The move has stumped the scientific community as there’s no obvious reason for it.
Category: quantum physics – Page 264
Is the Information-Theoretic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics an ontic structural realist view?
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.
Ab initio methods help scientists make sense of complex particle collisions
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 nucleon (a proton 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 subatomic particles.
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.
One of the greatest mysteries of science could be one step closer to being solved
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.
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Sean Carroll — Physics of Consciousness
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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.
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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.
Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
New shapes of photons open doors to advanced optical technologies
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 quantum circuits, 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 photon is most likely found with orbitals too.
Researchers realize time reversal through input-output indefiniteness
A research team has constructed a coherent superposition of quantum evolution with two opposite directions in a photonic system and confirmed its advantage in characterizing input-output indefiniteness. The study was published in Physical Review Letters.
The notion that time flows inexorably from the past to the future is deeply rooted in people’s mind. However, the laws of physics that govern the motion of objects in the microscopic world do not deliberately distinguish the direction of time.
To be more specific, the basic equations of motion of both classical and quantum mechanics are reversible, and changing the direction of the time coordinate system of a dynamical process (possibly along with the direction of some other parameters) still constitutes a valid evolution process.