Finding a study that seems to redefine reality is a rarity, and a provocative article by physics professor Vitaly Vanchurin of the University of Minnesota Duluth (USA), available in prepress, revaluates exactly our reality in an extremely peculiar way by indicating that we and everything in the universe “at its most fundamental level [is] a neural network.” For decades, researchers have been trying to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics without much success. In Einstein's relativity time is relative, but absolute in quantum mechanics. Vanchurin proposes that artificial neural networks exhibit behaviors similar to both theories of physics. He explains that quantum mechanics “is a remarkably successful paradigm for modeling physical phenomena on a wide range of scales” and that “it is widely believed that at the most fundamental level the entire universe is governed by the rules of quantum mechanics and even gravity should somehow emerge from it,” the researcher states.“We're not just saying that artificial neural networks can be useful for analyzing physical systems or for discovering physical laws, we're saying that's how the world around us actually works,” it states in the study. “In this regard, it can be considered a proposal for the theory of everything, and as such it should be easy to prove it wrong."In an interview for Futurism Vanchurin explained a little more about his peculiar idea. According to the physicist when a neural network has a very large number of neurons its behavior can be described very well by equations of classical quantum mechanics, which explains how the physical world works. In the article the physicist explores the possibility that the fundamental structure of everything that exists is a microscopic neural network from which everything emerges; both quantum mechanics (which explains the behavior of very small things), and general relativity (which explains how very large things behave). In a previous article on machine learning, the researcher tried to use statistical methods to understand how neural networks behave, but eventually discovered that, in certain aspects, they are many similar to the dynamics of quantum mechanics which led him to explore the idea that the physical world may be a neural network. According to the recent article The Theory can be proved incorrect and "all that is necessary [would be] to find a physical phenomenon that [cannot] be described by neural networks"” When asking the obligatory question, whether the theory of the universe as a neural network means that we live in a simulation the physicist replied that " no, we live in a neural network, but we may never know the difference."

The crust of our satellite is much more complex than was thought after the US and Soviet missions. There is no tectonics, but there is evidence of explosive eruptions: how is this possible? In 2013, the Chinese Space Authority, CNSA, sent a probe to the moon with a small rover on board. The probe, called Chang'E-3, is happily moored at the expected point, in the Mare Imbrium, one of the largest lunar craters that a hypothesis claims has been filled by huge lava eruptions that date back to around 3.8 billion years ago. Chang'E-3 deposited the rover called Yutu on the ground, which traveled several hundred meters around its base. Then the wheels stopped, a few tens of meters from the probe, and it has remained there to this day. However, Yutu managed to complete many of the experiments that were part of the mission and still today he is partially in a position to use his tools: among these, a radar capable of sounding up to the considerable depth of 400 meters. Below: a selection of photographs of the surface of the Moon around the probe and the rover (click on the images for maximum enlargement), distributed by CNSA and NASA. Explosive eruptions. According to the results obtained so far and published in Science, it appears that the Moon's subsoil is much more complex than what was known after the Apollo missions and the Russian missions. In fact, it seems that the most superficial part of the crust is made up of various layers of rock (up to nine have been counted) which differ in the type of lavas emitted. A completely unexpected discovery, which suggests that the volcanic eruptions that have occurred over time have not only emitted basaltic material (similar for example to most of the eruptions of Etna), but also pyroclastic material (similar to that of Vesuvius) , indicating that in the distant past of the Moon there were also violent explosive eruptions. It is an important discovery from a geological point of view, because until today it was thought that most of the gases had escaped during the cooling of the Moon and that, therefore, explosive eruptions could not have occurred. But if there have been explosive eruptions, it means that many gases have been stored inside our satellite, and this must make us think about the cooling mechanism of the Moon. In this regard, Long Xiao, of the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, said: «Yutu has allowed us to discover two important things: the first, that the most important volcanic events occurred towards the end of the history of lunar volcanism; the second, that the eruptions were not only effusive, but also explosive ". Now it will be necessary to understand how violent volcanic eruptions have triggered: on Earth they occur in the vicinity of the subduction zones (i.e. the clash between the plates). On the Moon, however, there is no tectonics, therefore there must be another mechanism, yet to be discovered, capable of triggering the phenomenon.