THEME MUSIC
"Facade", Sir William Walton, 1921
AVATAR EINSTEIN
WELL, AS IT TURNS OUT, EINSTEIN MATTERS, and a virtual Albert Einstein is possible via Artificial Intelligence. Some of his admirers – and there are many in the science community since he is not only favorite hero – created a computer algorithm (a set of instructions) based upon what Einstein has written in his nineteen books and what he has said in the hundreds of interviews he’s given.
THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ALGORITHM not only quotes him verbatim on any topics he’s written or spoken about but also creates plausible answers to any reasonable future questions he’s asked, as extrapolations of what he’s previously said or wrote. In other words, it takes what he said or wrote as a template or pattern or guide to what he might have said had he been alive to answer the future question. [If you see enough white swans, and are asked what would another unseen swan look like, chances are based on your history of viewing swans, you’d be likely to guess that the next swan coming along would be a white swan. Never mind that once in a blue moon, a black swan could come along and throw you off.] We’re in white swan territory.
THE ALGORITHM EVEN CREATES a computer image icon, an “avatar” or symbol that looks a bit like the real Albert Einstein. Here he is. Let’s call him Avatar Einstein!
AVATAR EINSTEIN IS A GREAT CREATION, an imaginative gift to us because of Artificial Intelligence. It allows us to believe that he can interact with us as if he was still with us. Avatar Einstein can answer perplexing new questions based on answers patterned after what he thought while alive. The algorithm hasn’t created a live Albert but resurrected him as a good substitute of what he might be if he were still with us. A predictive version.
Dear Dr. Einstein:
What good are numbers? What good is physics? What practical use are your theories? Relativity? Photo-electric effect? Brownian motion?
Avatar Einstein answers.
Dear ‘what good is’. Could you have tea for two without the two? Or three blind mice without the three? Or four corners of the Earth without the four? Numbers are beautiful, and this is a good enough reason to have them. But they are also useful in life, in science, in art. I guess you already know this, but can you think of your life without your phone numbers, your address, your age?
What good is physics? I don’t know where to begin. The movement of the planets and stars is explainable with Newton’s Laws of Motion. The nuclear reactions in our Sun and the distant stars explain how they generate energy. Your beating heart is a living embodiment of the physics of fluid dynamics. All need physics principles to explain. Billiards! Tennis! Golf! Football! Baseball! Physics is everywhere. Just look around you. “Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn a living at it!”
AVATAR EINSTEIN
WELL, AS IT TURNS OUT, EINSTEIN MATTERS, and a virtual Albert Einstein is possible via Artificial Intelligence. Some of his admirers – and there are many in the science community since he is not only favorite hero – created a computer algorithm (a set of instructions) based upon what Einstein has written in his nineteen books and what he has said in the hundreds of interviews he’s given.
THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ALGORITHM not only quotes him verbatim on any topics he’s written or spoken about but also creates plausible answers to any reasonable future questions he’s asked, as extrapolations of what he’s previously said or wrote. In other words, it takes what he said or wrote as a template or pattern or guide to what he might have said had he been alive to answer the future question. [If you see enough white swans, and are asked what would another unseen swan look like, chances are based on your history of viewing swans, you’d be likely to guess that the next swan coming along would be a white swan. Never mind that once in a blue moon, a black swan could come along and throw you off.] We’re in white swan territory.
THE ALGORITHM EVEN CREATES a computer image icon, an “avatar” or symbol that looks a bit like the real Albert Einstein. Here he is. Let’s call him Avatar Einstein!
AVATAR EINSTEIN IS A GREAT CREATION, an imaginative gift to us because of Artificial Intelligence. It allows us to believe that he can interact with us as if he was still with us. Avatar Einstein can answer perplexing new questions based on answers patterned after what he thought while alive. The algorithm hasn’t created a live Albert but resurrected him as a good substitute of what he might be if he were still with us. A predictive version.
Dear Dr. Einstein:
What good are numbers? What good is physics? What practical use are your theories? Relativity? Photo-electric effect? Brownian motion?
Avatar Einstein answers.
Dear ‘what good is’. Could you have tea for two without the two? Or three blind mice without the three? Or four corners of the Earth without the four? Numbers are beautiful, and this is a good enough reason to have them. But they are also useful in life, in science, in art. I guess you already know this, but can you think of your life without your phone numbers, your address, your age?
What good is physics? I don’t know where to begin. The movement of the planets and stars is explainable with Newton’s Laws of Motion. The nuclear reactions in our Sun and the distant stars explain how they generate energy. Your beating heart is a living embodiment of the physics of fluid dynamics. All need physics principles to explain. Billiards! Tennis! Golf! Football! Baseball! Physics is everywhere. Just look around you. “Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn a living at it!”