Thinking you’re Einstein may make you an Einstein

If you want to be smarter, all you need to do is see yourself as Albert Einstein, according to a recent study.

In a recent study, people pictured themselves as the famed physicist with some help from virtual reality. Wearing a body suit and VR headset, the test subjects saw themselves as Albert Einstein, and it turned out that they did better on cognitive tests because of it. Simply seeing themselves as someone smarter actually made them smarter.

These people were then mocked by people who saw themselves as jocks.

Too sexy for reality

We're all models, you know what Dr. B means, while you do your little walk on the server.
We’re all models, you know what Dr. B means, and we do our little turn on the server.

University of Oxford physics professor Nick Bostrom has evaluated our shared reality and has come to a crossroads. If human beings have the potential to evolve into a future “posthuman” form capable of creating a computer simulation of their past, then either:

1. The human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching [this] ‘posthuman’ stage.
2. Any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof).
3. We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

Given the choice between (a) being extinct, (b) having no more Civ games or (c) living in an elaborate hologram program, then we opt for (c) we are all supermodels. Each and every sexy one of us.

Scientist tells Hollywood to knock it off already

Hollywood has always been fairly … liberal with their application of science, even when they get it right. This is not a new revelation, as some of you might point out. Well, physicist Sidney Perkowitz is tired of it and wants it over and done with-now. As such, he’s decided to to ask them nicely: please break the laws of physics only once per movie.

The Emory University scientist believes that good science in science fiction is beneficial for both scientists and filmmakers. Scientists can rest easy knowing pop culture isn’t purveying crap science, and Hollywood wins by not insulting the audience’s intelligence. Now, he’s not totally against science used in movies, he just wants it to be good science.

“I am not offended if they make one big scientific blunder in a given film,” Perkowitz added. “You can have things move faster than the speed of light if you want. But after that I would like things developed in a coherent way.”

“If you violate that you are in trouble. The chances are that the public will pick it up and that is what matters to Hollywood. The Core did not make money because people understood the science was so out to lunch,” he added.

As friends of mine can attest, the reason I think The Core didn’t make money was because it was a crappy movie. But I digress.