Brain Ache: Quantum computer works best switched off

NNnnn Nnnngggnnn NNnnggggggnnn...

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/mg18925405.700.html

 

antonye wrote

**** me April has come round quick this year.

 

<fx: looks at clock>
Time to switch off and go home...

 

It's running Champ's sessionless web browser.

 

That burk Zeno is involved, they probably shot a hundred tortoises to
get it to work!

 

But that's impossible, the arrows would never get to the
tortoises...............................

 

The notion of the computer being off and on at the same time reminds me of
the quantum version of Young's double slit experiment (ooer missus!), which
demonstrates that something can be in two different places at the same time.
Full details halfway down the page here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment.
Quote: " Under the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory, an
individual photon is seen as passing through both slits at once, and
interfering with itself"

I just love the things that demonstrate that the the universe is more
complicated than we are capable of understanding.

 

We're just looking at it from the wrong point of view. It's like an
either-or question where the answer is yes. Find the right question
you should be asking and it all makes sense again.

 

He's probably not the only on either

 

Quite.

Light can be considered either as a stream of particles or as an energy wave.

Q: Shall we discount the 'particles' hypothesis now?

 

But that presupposes that that we have the capacity to make sense of
phenomena such as single particles that can be in two different places
sumultaneously. Unless of course you are referring to a different kind of
questions - such as DIGAF?

 

Q. How can a single photon separately exist in two or more different places
simultaneously?
Q. Why does detecting a photon at one slit cause it to no longer be
detectable at the other when, undetected, it will pass through both
simultaneously?
Q. How does a single photon "know" that it needs to land in a "bright"
diffraction area after passing through two slits when it will land randomly
if one slit is closed?

Questions such as these may have answers but are we actually capable of
really "understanding" them? I suppose the key word is here
"understanding". Knowing how to manipulate something is not the same as
knowing how and why it works. Sooner or later scientific investigation ends
up in the realms of philosophy, religion or magic i.e. beyond rationality,
beyond "understanding. To deny that proposition that the universe is
ultimately beyond understanding would be to deny that that you exist - it is
axiomatic that no system can contain all the available information about
itself so it is axiomatic that nothing in the universe can contain all the
information about the universe i.e. some things will always be unknowable.

 

Nah, he's just simplified the concept to the point where it has
infinitesimal data content. ...so he probably doesn't have a clue what's
going on...

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

The message <>

Well, I can understand the questions...

 

Well exactly - which means that you can't say for certain that it isn't a
particle in two places - how do you know unless you measure? Something
certainly appears to pass through both slits simultaneously. And why does
detecting it at one slit prevent it accessing the other slit? How does it
know it is being measured? If the act of measuring changes it so that it
can no longer access the second slit, then the decision to measure must be
the determinant of its nature - it is not what we think its is, it is what
we intend it to be! That would appear to indicate that, in this particular
case, "reality" is being created by decisions made in people's minds. This
would tend to suggest that ultimately there is no objective reality that
exists independent of minds to perceive and, perhaps, create it.

Exactly - in this case it would appear that "reality" is being created by
the decision. And unlike Schrodinger's hypothetical cat, we have a
"real"-life example.

 

The message <>

I do hope you didn't *MEAN* 'in this particular case'...