News

NYT on the Theory of Everything


Image: Alex Eben Meyer

Can a Computer Devise a Theory of Everything?
New York Times, Dennis Overbye. November 23, 2020.

  • On EFNs: At one point during a Zoom conversation, Dr. Thaler displayed what he called “a goofy cartoon” of the neural net that had been used for the quark-gluon project. It looked like a pile of multicolored rubber bands, but it represented several layers of processing, involving some 30,000 nodes, or “neurons,” where information was gathered and passed on.

  • On the EMD: Another feature of this new field, Dr. Thaler said, was that it provided a common language for researchers from vastly different fields of endeavor. It turned out that the mathematics involved in solving the collider problem were also applicable to optimizing shipping schedules for an outfit like Amazon.

IAIFI Announcement


Image: IAIFI

The NSF has announced the creation of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI) with an investment of $20 million over five years. IAIFI is a partnership between MIT, Harvard, Northeastern, and Tufts, and will be based at MIT and directed by Jesse Thaler.

New NSF AI Research Institutes to push forward the frontiers of artificial intelligence
NSF Blog, Emily K. Gibson. August 26, 2020.

National Science Foundation announces MIT-led Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions
MIT News. August 26, 2020.

National Science Foundation awards $20M to launch artificial-intelligence institute
Harvard Gazette, Juan Siliezar. August 26, 2020.

Why You Need a Computer to Understand Strings and Knots
News@Northeastern, Emily Arntsen. August 26, 2020.

EMD Media Coverage


Image: Chelsea Turner, MIT

Seeking new physics, scientists borrow from social networks
MIT News, Jennifer Chu. July 25, 2019.

Viewpoint: Putting Distance Between Collider Events
Physics, Michael Schmitt. July 26, 2019.

MIT Physicists: Social networks could hold the key to finding new particles
Ars Technica, Jennifer Ouellette. July 31, 2019.

A new metric to capture the similarity between collider events
Phys.org Feature, Ingrid Fadelli. August 9, 2019.

'Social Networks' could tease new particles out of collider data
Physics World, Sam Jarman. August 19, 2019.