Category Archives: Quantum Physics

A pair of physicists from Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (IKBFU) in Russia recently proposed an entirely new view of the cosmos. Their research takes the wacky idea that were living in a computer simulation and mashes it up with the mind-boggling many worlds theory to say that, essentially, our entire universe is part of an immeasurably large quantum system spanning uncountable multiverses.

When you think about quantum systems, like IBM and Googles quantum computers, we usually imagine a device thats designed to work with subatomic particles qubits to perform quantum calculations.

These computers may one day perform advanced calculations that classical computers today cant, but for now theyre useful as a way to research the gap between classical and quantum reality.

Artyam Yurov and Valerian Yurov, the IKBFU researchers behind the aforementioned study, posit that everything in the universe, including the universe itself, should be viewed as a quantum object. This means, to experience quantum reality we dont need to look at subatomic particles or qubits: were already there. Everything is quantum!

Yurov and Yurov begin their paper by stating theyve turned currently popular theoretical physics views on their head:

We present a new outlook on the cosmology, based on the quantum model proposed by Michael and Hall. In continuation of the idea of that model we consider finitely many classical homogeneous and isotropic universes whose evolutions are determined by the standard EinsteinFriedmann equations but that also interact with each other quantum-mechanically.

The paper goes on to mathematically describe how our entire universe is, itself, a quantum object. This means, like a tiny subatomic particle, it exhibits quantum properties that should include superposition. Theoretically, our universe should be able to be in more than one place or state at a time, and that means there simply must be something out there for it to interact with even if that means it uses jaw-droppingly unintuitive quantum mechanics to interact with itself in multiple states simultaneously.

The problem with expanding quantum mechanics to large objects like say, a single cell is that other theoretical quantum features stop making as much sense. In this case decoherence, or how quantum objects collapse from multiple states into the physical state we see in our classical observations, doesnt seem to pass muster at the cosmic scale.

Yurov and Yurov have a simple solution for that: They state unequivocally in their work that There is no such thing as decoherence.

According to an article from Sci-Tech Daily, lead author on the paper Artyom Yurov said:

Back in the days I was skeptical about the idea. Because it is known that the bigger an object is the faster it collapses. Even a bacteria collapses extremely fast, and here we are talking about the Universe. But here [Pedro Gonzales Diaz, a late theoretical physician whose work partially inspired this study] asked me: What the Universe interacts with? and I answered nothing. There is nothing but the Universe and there is nothing it can interact with.

But, the more Yurov and Yurov explored the many interacting worlds (MIW) theory that says all quantum functions manifest physically in alternate realities(the cat is dead on one world, alive on another, and dancing the Cha Cha on another, etc.), the more they realized it not only makes sense, but the math and science seem to work out better if you assume everything, the universe included, has quantum features.

Per the study:

This implies that the reason the quantum phenomena are so fragile has nothing to do with a collapse of a wave function (whatever that means) in fact, such an object as a wave function is inessential and can be completely avoided in the MIW formalism. No, the existence of quantum phenomena relies solely on the mutual positions of the neighbouring worlds when they are sufficiently close, the quantum potential is alive and kicking; when they depart, the quantum potential abates and the particles become effectively classical again.

The researchers then used their assumptions to come up with calculations that expand the many worlds theory to encompass multiple universes, or multiverses. The big idea here is that, if the universe is a quantum object it must interact with something and that something is probably other universes.

But what the research doesnt explain, is why our universe and everything in it would exist as something analogous to a single qubit in a gigantic quantum computer spanning multiple universes simultaneously. If humans arent the magical observers who cause the quantum universe to collapse into classical reality by measuring it, we might instead be cogs in the machine maybe the universe is a qubit, maybe were the qubits. Perhaps were just noise that the universes ignore while they go about their calculations.

Maybe we do live in a computer simulation after all. But instead of being some advanced creatures favorite NPCs, were just bits of math that help the operating system run.

You can read the Yurov duos paper The day the universes interacted: quantum cosmology without a wave function here on Springer.

Read next: Twitter delays deleting inactive accounts to decide how to respect dead users

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Study: Our universe may be part of a giant quantum computer - The Next Web

In 1990 I wrote a bit of fluff forScientific Americanabout whether our cosmos might be just one in an infinitude, as several theories of physics implied. I titled my piece Here a Universe, There a Universe . . . and kept the tone light, because I didnt want readers to take these cosmic conjectures too seriously. After all, there was no way of proving, or disproving, the existence of other universes.*

Today, physicists still lack evidence of other universes, or even good ideas for obtaining evidence. Many nonetheless insist our cosmos really is just a mote of dust in a vast multiverse. One especially eloquent and passionate multiverse theorist is Sean Carroll. His faith in the multiverse stems from his faith in quantum mechanics, which he sees as our best account of reality.

In his bookSomething Deeply Hidden, Carroll asserts that quantum mechanics describes not just very small things but everything, including us. As far as we currently know, he writes, quantum mechanics isnt just an approximation to the truth; it is the truth. And however preposterous it might seem, a multiverse, Carroll argues, is an inescapable consequence of quantum mechanics.

To make his case, he takes us deep into the surreal quantum world. Our world! The basic quantum equation, called a wave function, shows a particlean electron, sayinhabiting many possible positions, with different probabilities assigned to each one. Aim an instrument at the electron to determine where it is, and youll find it in just one place. You might reasonably assume that the wave function is just a statistical approximation of the electrons behavior, which cant be more precise because electrons are tiny and our instruments crude. But you would be wrong, according to Carroll. The electron exists as a kind of probabilistic blur until you observe it, when it collapses, in physics lingo, into a single position.

Physicists and philosophers have been arguing about this measurement problem for almost a century now. Various other explanations have been proposed, but most are either implausible, making human consciousness a necessary component of reality, or kludgy, requiring ad hoc tweaks of the wave function. The only solution that makes sense to Carrollbecause it preserves quantum mechanics in its purest formwas proposed in 1957 by a Princeton graduate student, Hugh Everett III. He conjectured that the electron actually inhabits all the positions allowed by the wave function, but in different universes.

This hypothesis, which came to be called the many-worlds theory, has been refined over the decades. It no longer entails acts of measurement, or consciousness (sorry New Agers). The universe supposedly splits, or branches, whenever one quantum particle jostles against another, making their wave functions collapse. This process, called decoherence, happens all the time, everywhere. It is happening to you right now. And now. And now. Yes, zillions of your doppelgangers are out there at this very moment, probably having more fun than you. Asked why we dont feel ourselves splitting, Everett replied, Do you feel the motion of the earth?

Carroll addresses the problem of evidence, sort of. He says philosopher Karl Popper, who popularized the notion that scientific theories should be precise enough to be testable, or falsifiable, had good things to say about Everetts hypothesis, calling it a completely objective discussion of quantum mechanics. (Popper, I must add, had doubts about natural selection, so his taste wasnt irreproachable.)

Carroll proposes furthermore that because quantum mechanics is falsifiable, the many-worlds hypothesis is the most falsifiable theory ever inventedeven if we can never directly observe any of those many worlds. The term many, by the way, is a gross understatement. The number of universes created since the big bang, Carroll estimates, is 2 to the power of 10 to the power of 112. Like I said, an infinitude.

And thats just the many-worlds multiverse. Physicists have proposed even stranger multiverses, which science writer Tom Siegfried describes in his bookThe Number of the Heavens. String theory, which posits that all the forces of nature stem from stringy thingies wriggling in nine or more dimensions, implies that our cosmos is just a hillock in a sprawling landscape of universes, some with radically different laws and dimensions than ours. Chaotic inflation, a supercharged version of the big bang theory, suggests that our universe is a minuscule bubble in a boundless, frothy sea.

In addition to describing these and other multiverses, Siegfried provides a history of the idea of other worlds, which goes back to the ancient Greeks. (Is there anything they didnt think of first?)Acknowledging that nobody can say for sure whether other universes exist, Siegfried professes neutrality on their existence. But he goes on to construct an almost comically partisan defense of the multiverse, declaring that it makes much more sense for a multiverse to exist than not."

Siegfried blames historical resistance to the concept of other worlds on Aristotle, who argued with Vulcan-like assuredness that earth is the only world. Because Aristotle was wrong about that, Siegfried seems to suggest, maybe modern multiverse skeptics are wrong too. After all, the known universe has expanded enormously since Aristotles era. We learned only a century ago that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies.

The logical next step, Siegfried contends, would be for us to discover that our entire cosmos is one of many. Rebutting skeptics who call multiverse theories unscientific because they are untestable, Siegfried retorts that the skeptics are unscientific, because they are pre-supposing a definition of science that rules out multiverses to begin with. He calls skeptics deniersa term usually linked to doubts about real things, like vaccines, climate change and the Holocaust.

I am not a multiverse denier, any more than I am a God denier. Science cannot resolve the existence of either God or the multiverse, making agnosticism the only sensible position. I see some value in multiverse theories. Particularly when presented by a writer as gifted as Sean Carroll, they goad our imaginations and give us intimations of infinity. They make us feel really, really smallin a good way.

But Im less entertained by multiverse theories than I once was, for a couple of reasons. First, science is in a slump, for reasons both internal and external. Science is ill-served when prominent thinkers tout ideas that can never be tested and hence are, sorry, unscientific. Moreover, at a time when our world, the real world, faces serious problems, dwelling on multiverses strikes me as escapismakin to billionaires fantasizing about colonizing Mars. Shouldnt scientists do something more productive with their time?

Maybe in another universe Carroll and Siegfried have convinced me to take multiverses seriously, but I doubt it.

*This is a slightly modified version of a review published in The Wall Street Journal last month.

Further Reading:

Jeffrey Epstein and the Decadence of Science

String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Bet

Is speculation in multiverses as immoral as speculation in subprime mortgages?

Meta-Post: Posts on Physics

I spoke with Sean Carroll in 2008 onBloggingheads.tv.

See also my free, online bookMind-Body Problems: Science, Subjectivity & Who We Really Are.

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Multiverse Theories Are Bad for Science - Scientific American

The original notion of a time crystal can be realized in chains of spinning quantum particles like the one shown hereat least theoretically.

By Adrian ChoNov. 27, 2019 , 11:35 AM

Like vinyl records, the strange concept of a time crystal is spinning back into fashion. In 2012, a Nobel Prizewinning physicist proposed that the properties of a system of quantum particles might cycle in time much as a crystals pattern of atoms repeats in space, even without the addition of energy, making it a bit like perpetual motion machine. But others soon proved a no-go theorem that said such a thing was impossibleand replaced it with a less fantastical definition of a time crystal that researchers soon demonstrated in the lab. But now, two physicists have shown that the original notion of a time crystal is possible after allat least in theory.

I think its right, says Frank Wilczek, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who dreamed up time crystals but who was not involved with the new work. The new scheme is one way of getting around the no-go. But realizing the system experimentally may be exceedingly difficult, other physicists say.

In physics, patterns can arise seemingly out of nowhere. For example, in a crystalline solid, the forces between atoms do not explicitly specify the position of the atoms or the distances between them. Cool the atoms into their ground state, however, and they nestle into a repeating pattern like the squares on a checkerboard.

Wilczek wondered whether, through similar physics, a system could have a ground state that repeated in some measurable way in time instead of in space. In 2012, his two papers on the subject triggered a flurry of research. However, in 2015 theoretical physicists Haruki Watanabe and Masaki Oshikawa, now both at the University of Tokyo, proved that, strictly speaking, time crystals were impossible. The lowest energy state of an isolated system in so-called thermodynamic equilibrium had to be static, they showed.

Other researchers expanded on Wilczeks idea, however, and revealed that a system that is repeatedly prodded with energylike child being pushed on a swingcould exhibit a novel behavior that they dubbed a discrete time crystal. Such a periodically agitated system often oscillates at frequencies that are multiples of those of the external stimulus. But, instead, interactions within the system could make it respond at half that external frequency, researchers predicted, like a child strangely swinging at half the frequency at which the parent pushes.

The effect has been seen in the real world. For example, in 2017, Christopher Monroe, an experimental physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park, and colleagues produced a discrete time crystal with 10 spinning rubidium ions arranged in a chain. Through magnetic interactions, the ions tend to try to point in opposite directions, and noise jostles them randomly. But by prodding the ions with pulses of microwaves, the researchers could lock in the pattern of spins so they flipped at exactly half the rate of the pulses.

Now, theoretical physicists Valerii Kozin of the University of Iceland in Reykjavk and Oleksandr Kyriienko of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom have proved that, at least in theory, its possible to construct a system closer to Wilczeks original idea. To do that, they toss out one of the premises of Watanabe and Oshikawas no-go theorem, which rests on the assumption that the strength of the interactions among the particles dies off with distance, as is the case for electric and magnetic forces. In contrast, Kozin and Kyriienko theoretically analyze the case of spinning particles, like Monroes ions, that interact in a way that does not die off with distance, something that is possible in theory.

With such long-range interactions the system can have a time crystal ground state that needs no added energy, the researchers report in Physical Review Letters. What we show is a loophole, not a counterexample to the theorem, Kyriienko says.

The hypothesized time crystal state is incredibly complex. Thanks to quantum mechanics, each ion can spin both up and down at the same time, and the time crystal is similar to the state in which all the particles spin up and down at the same timeexcept a lot more complicated. The signature of the time crystal is subtle and would be tough to measure: Certain correlations in the number of spins pointing up or down will oscillate in time, even though the system remains unperturbed in its least energetic state.

The result isnt shocking, Watanabe says, because other bedrock results in theoretical physics go out the window when a system has long-range interactions. I wouldnt be too surprised by this kind of behavior in a long-range system, he says. But still, its nice to have a concrete, simple example.

Can the system be realized experimentally? Kyriienko says hes hopeful. It should be possible, but its a challenging measurement. Monroe is less optimistic. The long-range interactions that Kozin and Kyriienko posit in their model are far more complex than those at work among ions in a trap, Monroe says. I dont think we have in practice any physical system that allows such interactions, Monroe says. But we could be surprised. Thats the great thing about science.

Go here to see the original:

Back to the future: The original time crystal makes a comeback - Science Magazine

By Ashish Arora Et Al

Is American innovation sputtering? The data suggests so: productivity growth in the US, which is powered by innovation, has been decelerating. Total factor productivity grew substantially in the middle of the 20th century, but started slowing in 1970.

Data from the National Science Foundation indicate that US investment in science has steadily increased between 1970 and 2010, as measured by dollars spent (up 5X), number of PhDs trained (2X) and articles published (7X). Why is there little productivity growth? Probably todays science is simply not as groundbreaking as before.

Some dispute this, however, pointing to advances in quantum physics (quantum computing), plasma physics and molecular biology. Another explanation is that todays science is not being translated into applications in other words, something is keeping scientific discoveries from fuelling productive innovation.

Our research finds that the US innovation ecosystem has splintered since the 1970s, with corporate and academic science pulling apart and making application of basic scientific discoveries more difficult. Our analysis also shows that venture capital-backed scientific entrepreneurship has helped to bridge this gap between corporate science and academia but only in a couple of sectors.

From Why the US Innovation Ecosystem is Slowing Down

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Innovate, and grow - Economic Times

The universe is governed by four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. These forces drive the motion and behavior of everything we see around us. At least thats what we think. But over the past several years theres been increasing evidence of a fifth fundamental force. New research hasnt discovered this fifth force, but it does show that we still dont fully understand these cosmic forces.

The fundamental forces are a part of the standard model of particle physics. This model describes all the various quantum particles we observe, such as electrons, protons, antimatter, and such. Quarks, neutrinos and the Higgs boson are all part of the model.

The term force in the model is a bit of a misnomer. In the standard model, each force is the result of a type of carrier boson. Photons are the carrier boson for electromagnetism. Gluons are the carrier bosons for the strong, and bosons known as W and Z are for the weak. Gravity isnt technically part of the standard model, but its assumed that quantum gravity has a boson known as the graviton. We still dont fully understand quantum gravity, but one idea is that gravity can be united with the standard model to produce a grand unified theory (GUT).

Every particle weve ever discovered is a part of the standard model. The behavior of these particles matches the model extremely accurately. We have looked for particles beyond the standard model, but so far we have never found any. The standard model is a triumph of scientific understanding. It is the pinnacle of quantum physics.

But weve started to learn it has some serious problems.

To begin with, we now know the standard model cant combine with gravity in the way that we thought. In the standard model, the fundamental forces unify at higher energy levels. Electromagnetism and the weak combine into the electroweak, and the electroweak unifies with the strong to become the electronuclear force. At extremely high energies the electronuclear and gravitational forces should unify. Experiments in particle physics have shown that the unification energies dont match up.

More problematic is the issue of dark matter. Dark matter was first proposed to explain why stars and gas on the outer edge of a galaxy move faster than predicted by gravity. Either our theory of gravity is somehow wrong, or there must be some invisible (dark) mass in galaxies. Over the past fifty years, the evidence for dark matter has gotten really strong. Weve observed how dark matter clusters galaxies together, how it is distributed within particular galaxies, and how it behaves. We know it doesnt interact strongly with regular matter or itself, and it makes up the majority of mass in most galaxies.

But there is no particle in the standard model that could make up dark matter. Its possible that dark matter could be made of something such as small black holes, but astronomical data doesnt really support that idea. Dark matter is most likely made of some yet undiscovered particle, one the standard model doesnt predict.

Then there is dark energy. Detailed observations of distant galaxies show that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. There seems to be some kind of energy driving this process, and we dont understand how. It could be that this acceleration is the result of the structure of space and time, a kind of cosmological constant that causes the universe to expand. It could be that this is driven by some new force yet to be discovered. Whatever dark energy is, it makes up more than two-thirds of the universe.

All of this points to the fact that the standard model is, at best, incomplete. There are things we are fundamentally missing in the way the universe works. Lots of ideas have been proposed to fix the standard model, from supersymmetry to yet undiscovered quarks, but one idea is that there is a fifth fundamental force. This force would have its own carrier boson(s) as well as new particles beyond the ones weve discovered.

This fifth force would also interact with the particles we have observed in subtle ways that contradict the standard model. This brings us to a new paper claiming to have evidence of such an interaction.

The paper looks at an anomaly in the decay of helium-4 nuclei, and it builds off an earlier study of beryllium-8 decays. Beryllium-8 has an unstable nucleus that decays into two nuclei of helium-4. In 2016 the team found that the decay of beryllium-8 seems to violate the standard model slightly. When the nuclei are in an excited state, it can emit an electron-positron pair as it decays. The number of pairs observed at larger angles is higher than the standard model predicts, and is known as the Atomki anomaly.

There are lots of possible explanations for the anomaly, including experiment error, but one explanation is that its caused by boson the team named X17. It would be the carrier boson for a (yet unknown) fifth fundamental force, with a mass of 17 MeV. In the new paper, the team found a similar discrepancy in the decay of helium-4. The X17 particle could also explain this anomaly.

While this sounds exciting, theres reason to be cautious. When you look at the details of the new paper, theres a bit of odd data tweaking. Basically, the team assumes X17 is accurate and shows that the data can be made to fit with their model. Showing that a model can explain the anomalies isnt the same as proving your model does explain the anomalies. Other explanations are possible. If X17 does exist, we should have also seen it in other particle experiments, and we havent. The evidence for this fifth force is really weak.

The fifth force could exist, but we havent found it yet. What we do know is that the standard model doesnt entirely add up, and that means some very interesting discoveries are waiting to be found.

Source: New evidence supporting the existence of the hypothetic X17 particle, by Krasznahorkay, A. J., et al.

Source: Observation of anomalous internal pair creation in be 8: A possible indication of a light, neutral boson, by Krasznahorkay, A. J., et al.

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A Fifth Fundamental Force Could Really Exist, But We Haven't Found It Yet - Universe Today

ByDr. Mir FaizalandScott Douglas Jacobsen

Dr. Mir Faizal is an Adjunct Professor in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Lethbridge and aVisiting Professor inIrving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciencesat the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

Here we start the cosmology educational series on the differences between the classical and the quantum worlds.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We have heard terms like classical physics and quantum physics. What do these terms mean in simple words, and what is the difference between them?

Dr. Mir Faizal:We have evolved at a certain scale, and our intuitive understanding of the world is also limited to that scale. Now common sense is the expression of this intuitive understanding of the world in languages like English or French. If this intuitive understanding of the world is expressed in mathematics, we naturally will obtain a mathematical description of common sense. This mathematical description of our intuitive understanding is called classical physics. However, there is no fundamental reason why such a description will hold at a different scale. In fact, now we have known that the classical description does not hold at very small scales, and common sense seems also to break at such a scale. It is hard to accurately describe the world at such a small scale using languages like English or French, as these languages have not been evolved to describe the world at such a scale. However, it is still possible to mathematically describe the world at such a small scale, and this mathematical description of a small scale is called quantum physics. Even though it is not possible to describe the world at such a small scale in common language, it is possible to use analogies to understand physics at such small scales.

Jacobsen: We see the worldaround us, and know how it behaves, and this forms a basis for our commonsense. Youmentionedthat our common sense breaks in quantum mechanical. Canyou give some examples of such a breaking of common sense in quantummechanics?

Faizal: Let us start by a simple example, to understand how the common sense breaks in the quantum mechanism. If there are two paths between your home and your office, and you are travelling between them, you can take any one of these two path at one time. However, you will infer that it is impossible to take both these paths at the same time. Even if you are really tiny, you cannot take two paths at the same time. The main reason for this is that it is impossible for you to be present at two different places at the same time. This seems to be something that you know from common sense. However, this description of the world does not hold at much smaller scales. In quantum mechanics, you go to your office from both those paths. In fact, you will take all the possible paths between your home and office, and we have to mathematically sum these path to describe your behaviour of going between your home and office. This is actually how things are calculated for quantum mechanical particles. This description of quantum mechanics (where a particle takes all possible path between two points) is called the Feynman path integral approach.

Jacobsen: We have seenpeople commute between their home and office. In fact, as more simple system,we have seen a stone fall down, and it does not appear to take many pathsbetween two points. We have also never seen a particle present at two places atthe same time. How does the quantum mechanical fit with these observations?

Faizal:In quantum mechanics, as soon as someone makes ameasurement on some object, it instantaneously collapses to just one of thosepaths. Now it is possible to calculate the chance of an object to be collapseto a certain path in quantum mechanics. For large enough objects, this almostcoincides with the path that the object is expected to take based on classicalmechanics. However, as the objects gets smaller, the deviations between the twopaths becomes significant. It may be noted to calculate the position of anobject at any point in future, you need to know about two things. You need toknow where that object is present at a given time, and you need to know howfast it is travelling in a certain direction. If you know both these things,then you can know where that object will be present in future. However, in quantummechanics, it is impossible to measure both the position of a particle and howfast it is travelling, at the same time. Thus, in quantum mechanics it is notpossible to accurately measure the position of a particle in future. What wecan measure is the chance for a particle to be present at a certain point intime. So, in quantum mechanics causality is also only probabilistically true.As it is impossible to obtain certain knowledge of cause, the effects can beonly probabilistically predicted.

Jacobsen: It is possible to exactly predict the future position of a particle by improving our technology and inventing better devices?

Faizal:Technological development cannot be usedto predict the future position of a particle beyond what is allowed by quantummechanics. This is because for such quantum system certain knowledge isactually not present in nature, and so we can only get probabilistic knowledgeof such system. This is the main difference between the classical and quantumdescription of the world. In classical mechanics, at least in principle, it ispossible to know the behaviour of a particle with certainty. In other world,the world is totally deterministic in classical mechanics. It might bedifficult to exactly calculate such a behaviour, but such a knowledge exists innature. In fact, even in classical mechanics, we usually use probability todescribe the world. This is the basis of statistical mechanics. However, such ause of probability is epistemological as certain knowledge exists atanontological level in classical physics. It is just very difficult forus to obtain such knowledge accurately for many systems. However, in quantummechanics there is anontological use probability as certain knowledge isabsent at anontological level from nature.

Jacobsen: Can you give asimple analogy of this difference to make it easy to understand?

Faizal:Let us again use a simple example tounderstand this difference. Someone is going to a coffee shop, and he usuallylikes to drink coffee but sometime orders tea. As it is a coffee shop they keeprunning out of tea. Now if it is known that he takes tea about twenty times in hundreddays, then you can calculate the chance of him drinking tea of coffee. Youcannot predict accurately what he will take on a given day, as such a knowledgeis not present in this system. However, knowing what he is more likely toorder, you can predict his behaviour over a large number of visits. So, for thenext ten days you can save two tea bag for him. This is an example of anontological absence of knowledge, and this is how probabilities work in quantummechanics. Now consider another example, in a group of ten people, two of themlike tea and the rest like coffee. Also they have a rule that they will notvisit the coffee shop more than once in ten days. Now if you do not bother toask them who like tea and who likes coffee, and just know how they behave in agroup, you can again predict the probability of them drinking tea. However, inthis case, the knowledge exists in form a hidden variable, which you did notbother to measure. This is an example of anepistemological absence ofknowledge, and this is how probabilities work in statistical mechanics.

Jacobsen: I can understandthat certain knowledge of the particle is not present, but where is theparticle actually present.

Faizal:Theparticle is present at every possible point it can occupy, till it is measured.However, when it is measured, it instantaneously collapses to a single point,and we can measure the chance of it collapsing to a certain point. This is animportant feature of quantum mechanics. In classical mechanics, two different contradictionscannotbe simultaneously existing. In quantum mechanics, all possibilitiessimultaneously exist, till they are measured. However, when they are measured,only one of them is instantaneously observed, and the system ceases to exist inthe other possibilities. This principle has been illustrated by the famousthought experiment of Schrodingers cat, in which a cat is killed by a quantummechanical process. There are two possibilities, as the cat can be dead andalive. Now if the system is not observed, then the cat can exist in a statebeing dead and alive at the same time. As soon as an observation is made, thesysteminstantaneously collapses to one of the two possibilities, so thecat is actually observed to be dead or alive. However, if no observation ismade, the cat is in a state of being dead and alive at the same time.

Jacobsen:Can these quantum effects be observed in our daily life?

Faizal: A important requirement of quantum mechanics isthat it should coincide with the classical physics at our scale, for all thesystem that have been described using classical mechanics. This means thesequantum effects become so small at our scale that they can be neglected, andcannot be observed. There are few phenomena like superconductivity andsuperfluiditywhere quantum effects can change the behaviourofcertain system at large scale. However, most quantum mechanical effect, whichbreak common sense, can be neglected at our scale, and the world at our scalecan described by classical mechanics. It is possible that there are somesystems, where other quantum effects become important even at large scale, and theirbehaviouris very different from thebehaviourpredictedfrom classical mechanics.

Jacobsen: Thank you for theopportunity and your time, Dr. Faizal.Faizal:My pleasure.

Photo by Billy HuynhonUnsplash

https://www.in-sightjournal.com

Assistant Editor, News Intervention,Human Rights Activist.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing. Jacobsen works for science and human rights, especially womens and childrens rights. He considers the modern scientific and technological world the foundation for the provision of the basics of human life throughout the world and advancement of human rights as the universal movement among peoples everywhere. You can contact Scott via email, his website, or Twitter.

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Ask Dr. Faizal 1 - The Classical and Quantum Understandings of the World - News Intervention

A bill sponsored by Fine Gael TD Kate O Connell TD which is now part of the government legislative pipeline, proposes to ban the promotion of cancer treatments that fail the tests set by current medical knowledge, writes Eddie Hobbs.

The Treatment of Cancer (Advertisements) Bill proposes to apply the oxymoron of scientific consensus to cancer treatment.

Mislabelled as a bill to curtail advertisements relating to cancer treatment, its impact will be to crush any engagement on non-conventional treatments even if done in conjunction with conventional and, by logical extension, toxifies non-conventional treatments across all human diseases.

Acupuncturists, Chiropractors and Herbalists need to sit up and take note because the bill, as formulated, also covers cancer risk prevention treatments.

Although formulated on the pathway of good intentions, like all orthodoxy its doctrinal approach protects the current establishment, buttresses its hegemony over scientific knowledge and economic muscle and treats knowledge as property to be controlled by those who know best.

This alienates citizens from free choice and practitioners from free speech, thinning constitutional rights to bodily integrity and freedom of expression.

Great strides have been made by medical science in the treatment of cancer and some of the best brains in medicine are passionately committed to better outcomes but disease of any kind isnt just rooted in the mechanics of the human body, when it is clear that external environmental issues and chemical food intake may play a key role.

Einstein, who in 1905 added substantially to our early knowledge of quantum physics observed that if at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.

If it wasnt for breakthroughs by great thinkers like Einstein, Planck, Tesla, Hawking etc prepared to challenge existing consensus, knowledge would be first filtered by those most at risk to its dissemination. As worded this appears to be a consequence of the Treatment of Cancer (Advertisements) Bill.

Ads and offers mean any material published including reports, instructions, accounts, brochures, posters.

It amounts to a blanket prohibition on an offer of treatment, remedial prescription, consultation, diagnosis or treatment of any kind and although it is aimed squarely at charlatans, rogues and quacks it catches a great swathe of established alternative treatments used in conjunction with conventional.

Modern medicine still relies on Newtonian physics which treats the human body as a mechanical unit largely separated from its broader sub-atomic and photonic environment.

Quantum physics challenges our understanding of everything proposing, as Einstein has that all matter is energy slowed down which means that we are only on the cusp of grasping how everything interconnects a century after Max Planck won the Noble Prize in physics for his discovery of energy quanta.

This bill is built on foundations which always fail because human knowledge and scientific breakthroughs cannot be contained by coercive controls.

Widely regarded as the founding father of the scientific method, Galileo who died aged 77 in 1642 spent his final years under house arrest for proposing that the earth wasnt the centre of the universe having been first instructed by the Pope in 1616 to abandon the opinion that the sun stands still at the centre of the world and the Earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing.

This Bill proposes to make it illegal to publish whether orally or in writing any treatments that are not approved by the current scientific convention. The prohibition isnt to be administered by Rome but by the Health Products Regulatory Authority. Contravention will not be subject to house arrest but to fines or imprisonment decided by a Court as distinct to an Inquisition.

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Eddie Hobbs: New cancer bill is well intentioned but it will fail - Irish Examiner

WHAT TO LISTEN TO

The Future of X Futurism at Its Best. OZYs hit podcast delves into whats new and whats next in a specific industry each season, and for season two its taking you to the future of the workplace. Tour futuristic office scenarios, like how the next privacy battle will be over your personal productivity score and why video gamers are set to become prized employees. You can come back from the holiday weekend with lots of facts to impress your co-workers. (Recommended by Fay Schlesinger, The Host With the Most)

Residente The Science of Bops. This Puerto Rican rapper, one of the founders of iconic alt-rap collective Calle 13, isnt afraid to get weird. Case in point: For his upcoming sophomore album, hes been working with scientists to take EEG readings of various animals (including himself) and match them to sound waves. For a taste, listen to his release from earlier this year, Bellacoso. (Recommended by Alex Furuya, Still Jammin)

Matthew Perryman Jones Intellectual Folk. If someone in a flannel shirt sang a Matthew Perryman Jones song to you at a party, youd fall in love with them. Poetic and beautiful, his lyrics are filled with longing and humanity even when theyre drawing on distinctly highbrow themes, like O Theo, which is based on Vincent Van Goghs correspondence with his brother. (Recommended by Maroosha Muzaffar, Folk Maven)

Dark Matter The Road Not Taken. Author Blake Crouch had a hit with his Wayward Pines trilogy, which became a TV series. But this weird and wonderful novel about quantum physics is worth revisiting even if it hasnt been given a film version (yet). This is a joyful, fascinating read about an atomic physicist, Jason Dessen, who accidentally stumbles into a parallel universe and must scramble to get back to real life. (Recommended by Daniel Malloy, Knows His Road)

Inspector Shan Series Your Best Tibet. This thrilling, long-running series, by international lawyer and award-winning novelist Eliot Pattinson, has all the usual adventure and murder solving you hope for from fast-paced mysteries. But what sets it apart is its fascinating sense of place the story will have you researching the history of Tibetan monks and Chinas political climate, even as you try to figure out who done it. (Recommended by Keita Davis, OZY Fan)

Irelands Surfing Beaches Winter Wonderland. Before we go any further: Yes, you will need a wetsuit to enjoy Irelands cold-water surfing hot spot. Prime wave season begins in September, but the real big ones are in the dead of winter (which is why youll see surfing legends there to try their luck). Lahinch, in County Clare, is a great place to get a taste of the Irish surfing scene, with surf schools aplenty and long sandy beaches famous for providing a learning ground for beginners. But whether youre chasing the worlds biggest waves or just starting out, Irelands cold, wild surf offers an experience totally different from that of riding waves in the tropics. (Recommended by Anna Davies, Surf Queen)

Underestimate grandma. When an intruder surprised 82-year-old Willie Murphy by breaking into her house, the elderly bodybuilder wasnt afraid. Instead, she hit him with a table and poured shampoo in his eye, subduing him until police could get there and take him to a hospital. Murphy, who can deadlift 225 pounds, told reporters, He picked the wrong house to break into. (AP)

Do you have a killer potato salad recipe that youd like to share? Think you discovered the next great jam band? Share your suggestions with us here at OZY! Email us:Weekender@ozy.com.

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This Weekend: Your Future Work ... in a Podcast - OZY

Scientists have discovered that facts and reality may be subjective to the individual observing them. This is because in quantum mechanics which examines particles on the sub-atomic level particles can exist in a point of superposition. Perhaps the most famous example of superposition is Erwin Schrodingers thought experiment, Schrodingers Cat.

To demonstrate his theory, Schrodinger said a cat placed in a box whose fate depended on the outcome of a random event could be both alive and dead simultaneously, its state only being known when the box is opened.

In quantum physics, these facts are established as a contradiction and a person inside the box would observe a definite answer, while a person on the outside observes a superimposed state.

Massimiliano Proietti, lead author of a new study and PhD student at Heriot-Watt Universitys Mostly Quantum Lab, said: This brings about a paradoxical situation where the fact established inside the laboratory seemingly contradicts the fact observed on the outside.

To test the theory, the team created a quantum test which included four observers in a quantum computer.

Six entangled light particles which means they are in a state of superposition were introduced to the observers.

The team were able to show that inside and outside observers could not agree as to what happened to the entangled particles.

Lab leader Professor Alessandro Fedrizzi, adds: The insight we gained is that quantum observers may indeed be entitled to their own facts. If we insist that this shouldnt be the case for classical human observers, the challenge now is to pin down where the two domains depart from each other.

It may for example hint at quantum mechanics not being applicable to big, everyday objectssomething that is allowed by textbook quantum physics.

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Reality is subjective to the observer - scientists make stunning claim in quantum study - Express.co.uk

In the fast-paced, complicated world of quantum chemistry, A.I.s are used to help chemists calculate important chemical properties and make predictions about experimental outcomes. But, in order to do this accurately, these A.I. need to have a pretty strong understanding of the fundamental rules of quantum mechanics, and researchers of a new interdisciplinary study on the topic say these quantum predictions have been lacking for some time. A new machine learning framework could be the answer.

While previous renditions of quantum-savvy A.I. algorithms have been useful, say the new studys researchers, they have also failed to capture some of quantum chemistrys most important characteristics in their prediction models. Namely, these previous models have neglected to account for electronic degrees of freedom in these trials which are the number of changing factors required to describe a specific state of a system.

Quantum mechanics, famously, allows for states to simultaneously exist and not exist, and using degrees of freedom can help scientists better understand how to accurately and usefully describe a system. Without accounting for these degrees of freedom, previous A.I.s have described these quantum chemistry experiments in more classical scalar, vector and tensor fields, which required much more calculation time and energy.

Researchers of this new study have instead designed a framework that will describe them in the more quantumly accurate, and faster, form of ground-state wavefunctions. The study describing their approach was published last week in the journal Nature Communications.

One of the studys authors, Reinhard Maurer from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick, said in a statement that their algorithms combined flexibility and quantum know-how will help make it an important tool for quantum chemistry.

This has been a joint three year effort, which required computer science know-how to develop an artificial intelligence algorithm flexible enough to capture the shape and behaviour of wave functions, but also chemistry and physics know-how to process and represent quantum chemical data in a form that is manageable for the algorithm, said Maurer.

The study authors write that this deep-learning framework, called SchNOrb (which we can only imagine is as fun to pronounce as it looks), allows them to predict molecular orbits with close to chemical accuracy which in turn provides an accurate prediction of the molecules electronic structure and a rich chemical interpretation of its reaction dynamics.

The capabilities demonstrated by this algorithm would help chemists more effectively design purpose-built molecules for medical and industry use.

However, while the authors write that SchNOrb is proof that such an application is useful and feasible, the large number of atomic orbitals its able process also leaves it vulnerable to increased prediction errors as well. The authors write that the accumulation of these prediction errors eventually led to a bottleneck in the prediction process in many ways the same kind of efficiency error they were trying to improve from previous approaches.

In order to account for this problem, the authors write that in future studies theyll need to learn more about and improve the neural network used in this study.

That said, the authors are still confident that this preliminary research demonstrates a path forward toward more effective collaboration between quantum chemists and these quantum-savvy A.I.s, and that this collaboration will become an essential part of the discovery process in years to come.

>Abstract:

Machine learning advances chemistry and materials science by enabling large-scale exploration of chemical space based on quantum chemical calculations. While these models supply fast and accurate predictions of atomistic chemical properties, they do not explicitly capture the electronic degrees of freedom of a molecule, which limits their applicability for reactive chemistry and chemical analysis. Here we present a deep learning framework for the prediction of the quantum mechanical wavefunction in a local basis of atomic orbitals from which all other ground-state properties can be derived. This approach retains full access to the electronic structure via the wavefunction at force-field-like efficiency and captures quantum mechanics in an analytically differentiable representation. On several examples, we demonstrate that this opens promising avenues to perform inverse design of molecular structures for targeting electronic property optimisation and a clear path towards increased synergy of machine learning and quantum chemistry.

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A.I.'s are being taught quantum mechanics to help speed-up chemistry - Inverse