A New Way Forward Duane R. Valz IGC Inaugural Conference August 10, 2007

2 IGC – Creating the conditions for true breakthroughs in cosmology and unification Interdisciplinary Focus –Multiple fields within physics + math –Theorists + experimentalists Theory must inevitably be validated by empirical data and practical applications On the verge of a major paradigm shift!

3 Science, Technology & Intellectual Property The primary mechanisms of scientific advancement are research, collaboration, publication and peer review Secondary mechanisms are technological application and commercialization, as well as popularization through appeals to public imagination IP, such as patents, capture the practical application of basic ideas and put them into an economic framework – “indicia of innovation”

4 Yahoo! Research 7 locations around the U.S. and the World Over 100 researchers and former academics Areas of focus: –Search –Machine Learning –Microeconomics –Media Experience Research –Community Systems Basic research for its own sake, as well as for practical application to defined problems Collaborations with dozens of Universities

5 Search Technology + Physics The PageRank algorithm was developed by Brin & Page ( see U.S. Patents Nos ,999; 6,799,176 & 7,058,628) It is based on a Markov chain in which the states are Web pages What are some other possibilities for applying advanced analytical techniques in physics to solving next generation problems in Search, Machine Learning, Security and Artificial Intelligence?

6 Additional Areas of Interest Signal processing Networking Data storage Data mining Power consumption Quantum computing

7 Interesting Prospects Through the Internet human motivations, communities and interactions are increasingly amenable to scientific research –What can advanced research in physics tell us about human- machine evolution in data intensive, large scale networks? –Put another way, how can evolving inter-networked information systems be better understood using the increasingly sophisticated models applied to understanding physical systems? –Are there ways to leverage IGC research results for such peripheral applications without detracting from primary mission of basic physics research and advancing pure knowledge? How many measures of innovation should the IGC pursue? –Adjunct research collaborations outside (but leveraging) core areas of research focus? –Patent goals (alongside publication goals)?