Physics Buzz

Finding the next miracle material can be a tedious process. Thomas Edison and his fellow researchers famously tested thousands of materials before finding the right one for making lightbulb filaments . The search for superconductors, and in particular materials that can sustain superconductivity up to room temperature, is perhaps a modern-day equivalent.

 A woman is the sole passenger in an autonomous self-driving vehicle traveling at the speed limit down a main road. Suddenly, 10 pedestrians appear ahead, in the direct path of the car. The car could be programmed to: SWERVE off to the side of road, where it will impact a barrier, killing the passenger but leaving the ten pedestrians unharmed, or STAY on its current path, where it will kill the 10 pedestrians, but the passenger will be unharmed.   What is the moral course of action?

From the cover of Robot Visions by Isaac Asimo v Your Android phone (or iPhone, if that's how you roll) is an impressive machine, with computing speeds and storage capacities thousands of times those of desktop PCs from only years ago. If Moore's Law holds up, your smart watch may outshine today's phones the way today's phones eclipse old PCs. But no matter how powerful these machines become, they may never develop true intelligence if we continue to rely on conventional computing technology. According to the authors of a paper published in the journal Physical Review X last July, however, adding a dash of quantum mechanics could do the trick.

iPhone apps seem like they can do anything these days. Need to answer an email? No problem! Want to see when the next bus is? Piece of cake! Want to toss virtual cows for fun? I don't know why you'd want to, but sure thing, coming right up! Want to remote pilot a Micro Aerial Vehicle? Yes, there IS an app for that! PhysicsBuzz visited the lab of Dr. Missy Cummings, Director of the Humans and Automation Lab at MIT and former Navy fighter pilot who has been researching how to make complex automated systems people friendly (Extra points if you noticed the acronym for the lab is HAL). Machines are capable of great things, but really are only as good as their operators. That's where Dr. Cummings and her iPhones come in. Her research focuses on looking at ways humans control machines and how to design control systems that people can intuitively "get." Because people interact with machines on a daily basis in countless ways, this research encompasses a lot of gro

. . . but they seem to have conquered Detroit. Well, not all of Detroit - just the symphony. Watch Asimo , the robot built by Honda, command his (or is it her?) glassy-eyed minions to perform "The Impossible Dream" in a Detroit Symphony Orchestra concert last night . Pretty soon I'm sure we'll all be taking orders from Asimo's kind. Is it just me, or is it an odd choice that a Japanese company primarily known for building cars would have a robot direct a symphony in Motor City ? After all, lots of displaced auto workers point to Japanese competition and robots on the assembly line as reasons for their financial troubles. Personally, I think those grumbling auto workers are wrong - economically speaking, we all benefit from labor-saving technology and global competition. Still, Asimo in Detroit seems like a risky decision.