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Category: quantum physics – Page 26

Superposition In Quantum Computing: How Does This Quantum Mechanical Principle Work?

Quantum computing, a field of scientific exploration, is based on the quantum mechanical principle of superposition, which allows particles to exist in multiple states simultaneously. This principle, along with entanglement, a quantum phenomenon that enables particles to be instantaneously connected, provides quantum computers with computational power beyond the reach of classical computers. The development of quantum computing, rooted in the early 20th century, is a testament to intellectual daring, as scientists grappled with concepts that defied logic but were supported by experimental evidence.

The Threshold of Being: Perception as the Quantum-Qualia Conversion Point

The universe speaks in mathematics, yet we experience it in poetry. This fundamental paradox — that objective quantities somehow give rise to subjective qualities — represents perhaps the most profound mystery in the architecture of consciousness. At the precise intersection where measurable physical magnitudes transform into felt experience lies perception itself, functioning as the universe’s most elegant translation device, converting the quantitative substrate of reality into the qualitative texture of conscious life.

Consider the photon, that discrete packet of electromagnetic energy oscillating at precisely 550 nanometers. Physics describes it with mathematical precision: wavelength, frequency, amplitude — pure quantity divorced from any subjective dimension. Yet when this photon encounters the rhodopsin molecules within our retinal cells, something extraordinary occurs. The quantitative description remains accurate but suddenly insufficient. The same electromagnetic radiation that physics measures as wavelength 550nm becomes, through the alchemy of perception, the irreducible experience we call “green.” This transformation represents not merely a change in descriptive language but a fundamental ontological shift — the emergence of an entirely new category of being.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty recognized this threshold when he observed that “the body is our general medium for having a world” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2012, p. 147). The lived body serves as the crucial mediator between the quantitative realm that physics describes and the qualitative realm that consciousness inhabits. Through our sensorimotor engagement with the world, objective magnitudes undergo a metamorphosis into subjective meanings. The body is not merely a receiver of information but an active participant in the creation of experiential reality itself.

“This Thing’s Flat and Furious”: New 2D Material Unveiled With Game-Changing Power for Electrochemical Energy Storage

IN A NUTSHELL 🔬 Rice University researchers discovered copper boride, a novel two-dimensional material with transformative potential. 🧪 The study highlights copper boride’s strong covalent bonding and distinct electronic properties, setting it apart from other 2D materials. 🔋 This breakthrough could significantly impact electrochemical energy storage and applications in quantum information technology. 🌟 The discovery

Exotic vibrations in new materials: New insights show universal applicability of carbyne as a sensor

For the design of future materials, it is important to understand how the individual atoms inside a material interact with each other quantum mechanically. Previously inexplicable vibrational states between carbon chains (carbyne) and nanotubes have puzzled materials scientists.

Researchers from Austria, Italy, France, China and Japan led by the University of Vienna have now succeeded in getting to the bottom of this phenomenon with the help of Raman spectroscopy, innovative theoretical models and the use of machine learning. The results, published in Nature Communications, show the universal applicability of as a sensor due to its sensitivity to external influences.

For the design of future materials, it is important to understand how matter interacts on an atomic scale. These quantum mechanical effects determine all macroscopic properties of matter, such as electrical, magnetic, optical or . In experiments, scientists use Raman spectroscopy, in which light interacts with matter, to determine the vibrational eigenstates of the atomic nuclei of the samples.

Schrödinger’s Vat and the Evolution of Consciousness

Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment has always been deeply misunderstood. In this article I’d like to explain how, if understood properly, it might shed new light on the mechanism by which consciousness evolved.

Schrödinger’s cat and schrödinger’s hat

The purpose of Schrödinger’s thought experiment was to highlight serious problems in the (then very new) “Copenhagen Interpretation” of Quantum Mechanics (CI). The CI was a bit of a botch-job, because the founders of QM had no idea how to “interpret” the strange new physics they had discovered. The CI says quantum systems remain in a superposition (a “smeared out” state where everything than can happen is somehow happening in parallel) until measured, but does not define what counts as a “measurement”, or why. Schrödinger always rejected this idea, and his thought experiment was intended to demonstrate why. He proposes a sealed box (so no “measurements” can take place), in which has been placed a cat, and a quantum source with a 50% probability of releasing poison. According to the CI, so long as the system inside the box remains “unmeasured”, the poison has both been released and not-released and therefore that cat is both dead and alive.

New research determines the thermodynamic properties of the quark gluon plasma

Very soon after the Big Bang, the universe enjoyed a brief phase where quarks and gluons roamed freely, not yet joined up into hadrons such as protons, neutrons and mesons. This state, called a quark-gluon plasma, existed for a brief time until the temperature dropped to about 20 trillion Kelvin, after which this “hadronization” took place.

Now a research group from Italy has presented new calculations of the plasma’s equation of state that show how important the strong force was before the hadrons formed. Their work is published in Physical Review Letters.

The equation of state of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) represents the collective behavior of particles that experience the strong force—a gas of strongly interacting particles at equilibrium, with its numbers and net energy unchanging. It’s analogous to the well-known, simple equation of state of atoms in a gas, PV=nRT, but can’t be so simply summarized.