Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s heroic techno-utopia

Cator , and Konstantin Khanin

We construct space-time stationary solutions of the 1D Burgers equation with random forcing in the absence of periodicity or any other compactness assumptions. More precisely, for the forcing given by a homogeneous Poissonian point field in space-time we prove that there is a unique global solution with any prescribed average velocity. These global solutions serve as one-point random attractors...

Heroic Medicine

Nearly 60 years after he died, surgeons from around the world still honour the memory of Sir Robert Jones, the father of modern British orthopaedics. Sir Robert lived and worked at a time when crippled children were a common sight on Britain's streets, and one of his greatest achievements was to show that many of these children-the victims chiefly of tuberculosis, rickets, and poliomyelitis-cou...

Ambient Utopia

This chapter presents an analysis of the ambitions that lie behind the concept of Ambient Intelligence as it is presented by the advocates and researchers working in the field. In particular it looks at the ideas regarding the forms of natural and intuitive forms of interaction that are envisaged including agents and robots from a philosophical perspective. The views on interaction are analysed...

Engineering Utopia

The likely advent of AGI and the long-established trend of improving computational hardware promise a dual revolution in coming decades: machines which are both more intelligent and more numerous than human beings. This possibility raises substantial concern over the moral nature of such intelligent machines, and of the changes they will cause in society. Will we have the chance to determine th...

Utopia Rising