Coin tossing quantum experiments

"Quantum weirdness is hard for humans to grasp, so researchers wrote a program to suggest experimental setups."

The notoriously counterintuitive features of quantum mechanics make it hard to design experiments to study the quantum fundamentals and to develop quantum computing and quantum cryptography. So a team of researchers has developed an algorithm for combining the building blocks of quantum optics experiments, such as beam splitters and mirrors, to achieve a particular goal, such as a certain photonic quantum state. The experimental arrangements generated so far are ones the researchers say they were unlikely to have thought of themselves, and some work in ways that are hard to understand.

Experiments in quantum optics, whether for fundamental or practical ends, tend to use a rather limited set of components to manipulate the quantum states of photons. Beam splitters can send laser light along two different paths with certain probabilities and generate so-called superposition states in which photons seem to take two paths at once. Nonlinear crystals generate pairs of quantum-connected (entangled) photons, and the usual mirrors and lenses guide laser beams.

The algorithm designed by Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna and his co-workers, called Melvin, takes elements like these and shuffles them to find an experimental arrangement that will produce specified quantum properties in the photon beams. For example, many experiments require entanglement, where two photons have some property, such as polarization or angular momentum, that is correlated—measuring the value for one photon tells you the value for the other. Researchers might also want to manipulate single photons. (read more)

No Big Bang?

"The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein's theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once."

"The Big Bang singularity is the most serious problem of general relativity because the laws of physics appear to break down there," Ahmed Farag Ali at Benha University and the Zewail City of Science and Technology, both in Egypt, told Phys.org.

Ali and coauthor Saurya Das at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, have shown in a paper published in Physics Letters B that the Big Bang singularity can be resolved by their new model in which the universe has no beginning and no end.

"Crankshaft is implausible"

"This is impossible. Even if the lawn mower is self-propelled, it cannot climb a tree, because the wheels disengage when you let go of the dead-man’s handle. Even if this feature is disabled, it cannot climb a tree, because the wheels are not touching anything; the rotation of the blade will not cause the mower to go up a tree, let alone stay there."

 

James Lileks

Stuart Hammeroff and quantum consciousness

I've keyed this video to begin in the middle, where Hammeroff speaks of the microtubules within neurons that are at the heart of his theory that consciousness arises at the quantum level...where the fate of Schrodinger's Cat is determined. Or not determined? 

Here is a good interview that further explores his ideas.


from The Large Idea Collider blog by Michel Trottier-McDonald:

"Another way of looking at the problem between quantum field theory and general relativity comes from basic knowledge of both theories. If you know something about general relativity, it is that matter and energy bend space-time. If you know something about quantum mechanics, it is that you can’t know velocity and position of a system as accurately as you want simultaneously. This fact about quantum mechanics implies that in quantum field theory, you will have arbitrary amounts of matter and energy fluctuating in and out of existence, and the smaller the scales you probe, the larger these fluctuations will become. I know this is far from a straightforward conclusion, but I’d rather be incomplete than inaccurate in my explanation. For now bear with me. Putting these two facts from both theories together, you get that at small enough scales, there will be enough matter-energy fluctuating to distort space-time, transforming space-time into some kind of fractal foam."

Probability Pundit: Processing the 2016 GOP Primaries

What is Quantum Mechanical Superposition?