The article discusses how machine learning is being used to calculate the macroscopic world that would emerge from string theory, a theory that posits the existence of tiny, invisible extra dimensions. These calculations have been difficult due to the enormous number of possibilities, but recent advances in artificial intelligence have made it possible to approximate the shapes of the Calabi-Yau manifolds, the objects that resemble loofahs and host quantum fields in string theory. The calculations have been able to reproduce the number of particles in the standard model, but not their specific masses or interactions. The long-term goal is to use these calculations to predict new physical phenomena beyond the standard model. The article also mentions that some physicists are skeptical of the usefulness of string theory and the role that machine learning will play in it.
Pretrained Transformers as Universal Computation Engines
Thus far, Ithaca has discovered that the Athenian Decrees were written around 421 B.C.E. — these are the foundational documents of the world’s first democracy. Past conventional thinking had put their date closer to 446 B.C.E. Even the shift of just 15 years helps scholars re-contextualize these documents — now we know they were written at the same time as Athens prepared to go to war with Sparta, another Ancient Greek state that was governed as a military autocracy.
