QUANTUM I
a hard look…
Toward a Fully Relativistic
Theory of Quantum Information
Christoph Adami
Michigan State University, Depts. of Physics and
Astronomy/Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.
Entropy and Information are statistical quantities describing an observer’s
ability to predict the outcome of the measurement of a physical system. Because
an observer’s capability to make predictions is not a characteristic of the
object the predictions apply to, it does not have to follow the same physical
laws as those befitting the object. Thus, the arrow of time implied by the loss
of information under standard time-evolution is even less mysterious than the
second law of thermodynamics, which is just a consequence of the former.
[mentioned in reference to the information loss paradox of the black
hole]
Entropy…Shannon Entropy
Entropy quantifies the ability of observers to make predictions; in
particular how well an observer equipped with a specific measurement apparatus
can make predictions about another physical system.
[a measurement of measurements]
For Shannon entropies, or
uncertainties, we only need to quantify our uncertainty about the possible
outcomes of a measurement [read: quantification] of that system. (No need to
consider the impossible outcomes.)
i.e. “An observer’s maximal uncertainty about a system is not a
property of the system, but rather a property of the measurement device with
which the observer is about to examine the system.”
By subtracting the uncertainty given by a measurement device from the
maximum potential uncertainty for the measured system, we get information.
The maximum potential uncertainty is potential information (how much is
knowable).
“If my actual entropy vanishes, then all of the potential information is
realized.”
Quantum Entanglement Theory
-occurs between the system being measured and the measuring apparatus,
which makes them one system, not a composite.
“Selves do not exist anymore after entanglement.”
After entanglement, the system grows to QA (not Q). Thus the detector
is asked to describe a system (Q) larger than itself because by its very
measuring-of-the-system (A) it makes the system (Q) include itself: (QA).
This non-separability of a
quantum system and the device measuring it is at the heart of all quantum
mysteries.
A quantum measurement is self-referential,
since the detector is asked to describe its own state, which is logically
impossible.
QUANTUM II
a wider view…
I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.
-The Feynman Lectures on Physics,
1964, Ch.
6, “Probability and Uncertainty"
All Things Quantum – duality, The Observer, the Uncertainty Principle, the
simultaneous occurrence of all possible worlds, the renunciation of causality –
are counter-intuitive. It is a world where certainties have been reduced to
probabilities.
Quantum, the word, comes from ‘quantity’, or ‘how much’. Quantum Satis:
“The amount which is needed”. It refers to the smallest quantity by which we
are able to measure things. It only relates to things which happen to subatomic
particles, or at extreme temperatures. The Photon, for example, is a single
quantum of light, called the “light quantum”. In neurology, it refers to a
fundamental unit, or discrete component, of physiological response.
In general, but still from a scientific view, ‘quantum mechanics’ helps
us to categorize certain phenomena that cannot be explained using classical
physics, those being both Newtonian and Relativistic, (as the latter is for big
things, not small).
 |
| The Dual Processing System of Memory and Perception |
In brain science, the idea of ‘quantum mind’ has been mostly cleared up
and given way to ‘quantum cognition’. The neurons of the brain do not function
by way of quantum mechanics; the software, however, seems to. The cognitive
system can be seen as using non-probabilistic, or quantum decision-making
processes, resulting in emergent properties of concept
accumulation/combination, memory, judgment and perception.
QUANTUM III
the hall of mirrors…
"If all potential ‘things’ stretch out infinitely in all
directions, how does one speak of distance between them, or conceive of any
separateness?"
-Zohar, p. 17-18
 |
| Vector States_kevindooley-flickr |
Quantum is neither here nor there. The electron is not here; it’s in this general
area. Chances are, if you look in this area, you’ll find it. Quantum is
fuzzy. It’s about not-knowing for sure. Quantum is not about measurement, and
that is the confusing part. Is it or not? And under what conditions will it be
more likely to be, than not?
 |
| knots |
Too many people are making up their minds about what ‘quantum’ means,
in their own ways, in crystal clarity, or tangled knots, all of them. Whatever
it is – this word, this thing – it is only what everyone says it is.
The impact of quantum physics, it seems, comes from its measuring not
of things dimensional, like sub-atomic particles, but of information. Discrete,
or small, is a reference to the amount, not of space or time, but of
information: yes or no, on or off. To reduce a system – an information system –
to this resolution – two possible answers – allows us to measure it discretely.
It’s not even a measurement of things anymore, but things yet-to-be!
This word, then, that which makes it so mysterious and so misinterpreted
is its reference to things not of our world.
“Nothing is fixed or fully measurable, everything remains indeterminate,
somewhat ghostly, and just beyond our grasp”
-Zohar, p. 11
We aren’t measuring things-that-are anymore, but the potential
possibilities of things. Experiments of this nature, in both lab and mind, are
conducted in the future; they are a
simulation of a future (not the future). It is experimentation with
potentialities, not with things.
Here is the fixation – this premise that we not only can predict, but
create the future, is suspicious, to say the least. But we do this all the
time. If a brick is sailing towards your face, you predict it will hit you, and
you move aside. You look at the probable futures, and you choose one. But even
analogy is dangerous in this prospect of questioning the quantum world.
“The world doesn’t exist until you say it does, and somehow that means
you can make it whatever you want.” How did we get here? From measuring data to
flexing superpowers? But there is a tempered middle becoming less ignorable. Creeping
into our social behaviors and our everyday technology alike, forcing us to make
sense, not of what quantum theory means, but what it means to all the
people who don’t know what it means.
Zohar, D. (1990). The quantum self:
a revolutionary view of human nature and consciousness rooted in the new
physics. London: Bloomsbury.
POST SCRIPT
Quantum Superposition
...fundamental principle of quantum mechanics that holds that a physical system—such as an electron—exists partly in all its particular, theoretically possible states (or, configuration of its properties) simultaneously; but, when measured or observed, it gives a result corresponding to only one of the possible configurations (as described in interpretation of quantum mechanics).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition
Networks are scale-free:
On the extreme separation of scales at which both quantum mechanics and
relativistic gravity work.
Quantum teleportation between
atomic ensembles demonstrated for first time
Lisa Zyga, November 19, 2012
One of the key components of quantum communication is quantum
teleportation, a technique used to transfer quantum states to distant locations
without actual transmission of the physical carriers. Quantum teleportation
relies on entanglement, and it has so far been demonstrated between single
photons, between a photon and matter, and between single ions. Now for the first time, physicists have
demonstrated quantum teleportation by entangling two remote macroscopic atomic
ensembles, each with a radius of about 1 mm.
Quantum teleportation between remote atomic-ensemble quantum memories
Xiao-Hui Bao, et.
al. Edited by Alain Aspect, Institut d'Optique, Orsay, France,
and approved October 11, 2012
Will we ever understand quantum
theory?
Philip Ball, 25 January 2013, BBC
Future
Many outsiders figure that they don’t understand quantum theory because
they can’t see how an object can be in two places at once, or how a particle
can also be a wave. But these things are hardly disputed among quantum
theorists. It’s been rightly said that, as a physicist, you don’t ever come to
understand them in any intuitive sense; you just get used to accepting them.
After all, there’s no reason at all to expect the quantum world to obey our
everyday expectations. Once you accept this alleged weirdness, quantum theory
becomes a fantastically useful tool, and many scientists just use it as such, like
a computer whose inner workings we take for granted. That’s why most
scientists who use quantum theory never
fret about its meaning – in the words of physicist David Mermin, they “shut
up and calculate”, which is what he felt the
Copenhagen
interpretation was recommending.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130124-will-we-ever-get-quantum-theory
Physicists propose measure of macroscopicity; Schrodinger's cat scores a 57
Apr 26, 2013 by Lisa Zyga
The size of an object can be measured in many ways, such as by its mass, volume, or even the number of atoms it contains. And when it comes to quantum physics, "macroscopic" objects are considered to be larger than "quantum" ones, since the former are usually described by classical laws and the latter by quantum laws. However, physicists have been challenging the boundary between these two realms by performing experiments that show that multiparticle objects can exist in quantum superpositions. But there has been no standard measure of macroscopicity until now, as a team of physicists has proposed that the macroscopicity of an object can be measured in terms of certain parameters of the experiment used to probe its quantum superposition, rather than as a single property of the object itself.
Physicists Stefan Nimmrichter of the University of Vienna, Austria, and Klaus Hornberger of the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, have published a paper on the new definition of macroscopicity in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.
Macroscopicity of Mechanical Quantum Superposition States, link, arxiv
just the intro to a relevant article:
One of the most basic laws of quantum mechanics is that a system can be in more than one state – it can exist in multiple realities – at once. This phenomenon, known as the superposition principle, exists only so long as the system is not observed or measured in any way. As soon as such a system is measured, its superposition collapses into a single state. Thus, we, who are constantly observing and measuring, experience the world around us as existing in a single reality.
Researchers suggest one can affect an atom's spin by adjusting the way it is measured
phys.org, Mar 18, 2013
New scheme for quantum computing
The trick is to design algorithms so that wrong answers cancel out and
correct answers accumulate. The nature of those algorithms depends on the medium in which information is stored.
Meyer and Wong considered a computer based on a state of matter called
a Bose-Einstein condensate. These are atoms caught in an electromagnetic trap
and chilled so cold that they "fall" into a shared lowest quantum
state and act as one.
Tom Wong, graduate student in physics and
David Meyer, professor of mathematics at the University
of California, San Diego
Uncovering quantum secret in
photosynthesis
Watch the process of photosynthesis closely enough – at the femto-scale
– and it appears there are little packets of energy simultaneously
"trying" all of the possible paths to get where they need to go, and
then settling on the most efficient.
In an article published in the journal Science, researchers from ICFO-
Institute of Photonic Sciences, in collaboration with biochemists from the University of Glasgow, have been able to show for the
first time at ambient conditions that the quantum mechanisms of energy transfer
make photosynthesis more robust in the face of environmental influences.
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