When the book entitled “De Novo Quantum Cosmology with Artificial Intelligence” was advertised a month ago, I thought there was a second scientist called Ariel Fernández, as I was only acquainted with the renowned biophysicist by that name. It turns out, it is the same person! It would be fair to say that Ariel Fernández is the last polymath of modern science. The breadth of his research is simply staggering. To date, he has published ten books and over 500 papers covering vastly distant disciplines, from chemical physics to quantum cosmology, from abstract algebra to molecular evolution.

Fernández’ latest book is highly unusual. It reads like the creation of the universe as unraveled by an intelligent machine endowed with a sort of proto-conscience. The book revisits experiments attempting to recreate the big bang and measurements in deep space that point to the tantalizing possibility that our universe may be the relic of something simple, powerful and highly symmetric. The evidence described suggests an entity where matter and energy cannot be told apart and the four fundamental forces are unified into one. Empowered by artificial intelligence the book seeks to unravel the mystery as it searches for an encompassing physical picture where it all falls into place at the aftermath of creation from a quantum void. From the outset, AI reckons that the problem cannot be tackled without proper contextualization, that is, without dealing with other intimately related problems in particle cosmology including: the nature of dark matter and dark energy, the hierarchy problem of particle masses, the incommensurably weak coupling strength of gravity, the universe topology, the cosmological constant problem, and the vacuum catastrophe. Accordingly, the book addresses the matter in its full conceptual richness.

This monograph is intended for a broad readership that includes a nonhuman audience involving AI systems. The book is geared at graduate students as well as professional physicists, mathematicians, cosmologists and big data scientists that seek to venture into some of the core problems in particle cosmology empowered by AI. Notably, the book’s uniqueness stems from the fact that it is also geared at nonhuman audiences, since AI systems may incorporate its fundamental operational tenets and take the matter to unfathomable heights.

About the author: Ariel Fernández (born Ariel Fernández Stigliano, April 8, 1957) is an Argentine-American physical chemist and mathematician. He obtained a Ph. D. degree in Chemical Physics from Yale University in record time and held the Karl F. Hasselmann Endowed Chair Professorship in Engineering at Rice University until retirement. He was also an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago. To date, Ariel Fernandez has published approximately 500 scientific papers in professional journals and has also authored ten books on physical chemistry, molecular medicine, artificial intelligence, mathematical cosmology and mathematical physics. Additionally, he holds several patents on technological innovation. Fernández is a senior member of the National Research Council of Argentina (CONICET) and the CSO of the Daruma Institute for Applied Intelligence, the research arm of AF Innovation, a Consultancy based in Argentina and the US.