Physicists retrieve ‘lost’ information from quantum measurements
Typically when scientists make a measurement, they know exactly what kind of measurement they’re making, and their purpose is to obtain a measurement outcome. But in an “unrecorded measurement,” both the type of measurement and the measurement outcome are unknown.
Beam me up! Teleporting the memory of an organism
LLAP, Leonard Nimoy
In “Star Trek”, a transporter can teleport a person from one location to a remote location without actually making the journey along the way. Such a transporter has fascinated many people. Quantum teleportation shares several features of the transporter and is one of the most important protocols in quantum information.
Cognitive decision making as the collapse of a quantum superstate
Decision making in an enormous range of tasks involves the accumulation of evidence in support of different hypotheses. One of the enduring models of evidence accumulation is the Markov random walk (MRW) theory, which assigns a probability to each hypothesis. In an MRW model of decision making, when deciding between two hypotheses, the cumulative evidence for and against each hypothesis reaches different levels at different times, moving particle-like from state to state and only occupying a single definite evidence level at any given point.
Drawing a line between quantum and classical world
Quantum theory is one of the great achievements of 20th century science, yet physicists have struggled to find a clear boundary between our everyday world and what Albert Einstein called the “spooky” features of the quantum world, including cats that could be both alive and dead, and photons that can communicate with each other across space instantaneously.
Freezing single atoms to absolute zero with microwaves brings quantum technology closer
Physicists at the University of Sussex have found a way of using everyday technology found in kitchen microwaves and mobile telephones to bring quantum physics closer to helping solve enormous scientific problems that the most powerful of today’s supercomputers cannot even begin to embark upon.
Black hole hunters tackle a cosmic conundrum
Image credit goes to : NASA
While mass media was busy misquoting Stephen Hawking and arguing about black holes, astrophysicists have been hard at work trying to solve still unanswered questions about them. Now a team has not only proven that a supermassive black hole exists in a place where it isn’t supposed to be, but in doing so have opened a new door to what things were like in the early universe.
A glass fiber that brings light to a standstill
Atoms coupled to a glass fiber: A system that can slow down light dramatically.
Image credit goes to: TU Wien
Light is an extremely useful tool for quantum communication, but it has one major disadvantage: it usually travels at the speed of light and cannot be kept in place. A team of scientists at the Vienna University of Technology has now demonstrated that this problem can be solved – not only in strange, unusual quantum systems, but in the glass fiber networks we are already using today.
New theory tries to define where black holes don’t exist
The quintessential feature of a black hole is its “point of no return,” or what is more technically called its event horizon, yes just like the movie. When anything—a star, a particle, or wayward human—crosses this horizon, the black hole’s massive gravity pulls it in with such force that it is impossible to escape. At least, this is what happens in traditional black hole models based on general relativity. In general, the existence of this event horizon is responsible for most of the strange phenomena associated with black holes.
The Holographic Universe [we might Live in!]
Are you feeling a little… flat? Well that might be because you are only in 2 dimensions. I know what you’re thinking, insane! Well first check the name of the business and second, check out the science. In fact, it may seem like a joke, but the math suggests that it could very well be true and with it could come a deeper understanding of the universe. Testing this hypothesis (which was first made in the late 90’s) has been harder to do than you might think, but that has now changed. We are officially checking to see if our universe is a hologram!
Quantum Conundrum, Puzzling People, and Survey Statistics
Order matters, we all know this when it comes to math, but did you know the order of questions asked can affect how you answer them? It’s true and it isn’t new news, the question-order effect is why survey organizations normally change the order of questions between different respondents, hoping to cancel out this bias. But that isn’t the interesting part, not by a long shot.
It turns out that quantum theory is a much better predictor of the survey results than conventional methods of predictions.
The Surprisingly Magnetic Black Hole
Black holes suck. Nothing can escape a black hole, not even light, which is why they are “black”. They are also an interesting bit of physics. Normally “classical” physics applies to things that are large enough to see [and even things that you can’t in some cases]. Conversely quantum mechanics deals with the “unseen”, atoms and their interactions. That is normally the end of the story, never shall the two meet.
In fact, because there is no clearly defined line between the quantum and the classical, there has been trouble blending the two theories. Which is unfortunate in that there are a few specific examples where the quantum world and the classical world collide, one of them just happens to be black holes.
Quantum Gravity Coming Soon… Maybe.
Don’t like quantum mechanics? Don’t worry Einstein didn’t either. In fact, not only did Einstein not like quantum mechanics, neither did his general theory of relativity. Which was okay… sort of. Quantum mechanics involves things that are really small, while relativity dealt with things that are really large and never the two shall meet, that is, until they do.
It’s not Einsteins fault that the two theories don’t play well together. They are both mathematical formulas, there is no malice involved. Einsteins world was beautiful and solid, he wanted to use math to form a world made of granite, smooth, shiny and perfect. Quantum mechanics on the other hand is uncertain, that is a fundamental principle, it’s more like wood, it’s not pretty, rough and textured.
Indecisive? So is Quantum Mechanics.
This is a particle [or atom], cute no?
Or my personal favorite Heisenberg gets pulled over by a police officer, officer says ‘Do you have any idea how fast you were going?’ Heisenberg replies ‘No, but I know EXACTLY where I am.’
Lunatic Laboratories 