VIII. Earth Earns: An Open CoCreative Earthropocene to Astropocene PediaVerse

1. Mind Over Matter and Energy: Quantum, Atomic, Chemical, Astronomic Realms

Moore, Katharine, et al. Universal Characteristics of Chemical Synthesis and Property Optimization. Chemical Science. 2/417, 2011. As the Abstract conveys, in this Royal Society of Chemistry journal, Princeton University mathematical chemists including Alex Pechen and Jason Dominy press the frontiers of 2010s new material creations. See also Why is Chemical Synthesis and Property Optimization Easier than Expected? by this group in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (13/10048, 2011).

A common goal in chemistry is to optimize a synthesis yield or the properties of a synthesis product by searching over a suitable set of variables (e.g., reagents, solvents, reaction temperature, etc.). Synthesis and property optimizations are regularly performed, yet simple reasoning implies that meeting these goals should be exceedingly difficult due to the large numbers of possible variable combinations that may be tested. This paper resolves this conundrum by showing that the explanation lies in the inherent attractive topology of the fitness landscape specifying the synthesis yield or property value as a function of the variables. Under simple physical assumptions, the landscape is shown to contain no suboptimal local extrema that could act as traps on the way to the optimal outcome. The literature contains broad evidence supporting this “OptiChem” theory. OptiChem theory implies that increasing the number of variables employed should result in more efficient and effective optimization, contrary to intuition. (Abstract)

Naam, Ramez. The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2013. The Egyptian-American computer scientist and futurist tracks the course of history by an ever growing social, public information repository, good for survival and prosperity. The “Tragedy of the Commons” whence consumption out ran supplies is to be countered by a nascent “Knowledge Commons.” Into the 21st century, as megacities take on a guise as dynamic organisms, the locus of learning decisively shifts to a composite worldwide phase. Indeed, a vectorial learning capacity and acquisition could be seen to well define the arc of evolution and humanity as a grand endeavor of self-education, counter to wasteful entropies. As a result, if we might become mindful together, our future destinies will much depend on our own common, informed choice.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The opening line of Charles Dickens’ 1859 masterpiece A Tale of Two Cities applies equally well to our present era. We live in unprecedented wealth and comfort, with capabilities undreamt of in previous ages. WE live in a world facing unprecedented global risks – risks to our continued prosperity, to our survival, and to the health of our planet itself. We might think of our current situation as A Tale of Two Earths. (Preface)

This is a story about these two conflicting realities of our present day. The core argument of this book is that the force that’s propelled us to our present well-being is also the most powerful resource we have to tackle our future challenges: innovation. If we tap into and direct that force correctly, we have the very real potential to lift global wealth and well-being while reducing our impact on the planet and even reversing the damage we’ve done. If we fail to tap into that force, we flirt with the very real prospect of disaster. (Preface)

The whole world is becoming a city now. The technology of the Internet, mobile phones, and a million spinoffs of that are networking us all together. We’re drawing more connections, exchanging more insights, innovations, and information, Minds are the source of wealth and innovation. But their production isn’t linear. It scales with the number and quality of connections. And so, the more minds we have – educated minds, empowered minds, interconnected minds – the more each produces. (291) Our planet is like a giant living brain. Each mind added to it is a neuron. Each connection between those minds is a synapse. As we grow larger, we grow denser in connections, and so we grow smarter, more able to innovate, at rates faster than we consume. (291)

The human mind is the ultimate source of all wealth. We stand poised on the brink of the largest-ever explosion of human mental power, a second Renaissance, more transformative, more far-reaching, and more inclusive that the first. If we make the right choices to empower humans minds and encourage innovation, to steer innovation toward the solutions for our planet’s problems, and to embrace the fruits that it offers, then the future will be one of almost unimaginable wealth, health, and well-being. (308)

Nguyen, Michael and Suriyanarayanan Vaikuntanathan. Design Principles for Nonequilibrium Self-Assembly. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113/14231, 2016. While the specific medium for these University of Chicago chemists is nanoscale colloids, the article goes on to show how independent physical and thermal fgenerative forces can be intentionally applied so as to create new material solutions. In regard, we could be reflectively witnessing the phenomenal passage of nature’s creative propensities to our collaborative human furtherance.

Understanding the principles governing self-assembly remains an important problem in statistical mechanics. We find, surprisingly, that general design principles for this challenging problem can be obtained by applying ideas from the field of stochastic thermodynamics to nonequilibrium self-assembly problems. Our central results constrain the set of possible configurations achievable under a nonequilibrium drive. (Significance)

Ni, Xiang, et al. Topological Metamaterials. arXiv:2211.10006. We cite this entry by CCNY Photonics Initiative and Florida International University researchers among much current work as an example as the global mind over matter frontier opens for cocreative business.

Recent physics findings that materials with non-trivial topological properties for electronic, electromagnetic, acoustic and mechanical usages can be designed and made through engineered metamaterials (MMs). We review these state-of-the-art advances and discuss how topological MMs enable novel wave phenomena for a broad range of interdisciplinary sciences such as classical and quantum chemistry. This survey aims at basing this progress associated with topological concepts, and highlight opportunities going forward offered by these geometric facilities for the chemistry community at large. (Excerpt)

Norreys, Peter, et al. Prospects for High Gain Inertial Fusion Energy: An Introduction to the First Special Edition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. October, 2020. An introduction to papers from a March 2020 London meeting about progress and problems with large scale, practical usage of this atomic power source. In any event, it seems that human intellect is actually capable of learning about and taking over nature’s deep energies.

A European consortium of 15 laboratories across nine nations have worked together by way of EUROFusion Enabling Research grants for the past decade with three principle objectives. These are: (a) investigating obstacles to ignition on megaJoule-class laser facilities; (b) investigating novel alternative approaches to ignition, including fast ignition, auxiliary heating, shock ignition etc.; and (c) developing technologies that will be required for a fusion reactor. The Hooke discussion meeting was an opportunity to reflect on progress in inertial confinement fusion research world-wide to date. (Abstract)

Inertial Confinement Fusion is a type of fusion energy research that attempts to initiate nuclear fusion reactions by heating and compressing a fuel target, typically in the form of a pellet that most often contains a mixture of deuterium and tritium. (Wikipedia)

Nosengo, Nicola. The Material Code. Nature. 533/23, 2016. A news report on the historic revolution with regard to the formula and preparation of novel atomic, (bio)chemical, electronic, structural compositions. The articles draws on the work of Gerbrand Ceder and Kristin Persson (search) which we reported in 2013. A national and worldwide collaboration has since expanded their vision of treating natural materiality as genomic in kind, so as to apply similar computational, machine learning, and intelligent search approaches. In the USA, a NAS Materials Genome Initiative is underway, an Open Quantum Materials Database at Northwestern University, along with other projects. New journals such as NPJ: Computational Materials, Computational Materials Science, and Nature Reviews: Materials cover the latest advances. By a philosophical regard could be seen an epic takeover by human intellect of substantial matter from subatomic scales as we Earthlings may begin a new intentional creation. A further import would be to witness this endeavor as a matteromics effort, which deeply infers an organic cosmic genesis.

Oganessian, Yuri. Superheavy Elements. Physics World. July, 2004. The discovery – and novel creation - of transuranium elements now extends to “islands of stability” in atomic number ranges of 112 to 118. The former Soviet Union has long been a leader in this regard.

Oganessian, Yuri and Krzysztof Rykaczewski. A Beachhead on the Island of Stability. Physics Today. August, 2015. Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Russia, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory senior researchers review recent progress to synthesize the heaviest transuranium elements. This work presages dramatic expansions of the Periodic Table first laid out by their countryman Dmitri Mendeleev in the 1870s. Again by a natural philosophy view, phenomenal human beings seem to be a genesis universe’s way of taking over and beginning a new atomic material creation.

Okamoto, Yoshihko. Electronic Self-Organization in the β-Pyrochlore Oxide CsW2O6. arXiv:2406.13981. A select entry at the frontiers of materials by an Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo chemist which in 2024 can illustrate the innovative depths that collaborative expertise can now delve into. We then make especial note of a recognition of innate organizing forces at work even in this remote phase. By any stretch, it appears that our ascendant human acumen is ready and able to commence a new, second, intended era of a substantial cocreativity.

In this review, I present the electronic properties of the beta-pyrochlore oxide CsW2O6 and other related materials. At 215 K, CsW2O6 exhibits an electronic phase transition to a nonmagnetic insulating state by now able way of a complex self-organization of 5d electrons. In this phase transition, various factors such as geometrical frustration, electron correlation, phase transitions and chemical bonds play important roles. Their interplay has led to an electronic phase transition that preserves the cubic symmetry, three-dimensional nesting of Fermi surfaces, and an a three-centered-two-electron bond. In addition to these unique features of CsW2O6, each of them has been compared to other materials for an overview of the electronic properties of a wide variety of transition metal oxides. (Condensed abstract)

Olson, G. Designing a New Material World. Science. 288/993, 2000. As science and technology increasingly articulates material dimensions it can further these substantial realms by “...the creation of materials from thought.”

Omidshafiei, Shayegan, et al. Alpha-Rank: Multi-Agent Evaluation by Evolution. Nature Scientific Reports. 9/9937, 2019. A ten person team from DeepMind Paris, London, and Edmonton, Singapore University and Columbia University achieve a frontier advance as our collective human acumen begins to intentionally take up life’s algorithome programs. While we would not consider cosmic genesis as a “game” as per the Abstract, what is being found is an open, natural procreativity whence an optimum or good enough result can be seen is reached by and accrues from a wide array of candidate options.

A ten person team from DeepMind Paris, London, and Edmonton, Singapore University and Columbia University achieve a frontier advance as our collective human acumen begins to intentionally take up life’s algorithome programs. While we would not consider cosmic genesis as a “game,” what is being found is an open, natural procreativity whence an optimum or good enough result can be seen is reached by and accrues from a wide array of candidate options.

Ornes, Stephen. Quantum Effects Enter the Macroworld. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116/22413, 2019. A science writer describes how the 2010s quantum revolution whence this arcane depth became treatable as a complex network system, in addition to its special characteristics, which has then opened a new frontier for all manner of devices and communications.

Entanglement is the counterintuitive idea that particles can have an intrinsic connection that endures no matter the distance between them. The phenomenon remains one of the most curious and least understood consequences of quantum mechanics. Measure the quantum properties of one of a pair of entangled particles, and the other changes instantaneously. But recently, physicists have taken entanglement and other quantum effects to new extremes by observing them in large systems such as clouds of atoms, quantum drums, wires, and etched silicon chips. Device by device, they are bringing the quantum world into a new territory — the macroscopic, classical world. (22413)

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