13 September 2010

"We believe it is timely to set out on a distinct quantum biology agenda. The burgeoning fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, quantum technology, and quantum information processing are now strongly converging. As quantum engineering and nanotechnology meet, increasing use will be made of biological structures, or hybrids of biological and fabricated systems, for producing novel devices for information storage and processing, to create [novel sensors], and for other tasks. If experiments can shed further light on our understanding of decoherence in biomolecules, at scales where equilibrium thermodynamics no longer applies, this may provide the required foundation for greatly accelerating our progress in manmade quantum computers." 
– Anita Goel, Gerard Milburn, Sandu Popescu, Jeff Tollaksen 
         (
Quantum Aspects of Life)

01 September 2010


Are we living in a designer universe
 
MIT, Sussex "Creating a new universe would require a machine only slightly more powerful than the LHC—and there is every chance that our own universe may have been manufactured in this way.
  – John Gribbin, Telegraph
"A basement universe possesses a fate independent of its parent: harnessing the zero-point energy to trigger inflation becomes a form of applied cosmological engineering. And if basement universes are a naturally occurring phenomenon, as suggested by inflationary cosmological models, the multiverse then takes on the characteristics of an evolutionary algorithm. Though the parent universe in any branching scenario need not have been of intelligent design, once a suitable set of cosmological constants is found through natural inflation, intelligent life could branch out from this point of origin, forming an expanding wavefront of intelligence and altering the evolution of the multiverse itself [...] 
Given that the conditions of the Drake equation are met, a potential explanation for the silence in our immediate neighborhood of the cosmos is that inter-universe panspermia supercedes local expansion. Vernor Vinge’s Singularity may not be only technological; it may be physical. The most powerful computer we can imagine would for all intensive purposes resemble a black hole."
   – C. Altman, Expansion Scenarios 

27 August 2010

Is reality even stranger than quantum mechanics tells us? 
"We know that quantum correlations can be stronger than classical—but why aren't quantum correlations even stronger? Either we are missing something very significant to define quantum theory, or these other theories are all around us too."
 – Caslav Brukner (New Scientist)

12 August 2010

Any quantum state can be cloned in the presence of closed timelike curves  "The possible existence of closed timelike curves (CTCs) draws attention to fundamental questions about what is physically possible and what is not. An example is the "no cloning theorem" in quantum mechanics — which states that no physical means exists by which an unknown arbitrary quantum state can be reproduced, or copied perfectly. We show here that this theorem can be circumvented in the presence of closed timelike curves, allowing for the cloning of an unknown arbitrary quantum state. Since the "no cloning theorem" has played a central role in the development of quantum information science, it is clear that the existence of CTCs would radically change the rules for quantum information technology.
– Tim Ralph, David Ahn, R. B. Mann (arXiv:1008.0221)