Science doesn't care what you believe
Subhash Kak, Oklahoma State University Google announced this fall to much fanfare that it had demonstrated “quantum supremacy” – that is, it performed a specific quantum computation far faster than the best classical computers could achieve. IBM promptly critiqued the claim, saying that its own classical supercomputer could perform the computation at nearly the same …
Continue reading “A quantum computing future is unlikely, due to random hardware errors”
Neil Dagnall, Manchester Metropolitan University and Ken Drinkwater, Manchester Metropolitan University Have you heard the one about the guy who went on holiday to Bolivia? You know, he went on a night out and randomly woke up in an ice-filled bathtub after someone had removed his kidney and harvested it for sale. You probably have …
Continue reading “Why urban legends are more powerful than ever”
Scott Shackelford, Indiana University Fifty years ago, a UCLA computer science professor and his student sent the first message over the predecessor to the internet, a network called ARPANET.
Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol Ask a three-year-old why they think it’s raining, and she may say “because the flowers are thirsty”. Her brother might also tell you that trees have leaves to provide shade for people and animals. These are instances of teleological thinking, the idea that things came into being and exist for …
Continue reading “There’s a psychological link between conspiracy theories and creationism”
