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A technique to manipulate electrons with light could bring quantum computing up to room temperature.

A team of researchers in Germany and at the University of Michigan have demonstrated how can shift electrons between two different , the classic 1 and 0, in a thin sheet of semiconductor.

“Ordinary electronics are in the range of gigahertz, one billion operations per second. This method is a million times faster,” said Mackillo Kira, U-M professor of electrical engineering and computer science.

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Ironically, my more popular posts are ones furthest from my passion and core interests. They are larks—never intended to go viral. This is about one of them…

Apart from family, I typically steer clear of religious topics. I identify with a mainstream religion, but it is completely beside the purpose of Lifeboat Foundation, and it is a personal affair.[1]

Yet, here we discuss a religious topic, after all. Let’s get started…


Question

Do atheists agree that the fact that we can’t understand
quantum physics is at least somewhat evidence of Allah?

An Objective Answer

Do you assert that a failure to understand something is evidence of God?

I don’t fully understand a triple-Lutz (ice skating) or the Jessica stitch (needlepoint)—and I certainly don’t get why an electric dryer leaves moisture on light weight linens, when a gas dryer gets them bone-dry before the plush towels.

Is my inability to solve these mysteries evidence of Allah (or Yahweh, haShem or Y’Shewa)? Of course, not! It has nothing to do with God or religion. The fact that I don’t quite grasp every complex task or unexplained science is not evidence of God, it is evidence of my own ignorance.

On the other hand, I am fortunate to understand quantum physics—both academically and from an innate perspective. That is, behavior of waves and matter on a subatomic scale make perfect sense to me.

You would be correct to point out that certain quantum behavior seems to violate common sense:

  • Probabilistic behavior. (i.e. Schrödinger’s cat is both dead and alive at once)
  • Measure photons or electrons as a wave, and it no longer behaves like particles
  • Entangled electrons (Einstein called it ‘Spooky action at a distance’)
  • The EPR Paradox (entanglement experiment demonstrates causality based on future knowledge. It seems profoundly unbelievable!)

But these things only seem strange, because we do not experience them first hand given our size and our senses. As the math and the mechanisms are understood through research and experimentation, the behavior begins to fit within physical laws as we understand them. Then, we can extrapolate (predict) other behaviors.

For example, as we begin to understand quantum mechanics, we can design a computer, an encryption mechanism—and eventually a teleportation system—that exploits the physical properties and laws.


1 I do not appreciate the outreach of evangelism. In my opinion, religious discussion is best amongst a like-minded community.

From tunneling through impenetrable barriers to being in two places at the same time, the quantum world of atoms and particles is famously bizarre. Yet the strange properties of quantum mechanics are not mathematical quirks—they are real effects that have been seen in laboratories over and over.

One of the most iconic features of quantum mechanics is “entanglement”—describing particles that are mysteriously linked regardless of how far away from each other they are. Now three independent European research groups have managed to entangle not just a pair of particles, but separated clouds of thousands of atoms. They’ve also found a way to harness their technological potential.

When particles are entangled they share properties in a way that makes them dependent on each other, even when they are separated by large distances. Einstein famously called entanglement “spooky action at a distance,” as altering one particle in an entangled pair affects its twin instantaneously—no matter how far away it is.

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Transcript:

We are headed towards a post Singularity simulated future and everything points towards us becoming a simulated species and being able to upload our consciousness quantify our consciousness and put that into a simulation.

And I don’t necessarily think it’s us that may control it.

I think it’s going to be the AI systems, the quantum computers of the future, those systems will create the simulations, they will draw us in, some may do it on purpose and some by accident. Whether that’s a choice that we make or whether a choice the machines make is something we’ll have to find out when we get to the future.

I wrote about the Sim Generation in a book called The Future of Business, and the idea was that this generation that we are seeing right now, they are the simulated generation, so by the time that they reach their early twenties living inside of simulated virtual reality for those kids, it’s not going to be uncommon, it’s not going to be foreign to them.

From tunneling through impenetrable barriers to being in two places at the same time, the quantum world of atoms and particles is famously bizarre. Yet the strange properties of quantum mechanics are not mathematical quirks—they are real effects that have been seen in laboratories over and over.

One of the most iconic features of quantum mechanics is “entanglement”—describing particles that are mysteriously linked regardless of how far away from each other they are. Now three independent European research groups have managed to entangle not just a pair of particles, but separated clouds of thousands of atoms. They’ve also found a way to harness their technological potential.

When particles are entangled they share properties in a way that makes them dependent on each other, even when they are separated by large distances. Einstein famously called entanglement “spooky action at a distance,” as altering one particle in an entangled pair affects its twin instantaneously—no matter how far away it is.

Read more