The world is a complicated place, as you can tell if you’ve ever tried to predict the weather or the stock market, or if you’ve taken a single glance at the Schroedinger equation governing all physical particles. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a way to visualize such systems and processes? And wouldn’t it … Continue reading
Picking January 1st to do all the stuff you’ve been putting off for the past year is an enduring tradition, but the actual resolutions change over time. In the early 21st century, losing weight and saving money were the most popular choices. But now that the future is here, there are some new ones in … Continue reading
This is Future Bites, your weekly update on the future, now in bite-size format. Check back on Wednesday for your usual Cosmic Revolutions essay. This week, the digital world continues to seep into the real one, with two novel applications of augmented reality. First up, via Singularity Hub, a prototype translator that works in near … Continue reading
Today, there are 7 billion people in the world speaking roughly 6,000 languages. One day, they’ll all be able to talk to each other naturally, without knowing any language except their own. This has some powerful implications for many areas of society, and we’ll take a look at four of them below. But first, allow … Continue reading
It was only a few weeks ago I wrote about the future of the English language, and I’m already about to eat some of my words. At the time, I suggested that the internet would help English grow in popularity. Now that anyone can talk to anyone else in the world, regardless of geography, a … Continue reading
The English language has achieved something unique in human history: it has become a truly global language. It’s spoken by nearly a billion people spread across six continents, and is as close to a worldwide lingua franca as there has ever been. The interesting part about those 1 billion English speakers? Only a third of … Continue reading
Cosmic Revolutions 