IdeaFestival

Even Chriss Angel can't make a bridge appear in two places at once

Uncertainty at the quantum level means that you can never know precisely exactly the position and momentum of the most elementary constituents of matter. It's either one or the other. But showing that this and other quantum effects are present at human dimensions would revolutionize our understanding of physical reality. It would mean that quantum bizarreness is present at all scales, and might lead, for example, to an understanding of where the quantifiable, cause-and-effect, Newtonian here-and-now emerges from vanishingly small dimensions.

Guess what? New experiments get us closer.

What should we make of a bridge in two places at once?

Wayne

physics

Could mystery moon have a subsurface ocean?

Data captured by the robotic explorer Cassini and published in the latest issue of Nature could suggest the presence of a liquid water ocean inside the Saturn moon Enceladus. If so, a habitable zone for microbial life can't be ruled out.

Wayne

Image credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

How ants Decide

Existing simultaneously as a collective and as individuals, how ants function in an ant colony might be used to explain decision making principles. SEED:

With a grant from the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, computer scientist James Marshall and biologist Nigel Franks are taking advantage of the systemic similarities and physical incongruences of these two systems to illuminate general principles of group decision making, a process that pervades biology and society—from ants and neurons to people and governments.

Wayne

Bert Hölldobler

The plants sing to us

Though the idea that the continual scrub between organisms and their environment changes both is not new, this video certainly takes the notion a bit further. Sure meditation has been shown to change those areas of our brain responsible for compassion, or that prayer can alter gene expression. But can belief change how we physically experience the world?

I'd be very interested in hearing where this kind of directed knowing meets biological cooperation and (super)organization, subjects on which 2009 IdeaFestival presenter Bert Hölldobler will, I'm sure, have much to say.

Wayne

Bert Hölldobler

Day and individual event passes on sale beginning today!

Just a reminder that today is the first day that day and individual event passes - as well as full price all-access passes - will be available.

Wayne

Testing Relativity in the Lab

In a demonstration that one never knows what a single breakthrough will lead to, innovations in light-bending metamaterials could open the way to the testing of relativistic principles in the laboratory instead of waiting, say, a hundred years for the right celestial conditions. Check this out:

...[Xiang Zhang, a faculty scientist with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and professor at the University of California Berkeley] and his research group have demonstrated that a new class of metamaterials called 'continuous-index photon traps' or CIPTs can serve as broadband and radiation-free 'perfect' optical cavities. As such, CIPTs can control, slow and trap light in a manner similar to such celestial phenomena as black holes, strange attractors and gravitational lenses. This equivalence between the motion of the stars in curved spacetime and propagation of the light in optical metamaterials engineered in a laboratory is referred to as the 'optical-mechanical analogy.'

Richard Kogan: Mozart's Genius

Scheduled to play and discuss Tchaikovsky at the upcoming IdeaFestival in Louisville, Kentucky, distinguished concert pianist and psychiatrist Richard Kogan describes Mozart's genius in this IdeaFestival Conversation filmed in September, 2008.

Discounted All-Access Passes for the IdeaFestival are available through Sunday, after which full price all-access, day and individual event passes will be available. 

Wayne

Anthony Bourdain knows Thwip

In a continuing public service effort at IFblog, the word for today is onomatopoeia, or words that imitate the sounds they are describing. One example might mewing for the sounds a cat makes, or the murmuring of a brook in a cool glade.

So with that thought in mind, and having had some personal experience with the subject, I'm guessing that Kitchen Confidential author, No Reservations star and 2009 IdeaFestival participant, Anthony Bourdain, would say that the word for the first crunch of some Thai street food such as fried beetles would be thwip!, which, translated, can also mean pow!, indigestion for the unwary.

Wayne

The SoundLife

Akin to the 3-D illusions that Julian Beever will create during the IdeaFestival, this natural London soundscape has been augmented "with authored sound" in a media experiment that tells a tale. What tale is up to you.

SoundLife London Trailer from Illustrious Company on Vimeo.

Wayne

Time running out to get discounted IdeaFestival All-Access Pass

If you've been thinking about buying that discounted all-access pass to the IdeaFestival in September, you'll need to come to a decision soon. The last day to buy one will be Sun., July 26. Beginning next Monday at 10a ET, full price all-access, day and event passes will be available for purchase.

Wayne