MetaFilter posts tagged with quantum

[Tiger Woods] is busy, hasn't got a lot of time, but wants to catch up on what's happening in physics...

Naberius — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:02:20 -0800

At least something good for someone has come out of the whole Tiger Woods brouhaha. Photos of Woods' wrecked SUV reveal a copy of Get a Grip on Physics on the floor of the Escalade's back seat. This has been enough to send the book, a 1999 overview of modern physics for the intelligent layman, now out of print, rocketing up Amazon's sales charts. Author John Gribbin is a bit bemused, but does manage to come up with a previously unknown, quantum physics-related Tiger Woods joke.

Wolfgang Pauli was a Gargoyle?

lenny70 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:49:09 -0800

The Bohr-Einstein Debates, With Puppets

Quantum Art

jefficator — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:36:53 -0800

Julian Voss-Andreae makes art based on quantum physics.

Somebody alert Jeff Goldblum

Marisa Stole the Precious Thing — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:11:09 -0800

Scientists from the University of Michigan and the University of Maryland have managed to teleport information from one isolated atom to another over a distance of one meter, without it ever crossing space. Here's how they did it. You can also read the full abstract here, for those with a subscription. Previous experiments with teleportation have been made: Physicists teleport photons over 600 meters. Scientists teleport photons over 89 miles. Scientists teleport information from one atom to another with the help of a third one, albeit over a much smaller distance. The latest experiment is the first succesful teleportation of a qubit - a unit of quantum information - between two widely separated, charged atoms without crossing space.

"You named your collaboration QAP? Really?"

fatllama — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:29:37 -0800

The DiVincenzo Code [youtube trailer, geekery]. Faced with a strict demand from a funding agency to allocate research funds towards the dissemination of research ideas to the public, an experimental physics group at the University of Oxford produced a feature-length (55 min) action thriller about murder, ancient prophecy, tea breaks, and quantum computation. [Trailer linked above. Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6] Named after the most basic requirements for a functional quantum computer, the DiVincenzo criteria [pdf], the student-directed effort is a superposition of The Da Vinci Code, The Matrix, and a live-action PhD Comics. Perhaps best viewed with either popcorn or your lab-mate's stash ofThorlabs Lab Snacks.

How Much

homunculus — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:55:56 -0800

Quantum of culture. Terminology from quantum theory shows up frequently in art, films, poetry and sculpture. Robert P. Crease gauges the impact of quantum mechanics on popular culture. [Via]

R.I.P. John Wheeler, physicist

ikkyu2 — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:22:40 -0800

R.I.P. John Wheeler , theoretical physicist. Famous for the Wheeler-Feynman equations and the term "black hole," which he coined to describe a singular point mass, he has died at age 96. The NYT usually gives pretty good obituary but they outdid themselves this time. .

The Universe is Like a Windows Media Player Visualization

tehloki — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:21:48 -0800

The observable universe just got a bit smaller. Johan Mauritsson and his colleagues at Lund University in Sweden have released what appears to be a video of an electron oscillating on a wave of light.

Quantum Mechanics: Myths and Facts

XMLicious — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:21:29 -0800

Quantum Mechanics: Myths and Facts (pdf), a recently-updated paper on the Cornell arXiv peer-review site. By Hrvoje Nikolić of the Rudjer Bošković Institute in Croatia. Note: the presence of a paper on arXiv does not necessarily mean it has been reviewed and is not equivalent to having been published in a journal.

My name is Legion. You collapsed my probability distribution, prepare to die!

kandinski — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 07:15:49 -0800

The Crossing is a new FPS game where single-player and multiplayer modes meld in one. At any point, any Non-Player-Character might not be an NPC at all, but another Player. It is likely that, as in a game of tag, players will just take turns to be "it" like Agents in the Matrix, but... wouldn't it be great if we could all be "it" at the same time? Quantum Gaming might just be the way to model such a swarm of gamers. You can visualise the many-worlds interpretation of classical shooters in "Averaging Gradius". Greg Egan has already designed Quantum Soccer for you to check out how a probability distribution scoring scheme would work. And the "many-votes" implementation of Massively Multiplayer Pong proves the concept is viable, if difficult to pull out in higher abstractions than "ball meets paddle". Even bright-guy Richard Dawkins says Quantumg Gaming might be a good educational tool. Sure that, but, can we also make it fun?

Does this mean we get to fly?

MythMaker — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 02:06:30 -0800

Physicists have 'solved' mystery of levitation Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, have worked out a way of reversing ... the Casimir force, so that it repels instead of attracts. Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate. But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.

Particles and waves in your basement

blahblahblah — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 11:16:54 -0800

Demonstrate one of the weirdest quantum effects in your home using a laser pointer, some tinfoil, a piece of wire, and a $7 polarizer. The device, called a quantum eraser, operates in a way very similar to the famously mind-blowing double slit experiment that was voted the most beautiful experiment in physics.

Quantum ain't just for leaping

revmitcz — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:01:14 -0800

So.. who's ready for Quantum Computing?

British Colombia-based D-Wave says they've got one and they're going to demo that sucker in Mountain View, CA on Feb 13th and then at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver, Canada on February 15th.

Quoting from TechWorld :

"Multiple quantum states exist at the same time, so every quantum bit or "qubit" in such a machine is simultaneously 0 and 1. D-Wave's prototype has only 16 qubits, but systems with hundreds of qubits would be able to process more inputs than there are atoms in the universe."

Naturally, the tech-savvy blogosphere is skeptical. But what do you think? (previously, previously)

Retrocasuality

MetaMonkey — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 05:48:03 -0800

John Cramer is going to conduct an experiment in quantum retrocasuality [ppt] - sending a signal backwards through time

Quantum Encryption

PreacherTom — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:25:47 -0800

Quantum Encryption Scientists have created an unbreakable cypher through the use of quantum physics, where a photon is observed and used as the basis for an encryption key. "Uncertainty is the principle we exploit. It's impossible to find the key, because the photon can be measured once and only once. An eavesdropper can't measure it, and so can't get the key." Props to Heisenberg!

Teleportation Breakthrough

empath — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 06:30:27 -0800

Teleportation Breakthrough. Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split second. But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter. A more technical explanation.

Quantum physics and You.

spiderwire — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 10:12:35 -0800

Enzyme reactions use quantum tunneling. British scientists have apparently solved the question of how enzymes speed up atomic reactions -- through a quantum tunneling effect at the reaction site. Just when you thought biology couldn't get any cooler. [via]

Who can name the bigger number?

gregv — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 00:16:49 -0800

Who can name the bigger number? I guarantee you will lose to the Busy Beavers. (No, infinity is not allowed, the bigger infinity is a different game.) The author also debunks in very simple terms the recent story that quantum computers perform calculations without being turned on. My first post and disclaimer: I know the author from our mutual field of quantum information.

Quantum Leap

sourbrew — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:06:05 -0800

Mass Producible Quantum Computer - Christopher Monroe has produced the first quantum computer capable of being scaled to a production model at the Trapped Ion Quantum Computing facility at the University of Michigan. (via)

Boundless energy or bad math?

Espoo2 — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 06:04:20 -0800

Boundless energy or bad math? Randell Mills thinks he has the solution to our energy problems. In his company's patented process, "energy is released as the electrons of atomic hydrogen are induced to undergo transitions to lower energy levels producing plasma, light, and novel hydrogen compounds." It also implies that quantum mechanics is wrong.

Student Challenges Basic Ideas of Time

Pinwheel — Fri, 01 Aug 2003 07:20:15 -0800

A bold paper published in the August issue of Foundations of Physics Letters seems set to change the way we think about the nature of time and its relationship to motion and classical and quantum mechanics. The work also appears to provide solutions to Zeno's paradoxes. (Via Kurzweilai.net. More inside...)

Schroedingers's lunchbox

konolia — Sun, 26 Jan 2003 13:41:39 -0800

Schroedinger's Lunchbox Quantom physics on an empty stomach is probably a mistake.

tiaka — Sat, 23 Jun 2001 14:50:01 -0800

Future of computing - Light or Molecules?