Latest news with #CarlSagan
The Print
14-05-2025
- Science
- The Print
How CERN's collider achieved modern alchemy—turning lead to gold in a trillionth of a gram
'It is impressive to see that our detectors can handle head-on collisions producing thousands of particles, while also being sensitive to collisions where only a few particles are produced at a time, enabling the study of electromagnetic 'nuclear transmutation' processes,' said Marco Van Leeuwen, ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) spokesperson, in a statement. Scientists observed a real-life transmutation of lead into gold through a new mechanism involving near-miss interactions between atomic nuclei. But each of these gold particles is the size of a nucleus, and lasted barely a second before being destroyed in the collider. During the LHC's second run between 2015 and 2018, around 86 billion gold nuclei were created from smashing lead atoms at 99.999993 percent the speed of light. New Delhi: CERN's announcement on May 8 that its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can turn lead to gold was the Holy Grail for alchemists from the middle ages. This is the biggest discovery since the 'god particle' (Higgs Boson) and the 'beauty particle' (bottom quark). ThePrint explains the science behind the magic. Also Read: Search for an Indian Carl Sagan is on. Science influencers are being trained in labs and likes How it was done CERN caught the gold bug back as a side quest nearly two decades ago while working on the fundamental particles (smallest known building blocks of the universe) and forces (four forces of nature responsible for how matter behaves), when it started running the LHC. During the second run, the LHC produced 29 picograms of gold. A picogram is one trillionth of a gram. In the third run, which has been operational since 2022, the amount produced was almost double that of the second run but trillions of times less than what would be required to make a piece of jewellery. The third run, which will continue till 2026, has higher collision energy compared to its second run, improved detector performance, and collected more data. The detector's zero degree calorimeters (ZDCs) counted photon–nucleus interactions that led to the emission of zero, one, two or three protons, along with at least one neutron. ZDCs—which are specialised calorimeters used to detect and measure very small particles or radiation—are associated with the production of lead, thallium, mercury and gold. 'While less frequent than the creation of thallium or mercury, the results show that the LHC currently produces gold at a maximum rate of about 89,000 nuclei per second from lead–lead collisions at the ALICE collision point,' the CERN statement read. A flash of gold The gold nuclei emerged from the collision with very high energy and hit the LHC beam pipe or collimators (devices that shape or direct beams of light or radiation to narrow them or limit their speed) at various points downstream, where they immediately fragment into single protons, neutrons and other particles. In this form, the gold exists for just a tiny fraction of a second. 'Thanks to the unique capabilities of the ALICE ZDCs, the present analysis is the first to systematically detect and analyse the signature of gold production at the LHC experimentally,' said Uliana Dmitrieva of the ALICE collaboration in a statement. The biggest discovery that came from LHC was the Higgs Boson in 2012. The discovery provided evidence of how particles gain mass, proving the existence of the Higgs Field, which is key to the Standard Model of particle physics. However, in recent years, scientists have questioned the lack of any big discovery from the LHC. Also Read: 47 yrs ago, this Indian-origin physicist asked Feynman a question. He hasn't looked back since
Hospitality Net
13-05-2025
- Business
- Hospitality Net
Help, I Love My Kidnapper
'One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We are no longer interested in finding the bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back' – Carl Sagan Blink twice if you need to be rescued. __________________________________________ Picture this: you're locked in a room for 25 years with someone who takes your wallet, controls who you talk to, insists you smile through it all, and occasionally lets you feel like you're winning (but only if you give even more). Healthy relationship? Not quite. Congratulations. You're living the dream known as hotel distribution. Welcome to OTA Stockholm Syndrome where the captors hide behind shiny apps and billion-dollar ad budgets, charge a 30% 'friendship fee,' and somehow... we've started calling it a partnership. Once upon a time, right after 9/11, hotels were desperate. The guests were gone, the phones were silent, and along came these charming online travel agencies, flashing easy bookings, new visibility, and promises of partnership. They weren't just a helping hand – they were the creepy neighbor who helped fix your fence… then quietly claimed your backyard as part of theirs. And we fell for it. We latched onto them. Threw them a parade. Wrote them thank-you notes. Handed over a spare key... and forgot to ever change the locks. Fast forward 25 years. Now we're trauma bonded. So bonded that we defend them on LinkedIn panels: 'But they bring me bookings!' 'But they help me with marketing!' "But they're so big and powerful, it's not like I can do anything!" Sound familiar? It's classic Stockholm Syndrome. At this point, if OTAs raised commissions to 50% and demanded a free muffin with every reservation, half the industry would politely ask, 'Would you like gluten-free?' How Did It Come to This? It started small. Just a few bookings here, a small commission there. Nothing too damaging, right? Then came rate parity handcuffs ("Sure, we'll help you but you can't sell cheaper on your own website!"). Then the inventory hijacking ("We'll just quietly scoop up your rooms through wholesalers and sell them cheaper than you do, making it look like you don't know how to manage your own prices." Then the mandatory 'preferred' status extortion ('Pay us more commission – or disappear into the second page, where hotel dreams go to die.') Then loyalty programs ("Just discount your own rates for our loyalty customers… you know, the ones you already earned yourself."). And it went on… and on… and on. Hotels, being the ever-optimistic romantics that we are, kept believing. 'They have our best interests at heart.' 'They would never use my brand keywords to outbid me on Google.' 'They love me for me.' Meanwhile, OTAs were playing 5D mind chess, setting traps three moves ahead – and hotels were still arguing over who gets to be the red checker. Signs You Might Be Suffering from Hotel Stockholm Syndrome: You refer to OTAs as your 'partners' with a straight face. You defend 20-30% commissions because "it's just the cost of doing business." You feel guilty for exploring direct booking strategies, like you're cheating. You celebrate OTA awards like they're Michelin stars. 'Congrats! You paid us the most!' You treat your OTA account manager like a trusted advisor of your pricing strategy. Your OTA share is bigger than direct, and instead of panicking you're bragging about it in meetings. You've stopped comparing commissions to other costs. It's just 'the air we breathe now.' You feel a tiny twinge of guilt (and fear) every time you wish you could cut ties. you could cut ties. You've started wondering if maybe, just maybe… you should thank them in your will. (Because after all, they've already taken everything else.) Why Do We Stay? Because change is hard. Because the trauma is familiar. Because even when they make us bid against ourselves on Google, demand our best rates, bury us under properties that pay higher commissions, and woo away our loyal guests, we keep saying, "Maybe it's just a phase. They're under a lot of pressure, too." Bless our hearts. The truth is, OTAs didn't just bring bookings – they brought full-on, textbook gaslighting. The kind therapists warn you about. They made us doubt our own worth: 'Without us, no one would even notice you.' They dismissed our efforts: 'Direct bookings? Cute idea, but let's be realistic.' They twisted reality: 'Guests don't really want you, they want us to tell them you exist.' And now? We flinch at the idea of independence, like a victim too gaslit to remember they were whole before the manipulation began. Meanwhile, other industries have gotten wise to this. Airlines fought back. Retailers fought back. Even restaurants fought back (have you tried telling a restaurant they must offer a cheaper price on Uber Eats than on their own website? Good luck. It's actually the opposite, prices are almost always higher on food delivery apps). Hotels? We're still writing sonnets to our captors. Oh Booking, I swore I'd walk away… then you dangled a preferred status badge, and I came running like a fool in a loyalty loop. Dearest Expedia, you steal my margins yet gift me occupancy. A thief… with benefits. We're one booking away from writing Fifty Shades of OTA Commission. The Breakup You've Been Waiting For The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. The second step is realizing you are not powerless. Technology has caught up. Consumers are smarter. New tools like those offered by roomangel exist to help guests trust direct channels again, leveling the playing field, giving guests that warm, fuzzy 'this site looks legit and I won't be scammed' feeling – the kind OTAs spent millions manufacturing with slick UX and brand confidence. Now, you can do the same… without the 30% middleman fee and digital codependency. Guests want to book direct, they just need to feel safe doing it. (They also wouldn't mind if your website didn't look like it was built during the MySpace era, but that's another topic.) Look, freedom is scary. Independence takes work. But it's better than handing over 30% of your income plus your firstborn to someone who wouldn't even give you a call on your birthday. It's time to stop calling this a 'partnership' and start calling it what it is: a toxic addiction. And the best part? It's totally breakable. One bold step at a time. Conclusion: Your Exit Strategy Starts Now We're not saying OTAs are evil. (Okay, maybe a little.) But let's call this relationship what it is: co-dependent, unhealthy, and long overdue for a reset. The longer we pretend it's normal, the more we lose – not just money, but something far more important: control of our guest relationships, our brand, and our future. Break free. Take a deep breath. The real world isn't that scary. Trust yourself. Trust your guests. And maybe, just maybe, next time you walk into the ITB conference hall, you'll recognize the captors standing at their sponsor booths – and keep on walking. ______________ Brian Reeves Founder and CEO, The roomangel Foundation About The roomangel Foundation The roomangel Foundation is a nonprofit initiative on a mission to restore fairness and transparency in hospitality distribution. By empowering travelers to book directly and helping hotels reclaim control over their guest relationships, roomangel offers the tools, trust signals, and technology to intermediate hotel bookings. To join the Foundation, visit the website here: Ira Vouk VP Global Partnerships roomangel Foundation
The Spinoff
07-05-2025
- The Spinoff
Illegal cigarette smuggling man: an appreciation
New Zealand has lost its mojo. Maybe it could learn something from a man who strapped 1,620 cigarettes inside his pants and said 'today is the day I walk through an airport'. Sometimes a single image can change you. Carl Sagan grasped our cosmic insignificance more profoundly after seeing Pale Blue Dot. Millions of children were permanently traumatised at the sight of Simba trying to wake Mufasa up in The Lion King. On Monday, a similarly impactful image was released on the social media accounts of the New Zealand Customs Service. It showed a 35-year-old Indonesian man with 1,620 cigarettes stuffed under his white singlet. Customs said this man was detained at Wellington airport when officers somehow identified him as being in possession of more than the 50 cigarettes you're legally allowed to bring into the country. Its accompanying photo raises a plethora of existential questions. Chief among them is 'how does one man get 1,620 cigarettes inside his singlet?'. With some difficulty, it seems. The man's entire lower torso is a clown car of cigs. His trousers are straining at the sheer volume of nicotine they're being asked to contain. Several packets protrude from the side of his clothing. Furthermore, how did NZ Customs manage to catch this smuggler despite his sophisticated efforts at concealment? In a statement to The Spinoff, it said its officers spotted signs of the tobacco inside the man's 'choice of clothing', without elaborating further. Those officers must have been alert and eagle-eyed, because the organisation also confirmed his cigarettes originated in Jakarta. That means by the time he was apprehended, the smuggler had already transited through Indonesian Customs and transferred onto another flight bound from Sydney to New Zealand, all without anyone realising he had nearly 2,000 cigarettes stuffed into his belt. All up, the durries snuck 8,000km, past hundreds of fellow travellers and security personnel, only to come to a halt literally metres from finding a new life on the streets of the Miramar Peninsula. Though it didn't provide much other information, NZ Customs did furnish The Spinoff with an extra photo, which reveals both the cig man's brand of choice, and method of transportation. Its statement adds that the man had previously entered the country to work on New Zealand-flagged fishing vessels. He will no longer be allowed to do so. His Work to Residence visa has been cancelled due to the 'crime' of stuffing $2,447.38 worth of cigs into his pants. That's a shame, because New Zealand is desperately short of ambition. It's trying to plug a budget hole by taking money off low-paid women. Our prime minister is stumbling through farm fields trying to relocate our lost mojo. Where's the go-get-em attitude that propelled Richie McChayaw to the top of Mt Everest? The underdog spirit that saw us become the first country in the world to throw a nine-inch penis-shaped dog toy at a minister of the Crown? Maybe, just maybe, we detained it under the angry eagles at the Wellington domestic terminal. Perhaps the reservoir of confidence we're seeking is with the man who looked into the mirror with 1,620 cigarettes protruding from his trousers and said 'today is the day I fly to New Zealand'. As Steve Jobs once said, here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round cigs in the square holes, because they're the ones who'll change the world. So shine on, you crazy 35-year-old cig-covered diamond. Sorry you won't be subject to potential exploitation on a camera-free fishing vessel near Antarctica anymore. But if there's one thing this has proved, it's that even with the odds stacked against you, you'll find a way to get through.
Economic Times
03-05-2025
- Science
- Economic Times
Is this the era of humanities over engineering?
TNN This is a representative image. In the preface to his book The DemonHaunted World, Carl Sagan, the famous astronomer, recalled that when he was studying at the University of Chicago, 'it was considered unthinkable for an aspiring physicist not to know Plato, Aristotle, Bach, Shakespeare, Gibbon, Malinowski, and Freud—among many others'. After all, those were the days when physicists and astronomers were expected to be conversant with the foundational works of philosophy, the arts, history, social sciences and even psychoanalysis. Sagan's meta point was that scientific training was once inseparable from a broad humanities education. Even in ancient India and Greece, the subjects of yore were grammar, logic, philosophy and the natural sciences. It is only in the past few decades that STEM education, with its profusion of engineering and medical degrees, has become the only measure of our educational and professional success. Humanities came to be seen as a last resort, for those not 'good enough' for BTech or MBBS. This preference for STEM has been driven by the relentless technological innovation in the last century with the internal combustion engine, digital technologies, the internet, computing, molecular biology and others reshaping our society, and the education we need to sustain it. However, I believe that the most recent big technological wave of AI will change the narrative and bring back humanities and the arts, and the human skills and values shaped by it. The launch of ChatGPT started this movement, but the tipping point is the recent advent of Agentic AI, brought to life by OpenAI's o3 and o4 and China's Manus agentic models. While AI chatbots tell us what to do, AI agents can go ahead and do it. Agents have started drafting legal briefs, reconciling accounts, writing swathes of code and scheduling sales calls. If 'software ate the world', agents are about to bite off large chunks of what we used to call obvious anxiety follows: If they do the doing, what exactly do humans do? I believe that humans will still be working, doing the jobs we do and running the world, but there will be a big rethink on what and how we adjust to this new AI-infused world. Many of our core assumptions around our knowledge, education and skills will need to change, as we become co-creators with AI and orchestrators of AI agents. For one, the questions we ask will become far more important than the answers we give. Most of us will remember our parents and teachers saying this often when we were growing up. In the world of instant, deeply researched outputs by AI bots, answers will become a commodity. However, the thoughtfulness and logic behind the questions we ask, how we frame them and how we describe the objectives and the constraints will become very important, as these will elicit the right an swers and solutions from our AI co-workers. These are what we call prompts, and the science of asking great questions is what we are terming 'prompt engineering'. That would in turn mean that the values of curiosity, critical thinking and deep domain expertise to frame impactful inquiries will be the new gold standard. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently echoed this when he mused that 'determining the right questions to pose will surpass the importance of just finding the answers'.What is also very interesting is that whenever we frame the right question or prompt, we are actually writing code—not in Python or JavaScript, but in natural language. Software coding is nothing but the instructions we give the machine in a machine language it understands, to perform a certain task or job. With Generative AI, we now do the same, except that we do it in a human language. Thus, English, or Hindi, or Mandarin becomes the new inversion dramatically elevates the importance of language, and how well we can use it. Our primary interface with AI agents will be the language we have learnt, and whether we have mastered its nuances of precision, clarity, context and persuasion. Thus, our felicity in how we use language becomes of paramount AI agents increasingly handling the technical 'how-to' of tasks, the human edge will lie in the 'why' and the 'what next'. The humble subjects of humanities like language, philosophy, grammar and the arts are the ones that provide us the critical frameworks for understanding context, ethics, human motivation, creativity and critical judgment —skills that are inherently difficult for AI to replicate and grammar teach us the principles of clear thinking and communication; arithmetic becomes less about rote calculation and more about understanding quantitative reasoning and data gives us the superhuman ability to mould words to express the right thoughts. Thus, do not be surprised to see our children preferring humanities to the inevitable computer science or engineering education, and parents rethinking their child's future will also drive the rise of pure sciences. AI agents excel at engineering solutions based on established principles. Discovering those fundamental principles, however, is the realm of basic sciences. Hypothesis generation, experimental design for novel discovery, interpreting unexpected results and formulating entirely new theories demand a level of intuition, creativity and abstract reasoning that remains uniquely balance of value may shift towards thinking—deep research, theoretical exploration and foundational discovery—as opposed to solely doing or application of known principles, which AI can increasingly automate. Another possible side-effect of the coming of agentic AI will be the return of 'industrial-era' professions like manufacturing. AI is a cognitive technology, and its greatest impact is on jobs of the brain, rather than jobs of the hands. So, mechanical, chemical and aeronautical engineers might actually go join the industries and factories they were actually trained for, rather than join software factories to debug code. This 'return to manufacturing' could be a boon for countries like industrial era rewarded muscle, the digital era rewarded logic and the agentic era will reward wisdom and curiosity. The more the machines 'think,' the more we must feel, question, and dream. (The writer is the founder of AI&Beyond and author of The Tech Whisperer. Views are personal)
Time of India
03-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Is this the era of humanities over engineering?
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Popular in Services What do we do now? The new code Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Back to basics (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of .) In the preface to his book The DemonHaunted World, Carl Sagan, the famous astronomer, recalled that when he was studying at the University of Chicago , 'it was considered unthinkable for an aspiring physicist not to know Plato, Aristotle, Bach, Shakespeare, Gibbon, Malinowski , and Freud—among many others'.After all, those were the days when physicists and astronomers were expected to be conversant with the foundational works of philosophy, the arts, history, social sciences and even meta point was that scientific training was once inseparable from a broad humanities education. Even in ancient India and Greece, the subjects of yore were grammar, logic, philosophy and the natural is only in the past few decades that STEM education, with its profusion of engineering and medical degrees, has become the only measure of our educational and professional came to be seen as a last resort, for those not 'good enough' for BTech or MBBS . This preference for STEM has been driven by the relentless technological innovation in the last century with the internal combustion engine, digital technologies, the internet, computing, molecular biology and others reshaping our society, and the education we need to sustain I believe that the most recent big technological wave of AI will change the narrative and bring back humanities and the arts, and the human skills and values shaped by launch of ChatGPT started this movement, but the tipping point is the recent advent of Agentic AI, brought to life by OpenAI's o3 and o4 and China's Manus agentic AI chatbots tell us what to do, AI agents can go ahead and do it. Agents have started drafting legal briefs, reconciling accounts, writing swathes of code and scheduling sales calls. If 'software ate the world', agents are about to bite off large chunks of what we used to call obvious anxiety follows: If they do the doing, what exactly do humans do? I believe that humans will still be working, doing the jobs we do and running the world, but there will be a big rethink on what and how we adjust to this new AI-infused of our core assumptions around our knowledge, education and skills will need to change, as we become co-creators with AI and orchestrators of AI agents. For one, the questions we ask will become far more important than the answers we give. Most of us will remember our parents and teachers saying this often when we were growing the world of instant, deeply researched outputs by AI bots, answers will become a commodity. However, the thoughtfulness and logic behind the questions we ask, how we frame them and how we describe the objectives and the constraints will become very important, as these will elicit the right an swers and solutions from our AI co-workers. These are what we call prompts, and the science of asking great questions is what we are terming 'prompt engineering'.That would in turn mean that the values of curiosity, critical thinking and deep domain expertise to frame impactful inquiries will be the new gold standard. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently echoed this when he mused that 'determining the right questions to pose will surpass the importance of just finding the answers'.What is also very interesting is that whenever we frame the right question or prompt, we are actually writing code—not in Python or JavaScript , but in natural language. Software coding is nothing but the instructions we give the machine in a machine language it understands, to perform a certain task or job. With Generative AI, we now do the same, except that we do it in a human language. Thus, English, or Hindi, or Mandarin becomes the new inversion dramatically elevates the importance of language, and how well we can use it. Our primary interface with AI agents will be the language we have learnt, and whether we have mastered its nuances of precision, clarity, context and persuasion. Thus, our felicity in how we use language becomes of paramount AI agents increasingly handling the technical 'how-to' of tasks, the human edge will lie in the 'why' and the 'what next'. The humble subjects of humanities like language, philosophy, grammar and the arts are the ones that provide us the critical frameworks for understanding context, ethics, human motivation, creativity and critical judgment —skills that are inherently difficult for AI to replicate and grammar teach us the principles of clear thinking and communication; arithmetic becomes less about rote calculation and more about understanding quantitative reasoning and data gives us the superhuman ability to mould words to express the right thoughts. Thus, do not be surprised to see our children preferring humanities to the inevitable computer science or engineering education, and parents rethinking their child's future will also drive the rise of pure sciences. AI agents excel at engineering solutions based on established principles. Discovering those fundamental principles, however, is the realm of basic generation, experimental design for novel discovery, interpreting unexpected results and formulating entirely new theories demand a level of intuition, creativity and abstract reasoning that remains uniquely balance of value may shift towards thinking—deep research, theoretical exploration and foundational discovery—as opposed to solely doing or application of known principles, which AI can increasingly possible side-effect of the coming of agentic AI will be the return of 'industrial-era' professions like manufacturing. AI is a cognitive technology, and its greatest impact is on jobs of the brain, rather than jobs of the hands. So, mechanical, chemical and aeronautical engineers might actually go join the industries and factories they were actually trained for, rather than join software factories to debug code. This 'return to manufacturing' could be a boon for countries like industrial era rewarded muscle, the digital era rewarded logic and the agentic era will reward wisdom and curiosity. The more the machines 'think,' the more we must feel, question, and dream.(The writer is the founder of AI&Beyond and author of The Tech Whisperer . Views are personal)
