Using AI to Drill Down in Physics

Sunday, September 26, 2021

Using AI to Drill Down in Physics

If a computer can teach itself to play the age-old board game Go better than the human world champion, if a computer can even conjure up a genius new Go move, couldn't a computer also discover new physics?

I wrote this story for ACM News and it was published on July 8, 2021

Jesse Thaler, an associate professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), investigates the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in particle physics. In 2020, Thaler also became the director of the National Science Foundation's AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI), which is dedicated to advancing physics knowledge and galvanizing AI research innovation.

At the moment, the Standard Model of particle physics is the best description of three of the four fundamental forces of nature, and of a large family of elementary particles. Finding deviations from the Standard Model might lead physicists to discover new particles or new interactions, and AI might be able to play an important role in this.

In a Zoom interview, Thaler talks about the present and the future of applying AI to particle physics.

Read the full story on the website of the ACM.

Honors and Awards

Nomination Eureka book Prize 2008
My book OPGELOST - Toepassingen van wiskunde en informatica (which translates as SOLVED - Applications of mathematics and informatics) was nominated for the Eureka book Prize 2008, for the best popular science book.

Amundsen Competition 2007
In december 2007 I was one of fourteen winners in the Amundsen Competition, an essay competiton organised by the World Federation of Science Journalists for the International Polar Year 2007/2008. The price is a two-weeks trip on board of the Arctic Polar Icebreaker ‘Amundsen’ to the North Pole Area (April 24 - May 8, 2008).

See my weblog: in Dutch or in English

Eureka!-award 2003 for the 2002-editorial board of Natuur & Techniek, for the best media achievement in the field of the public understanding of science in the Netherlands. I was part of the board at that time.

‘Friend of Poland’-award 2003 for two articles: a travel article about Krakow in the ANWB-monthly travel magazine Reizen (july/august 2002) and a biology-article on the primeval forest Bialowieza in the east of Poland, for the scientific monthly Natuur & Techniek (march 2003). The international contest for journalists was organised by Radio Polonia and the Polish Organisation for Tourism in Warsaw.

Quotes

The world looks so different after learning science

Richard Feynman

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

Richard Feynman

Wat is wetenschap? Wetenschap is de titanische poging van het menselijk intellect zich uit zijn kosmische isolement te verlossen door te begrijpen!

Professor Nummedal in de roman Nooit meer slapen van W.F. Hermans

We cook the facts. There are many different techniques for collecting, interpreting and analysing facts, and different techniques often lead to different conclusions, which is why scientists can disagree...When facts challenge our favoured conclusions, we scrutinize them more carefully and subject them to more rigourous analysis.

Psychologist Daniel Gilbert in Stumbling on happiness

The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.

Emily Dickinson

‘Who are YOU?’ said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I – I hardly know, sir, just at present – at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Want de ruimte en hij die er vrij doorheen trekt, die zijn de enige ware, dat is het leven, en alles wat op een plaats is versteend en langzaam tot stof vergaat, is dood van den beginne af aan.

J. Slauerhoff

Don't see the world as a market, but rather a place that people live in - you are designing for people, not machines.

Red Burns

Van alle dingen die de mensheid zich sinds haar ontstaan eigen heeft gemaakt, is wetenschap verreweg de meest succesvolle en productieve.

Michio Kaku