Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: quantum physics – Page 125

Fundamental physics—let alone quantum physics—might sound complicated to many, but it can actually be applied to solve everyday problems.

Imagine navigating to an unfamiliar place. Most people would suggest using GPS, but what if you were stuck in an underground tunnel where radio signals from satellites were not able to penetrate? That’s where quantum sensing tools come in.

USC Viterbi Information Sciences Institute researchers Jonathan Habif and Justin Brown, both from ISI’s new Laboratory for Quantum-Limited Information, are working at making sensing instruments like atomic accelerometers smaller and more accurate so they can be used to navigate when GPS is down.

Read more | >

The Information-Theoretic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics from (Bub & Pitowsky, 2010) has been criticized in two ways related to the ontological picture it supplies. This paper explores whether Ontic Structural Realism can supplement the metaphysics of ITIQM in a way that would satisfy its critics. The many similarities between the two views are detailed. And it is argued that the ITIQM view ca. 2010 does seem to be compatible with OSR, but as the view evolved in Bub’s Bananaworld (2016), its fundamental metaphysical commitments shifted, making it a less clean fit with OSR.

Read more | >

When atomic nuclei and subatomic particles interact, the results are incredibly complex. These are the “many body problems” of quantum mechanics. To help make sense of these interactions, scientists create ways to simplify the range of possible outcomes.

One example is “effective interactions,” which simplify the interactions between a (a or a neutron) and an atomic nucleus. Effective interactions help scientists develop theories of the reactions that result when nuclei collide with each other or with .

These tools are part of a group of methods called effective field theory (EFT). EFT in turn is a type of approach called “ab initio,” or “first principles.” Ab initio means a calculation starts with the established laws of physics without any other assumptions.

Read more | >

Around 80% of the universe’s matter is dark, meaning it is invisible. Despite being imperceptible, dark matter constantly streams through us at a rate of trillions of particles per second. We know it exists due to its gravitational effects, yet direct detection has remained elusive.

Researchers from Lancaster University, the University of Oxford, and Royal Holloway, University of London, are leveraging cutting-edge quantum technologies to build the most sensitive dark matter detectors to date. Their project, titled “A Quantum View of the Invisible Universe,” is featured at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition. Related research is also published in the Journal of Low Temperature Physics

The team includes Dr. Michael Thompson, Professor Edward Laird, Dr. Dmitry Zmeev, and Dr. Samuli Autti from Lancaster, Professor Jocelyn Monroe from Oxford, and Professor Andrew Casey from RHUL.

Read more | >

Sign up for a free Closer To Truth account to receive special members-only benefits: https://closertotruth.com/

How to explain our inner awareness that is at once most common and most mysterious? Traditional explanations focus at the level of neuron and neuronal circuits in the brain. But little real progress has motivated some to look much deeper, into the laws of physics — information theory, quantum mechanics, even postulating new laws of physics.

Watch more videos on consciousness as all physical: https://shorturl.at/PKpOk.

Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. His research focuses on fundamental physics and cosmology.

Continue reading “Sean Carroll — Physics of Consciousness” | >

Researchers from the University of Twente in the Netherlands have gained important insights into photons, the elementary particles that make up light. They ‘behave’ in an amazingly greater variety than electrons surrounding atoms, while also being much easier to control.

These new insights have broad applications from smart LED lighting to new photonic bits of information controlled with , to sensitive nanosensors. Their results are published in Physical Review B.

In atoms, minuscule elementary particles called electrons occupy regions around the nucleus in shapes called orbitals. These orbitals give the probability of finding an electron in a particular region of space. Quantum mechanics determines the shape and energy of these orbitals. Similarly to electrons, researchers describe the region of space where a is most likely found with orbitals too.

Read more | >