James' World 2

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One of the more unsettling discoveries in the past half-century is that the universe is not locally real. “Real,” meaning that objects have definite properties independent of observation—an apple can be red even when no one is looking; “local” means objects can only be influenced by their surroundings, and that any influence cannot travel faster than light. Investigations at the frontiers of quantum physics have found that these things cannot both be true. Instead, the evidence shows objects are not influenced solely by their surroundings and they may also lack definite properties prior to measurement. As Albert Einstein famously bemoaned to a friend, “Do you really believe the moon is not there when you are not looking at it?”

This is, of course, deeply contrary to our everyday experiences. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, the demise of local realism has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Blame for this achievement has now been laid squarely on the shoulders of three physicists: John Clauser, Alain Aspect, and Anton Zeilinger. They equally split the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.” (“Bell inequalities” refers to the pioneering work of the Northern Irish physicist John Stewart Bell, who laid the foundations for this year’s Physics Nobel in the early 1960s.) Colleagues agreed that the trio had it coming, deserving this reckoning for overthrowing reality as we know it. “It is fantastic news. It was long overdue,” says Sandu Popescu, a quantum physicist at the University of Bristol. “Without any doubt, the prize is well-deserved.”

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John Stewart Bell (1928–1990), the Northern Irish physicist whose work sparked a quiet revolution in quantum physics. Credit: Peter Menzel/Science Source

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On a tiny island off the coast of China, one company manufactures a product used across the globe for countless household products as varied as PCs and washing machines.

And as that island — Taiwan — worries about the threat of a standoff between the US and China, the world’s economy holds its breath. That’s because there could be trillions of dollars’ worth of economic activity tied to that one company: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s biggest chipmaker.

Industry watchers say an escalating dispute between the US and China over Taiwan could drag down the global economy, given the fact that no other company makes such advanced chips at such a high volume. If TSMC goes offline, they say, the production of everything from cars to iPhones could screech to a halt.

“If China would invade Taiwan, that would be the biggest impact we’ve seen to the global economy — possibly ever,” Glenn O’Donnell, the vice president, and research director at Forrester told Insider. “This could be bigger than 1929.”

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Military helicopters flying the Taiwanese flag over Taiwan, which China claims as its own. Escalating rhetoric between China and the US over Taiwan is sparking concern over the world’s largest semiconductor company. Ceng Shou Yi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

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You can never really see the future, only imagine it, then try to make sense of the new world when it arrives.

Just a few years ago, climate projections for this century looked quite apocalyptic, with most scientists warning that continuing “business as usual” would bring the world four or even five degrees Celsius of warming — a change disruptive enough to call forth not only predictions of food crises and heat stress, state conflict, and economic strife, but, from some corners, warnings of civilizational collapse and even a sort of human endgame. (Perhaps you’ve had nightmares about each of these and seen premonitions of them in your newsfeed.)

Now, with the world already 1.2 degrees hotter, scientists believe that warming this century will most likely fall between two or three degrees. (A United Nations report released this week ahead of the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, confirmed that range.) A little lower is possible, with much more concerted action; a little higher, too, with slower action and bad climate luck. Those numbers may sound abstract, but what they suggest is this: Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future, and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years.

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As more members of Gen Z enter the workforce, it can feel like battle lines are being drawn between younger employees and more established workers.

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If alien astronomers observed our solar system from a distance 4.5 billion years ago, they would have seen a star surrounded by primordial gas and dust. That material, arranged in a narrow but dense disk, whirled round and round the young star. Over time, its particles collided and formed clumps. Gravity smoothed the jagged edges of the biggest ones to make planets and moons, and left the bits and pieces to become asteroids and comets.

The same process happens around other stars across the universe. We can even take a snapshot of it with the help of powerful telescopes. It doesn’t look like much, but that small, flying-saucer-looking thing in the image at the top of this article is a planetary system in the making. The little bright bulb in the darkness, encircled in its own ring of dust and gas, is known to astronomers as a protoplanetary disk. This is what our cosmic home looked like in the beginning, long before its star became known, to a bunch of life-forms on the third planet from the center, as the sun.

This work in progress is situated in the Orion Nebula, a luminous cloud of interstellar gas and dust about 1,500 light-years away. Its star is about 1 million years old—a baby, in astronomy terms. The dust around the star blocks the light from the bright nebula in the background, rendered here in gray, so the planetary disk appears in silhouette. The faint, fuzzy orb nestled within is not the star itself but rather starlight shining off the halo of dust around it, according to Mark McCaughrean, an astronomer and senior adviser for science and exploration at the European Space Agency. This is one of the most tantalizing environments in the cosmos, where small particles will eventually transform into full-blown worlds.

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Mark McCaughrean and Sam Pearson of the European Space Agency / JWST / NASA / ESA / CSA

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Key Takeaways

• The most puzzling, unexplained anomaly in all of cosmology is the Hubble tension: the difference in the measured expansion rate depending on which method is used.
• However, a second, less-publicized anomaly is also extremely puzzling: a difference in our observed motion through the Universe and how different things appear in various directions.
• We have many different methods of estimating how the Universe differs in different directions, and they’re not all consistent with one another. That’s a real, unsolved, but important problem!

Sorry, astronomers: the expanding Universe doesn’t add up.

The largest anomaly is the Hubble tension.

Two expansion rate measurement methods yield incompatible values.

The early relic method, via cosmic imperfections, yields 67 km/s/Mpc.

The distance ladder method, from individually measured objects, yields 73 km/s/Mpc.

But another cosmic imperfection anomaly is similarly puzzling.

Consider the cosmic microwave background (CMB): leftover radiation from the Big Bang.

Although mostly uniform, one direction is ~3.3 millikelvin hotter while the opposite is similarly cooler.

(See article for images and narritive)

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At lower left, the actual signal of the temperature fluctuations is shown. In the other three panels, possible modifications to the microwave sky are shown due to rotation or other forms of anisotropy. By constraining the magnitude of these signals, we can demonstrate just how isotropic (the same in all directions) and non-rotating the Universe actually is. However, indicators other than the CMB do not give consistent results with what we observe here  Credit: D. Saadeh et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 2016)

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The next 12 months will be another test of leadership for Canada’s CEOs.

Already in the past two years, they have dealt with the pandemic, supply-chain issues, talent shortages, technological advances, market volatility, the war in Ukraine, surging inflation and interest rates, digital transformation, and intensifying sustainability agendas. All remain ongoing concerns that tests their organization’s resiliency and agility.

Now just as the economy has started its post-pandemic recovery, a recession looms.

Ninety-two percent of the 75 top Canadian company CEOs in KPMG’s annual bellwether Global CEO Outlook Report believe the country will fall into a recession in the next 12 months.

In separate, new research, into 503 small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), two-thirds (66 percent) also anticipate a recession. However, the majority of leaders (69 percent of CEOs and 52 percent of SMBs), irrespective of company size, are optimistic that it will be mild and short and have already taken steps to help ride out the upcoming turbulence.

While the economy and an anticipated recession are currently keeping CEOs up at night, our surveys also reveal shared concerns with global peers that emerging or disruptive technology and operational issues are forever changing the way they do business and present an ongoing threat — and opportunity — to their ability to grow.

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KPMG

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1. Boarding Fantasy: Endless Waters And A White Ship

In your imagination, boarding a cruise ship should mean enjoying endless waters, a blue sky, and the soft breeze off the sea. You might picture yourself giggling with a few close friends while boarding a luxurious white ship, just like in the movies. However, that scenario is unfortunately not all that common on a cruise. (see Picture below)

2. Boarding Reality: Where Did All These People Come From

Since cruise ships make money by accommodating as many passengers as possible, the usual scenario when you board is often that you find yourself shoulder to shoulder with people from all walks of life and with all the noises and smells that come with them. (see Picture below)

(See the article for more examples)

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