Feb 20, 2018 08:28 PM
Machine Learning Could Make Manufacturing New Medicines Easier for Synthetic Chemists
https://futurism.com/machine-learning-ma...medicines/
EXCERPT: Mixing chemicals in a laboratory isn’t as easy as it looks on TV. Researchers can’t just pour everything in one beaker and hope for the best. Developing a new chemical compound — like, say, a new drug or medicine — with the highest possible yield requires an optimum combination of chemicals. While finding that ideal mixture is not an easy task, an artificial intelligence (AI) designed by researchers from Princeton University and Merck Research Laboratories might be able to help. The team’s machine learning algorithm can accurately predict chemical reaction yields, according to the study published in the journal...
MORE: https://futurism.com/machine-learning-ma...medicines/
Just What IS a "Quantum"?
http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/20...antum.html
EXCERPT: Quantum is one of those words that's a godsend if you're a lazy science-fiction author in need of a plot device, or someone trying to scam people into buying your crappy, overpriced jewelry. It evokes scientific knowledge and mystery all at once; it lets things be in two places at the same time, or jump to alternate universes.
It's a word that practically everyone's heard, but that relatively few people understand properly. Part of the reason for this is because it has multiple meanings in various contexts, but more, it's because the word is so often misappropriated. Usually, when you see "quantum _______" in pop culture, it's shorthand for "don't look too close here, there's little or no actual science involved so we're going to pretend the science is so impossibly complex that it's basically magic."
Now that's perfectly fine, if you're a writer on Doctor Who trying to explain why your alien statues can't move when someone's looking at them, but it's had the accidental effect of turning the word into a huge stumbling block for those of us who are in the business of demystifying science—encouraging people to see physics as something that anyone is capable of understanding. So we're here to take a minute and clear the air a bit about what, precisely, "quantum" means, because it's really not too hard.
In the broadest sense, "quantum" as a noun just refers to an individual packet, or countable bit of something, usually the smallest possible amount; see, for instance, the James Bond film "Quantum of Solace".
For instance, the work that won Einstein his Nobel prize actually had nothing to do with his most famous work on relativity—it was his realization that light comes as particle-like packets, or quanta (the plural of quantum), better known these days as photons. In the modern day, where this fact is taken for granted, it can be hard to appreciate the depth of this insight without a little background on the problem Einstein was trying to solve when he came up with his hypothesis....
MORE: http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/20...antum.html
https://futurism.com/machine-learning-ma...medicines/
EXCERPT: Mixing chemicals in a laboratory isn’t as easy as it looks on TV. Researchers can’t just pour everything in one beaker and hope for the best. Developing a new chemical compound — like, say, a new drug or medicine — with the highest possible yield requires an optimum combination of chemicals. While finding that ideal mixture is not an easy task, an artificial intelligence (AI) designed by researchers from Princeton University and Merck Research Laboratories might be able to help. The team’s machine learning algorithm can accurately predict chemical reaction yields, according to the study published in the journal...
MORE: https://futurism.com/machine-learning-ma...medicines/
Just What IS a "Quantum"?
http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/20...antum.html
EXCERPT: Quantum is one of those words that's a godsend if you're a lazy science-fiction author in need of a plot device, or someone trying to scam people into buying your crappy, overpriced jewelry. It evokes scientific knowledge and mystery all at once; it lets things be in two places at the same time, or jump to alternate universes.
It's a word that practically everyone's heard, but that relatively few people understand properly. Part of the reason for this is because it has multiple meanings in various contexts, but more, it's because the word is so often misappropriated. Usually, when you see "quantum _______" in pop culture, it's shorthand for "don't look too close here, there's little or no actual science involved so we're going to pretend the science is so impossibly complex that it's basically magic."
Now that's perfectly fine, if you're a writer on Doctor Who trying to explain why your alien statues can't move when someone's looking at them, but it's had the accidental effect of turning the word into a huge stumbling block for those of us who are in the business of demystifying science—encouraging people to see physics as something that anyone is capable of understanding. So we're here to take a minute and clear the air a bit about what, precisely, "quantum" means, because it's really not too hard.
In the broadest sense, "quantum" as a noun just refers to an individual packet, or countable bit of something, usually the smallest possible amount; see, for instance, the James Bond film "Quantum of Solace".
For instance, the work that won Einstein his Nobel prize actually had nothing to do with his most famous work on relativity—it was his realization that light comes as particle-like packets, or quanta (the plural of quantum), better known these days as photons. In the modern day, where this fact is taken for granted, it can be hard to appreciate the depth of this insight without a little background on the problem Einstein was trying to solve when he came up with his hypothesis....
MORE: http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/20...antum.html