The lost worlds of 2001

Arthur C. Clarke

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is one of the most representative science-fiction films in the world of cinema. Its script, which took several years to develop, was elaborated jointly by Arthur C. Clarke, a renowned science-fiction writer during the golden age of this genre, and Stanley Kubrick, a famous film director. While he was working on the script, Clarke wrote a book with the same title as the film, which was published after the film’s release.

In 1972 Arthur C. Clarke published a book entitled The Lost Worlds of 2001, where he mixes reminiscences about the elaboration of the script with discarded chapters from the book. By reading this book, we can follow the process of the construction of the film by Clarke and Kubrick and the successive stages of the plot. I agree with them that the final script was much better than the intermediate versions. Reading this book has led me to the following two comments:

Quantum mechanics or classical physics?

John Stewart Bell

The debate about which theory explains better the behavior of elementary particles, either quantum mechanics (with strange consequences such as state superposition and quantum collapse) or a still unknown classical physics-type theory that eliminates the need for such phenomena, has been going on since Bohr and Einstein started this debate almost one century ago.

The issue seemed to have been decided when John Steward Bell formulated in 1964 the famous Bell inequality, which I described in another post. However, as some physicists still raise the question, other means of distinguishing between the two types of theories are still being sought. One of them is the Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI), to which I will dedicate this post, based on a recent article in Physics World, dated August 12, 2024.

Time travel in science fiction

H.G. Wells

A few years ago, I published in this blog a series of posts about the scientific aspect of time travel, the paradoxes it could cause if it were possible (which almost certainly it is not) and proposed solutions to these paradoxes, such as the quantum multiverse, one of the most absurd theories physicists have ever concocted. In another post I talked about the scientific errors in Michael Crichton’s sci-fi novel Timeline, which tries to avoid the paradoxes in this way, but does it poorly.

Here I am going to speak about time travel from a literary point of view, as a subgenre of science fiction. In this context, it’s irrelevant that time travel may or may not be possible. We are interested in the question, because this is one of the most frequent topics in this type of literature.

Correlation or causality

Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, best known for promoting eugenics, invented the mathematical concept of correlation. Since then, many mistakes have been made relating correlation and causality, which sometimes coincide, but can also be completely different.

Two variables are said to be correlated when increases in one resemble increases in the other, and decreases in one resemble decreases in the other. But not all correlations are the same: to distinguish them, Galton devised the correlation coefficient, a number between -1 and 1.

Computational Intelligence and Consciousness

Eduardo César Garrido Merchán

In recent years there have been many advances in artificial intelligence, especially in the field of automatic generation of texts and images that sometimes compete successfully with human productions. In light of this, the media, and even some scientists, have rung the bells announcing that we are on the verge of creating conscious artificial intelligence, which would compete with human beings as our equal. But others believe that this goal, if it were possible (which is not clear), is much further away than some think.

In an article signed by Eduardo César Garrido Merchán and Sara Lumbreras and published in the journal philosophies with the title Can Computational Intelligence Model Phenomenal Consciousness, the authors review Bertrand Russell's analogy, which asserts that consciousness and intelligence are closely correlated. In other words, any entity that possesses consciousness will also possess a high level of intelligence, and vice versa. In a way, this analogy is similar to the Turing Test, which is much better known.

Scientific productivity is declining

String Theory

A team of Chinese and American researchers published on arXiv an article in September 2024 summarizing their study of the development of science and technology over more than two centuries. The study analyzes 213 million scientific articles published between 1800 and 2020, along with 7.6 million patents granted between 1976 and 2020.

The result of this study is the following: while the number of scientific publications has grown exponentially, the knowledge obtained by humanity grows linearly; in other words, the speed of knowledge acquisition is constant and does not grow in the same proportion as the number of publications.

Was Teilhard de Chardin persecuted for defending evolution?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

In a previous post I have mentioned some myths related to the persecution of scientists as a result of their scientific ideas, for religious reasons. I mentioned, for example, Giordano Bruno and Miguel Servet, wrongly presented as martyrs of science, when in reality they were persecuted for their religious ideas, not for their scientific activities, which in the case of Bruno were practically non-existent.

The presentation of a recently published video publicizes one of these myths, also widespread: the claim that Teilhard de Chardin was repressed by his Jesuit order for advocating evolution. That this is false can easily be deduced from the fact that Teilhard was able to publish dozens of articles on the evolution of the ancestors of man in scientific and philosophical journals of impact, without being prevented from doing so by his order. One of these journals was Études, edited by the Jesuits. A curious way of repressing him for advocating evolution.