Article in Physics Today about Robert Oppenheimer and Los Alamos.
https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/online/42547/Oppenheimer-s-science-beyond-the-Manhattan-Project?searchresult=1
The comment section for this article had a opinion of the current state of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos.
"Oppenheimer's breadth of interests and ability to connect quite different fields of physics and engineering was essential to the success of the Manhattan Project, which typified the tradition of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory for decades afterwards, and the reason I first enthusiastically joined Theoretical Division there in 1986. Unfortunately that tradition is now being lost, eroded by short-term thinking that discourages basic research in cutting edge physics --such as how quantum theory and general relativity can be reconciled in black holes.
This myopia is completely at odds with the tradition that Oppenheimer, Bethe and Feynman founded in T-Division at Los Alamos, and will make it increasingly difficult to attract the best and brightest of the next generation to the lab, as Oppenheimer was able to do so masterfully at its inception."
16 comments:
Wasn't von Neumann a better scientist and technology expert than anyone in T-division? It seems like he was more of a consultant rather than staff, during the Manhattan project.
As you know he developed the modern computer and key algorithms that go with it, making him the founder of computational science in general, was also a nuclear strategist, and contributions in other areas are too numerous to list.
"Wasn't von Neumann a better scientist and technology expert than anyone in T-division?"
That would mean he was better than everyone below. Sure he was great but better than everyone in T-Div at the time?
Hans Bethe
Richard Feynman
Victor Weisskrofpt
Rudolf Peierls
R Serber
Fred Reines
Joe Firshfelder
Tony Skyrm
Roy Glauber
I guess once chatbots reach von Neumann's level, there will be no need for smart people. Even one good chatbot of that type would have a huge impact, of course, but they will be everywhere, even in your toaster, some day soon I bet.
In fact, in the 1940's I believe, von Neumann proposed self-replicating robots with self-replicating AI, that could expand into the entire galaxy and beyond, the so-called von Neumann probe which could in principle convert the reachable universe into chatbots along with the infrastructure to support their endeavors (perhaps including humans or biological lifeforms).
By the way, that wasn't an attempt to troll anyone by bringing up von Neumann probes -- although it is possible that some of von Neumann's ideas were a form of trolling, perhaps he was innovative in that area as well as many others. And for long-term thinking, of course, he anticipated the "rise of the machines" well before the Terminator movies, in fact he was thinking 70 or more years in advance:
For example, he reportedly said:
Computers are like humans - they do everything except think.
I am thinking about something much more important than bombs. I am thinking about computers.
There is no point in being precise if you do not even know what you are talking about.
By the way, Fermi was extremely good, and he wasn't in T-division either I thought, as he did both experiment and theory. Both Fermi and von Neumann died in the 1950's, each was age 53 at death, and both died from cancer perhaps related to the Manhattan project.
Ulam's 1958 obituary article mentioned the following conversations with von Neumann:
Quite aware that the criteria of value in mathematical work are,
to some extent, purely aesthetic, he once expressed an apprehension
that the values put on abstract scientific achievement in our present
civilization might diminish: "The interests of humanity may change,
the present curiosities in science may cease, and entirely different
things may occupy the human mind in the future." One conversation
centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes
in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching
some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which
human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.
In other words, he understood and predicted the nature of our current situation, leading up to the "technological singularity" some feel may happen soon, upending our current human institutions, way of life, and civilization.
The mathematician John von Neumann, born Neumann Janos in Budapest in 1903, was incomparably intelligent, so bright that, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eugene Wigner would say, "only he was fully awake." One night in early 1945, von Neumann woke up and told his wife, Klari, that "what we are creating now is a monster whose influence is going to change history, provided there is any history left. Yet it would be impossible not to see it through." Von Neumann was creating one of the first computers, in order to build nuclear weapons. But, Klari said, it was the computers that scared him the most.
All people who had met him and interacted with him realized that his brain was more powerful than anyone’s they have ever encountered. I remember Hans Bethe even said, only half in jest, that von Neumann’s brain was a new development of the human brain. Only a slight exaggeration.
Peter Lax, in Peter Lax’s Interview, Voices of the Manhattan Project, 2016.
Scooby, I am convinced that someone is using ChatGPT to post on this blog. Several of the posts above do not seem like they are written by humans. They go on and on but say very little. What gives, is LLN management using AI to try deluge the blog? For the past month or so some very odd posts are showing up.
Does anyone remember the "flying toasters" from the 1990's "screensavers" on early computers? They were like a satirical version of von Neumann probes, evidently in that they would expand throughout the universe, creating toasters everywhere perhaps in advance of human settlement:
https://youtu.be/mjlusi_h_XA
https://youtu.be/OVsK20z_GvA
https://youtu.be/FIxZu-d2bHI
Yes, as the von Neumann replicator probes spread throughout the universe, humans will be toast as in those prophetic screen saver videos!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft
Replicating seeder ships
Yet another variant on the idea of the self-replicating starship is that of the seeder ship. Such starships might store the genetic patterns of lifeforms from their home world, perhaps even of the species which created it. Upon finding a habitable exoplanet, or even one that might be terraformed, it would try to replicate such lifeforms – either from stored embryos or from stored information using molecular nanotechnology to build zygotes with varying genetic information from local raw materials.[11]
Such ships might be terraforming vessels, preparing colony worlds for later colonization by other vessels, or – should they be programmed to recreate, raise, and educate individuals of the species that created it – self-replicating colonizers themselves. Seeder ships would be a suitable alternative to generation ships as a way to colonize worlds too distant to travel to in one lifetime.
Hello 8/14/2023 10:19 PM,
How would you combat that since some real people, especially scientists, write like bots?
Here's another great article -- it brings up how Oppenheimer was really strange, perhaps some sort of political appointee put in by Democrat government during WWII:
https://unherd.com/2023/07/we-wouldnt-want-oppenheimer-today/
Evidently, he was having problems and brought in von Neumann to solve them, which he did of course. It mentions some of the other people on that list, too.
I understand in the "Oppenheimer" movie, they do not really mention von Neumann at all, by the way.
"Hello 8/14/2023 10:19 PM,
How would you combat that since some real people, especially scientists, write like bots?
8/15/2023 3:03 PM"
I think you did the correct thing and just said that posts should be concise. Was for certain people writing like "bots" ouch but I guess that is the case as well.
10:19. Interesting it could be a bot or just group leader level management material as they seem to endlessly talk in circles and never really go anywhere.
8:27 I think you're missing the point -- the 8:01 poster said that with chatbots there would be no need for intelligent people. Whether this was a person or chatbot who posted this does not really matter, as it is true of course, or will be in the near future. Are you trying to make that point as well?
To be clear I am not sure if it just actual chatbot that someone is using to fill up the band width for some nefarious reason or if it someone who juts want to leave a comment but is using a chat bot to write which makes the posts much longer and stranger than they need to be. Of course it could just be somebody who write this way but the chabot text is pretty easy to pick out.
I know some relatives who found these chat devices are now using them to write everybody, some family reports, comments on news events, tips for how to fix your car and so on. For years they would write a few sentences on facebook or email, now it is War and Peace every week, they even said the are using these devices and how it allows them write way more than they ever could on their own. I am not sure it is adding that much to the conversation.
I asked one of the chatbots and it told me Steven Wolfram was the best modern-day polymath, along the lines of von Neumann, although most of his achievements would probably be in the future. Maybe the labs should bring him in as a consultant if they haven't already done so, and work together with his company.
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