The Physics of Life. Part II: The Neural Network as an Active Condensed Matter Body

Nonequilibrium "active agents" establish and break bonds with each other and create an evolving condensed state known as the active matter. Here, the active agents are neurons and the evolving condensed matter is the brain. This paper describes autonomous reconstructions of this active matter. It explains how the neural network creates the mind. The author notices that the active condensed matter made of neurons is similar to that of the molecular bodies of folding proteins and molecular machines, and conjectures that they generate autonomous motions by the same rules. The paper describes voluntary motions of the simple molecular condensed bodies and discusses their interactions with an external environment. In addition to generating motions, the active bodies register external signals and correspondingly adapt their behavior. The active condensed matter bodies can memorize their own active motions and then reproduce those motions. It is shown that deliberate manipulations can transform initially inactive, equilibrated, condensed matter into active matter. Based on this, the author suggests manufacturing artificial animate beings from inanimate matter. These prospective animate forms would be much simpler than real biological organisms. However, they could serve a useful purpose as " generators of autonomous behavior. " They would make decisions and solve problems by the same rules as actual neural networks. Therefore, synthetic active condensed matter could produce a basic artificial mind

The Physics of Life. Part I: The Animate Organism as an Active Condensed Matter Body

Nonequilibrium "active agents" establish bonds with each other and create a quickly evolving condensed state known as active matter. Recently, active matter composed of motile self-organizing biopolymers demonstrated a biotic-like motion similar to cytoplasmic streaming. It was suggested that the active matter could produce cells. However, active matter physics cannot yet define an " organism " and thus make a satisfactory connection to biology. This paper describes an organism made of active agents and explains how the active condensed matter could produce animate beings. It argues that life is a specific condensed matter phenomenon and describes this phenomenon. From this perspective, it formulates a hypothesis regarding the origin of biological life. The discussion starts from the model active agents and the conceptual description of an animate form. Then it explains how chemical transformations actuate protein-based macromolecules. It speculates on how these macromolecules produce the basic cell. Then it discusses the role of water in biological cells. Taking a physicist's perspective, this paper describes ordered reconstructions of the active condensed matter, driven by the ongoing condensation of this matter

Polar-discontinuity-retaining a-site intermixing and vacancies at srtio3/laalo3 interfaces

Contains fulltext : 103628.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Polar-discontinuity-retaining A-site intermixing and vacancies at SrTiO3/LaAlO3SrTiO_{3}/LaAlO_{3} interfaces

Our anomalous surface x-ray diffraction study of the interface between SrTiO3(001) substrates and thin polarfilms of LaAlO3shows La/Sr interdiffusion leading to neutrally charged Sr1−1.5xLaxO layers. From a thickness oftwo unit cells, the LaAlO3film’s interior retains its polar stacking sequence, which is compensated by a cationiccompositional change of the substrate’s terminating TiO2layer. While such valence-retainingA-site intermixingdoes not resolve the polar catastrophe, it may be a general feature at oxide interfaces influencing the electronicand magnetic properties