Collaborative Research Topic Choices

My choices of assignments are, in order:

Robotics, Computing, Artificial Intelligence: I'm interested in this topic because I believe that it is the future. With all of the advances in technology over the past decade, computers pretty much run everything in the world, robots are making things easier to get done and artificial intelligence is the next big thing.

The End of The World: How is the world going to end? This is a question everyone wants to know the answer too. Me being one of them. Is it going to be from a Thermonuclear War? Maybe environmental damage? Is the Sun going to explode? There are so many possible scenarios in which the world could end at any given moment. I find it very interesting.

Nature: I think that nature is beautiful. All of the amazing places in the world that we stare at in awe. The Northern Lights, The Grand Canyon, Volcanoes...etc... Plus the fact that everything is just right in order to sustain life is unfathomable and miraculous.

I found the following articles on my three topics:

Robotics, Computing, Artificial Intelligence: http://www.aaai.org/Magazine/Watson/watson.php

This article discusses the artificial intelligence system of Watson. A supercomputer that was built by IBM and competed in Jeopardy against the winning-est players in Jeopardy history and won. It is an artificial intelligence machine and is only the beginning of this technology.

The End of The World: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13369?feedId=online-news_rss20

This article describes the possible death of the Earth if we don't all die before this time. In a few billion years the Sun will become a Red Giant and engulf the Earth, thus destroying it and everyone on it. This could be the end of the world.

Nature: http://www.nature.com/news/a-vacuum-can-yield-flashes-of-light-1.12430

This article describes that light can be created from nothing. This is very interesting and could possibly shed light on the first few moments of the universe. It also could help solve the problem of quantum entanglement, which would be a tremendous achievement.