Monthly Archives: February 2022

Avengers Endgame released on 26th April 2019 was about Avengers(those who survived the snap) reuniting together & doing the Time Heist with a motive to reverse Thanos snap in order to bring back the dusted ones. We will try to understand time travel theory along with the Avengers journey during time heist in Avengers Endgame through this article.

The Time Travel in Avengers: Endgame is based on a popular time travel theory in the field of quantum physics. Post Thanos snap the remaining Avengers(those who survived the snap) learnt that Thanos destroyed the stones after completing his mission this means that Avengers wont be able to use the Infinity Stones again & reverse his snap. They were a bit taken aback & disappointed, in rage Thor even chopped off Thanos head.

Five Years Later, at present (i.e.2023) It was because of a rat Scott Lang was able to get out of Quantum Realm(To understand more about the quantum realm & how did Scott ended up there you need to watch Ant-Man and the Wasp) as soon as he learnt exactly what happened (Thanos snap) when he was in the Quantum Realm he went to the Avengers compound, there he met Natasha & Steve, & explained them his experience of the quantum realm, he tries to explain that time moves differently in the quantum realm further explaining that he was in it for five years according to the world but it was just five hours for him. He then suggested that they can travel back to a different point of time using the quantum realm & try to reverse Thanos snap. But since the three of them didnt have the exact knowledge of quantum physics they thought to get help from Tony Stark, but Stark refused to help as doing time travel & changing the present would also risk his family, especially his daughter Morgans existence. So after Tonys refusal to help Natasha, Steve along with Scott approached Banner who was now a merged version of his intellect with Hulks physique. They tried the time travel experiment using Stotts Van which kind of didnt go well. Steve who was disappointed with the failure of the time travel experiment went out of the Avengers compound, just then Stark approaches him with time-space GPS, he also returns Steve his shield back indicating his reunion for the plan of time travel.

The remaining Avengers assemble at the Avengers compound, Banner & Rocket went to New Asgard to recruit Thor for Time Heist however theyre met with the now overweight, depressed, drunk Thor, On the other side Natasha goes to Tokyo to stop Clint Barton from the massacre he has been carrying on in vengeance after losing his family in the blip & tells him about their time heist plan, Stark along with Rocket builds the time machine & suits, they run a time travel test & Barton volunteers himself for it, it was successful. Now, they plan to travel back in time and retrieve the Infinity Stones from various points in history before Thanos collects them & does the snap.

Hulk,Ant-Man,Iron ManandCaptain Americawere sent back to theBattle of New Yorkin2012, where Hulk was sent to theNew York Sanctumto request theTime Stone from Doctor Strange, but there he met TheAncient One, initially she refused to give the Time Stone explaining that she could not give him theInfinity Stoneso Banner could alter his timeline and subsequently leave hers undefended without the stone, However when Banner told her about Doctor Strange giving up the Time stone voluntarily, trusting Stranges decision she agreed to give the Time stone to Banner, as he also promised that he would return the stones at the exact moment it was taken, erasing the dark splinter reality that will be created due to absence of the stones.

On the other side, Steve was able to acquire Lokis Scepter (it contained mind stone) from STRIKE by pretending to be associated with HYDRA, STRIKE (SpecialTacticalReserve forInternationalKeyEmergencies) was a counter-terrorist Special Mission Unit ofS.H.I.E.L.D., it included several of S.H.I.E.L.D.s best agents, however at the same time most members of the team were actually undercover HYDRA Agents, On the other side, Stark & Lang tried to steal the Tesseract, but failed as Loki got a hold of it & used it to teleport himself. So Stark and Rogers decided to go back further to Camp Lehigh to an alternate 1970 New Jersey, there they tried to grab the Tesseract and more Pym Particles for their further journey. Lang is left with the Scepter to return to the present day. Steve was able to get more Pym Particles but he sneaked into a cabin, to avoid Agent Jenkins as she had considered him andTony suspicious and reported them, soon he realized it was Peggy Carters cabin(his love) who was also S.H.I.E.L.D. director at that time he silently watches her from far & even Stark was able to get Tesseract but when he was about to leave from there he encountered Howard Stark (his father), Tony introduced himself with the name Howard Potts, they had a brief conversation & Tony was able to finally get a chance to give his father a hug & thank him.

Meanwhile, Thor & Rocket went in an alternate timeline 2013 in Asgard to remove Aether(Reality Stone) from Jane Fosters Body. While they were there Thor saw his mother Frigga & got emotional as after some time according to the original timeline Frigga is killed, Thor was trying to hide but Frigga caught him she also knew that he is from future, they had a conversation & she advised him to follow his own path. He tried to warn her about her upcoming fate (death) but she refused to hear him & accept her fate rather than changing it. Rocket arrives with Aether & Thor hugs his mother last time, but before leaving from there he summons his hammer Mjlnir, he is also relieved at the fact that he is still worthy of it & takes the hammer along with him.

Ronin, Natasha, Rhodes&Nebulawent to Morag with Benatar in the 2014 timeline, Rhodes & Nebula wait for Peter Quill as he would lead them to collect the Power Stone Orb from Morag, Rhodes knocks out Quill & they took the orb, but as they prepare to return to the present timelinetogether only Rhodes shrinks back into theQuantum Realm, Nebulas cybernetics glitch & she falls to the ground, she is left behind as affected by the connection with her alternate past self, due to this connection Thanos of the past timeline(2014) gets aware about his future(his snap & death) & also Avengers Time Heist plan. As soon as Nebula realized it she tries to inform other teammates but the alternate past Nebula captures Nebula of the present timeline & travels to the present time through the quantum realm.

Natasha & Ronin further went to Vormir in Benatar to get the Soul Stone, They are greeted by Red Skull, stating that he knows them Natasha, daughter of Ivan and Clint, son of Edith, and warns them about the sacrifice of a soul(loved one) is to be done in order to obtain soul stone. Both Clint & Natasha were ready to sacrifice their own life in order to save the other one, However at the end, Natasha jumped off the cliff by her own will despite of Clints attempt to stop her, he then wakes up with the soul stone in his hand in the pool of Vormir but cries in grief due to Natashas death.

After completing their mission to collect stones from different timelines they all return to the present time(2023) & the fellow Avengers learn about Natashas sacrifice they were shocked & sad to lose her but they also determined not to let her sacrifice go in vain & decided to move further with their plan & do the snap. Hulk wielded the Infinity Gauntlet & did the snap but the radiations of the Infinity Stones damaged his arm. Although their mission to bring back the dusted ones was successful. However, they hardly got time to celebrate their victory as Thanos(from the 2014 timeline) attacked them by teleporting himself along with his army with the help of Nebula. All the Avengers(including the dusted ones) assemble & give a tough fight to Thanos & his army(Battle of Earth), but Thanos acquires the gauntlet of Infinity stones & was about to do the snap once again but Tony tries to stop him, the Mad Titan knocks Tony aside & did the snap but nothing happens as Tony transferred the stones into his suit & does the snap wiping out Thanos & his army resulting in Avengers victory but Tony dies shortly after doing the snap due to the radiations of the Infinity Stones.

After winning the Battle of Earth & attending Tonys funeral Steve travels back in time through the Quantum Realm to return the Infinity stones as promised also Thors hammer Mjlnir, and returns the Infinity Stones to the exact moment it was taken, erasing the dark splinter reality that was being created due to their absence.

After returning the Stones he decided to remain in past & live his life along with Peggy Carter & return as an old person, he also brought the shield that he gave to Sam Wilson (Falcon) passing him the baton of Captain America.

Time travel theory in Endgame is a popular time travel theory in the field of quantum physics. So If Avengers tried to change something in past (like kill baby Thanos: as suggested by Rhodes), as explained by Banner (Professor Hulk)it wouldnt affect the present timeline it would just create a parallel timeline different from the original timeline where the snap is already done. So there was no use even if they stopped or killed Thanos as this wouldnt reverse his snap that already happened.

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Avengers Endgame Time Theory & Different Timelines Explained - THE MOVIE CULTURE - THE MOVIE CULTURE

About the Centre for Quantum Technologies

The Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) is a research centre of excellence in Singapore. It brings together physicists, computer scientists and engineers to do basic research on quantum physics and to build devices based on quantum phenomena. Experts in this new discipline of quantum technologies are applying their discoveries in computing, communications, and sensing.

CQT is hosted by the National University of Singapore and also has staff at Nanyang Technological University. With some 180 researchers and students, it offers a friendly and international work environment.

Learn more about CQT atwww.quantumlah.org

Job Description

Experimental researchin quantum optomechanics and quantum thermodynamics in optoelectronics nanostructures

Over the past two decades, the progress of semiconductor nanotechnologies as led to an exquisite degree of control of artificial hybrid optoelectronic elementary excitations known as exciton-polaritons. The unique features of these quasi-particles have the potential to put quantum optomechanics and thermodynamics into yet unexplored regimes of operations, characterized by a deeply nonequilibrium situations, and by larger optomechanical interactions, stronger light-matter interface, and ultrafast operations, at the expense of dealing with more complex many-body quantum states state-of-the art systems. The purpose of this research position is to setup and run an experimental platform dedicated to investigating new polaritonic nanostructures in this context. The impact of this work is expected to occur both at the fundamental level, and for the realization of quantum-enhanced functionalities (e.g. ultra-sensitive force sensors). This work requires theory and experiment to develop alongside, and will thus be carried out within a strong theory-experiment partnership.

Job Requirements

Covid-19 Message

At NUS, the health and safety of our staff and students are one of our utmost priorities, and COVID-vaccination supports our commitment to ensure the safety of our community and to make NUS as safe and welcoming as possible. Many of our roles require a significant amount of physical interactions with students/staff/public members. Even for job roles that may be performed remotely, there will be instances where on-campus presences are required.

In accordance with Singapore's legal requirements, unvaccinated workers will not be able to work on the NUS premises with effect from 15 January 2022. As such, job applicants will need to be fully COVID-19 vaccinated to secure successful employment with NUS.

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Visiting Associate Research Professor, Quantum Optomechanics, Centre for Quantum Technologies job with NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE | 283490 -...

THE MAN FROM THE FUTUREThe Visionary Life of John von NeumannBy Ananyo BhattacharyaIllustrated. 353 pages. W.W. Norton & Company. $30.

The mathematician John von Neumann was an undeniable genius whose many accomplishments included an essential role in the development of quantum mechanics, computing and the atom bomb. As the co-author of one of the first textbooks on game theory, he took a coolly analytical approach to a range of situations that included bluffing in poker and the prospect of nuclear annihilation. Still, von Neumann didnt let his deep understanding of physics and rational utility get in the way of something else that was clearly very important to him: a love of driving, along with what seemed to be a cheerful commitment to being terrible at it.

After leaving Europe in 1933 for a life of the mind at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., von Neumann failed the driving test so many times that he had to bribe the examiner to get his license. Every year he found an excuse to buy a new car, preferably an enormous Cadillac. I was proceeding down the road, he would start to say to his incredulous friends when recalling another one of his accidents. The trees on the right were passing me in orderly fashion at 60 miles an hour. Suddenly one of them stepped in my path. Boom!

This is one of several vivid anecdotes recounted in Ananyo Bhattacharyas The Man From the Future, which bills itself as a biography of von Neumann but is more devoted to exploring the ideas and technological inquiries he inspired.

The mathematical contributions von Neumann made in the mid-20th century now appear more eerily prescient with every passing year, Bhattacharya writes, alluding to this books excellent title. His thinking is so pertinent to the challenges we face today that it is tempting to wonder if he was a time traveler, quietly seeding ideas that he knew would be needed to shape the Earths future.

When von Neumann was alive, before the full import of his influence could be gauged, his brilliance marked him not as a time traveler but as an alien one of the so-called Martians, the nickname for the Hungarian-Jewish emigrs, including Edward Teller, who worked on the secret atom bomb project at Los Alamos. Naturally, the intellectually omnivorous von Neumann came up with his own theories about the Hungarian phenomenon (the shorthand term for the scientific accomplishments of von Neumann and his countrymen), deciding that it had something to do with the Austro-Hungarian mixture of liberalism and feudalism that allowed Jews some avenues for success while keeping them away from the true levers of power. This provoked a feeling of extreme insecurity, von Neumann said, making him and his fellow Martians believe that they needed to produce the unusual or face extinction.

This was a dark and introspective assessment from someone who may have anticipated World War II in Europe but was also remembered as a cheerful man, an optimist who loved money and believed firmly in human progress, in the words of one of his lifelong friends. Bhattacharya, a science journalist who also holds a Ph.D. in physics, doesnt probe too deeply into these apparent contradictions. We get a brisk tour through the first three decades of von Neumanns life born in Budapest in 1903, he was a mathematical prodigy who lived a mostly privileged existence before we land in Princeton, where his real-world influence quickly took off.

Von Neumann came of age when mathematics wasnt considered a practical profession. He studied chemistry too, as a sop to his father, an investment banker banking being another field that, later on, would become in thrall to mathematics. After arriving in the United States, von Neumann spent nearly a quarter of a century at the Institute for Advanced Study, where his office neighbors included Albert Einstein and Kurt Gdel. From New Jersey von Neumann would travel the country, teaching and consulting, most consequentially at Los Alamos. Bhattacharya quotes from a report that von Neumann put together for the U.S. Navy, detailing how the angle of incidence could make a bombs detonation more destructive. The report may have been written for a military audience, but von Neumann seems so excited by his own reasoning that he resorts to exclamation points.

Bhattacharya shows how this unabashedly forthright treatment of morally fraught matters earned von Neumann a reputation for hawkishness, as did his support for the logic of preventive war. He advocated taking out the Soviet Unions nuclear arsenal with a surprise attack (If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today?) a position that he later walked back. Yet Bhattacharya also says that von Neumann, as someone who was Central European to the core, believed that people would work together for their mutual benefit, which was embedded in his approach to game theory. So who was he? The hopeful Central European or the hard-nosed cold warrior?

He was, as Bhattacharya puts it, a complex character, and there are tantalizing glimmers of such human strangeness and complexity in this book. But The Man From the Future sometimes seems so focused on explicating that future narrating the fates of von Neumanns ideas long past his death, from cancer, in 1957 that the man himself recedes from view.

The skill with which Bhattacharya teases apart dense scientific concepts left me feeling ambivalent. On the one hand, what we do see of von Neumann hints at such a fascinating personality that I wanted to know more; on the other, maybe theres something to be said for fixating so intently on the cerebral output of someone whose daughter once observed, My fathers first love in life was thinking.

Besides, von Neumann, ever the restless pollinator, may have approved of his biographers approach: Busy with so many other things, he would whizz in, lecture for an hour or two on the links between information and entropy or circuits for logical reasoning, then whizz off again leaving the bewildered attendees to discuss the implications of whatever he had said for the rest of the afternoon.

More here:

The Man From the Future Recounts the Life of a Restless Genius - The New York Times