams are calibrated to register the precise locations of the mirrors. If space is chunky, the locations of the mirrors would constantly wander about (strictly speaking, space itself is doing the wandering), creating a constant, random variation in their separation. When the two beams are recombined, they’d be slightly out of sync, and the amount of the discrepancy would reveal the scale of the chunks of space.
For the scale of chunkiness that Hogan hopes to find, he needs to measure distances to an accuracy of 10-18m, about 100m times smaller than a hydrogen atom, and collect data at a rate of about 100m readings per second. Amazingly, such an experiment is not only possible, but practical. “We were able to do it pretty cheaply because of advances in photonics, a lot of off-the-shelf parts, fast electronics and things like that,” Hogan says. “It’s a pretty speculative experiment, so you wouldn’t have done it unless it was cheap.” The holometer is currently humming away, collecting data at the target accuracy; he expects to have preliminary readings by the end of the year.
Hogan has his share of fierce sceptics, including many within the theoretical physics community. The reason for the disagreement is easy to appreciate: a success for the holometer would mean failure for a lot of the work being done in string theory. Despite this superficial sparring, though, Hogan and most of his theorist colleagues share a deep core conviction: they broadly agree that general relativity will ultimately prove subordinate to quantum mechanics. The other three laws of physics follow quantum rules, so it makes sense that gravity must as well.
For most of today’s theorists, however, belief in the primacy of quantum mechanics runs deeper still. At a philosophical – epistemological – level, they regard the large-scale reality of classical physics as a kind of illusion, an approximation that emerges from the more “true” aspects of the quantum world operating at an extremely small scale. Chunky space certainly aligns with that worldview.
Hogan likens his project to the landmark Michelson-Morley experiment of the 19th century, which searched for the aether – the hypothetical substance of space that, according to the leading theory of the time, transmitted light waves through a vacuum. The experiment found nothing; that perplexing null result helped inspire Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which in turn spawned the general theory of relativity and eventually turned the entire world of physics upside down. Adding to the historical connection, the Michelson-Morley experiment also measured the structure of space using mirrors and a split beam of light, following a setup remarkably similar to Hogan’s.
“We’re doing the holometer in that kind of spirit. If we don’t see something or we do see something, either way it’s interesting. The reason to do the experiment is just to see whether we can find something to guide the theory,” Hogan says. “You find out what your theorist colleagues are made of by how they react to this idea. There’s a world of very mathematical thinking out there. I’m hoping for an experimental result that forces people to focus the theoretical thinking in a different direction.”
Whether or not he finds his quantum structure of space, Hogan is confident the holometer will help physics address its big-small problem. It will show the right way (or rule out the wrong way) to understand the underlying quantum structure of space and how that affects the relativistic laws of gravity flowing through it. A bigger vision
If you are looking for a totally different direction, Smolin of the Perimeter Institute is your man. Where Hogan goes gently against the grain, Smolin is a full-on dissenter: “There’s a thing that Richard Feynman told me when I was a graduate student. He said, approximately, ‘If all your colleagues have tried to demonstrate that something’s true and failed, it might be because that thing is not true.’ Well, string theory has been going for 40 or 50 years without definitive progress.”
And that is just the start of a broader critique. Smolin thinks the small-scale approach to physics is inherently incomplete. Current versions of quantum field theory do a fine job explaining how individual particles or small systems of particles behave, but they fail to take into account what is needed to have a sensible theory of the cosmos as a whole. They don’t explain why reality is like this, and not like something else. In Smolin’s terms, quantum mechanics is merely “a theory of subsystems of the universe”.
A more fruitful path forward, he suggests, is to consider the universe as a single enormous system, and to build a new kind of theory that can apply to the whole thing. And we already have a theory that provides a framework for that approach: general relativity. Unlike the quantum framework, general relativity allows no place for an outside observer or external clock, because there is no “outside”. Instead, all of reality is described in terms of relationships between objects and between different regions of space. Even something as basic as inertia (the resistance of your car to move until forced to by the engine, and its tendency to keep moving after you take your foot off the accelerator) can be thought of as connected to the gravitational field of every other particle in the universe.
That last statement is strange enough that it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider it more closely. Consider a thought problem, closely related to the one that originally led Einstein to this idea in 1907. What if the universe were entirely empty except for two astronauts? One of them is spinning, the other is stationary. The spinning one feels dizzy, doing cartwheels in space. But which one of the two is spinning? From either astronaut’s perspective, the other is the one spinning. Without any external reference, Einstein argued, there is no way to say which one is correct, and no reason why one should feel an effect different from what the other experiences.
The distinction between the two astronauts makes sense only when you reintroduce the rest of the universe. In the classic interpretation of general relativity, then, inertia exists only because you can measure it against the entire cosmic gravitational field. What holds true in that thought problem holds true for every object in the real world: the behaviour of each part is inextricably related to that of every other part. If you’ve ever felt as if you wanted to be a part of something big, well, this is the right kind of physics for you. It is also, Smolin thinks, a promising way to obtain bigger answers about how nature really works, across all scales.
“General relativity is not a description of subsystems. It is a description of the whole universe as a closed system,” he says. When physicists are trying to resolve the clash between relativity and quantum mechanics, therefore, it seems like a smart strategy for them to follow Einstein’s lead and go as big as they possibly can.
Smolin is keenly aware that he is pushing against the prevailing devotion to small-scale, quantum-style thinking. “I don’t mean to stir things up; it just kind of happens that way. My role is to think clearly about these difficult issues, put my conclusions out there, and let the dust settle,” he says genially. “I hope people will engage with the arguments, but I really hope that the arguments lead to testable predictions.”
At first blush, Smolin’s ideas sound like a formidable starting point for concrete experimentation. Much as all of the parts of the universe are linked across space, they may also be linked across time, he suggests. His arguments led him to hypothesise that the laws of physics evolve over the history of the universe. Over the years, he has developed two detailed proposals for how this might happen. His theory of cosmological natural selection, which he hammered out in the 1990s, envisions black holes as cosmic eggs that hatch new universes. More recently, he has developed a provocative hypothesis about the emergence of the laws of quantum mechanics, called the principle of precedence – and this one seems much more readily put to the test.
Smolin’s principle of precedence arises as an answer to the question of why physical phenomena are reproducible. If you perform an experiment that has been performed before, you expect the outcome will be the same as in the past. (Strike a match and it bursts into flame; strike another match the same way and… you get the idea.) Reproducibility is such a familiar part of life that we typically don’t even think about it. We simply attribute consistent outcomes to the action of a natural “law” that acts the same way at all times. Smolin hypothesises that those laws actually may emerge over time, as quantum systems copy the behaviour of similar systems in the past.
One possible way to catch emergence in the act is by running an experiment that has never been done before, so there is no past version (that is, no precedent) for it to copy. Such an experiment might involve the creation of a highly complex quantum system, containing many components that exist in a novel entangled state. If the principle of precedence is correct, the initial response of the system will be essentially random. As the experiment is repeated, however, precedence builds up and the response should become predictable… in theory. “A system by which the universe is building up precedent would be hard to distinguish from the noises of experimental practice,” Smolin concedes, “but it’s not impossible.”
Although precedence can play out at the atomic scale, its influence would be system-wide, cosmic. It ties back to Smolin’s idea that small-scale, reductionist thinking seems like the wrong way to solve the big puzzles. Getting the two classes of physics theories to work together, though important, is not enough, either. What he wants to know – what we all want to know – is why the universe is the way it is. Why does time move forward and not backward? How did we end up here, with these laws and this universe, not some others?
The present lack of any meaningful answer to those questions reveals “something deeply wrong with our understanding of quantum field theory”, Smolin says. Like Hogan, he is less concerned about the outcome of any one experiment than he is with the larger programme of seeking fundamental truths. For Smolin, that means being able to tell a complete, coherent story about the universe; it means being able to predict experiments, but also to explain the unique properties that made atoms, planets, rainbows and people. Here again he draws inspiration from Einstein.
“The lesson of general relativity, again and again, is the triumph of relationalism,” Smolin says. The most likely way to get the big answers is to engage with the universe as a whole. And the winner is?
If you wanted to pick a referee in the big-small debate, you could hardly do better than Sean Carroll, an expert in cosmology, field theory and gravitational physics at Caltech. He knows his way around relativity, he knows his way around quantum mechanics, and he has a healthy sense of the absurd: he calls his personal blog Preposterous Universe. Right off the bat, Carroll awards most of the points to the quantum side. “Most of us in this game believe that quantum mechanics is much more fundamental than general relativity is,” he says. That has been the prevailing view ever since the 1920s, when Einstein tried and repeatedly failed to find flaws in the counterintuitive predictions of quantum theory. The recent Dutch experiment demonstrating an instantaneous quantum connection between two widely separated particles – the kind of event that Einstein derided as “spooky action at a distance” – only underscores the strength of the evidence.
Physicists have spent decades trying to reconcile two very different theories. But is a winner about to emerge – and transform our understanding of everything from time to gravity?Physicists have spent decades trying to reconcile two very different theories. But is a winner about to emerge – and transform our understanding of everything from time to gravity?This article is more than 8 years Physicists have spent decades trying to reconcile two very different theories. But is a winner about to emerge – and transform our understanding of everything from time to gravity?
This breakthrough method optimizes complex computations like never before
While building a simpler model for particle interactions, scientists made a sleek new pi. Representations of pi help scientists use values close to real life without storing a million digits. The making of the new pi involved using a series, which is a structured set of terms that either converge to one expression or diverge.
In new research, physicists uses principles from quantum mechanics to build a new model of the abstract concept of pi. Or, more accurately, they built a new model that happens to include a great new representation of pi. But what does that mean, and why do we need different representations of pi?
Because quantum mechanics looks at the tiniest particles, one at a time, even simple questions can have complex answers that require massive computing power. Rendering high-tech video games and movies like Avatar can take days or more, and that’s still not at the level of reality. In this new paper, published in the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Letters, physicists Arnab Priya Saha and Aninda Sinha describe their new version of a quantum model that reduces complexity but maintains accuracy. This is called optimization. Think of the way early internet video buffered in chunks of similar colors, or how classic animators painted static bodies with individual moving parts on top. Heck, think of how people cut the corners of squared-off walking paths until they make a dirt-path shortcut. We’re surrounded by optimization and optimizing behaviors.
As detailed in their paper, Saha and Sinha combined two existing ideas from math and science: the Feynman diagram of particle scattering and the Euler beta function for scattering in string theory. What results is a series—something represented in math by the Greek letter Σ surrounded by parameters.
Series can end up generalizing into overall equations or expressions, but they don’t have to. And while some series diverge—meaning that the terms continue to alternate away from each other—others converge on one approximate, concrete result. That’s where pi comes in. The digits of pi extend into infinity, and pi is itself an irrational number, meaning it can’t be truly represented by an integer fraction (the one we often learn in school, 22/7, is not very accurate by 2024 standards).
But it can be represented pretty quickly and well by a series. That’s because a series can continue to build out values well into the tiniest digits. If a mathematician compiles a series’ terms, they can use the resulting abstraction to do math that isn’t possible with an approximation of pi that’s cut off at 10 digits by a standard desk calculator. A sophisticated approximation enables the kind of nanoscopic particle work that inspired these scientists in the first place.
“In the early 1970s,” Sinha said in a statement from the Indian Institute of Science, “scientists briefly examined this line of research, but quickly abandoned it since it was too complicated.”
But math analysis like this has come a long way since the 1970s. Today, Sinha and Saha are able to analyze an existing model and remodel it with altered terms. They’re able to build a sequence and see that it converges on the value of pi within far fewer terms than expected, making it easier for scientists to run the series and then use that for further work.
All of that requires decades of foundational work in the field and large bodies of work showing that certain mathematical moves work where other ones don’t. It’s a comment on the ongoing and collaborative nature of math theory, even when what results is a working model that might help scientists. Our ability to meaningfully approximate has grown in tandem with our ability to solve complex problems outright.
“Doing this kind of work, although it may not see an immediate application in daily life, gives the pure pleasure of doing theory for the sake of doing it,” Sinha said in the statement.
While life has presented challenges, it hasn’t stopped Abby McCormick, mechanical engineering major, from following her heart.
Coming from an Iowa-based family of Cyclones, going to Iowa State University was never a question. The other thing she knew? “I’ve always wanted to help people.”
McCormick wanted to either become a veterinarian to help animals or pursue something in a biomedical related field to help people like her older brother who has epilepsy.
Her interest became personal, however, when McCormick suffered a traumatic brain energy as a teenager after a horse accident which left her paralyzed for two days and with an uncertain future.
Fortunately for McCormick, in her recovery, she regained movement, but she continues to navigate and adapt to daily challenges from her injury (including epilepsy).
Deciding on a major happened soon after her arrival at Iowa State four years ago. “I liked that I could pursue my interest in the biomedical field but have the flexibility to go into many different career options with a mechanical engineering degree,” she says.
McCormick, who also has a minor in leadership studies, joined ISU’s Engineering Ambassadors Network (EAN) chapter in Spring 2022 where she serves as co-student director alongside Benjamin Schultz, mechanical engineering major, and Emily White, aerospace engineering major.
“The goal of EAN is to change the conversation around engineering,” she says.
EAN members receive professional development in both leadership and Assertion-Evidence presentation. Since being trained, McCormick has given her presentation titled Boats and Buoyancy to various local middle school age groups.
“We are trying to reach audiences who have had limited exposure to STEM experiences,” she says.
In addition, the ISU EAN chapter recently finished up introducing the engineering design process to members of an after-school program for middle schoolers, Youth and Shelter Services (YSS) Teen Club in the Colo-Nesco School District by building a gaga ball pit for their school playground.
“Because of my own challenges from my traumatic brain injury, I was very interested in making the gaga ball pit ADA accessible,” says McCormick. The group came up with a way to add a gate to the gaga ball pit for easier accessibility.
For McCormick, her future started taking shape her sophomore year after speaking with Abbott Laboratories at the College of Engineering Career Fair and landing her first internship with them. She had two different internships with Abbott Laboratories in Plymouth, MN during the summers of 2022 and 2023.
This semester, McCormick has been working in mechanical engineering associate professor Jon Claussen’s lab alongside him and his graduate student, Zach Johnson, as they work on finding different ways to manufacture sensors used to test saliva for biomarkers.
McCormick plans to work for Abbot Laboratories post-graduation as a research and development (R&D) engineer in electrophysiology with medical devices, specifically for the heart.
What does McCormick attribute her success to? “I’m stubborn,” she says. Others might call it fortitude. Whatever the case, it’s fair to say with a future in heart work, she’s made her biomedical dream of helping others come true.
