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fliptop writes:Volkswagen has reported weak sales numbers, with a significant drop in China:

VLM writes:For about a century, quantum mechanics, QM, has required the use of complex numbers, but according to a recently published peer reviewed paper in PRL, given a large amount of mathematical fooling around, it's possible to do QM solely with real numbers. That's very unexpected and very cool and the future is going to be very interesting!https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.17307https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/4k13-sdjhThere's been an effort in recent years to formulate quantum mechanics without complex numbers, slowly chipping away at existing QM theory. This paper solves the last remaining problem, and now AFAIK the entire QM system works, or is compatible, or at least not disproven yet, when doing QM calcs using only real number space. The conclusion of the abstract kind of says it all "Thus, we argue that real-valued quantum mechanics cannot be falsified, and therefore the use of complex numbers is a matter of convenience."I read, or tried to read the paper, back in March last year when the free preprint was uploaded to arxiv and I see it successfully made it through peer review and was published in PRL three weeks ago. AFAIK, nobody has successfully shot it down in the last three weeks, so this interesting project is likely to be successfully completed. Apparently, they have done it!Effects:This is one of those accomplishments like when a century ago they proved 1+1=2 solely using set theory. That specific example is not immediately useful, a century later, and note that set theory accomplishment from the 1910s is still pretty useless IRL, but the point of the effort was that they successfully connected two "very large theories" that were not supposed to be connectable. It's not supposed to be possible to QM without complex numbers. A somewhat more famous and wildly profitable theory unification would be when the separate theory of electrical fields and theory of magnetic fields were connected (see Maxwell, etc) I'd say the theory of electromagnetism has had quite an effect on the world since it was discovered... The accomplishment in the paper will probably has an impact in between the two examples above.Trivially, textbooks will need to be updated such that QM does not have a mandatory inherent requirement for complex numbers, although the formulation is simpler if you use them. Sort of like you don't have to use logarithms to multiply numbers, but it sure is easier to manufacture slide rules if you use logarithms to multiply numbers...I always found it philosophically distasteful that the most accurate model we have for subatomic particles IRL, requires imaginary sqrt(-1) math. It only took a century to prove it does not. The main paper itself is only about five pages and seems pretty clear, its the dozen page long appendix thats mathematically a bit of a beast to get thru.There will probably be an unpredictable effect on unification theories. I'd sure be excited to hear a news story in a year or two about some dude who has been sitting on an experimental pet string theory or loop quantum gravity or some other misc theory for years (decades?) that would unify gravity and QM into one theory that "was obviously wrong because it required a QM expressible without complex numbers" well its 2026 and we got one of those now, so really big things might happen really soon. Or maybe not.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:A new dental robot is being developed that could reduce the number of visits needed to receive a dental crown:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:A final humiliation for Australia's Securities Exchange and its attempts to run a bourse on distributed ledgers:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:The agency is giving autonomous vehicle makers until the end of July to figure out a solution:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Doctors find grey fluid and dead, metallic flesh inside poisoned woman's hip:

mrpg writes:https://www.science.org/content/article/key-arctic-science-outpost-finds-itself-tangled-geopolitical-web[...] The tensions stymieing the UNIS geologists reflect broader changes unfolding across Svalbard, a jagged, ice-cloaked archipelago consisting of nine larger islands and thousands of islets perched between mainland Europe and the North Pole. For centuries the islands, encompassing an area roughly the size of Latvia, were a no-man's land, inhabited mainly by reindeer and polar bears whose ancestors arrived on drifting pack ice. Today, Svalbard has fewer than 3000 human residents but is home to scientific facilities operated by more than a dozen countries, including China, India, and Russia. Many are clustered at Ny-Alesund, a research outpost on the largest island, Spitsbergen, that Norway promotes as a symbol of collaborative Arctic science.Researchers have long journeyed to Svalbard to study everything from glaciers to the northern lights. But in recent years the archipelago has become especially important to science because it provides a front-row seat to some of the fastest warming on Earth; since 1991 the region's mean annual air temperatures have risen at roughly seven times the global rate-and twice the Arctic average.Even as climate change boosts Svalbard's scientific value, however, rising geopolitical tensions in the Arctic are making research more difficult. In its National Threat Assessment for this year, Norway's Police Security Service warned that Svalbard is "especially exposed" to Russian spying, and that "China will try to use research as a gateway to Norwegian territory in the High North."Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Modula-based source code resurfaces after nearly four decades:

"mrpg" writes:Scientists discover the deep sleep circuit that builds muscle, burns fat, and boosts the brain:

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/we-cannot-choose-to-become-idiots-the-ai-cheating-scandal-roiling-brown-university/

Rich writes:Chip maker Qualcomm has announced it will acquire software company Modular for $3.9bn in an all share transaction. (https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2026/06/qualcomm-to-acquire-modular) Modular was founded by Chris Lattner, who is best known for the LLVM compiler backend and the invention of the Swift language from Apple. Modular develops a new language called "Mojo", which looks like Python, provides safety guarantees like Rust, and compiles down to highly efficient code to utilize massive parallelism. Mojo targets not only classic CPUs, but can also generate GPU shaders, to cover the full AI stack. It is assumed that Qualcomm will use Modular's offerings to attack Nvidia's proprietary Cuda system to gain traction in the datacenter space.If all goes to plan, and the Qualcomm stock rises to AI bubble levels, Lattner will become the latest tech billionaire through software work alone. If not, he'll just walk away with a few hundred millions. Respect.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Ban lands three weeks after Anthropic accused Alibaba's Qwen lab of running the largest known distillation attack on Claude:

looorg writes:https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/07/04/ex-microsoft-engineer-rebuilds-notepad-in-2-5kb-using-nothing-but-stuff-windows-already-had/

"mrpg" writes:Record-breaking ocean drilling reveals why Japan's 2011 tsunami was so deadly:

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/07/bethesda-id-software-reportedly-hit-hard-by-microsoft-layoffs/

A recent article in Tech Review, https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/06/12/1138833/inside-interoception-brain-body or: https://archive.is/kGwUQ

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/nasa-may-send-a-backup-nuclear-powered-mars-rover-to-the-moon/

Frosty Piss writes:The Twenty-Ninth International Obfuscated C Code Contest - or IOCCC for short - is back again with the results of the 2025 competition. This year, one of the entrants has a unique new trick up their sleeve: a valid use case.With the 2025 competition, the contest had just been revived from a four-year hiatus.There are no fewer than 23 winning entries this year, including a hat-trick of hat-tricks: three entrants, Yusuke Endoh, Nick Craig-Wood, and Don Yang, all had three winning entries each.One element of the IOCCC is that the judges, Landon Curt Noll and Leonid A. Broukhis, invent new categories each time for each winning entry.The Obfuscated C Contest is not to be confused with the Underhanded C Contest, which took this sort of twisted genius and applied it to devious ends rather than fun shenanigans.https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/07/05/c-programmers-commit-fresh-crimes-against-readability/5265981Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

owl writes:https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/supreme-court-just-lit-fuse-130900307.html

mrpg writes:https://phys.org/news/2026-07-rats-empathy.htmlA rat first frees a cagemate rat and then shares food with it. Is this animal just as empathetic as humans? In an American study from 2011, researchers observed that rats first freed their fellow rats from a cage and then shared food with them instead of leaving them in the cage and eating alone; this means they showed empathy. But do they have the same capacity for empathy as we humans, or do we differ in that regard?A research team working with Professor Albert Newen from the Ruhr University Bochum Institute for Philosophy II in Germany set out to answer this question. They developed a model for more accurately describing empathy in various animals. Their answer: Yes, rats exhibit empathy, although it differs gradually from that of humans. The researchers report their findings in the journal Biological Reviews on June 28, 2026.Empathy is the glue that holds society together and makes everyday life personal and human. Is it not, therefore, a good candidate for a trait that separates humans from other animals? Are there any other animal species that show empathy?Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

canopic jug writes:A blogger going by the handle "No One's Happy" has investigated the digital restrictions management technology being pushed into the Linux kernel at the behest of various malevolent actors.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.theregister.com/os-platforms/2026/07/06/zombie-who-owns-unix-lawsuit-comes-alive-again/5266761

"mrpg" writes:Potentially fraudulent papers often cite each other and could be inflating the impact factor of journals in which they are published:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:South Korea targets physical AI lead and commercial humanoid robots by 2028:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.engadget.com/2206550/google-loses-final-appeal-over-eu-antitrust-fine/

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/06/ai-browsers-can-be-lulled-into-a-dream-world-where-guardrails-no-longer-apply/

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes: Florida bans local governments from pursuing net-zero emissions goals

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:NetNut cracked as Google and FBI target 2 million-device botnet

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.engadget.com/2206582/amazon-leo-is-ready-to-go/

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.quantamagazine.org/for-the-first-time-a-cell-built-from-scratch-grows-and-divides-20260701/

canopic jug writes:Archivist David Rosenthal observes now that more material is posted online by LLMs than actual people, the bots are starting to ingest their own digital excrement, creating a negative feedback loop.

looorg writes:Travel like it's 0 AD. Plan and travel your next road trip along the old Roman road network. As if they had Google Maps.https://www.euronews.com/culture/2026/07/02/ancient-romes-version-of-google-maps-how-long-to-reach-the-beach

jelizondo writes:A very interesting article was published in Phys.org about how modern life might be outpacing our mind, which evolved to deal with a simpler world:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2204680/dot-law-change-no-brake-pedals-self-driving-cars/

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:A philosopher has put forward an argument for rethinking how particles are defined within the standard model of particle physics:

canopic jug writes:Derek Thompson has republished excerpts from an almost 100-year-old report on what the US was like in the 1920s. He includes some of the charts and summaries.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Linux 6.18 arrives with a few desktop tweaks, while the neglected x86 edition remains stuck on Debian 11:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Patients are also three times more likely to trust AI in their doctor's secure portal than a public chatbot:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Time to start praying to the goddess of wisdom and war:

canopic jug writes:The Medievalists has a short list of 10 inventions from the Middle Ages which have shaped the modern world.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:The High-Luminosity LHC will be mostly the same machine, but it'll deliver 10 times the luminosity and just as little chance of destroying the universe - sorry, conspiracy theorists:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/07/01/nasa-unsure-boeing-starliner-will-ever-be-certified-for-human-flight/5265177

"Fnord666" and dmc write:Oomwoo is a new open-source robot vacuum you can 3D print yourself, sidesteps cloud security risks by running fully offline - project combines Raspberry Pi, 2D LiDAR, and a 3D-printed chassis:

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/07/sony-will-stop-making-physical-copies-of-playstation-games-in-2028/

"Fnord666" writes:Engineer open-sources DIY radar system that's 95% cheaper than $250,000 commercial offerings, has 20 kilometer range - Moroccan engineer designs Aeris-10 radar, shares it on GitHub:

On behalf of all staff and community members, may we wish all Americans a very happy Independence Day (and weekend!). Importantly, stay cool and safe!And everyone, Americans and others (and assuming you didn't get an invite to Taylor's wedding celebrations), tell us what you will be doing and how you will spend the weekend!I will try to keep the stories flowing to allow the Usians to party appropriately.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.

Snotnose writes:I'm not even going to summarize this, but if you value American science you need to read it.

AnonTechie writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/polestar-ev-ban-commerce-department-volvo-china/

looorg writes:The UN sees great rewards, and risks, with AI for humanity and the world in their new report.