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Category: quantum physics – Page 908

I remember the time when states of matter were pretty simple: Solid, liquid and gas. Then came plasma state, supercritical fluid, Bose –Einstein condensate and more. Now this list of states of matter has grown by one more, with the surprising discovery of a new state dubbed “dropletons” that shows some similarity to liquids but occur under very unlike circumstances.

The discovery of new state of matter occurred when a team of scientists at the University of Colorado Joint Institute for Lab Astrophysics were concentrating laser light on gallium arsenide (GaAs) to generate excitons.

Excitons are made when a photon strikes a material, mostly a semiconductor. If an electron is knocked loose, or excited, it leaves what is labelled as “electron hole” behind. If the forces of other charges at very close distance keep the electron close enough to the hole in order to feel an attraction, a certain state forms called as an Exciton. Excitons are also called quasiparticles because the holes and electrons act together as if they were like a single particle.

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You’ve gotta love Star Trek, but there is absolutely NO WAY I’d ever set foot in a real teleportation device! (if one ever really got made, of course) Call me crazy, but I’m kinda partial to keeping my molecular cohesion as intact as possible, which kinda rules out having it ripped apart and remade on the other side.

A record-breaking distance has been achieved in the bizarre world of quantum teleportation, scientists say.

The scientists teleported photons (packets of light) across a spool of fiber optics 63 miles (102 kilometers) long, four times farther than the previous record. This research could one day lead to a “quantum Internet” that offers next-generation encryption, the scientists said.

Teleporting an object from one point in the universe to another without it moving through the space in between may sound like science fiction pulled from an episode of “Star Trek,” but scientists have actually been experimenting with “quantum teleportation” since 1998. [Twisted Physics: 7 Mind-Blowing Findings].

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For centuries, religious texts have explored the idea that reality breaks down once we get past our surface perceptions of it; and yet, it is through these ambiguities that we understand more about ourselves and our world. In the Old Testament, the embattled Job pleads with God for an explanation as to why he has endured so much suffering. God then quizzically replies, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4). The question seems nonsensical — why would God ask a person in his creation where he was when God himself created the world? But this paradox is little different from the one in Einstein’s famous challenge to Heisenberg’s “Uncertainty Principle”: “God does not play dice with the universe.” As Stephen Hawking counters, “Even God is bound by the uncertainty principle” because if all outcomes were deterministic then God would not be God. His being the universe’s “inveterate gambler” is the unpredictable certainty that creates him.

The mind then, according to quantum cognition, “gambles” with our “uncertain” reason, feelings, and biases to produce competing thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Then we synthesize those competing options to relate to our relatively “certain” realities. By examining our minds at a quantum level, we change them, and by changing them, we change the reality that shapes them.

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The dimensionless aspect, since it has no dimensions, is outside of space and time. This is the key aspect to existence: an aspect outside of space and time perpetually interacting dialectically with an aspect inside space and time. All of the weird and wonderful phenomena of the universe are the products of this ultimate dichotomy.

http://youtu.be/MbRda_sCgkQ

Does this sound crazy? Then consider the evidence provided by black holes.

The R = 0 Universe.

Black holes are objects where gravity is so strong that light itself cannot escape the gravitational pull. They are the most mysterious objects in the universe and hold the key to the nature of reality. They open the door to understanding the fundamental composition of the universe.

Their hypothetical existence was first predicted in Einstein’s famous theory of General Relativity, but Einstein himself believed it was impossible for them to become real objects in the universe. The reason for that is that they exhibit a feature that physics cannot cope with or comprehend.

Continue reading “The dimensional aspect of existence is associated with the dimensions of space and time.” | >

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit

In probability theory, the multi-armed bandit problem (sometimes called the K- or N-armed bandit problem) is a problem in which a gambler at a row of slot machines (sometimes known as “one-armed bandits”) has to decide which machines to play, how many times to play each machine and in which order to play them. When played, each machine provides a random reward from a distribution specific to that machine. The objective of the gambler is to maximize the sum of rewards earned through a sequence of lever pulls.

(Phys.org)—A combined team of researchers from France and Japan has created a decision-making device that is based on basic properties of quantum mechanics. In their paper published in Scientific Reports (and uploaded to the arXiv preprint server), the team describes the idea behind their device and how it works.

There is a classic decision-making problem that is known as the exploration-exploitation dilemma—it is typically described by suggesting a scenario where a gambler faced with a floor full of must decide which offers the best payout on a regular basis. In real life, the solution involves feeding all of the machines coins until a discernible pattern emerges. Computer algorithms have been developed to run essentially the same process. Now, however, that approach appears to be ready for an update, as the researchers with this new effort have come up with a way to run the same sort of algorithm without using any kind of computer. Instead, they use a laser, a and feedback device. The idea is based on the fact that laws are probabilistic in nature.

The device is based on prior research that has shown that if photons are fired from a proton gun at a 45 degree angle, they will each have an equal chance of being vertically or horizontally polarized when they strike a detector—thus a stream will have equal numbers of both. But, if the filter on the gun is changed slightly, to say fire at 44 or 46 degree angles, that increase the odds of the associated polarization. The team used that fact by adding a feedback loop to the system—data sent back representing a “win” on a slot machine caused the filter to move in one direction, while a loss moved it in the other. Over time, the preponderance of wins (indicating a learning process) from one virtual machine would drive the device towards indicating it was the winning choice.

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Researchers from Queen Mary University of London and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a model that applies ideas from the theory of complex networks, such as the brain or the Internet, to the fundamental quantum geometry of space-time.

The research is published in Scientific Reports with the title “Complex Quantum Network Manifolds in Dimension d > 2 are Scale-Free.” The research paper is freely available online.

“We hope that by applying our understanding of complex networks to one of the fundamental questions in physics we might be able to help explain how discrete quantum spaces emerge,” said author Ginestra Bianconi.

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One of the most confounding implications of quantum physics is that light can behave as both a particle (photon) and a wave, depending on the nature of the observation. This is called wave-particle duality, and it has been extremely difficult to picture, let alone observe in both stages simultaneously. Now, physicists publishing in Nature Communications report that they have been able to capture a photograph of wave/particle duality ‘in action’, so to speak. This TED video explains the nature of the effect:

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The next time someone accuses you of making an irrational decision, just explain that you’re obeying the laws of quantum physics.

A new trend taking shape in not only uses to explain humans’ (sometimes) paradoxical thinking, but may also help researchers resolve certain contradictions among the results of previous psychological studies.

According to Zheng Joyce Wang and others who try to model our decision-making processes mathematically, the equations and axioms that most closely match human behavior may be ones that are rooted in quantum physics.

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