Somebody explain to me how this works:
Even for the crazy world of quantum mechanics, this one is twisted. A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.
…[Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign] send a photon into a system of mirrors and other optical devices, which included a set of components that run a simple database search by changing the properties of the photon.
The new design includes a quantum trick called the Zeno effect. Repeated measurements stop the photon from entering the actual program, but allow its quantum nature to flirt with the program’s components – so it can become gradually altered even though it never actually passes through.
“It is very bizarre that you know your computer has not run but you also know what the answer is,” says team member Onur Hosten.
We haven’t had a sci/tech open thread in something like a day and a half. What’s new?
Al Maviva
Was the answer 42?
Pb
Sounds like an approximation (hence, ‘Zeno effect’). That blurb almost had me wondering if it was “spooky action at a distance”, though (this is). The moral of the story? Don’t let journalists write about that which they do not understand, which is to say, just about everything.
canuckistani
Quantum mechanics was the hardest and the strangest thing I took in university. You sure can pull some freaky shit out of it. It makes me think that the universe wasn’t designed to be easily understood by our meat-based hunting computers.
Vladi G
All you need to know is that everyone who graduates from the University of Illinois in Chambana is a freaking genius. Everyone. (U of I Law, class of ’01)
Paul Wartenberg
Andrew
Maybe quantum mechanicisms are a small hint that the universe was intelligent designed, and not just some random explosion. I haven’t heard a good explanation for this stuff yet. It really shows you how much scientists know.
yet another jeff
You can’t explain it…you’ll change the outcome by measuring it.
PotVsKtl
With a better understanding of quantum “mechanicisms” you’d know that it doesn’t really support this type of a concept. Quantum mechanics make very little sense logically and don’t reflect the simplistic view of the world required by the Discovery Institute.
Texas A&M Dropout
Quantum mechanics is just a THEORY. Things happen in the universe because Jesus wants them to happen.
Marcus Wellby
I don’t know about the whole ID side of things, but there is a lot in quantum mechanics that takes on a very spiritual/mystical tone. It could be that it is so outside our way of thinking that it just appears that way, but there is a great movie (What the Bleep do We Know) that really ties in quantum mechanics with philosophy and theology. At times quantum theory starts sounding more like Eastern Mysticism than the physics I studied in HS and college.
SeesThroughIt
“Computer Number Five is alive!”
Sorry, sorry.
The first law of science: When in doubt, use more thermite. (According to my good friend, now getting his postdoc at Yale in biochemistry, that is an uproariously funny science joke. But I think he might be kidding about the “uproariously funny” part.)
jaime
The science stuff was great, the movie part sucked. Waaaa! Marlee Matlin’s husband cheated on her. Waaaa!
Marcus Wellby
Ha! I do agree with that.
Are you an Artie Lang fan by chance?
Ancient Purple
The Ancient Purple 9000 says:
Look Tim, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
Tim F.
Heh. Whenever my Mac Plus used to boot up it would say, ‘Good morning Dr. Bowman this is HAL. Sorry for the delay…’
ThomasD
You don’t need an explanation. It will all make perfect sense. As soon as you stop thinking about it.
p.s. There is no spoon.
Pb
I’m sorry Tim, but I can’t do that.
Speedkill
Except, the science was terrible. The only actual scientist they had in there attacked the movie for misrepresenting his views.
kate
If any are interested in reading further on this connecton i might recommend The Tao of Physics.. published in the seventies.. very cool reading
canuckistani
Quantum mechanics is hard to understand, and frequently counterintuitive, yet it makes verifiable predictions and qualifies as good science. Every day we learn more and more about it. However, since you don’t understand it, I’m supposed to accept that as evidence for intelligent design?
Personally, I’m astounded at how much scientists have learned about the universe. And shocked at how little about it many people know.
rilkefan
Umm, the vacuum is full of soft and virtual (in the sense of not-sticking-around-long) photons (well, and everything else), so the thing doesn’t need priming?
I went to a talk as a grad student in which some guy from a respected institution gave a talk in which he said all the mumbo-jumbo stuff about QM can be discarded under framework blah. I certainly hope something better/clearer comes along.
jaime
Why, yes.
jaime
I discounted the new agey stuff. I thought the ideas expressed were interesting, but there was some seemingly hard science, like about how objects never really touch, that I enjoyed the most.
ppGaz
Persons who do not speak QM are not likely to be any good as musicians.
Vladi G
Way to bring it full circle, Tim. Interesting fact about HAL from the movie:
demimondian
I’ve always kind of liked entanglement. (No, no, not that kind…) It’s like getting wet by reading about the weather somewhere else.
Jackmormon
It sounds as though the definitions of “running” and “flirting with” could probably be tightened up some. Or to pick up with Rilkefan said: it probably won’t be a paradox once we understand the mechanics better.
jaime
The film and the movie were written by Kubrick and Clarke simultaneously.
Andrew
Just because you belive in it doesn’t make it any more valid than belief in God. “Sciencism” is just as much of a religion as anything else. You can’t see God and you can’t see quantum mechanicisms either.
God created the universe with the quantum mechanics He had, not the quantum mechanics you want to have.
jg
The next neat trick is when the administrations spins being agaisnt the UAE taking over our ports as hating the troops.
Pb
Andrew,
True.
False–that’s why science has concepts like parsimony, verifiability, falsifiablity, etc.
I can’t see air either, but I know it’s there–unlike your point.
rilkefan
Pb, check out Andrew‘s last sentence above. I think he just dougjed you.
Marcus Wellby
Ha! Now that is the kind of “Balloon Juice” banter this thread has been lacking.
Marcus Wellby
Hmmm, I don’t know if they will play that card. It is a safe bet when they are only facing Dem opposition, but nothing would send the GOP Congress and base into a fit of rage faster than being accused of “hating the troops”.
My bet is that they will “take time for further review” and use that time to let Bush back away with his dignity (cough, cough) intact or push the deal through when nobody is paying attention.
canuckistani
Not only can I see “quantum mechanicisms”, but I have. Here’s a simple one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment
and another:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_spectroscopy
I don’t believe in science, I have seen science. Seen God lately?
Marcus Wellby
Well, according to a bumper sticker I saw yesterday, God was the “copilot” of an el Camino that cut me off on I-95. Though that poses all sorts of theological problems, as the said copilot appeared to be a mangy golden retriever.
Pb
rilkefan,
Yeah, I thought that might be the case, but I thought it worth pre-emptively refuting anyhow–there *are* people that stupid here.
elledblu
Another good one is “The Dancing Wu Li Masters.” I read it years ago on the recommendation of my QM professor and thought it was great, though some people will be put off by the newagey-ness of it.
Andrew
canukistani,
I read both of your links. You’re telling me that things are particles and waves at the same time? How can something be two things at the same time? That’s ridiculous. Like singing and beat boxing at the same time.
I bet that you believe that if you put a cat in a box, it might be alive AND dead. Or both!!!
chef
All this sounds like Husserl made manifest, except EH believed we alter what we see in the unquantum world (Kant: Phenomenal) as well.
I hope you all noticed that the website’s name, “Sign and Sight,” is a pun on Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit (Being and Time).
Bless that matchbook course.
PS: Wasn’t Bucky Fuller in Carbondale?
Ed
Schrodinger’s cat either ate my lunch or died on it. I’ll let you know which one later.
dorkafork
You may find this comment and this one enlightening.
Me, I don’t believe it. I don’t understand it, so obviously the scientists did something wrong.
dagon
jaime/vladi g
you are looking at another former illini. class of ’95.
and yes, we ARE all freaking geniuses.
go illini
peace
dagon
‘what the bleep do we know’ was terrible. it did include some speculative science which put a neat perspective on the way the universerse ‘might’ actually work and what actually ‘might’ be possible…
…but the rest of was nothing but new-age cultism. that redheaded woman who supposedly channels the celestia being Rantha was given WAY too much screen time….and the story within the story with matlin was unwatchable.
peace
Vladi G
Totally off topic, but….
Too late!
Well, I know that someone wants us to be become distrustful and paranoid, but I don’t think it’s our enemies, unless you consider Duh-bya and the rest of the administration our enemies (which, come to think of it, they probably are).
jaime
I didn’t go to Illinois, but many of my friends did.
Perry Como
Does the process of observing a stupid point effect the stupidity of that point?
jg
It only appears stupid because as a human you can only percieve the point from the perspective of a human and to a human it is clearly a stupid point.
Paul Wartenberg
If God wants to be a mangy golden retriever, then let God be a mangy golden retriever. Sooner or later he’ll tire of it and switch back to being a penguin…
ppGaz
If a stupid point falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
Remember to phrase your response as a question.
StupidityRules
Actually God’s real name is Dietrich and he was last seen driving a $1-million Ferrari.
BlogReeder
Since this is an open thread, did anybody see the story about the Jurassic beaver?
I’m beginning to suspect that they’re making the fossils up in Northern China. There was this Oldest Rabbit and Four winged dinosaur. Is it possible to fake a fossil?
Geoff
For what it’s worth… the main thing university physics taught me was that scientists can have an excellent understanding of the mathematical basis for quantum mechanics and yet explain it in such as a way that it makes little to no sense. A professor later told me that he and his colleagues’ abilities to perform QM computations far outpaced their capacity to explain it through the assorted analogies usually trotted out.
After wrestling hard with a number of those concepts, there was a brief “aha” moment where I realized that a lot of the supposed paradoxes and impossibilities created by QM were really the result of poor definitions or semantic distinctions. The science is definitely hard science, and it’s definitely real science, but don’t be fooled into thinking that it’s something ineffable. Weird, yes… strange, certainly… but far too much of the insanity is caused by journalists’ creativity and scientists’ desire to make their work accessible.
tzs
Well, that’s why us physicists end up using math so much.
In fact, the absolute mind-boggling weirdness of QM is a wonderful introduction as to why one should be sceptical of the concepts implied in any language and the pigeon-holes words define. Language is nothing more than a shared conspiracy.
Is light a particle or a wave? Yes.
Pb
tzs,
Well it’s not like there’s a shortage–if no word is deemed sufficient, we can always make a new one!
How about warticle? I like it better than “wave-particle“, anyhow.
canuckistani
Thanks, that was juicy bait on that troll-hook.
Bob In Pacifica
I like dinosaurs. Can we talk about dinosaurs?
B. Minich, PI
Free Schrodinger’s cat!!!!
Andrew
I should note that the most awesome superposition of all time, quantum or otherwise, is indeed Rahzel’s “If Your Mother Only Knew.”
A Estabrook
Rather than warticle, how about pave? Particles that go somewhere.
canuckistani
No, not unless you call them jesus horses.
And my old QM prof used to call photons “wavicles”. Though I think I like warticles better.
Gary Farber
“We haven’t had a sci/tech open thread in something like a day and a half. What’s new?”
I had a handful of things here a few days ago.
And not quite science, unless you count food science, or maybe chemistry, but here’s some stuff about chocolate that possibly you didn’t know.
A nice little movie of LED throwies.
New advertising tech.
New tv science fiction anthology show.
New spaceports.
Gary Farber
“If any are interested in reading further on this connecton i might recommend The Tao of Physics.. published in the seventies.. very cool reading”
Aside from being mostly quite wrong about the science.