BBC Focus - 03.2020

THISISSUE’SEXPERTS

Q

&

A

ALAMY

JACKSTECHER,DALLAS,TEXAS

WOULDAMODERNCOMPUTERBEABLE

TO DERIVE THE EQUATION E=mc

2

?

Artificialintelligence(AI)algorithmshavehadsomesuccessinlearningthelawsof

physics.In2009,researchersatCornellUniversityfeddatafroma swingingpendulumto

theirAI,andit managedtolearnlawssuchastheconservationofmomentumand

Newton’ssecondlawofmotion.In2018,researchersatMITwentfurther,showingtheir

‘AIphysicist’a bouncingballinvarioussimulatedworlds,whichallowedit toderivethe

lawsforeachsimulation.Likea scientist,thealgorithmcouldevencombineindividual

lawstomakeunifiedtheories.TodiscoverE=mc^2 , wewouldneedtoshowanAIobject

behavingaccordingtoSpecialRelativity.Forexample,wecouldcreatea simulatedworld

inwhichthemassofanobjectappearstoincreasewithspeed.LetanAIlooseinthis

world and it may well figure out Einstein’s famous equation linking mass and energy. LV

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