⭐ 😮 😀 😎 hi all, its a very lively time for physics news and breakthroughs, its hard to keep up. its been over half a year since the last physics post in this blog and am swimming, almost drowning in topics/ links.
the very big news is a so-called “loophole free” Bell entanglement test, freshly published in Nature and referred to in NYT.[a][a5][a9] and of course lauded almost effusively by the experts/ authorities.[a4] 🙄
they say that they have closed the detector efficiency loophole aka the “fair sampling” assumption.
but wikipedia (currently) says under “fair sampling assumption”:
The “detection efficiency”, or “fair sampling” problem is the most prevalent loophole in optical experiments.
…
There is no way to test experimentally whether a given experiment does fair sampling, as the number of emitted but undetected pairs is by definition unknown.[citation needed]
huh! that seems to be a disconnect there. there is both some blurring between the “detector efficiency” loophole and the “fair sampling” assumption, and it asserts the fair sampling assumption can never be closed. but the Nature article just asserted they closed it! is anyone else experiencing some cognitive dissonance here? (so the big question is, who areya gonna believe, Nature or Wikipedia? and of course wikipedia alone nearly contradicts itself, or at best cant make up its mind!)
have been trying to understand the bell test now for close to 2 decades. it is indeed one of the most subtle areas of physics and quantum mechanics.
now, for the contrarian position. again maybe approaching the unofficial motto of this blog:
the devil is in the details! 😈
my feeling is that there is a new theory right on the threshhold of being uncovered. the difficult aspect of it is that it nearly meshes perfectly with quantum mechanics. in other words, Einstein was right! he gave up on trying to prove any contradictions in quantum mechanics and finally just fell onto a position that its incomplete.
this is a very subtle difference that even eludes many professional physicists. it is not the same as saying its wrong. at heart its saying, simply, theres something more to it. and somewhat paradoxically, physics experiments based on an understanding of QM will never find this incompleteness. therefore in some sense, just as closing the sampling loophole is impossible as asserted by wikipedia, it is impossible to “prove einstein wrong” as is being asserted about the experiment in popsci accounts in the media! aka “you cant get there from here.”
which reminds me of a semifamous quote by einstein:
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
bells test is indeed a zen-like “what is the sound of one hand clapping” type experiment… but heres a few of my own (rhetorical!) zen-like questions for QM and bell-oriented experiments!
- why is it so hard to experimentally and theoretically determine/ understand whether QM is local? why has/ does this debate persist so long, now over 1 century since/ after its inception?
- why are there so many “loopholes” in bell tests as cited on wikipedia? [a11]
my feeling is that a new theory is right on the horizon and that glimpses/ bits of pieces are lying around as we speak. this is a very difficult position to take in light of all the massive intellectual edifice(s) at stake (aka, verging on dogma!).
however there is some support. there are nearly weekly announcements of major shifts in QM experimentation techniques. these roughly fall under 4 basic headings/ themes:
- weak measurement
- “steering” (the “wavefunction collapse”)
- assertions/ “proofs” of the reality of the wavefunction
- “retrodiction” of measurements
its very subtle how all these interplay, they are all interconnected and crosscutting.[b] internationally there are a few laboratories specializing in each.
so far nobody is so bold as to say that the theory needs revising and that “textbooks need to be rewritten”. oh wait! Daniel Sank, Google/ Martinis lab researcher who occasionally hangs out in the physics chatroom on stackexchange and works at google on quantum qubits has said nearly exactly that in the chat room (eg about weak measurements and steering).[abc] which is exactly how kuhn defined “kuhnian shifts”. Sank is a coauthor on an amazing paper mixing bell and weak measurement.[b4] … oh, and by the way, it demonstrates/ measures an interplay between weak measurements and bell nonlocality metric measurement exactly as one would wonder/ guess about a new theory…! 😮 ❗
anyway, back to bell experiments. my feeling/ going-out-on-crazy limb prediction is
➡ ⭐ 💡 ❓ ❗ the 4-way “new features” of QM above being observed and increasingly manipulated (along with others closely intertwined/ related) will eventually show that QM is in fact NOT nonlocal, but that the extreme subtleties of the formalism coupled with experiment have contributed to creating that conceptual illusion in the mathematics/ ideology. a purely local version of QM will be able to be formulated, and it will mesh perfectly with the existing formalism in a nearly magical/ miraculous looking way. of all current theories, it will most closely resemble Bohmian mechanics, but is at heart an entirely new theory of solitons. it will take the Einstein of the 21st century to tie together/ work out the extremely tricky/ intricate nuances/ details/ “connect the nearly-invisible dots”, and some of it is already lying scattered/ around in current papers!
⭐ ⭐ ⭐
whew! bell tests are an entire universe of their own and an entire textbook could easily be written on it, and quite a few have. (my all time favorite is still the Meaning of Quantum Theory by Baggott.)
the next cool/amazing items on the list of physics developments are QM computing advances. there is just so much going on in this area and it seems maybe 2015 is the year its all hitting critical mass. the bits and pieces of devices are now being demonstrated in dramatic announcements worldwide eg control of individual qubits, error correction, silicon-based qubits, photonics etc.[d]
big news on NSA worrying about QM crypto, continued angst over meshing QM and gravity.[c]
section [e] is a list of all the recent experiments and theoretical ideas about the universe being a “hologram” or “simulation”. this ties in a lot with the theme of digital physics explored on this blog and going back decades but slowly coming to much more fruition.
[f] is a big deal to me personally, advances in the soliton theory of reality, after introducing it early on in this blog. very notably there was a review in Nature, essentially a breakthrough.[f13] skepticism of string theory, the only major contender for a “theory of everything” in physics, in a way seems to help along openness or consideration other theories. also observations of/ “officially acknowledged” so-called “anomalies” and “reevaluations” in the massive edifice of mainstream physics help with this.[h] early pioneer (…”with all the arrows in his back”…) Ross Andersons fiery advocacy/ defense of soliton theory appeared and was inspiring.[f22] and Bush the MIT applied mathematician is in my opinion a spectacularly brilliant/ leading visionary in this area, and do assure you, do not say that lightly around here![f1]
another big news item/ massive milestone in the area, Dwave announced their new 1-K-Qubit chip.[g] but so far unlike a few yrs ago with the ½-K-Qbit chip, news/ developments of its analysis/ performance has been very scarce/ quiet.
finally, QM biology continues to advance with neat news wrt eg protein folding and photosynthesis.[i]
- a. bell
- b. weak/ steering/ real wavefn
- c. qm
- d. devices/ advances
- e. simulation
- f. soliton/ ToE
- g. dwave
- h. anomaly/ re-eval
- i. qm biology
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- 2. Third Bell loophole closed for photons – physicsworld.com
- 3. [1508.05949] Experimental loophole-free violation of a Bell inequality using entangled electron spins separated by 1.3 km
- 4. Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Bell inequality violation finally done right
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- 6. Quantum untanglement: Is spookiness under threat? | New Scientist
- 7. Loophole-free Bell inequality violation using electron spins separated by 1.3 kilometres : Nature : Nature Publishing Group
- 8. The universe really is weird, and a landmark quantum experiment proves it
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- 10. Experiment tests Einstein’s ‘God does not play dice’ with quantum ‘dice’ — ScienceDaily
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- 12. [quant-ph/9905018] A local hidden variable model of quantum correlation exploiting the detection loophole
- 13. ‘Spooky action at a distance’ demonstrated in single-particle quantum experiment for first time – Factor
- 14. Researchers demonstrate quantum entanglement, prove Einstein wrong – CNET
- 15. The Experiment That Forever Changed How We Think About Reality | WIRED
- 16. Physicists Prove Quantum Spookiness, Start Chasing Schrödinger’s Cat
- 17. God Does Not Play Dice: Testing Einstein’s Principle of Local Realism
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- 2. Measurements on the reality of the wavefunction : Nature Physics : Nature Publishing Group
- 3. Quantum theorem shakes foundations : Nature News & Comment
- 4. Violating the Bell-Leggett-Garg inequality with weak measurement of an entangled state
- 5. Mapping the optimal route between two quantum states
- 6. Bizarre quantum experiment suggests time can run backwards | Daily Mail Online
- 7. Mapping the optimal route between two quantum states : Nature : Nature Publishing Group
- 8. Murch Research Group: Cryogenic Quantum Electronics – Home
- 9. Observing single quantum trajectories of a superconducting quantum bit : Nature : Nature Publishing Group
- 10. Quantum physics: Watching the wavefunction collapse : Nature : Nature Publishing Group
- 11. Watching Schrodinger’s cat die
- 12. Schrödinger’s cat gets a reality check
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- 14. Measurements on the reality of the wavefunction – ResearchGate
- 15. Research team challenges the limits of famous quantum principle
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- 19. [1409.0510] Prediction and retrodiction for a continuously monitored superconducting qubit
- 20. Correlations of quantum particles help in distinguishing physical processes — ScienceDaily
- 21. Photo First: Light Captured as Both Particle and Wave : Discovery News
- 22. Quantum correlation can imply causation — ScienceDaily
- 23. New method of quantum entanglement vastly increases how much information can be carried in a photon
- 24. Quantum Physics And The Need For A New Paradigm : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
- 1. To infinity and beyond | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
- 2. No Return to Classical Reality – ResearchGate
- 3. Home | Quantum Shorts 2014
- 4. Physicists find a new form of quantum friction
- 5. Quantum-Secure Cryptography Crosses Red Line | Quanta Magazine
- 6. Quantum Computing Is About to Overturn Cybersecurity’s Balance of Power | Vivek Wadhwa
- 7. NSA preps quantum-resistant algorithms to head off crypto-apocalypse | Ars Technica
- 8. Understanding of complex networks could help unify gravity and quantum mechanics: When the understanding of complex networks such as the brain or the Internet is applied to geometry the results match up with quantum behavior — ScienceDaily
- 9. The Battle Between Gravity and Quantum Physics, as Told by Craig Hogan and Lee Smolin
- 10. quantum mechanics – Entanglement, real or just math? – Physics Stack Exchange
- 1. Australian researchers make quantum computing breakthrough, paving way for world-first chip
- 2. Researchers develop new method for scaling up quantum devices
- 3. Upgrading the quantum computer
- 4. Google Tackles Quantum Computing’s Hardest Problem: Errors | WIRED
- 5. Google Researchers Demonstrate Breakthrough Needed for Quantum Computing | MIT Technology Review
- 6. Quantum teleportation on a chip: Significant step towards ultra-high speed quantum computers — ScienceDaily
- 7. Scientists achieve critical steps to building first practical quantum computer
- 8. Analogue quantum computers: Still wishful thinking? — ScienceDaily
- 9. Strength in numbers: First-ever quantum device that detects and corrects its own errors — ScienceDaily
- 10. Google Tests First Error Correction in Quantum Computing – IEEE Spectrum
- 11. Traveling without moving: Quantum communication scheme transfers quantum states without transmitting physical particles
- 12. Spintronics advance brings wafer-scale quantum devices closer to reality — ScienceDaily
- 13. Uniting classical and quantum mechanics: Breakthrough observation of Mott transition in a superconductor — ScienceDaily
- 14. Spintronics just got faster — ScienceDaily
- 15. Dutch invest €135m in developing a quantum computer – DutchNews.nl
- 16. Transistor built from a molecule and a few atoms — ScienceDaily
- 17. Paving the way for a faster quantum computer: Unordered quantum computation: Improved efficiency — ScienceDaily
- 18. Researchers Succeed In Connecting Two Different Quantum Systems – Daily Science Journal
- 19. Quantum communications go thin and light
- 20. Computing at the Speed of Light – The Daily Beast
- 21. Full-scale architecture for a quantum computer in silicon: Scalable 3-D silicon chip architecture based on single atom quantum bits provides a blueprint to build operational quantum computers — ScienceDaily
- 22. Can quantum computing change the world? This start-up is betting on it. – The Washington Post
- 23. Photons open the gateway for quantum networks
- 1. The universe is FAKE and we’re playthings of advanced civilisation says theory | Daily Mail Online
- 2. What Is the Universe? Real Physics Has Some Mind-Bending Answers | Science | Smithsonian
- 3. Do we live in a HOLOGRAM? US Government begins mind bending experiment to find out if our 3D world is an illusion | Daily Mail Online
- 4. Freaky Physics Experiment May Prove Our Universe Is A Two-Dimensional Hologram
- 5. Is the Cosmos Just a Big Hologram? – The Daily Beast
- 6. Is the Universe a Simulation? – The New York Times
- 7. How Do We Know We’re Not Living Inside A Massive Computer Simulation? | Popular Science
- 8. The Measurement That Would Reveal The Universe As A Computer Simulation | MIT Technology Review
- 9. [1210.1847] Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation
- 10. ‘The idea we live in a simulation isn’t science fiction’ – New Scientist
- 11. Cosmic rays offer clue our universe could be a computer simulation (Wired UK)
- 12. It’s still possible we all live inside a hologram/ ExtremeTech
- 13. Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing? – The Nature of Reality — The Nature of Reality | PBS
- 14. physics – How Much Computing Power would be Required to Fully Simulate a Cubic Meter? – Theoretical Computer Science Stack Exchange
- 15. simulation – How Much Computing Power would be Required to Fully Simulate a Cubic Meter? – Physics Stack Exchange
- 16. computability – Can normal physics laws be simulated in Digital physics? – Computer Science Stack Exchange
- 1. Pilot-Wave Hydrodynamics / Bush
- 2. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg Still Dreams of Final Theory | Cross-Check, Scientific American Blog Network
- 3. The Admiral of the String Theory Wars: Peter Woit still thinks string theory is a gory mess.
- 4. Theories of Everything, Richard Feynman, and the Scale Dependence of Our Understanding of Reality
- 5. Physics: QBism puts the scientist back into science : Nature News & Comment
- 6. A Private View of Quantum Reality | WIRED
- 7. Could classical theory be just as weird as quantum theory?
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- 9. David Tong — Lecture Notes on Solitons
- 10. Soliton Dynamics in String Theory, Dr. Vipul Periwal, ITP & IAS, Princeton
- 11. Towards a Grand Unified Theory of Mathematics and Physics by Peter Woit
- 12. The new wave of pilot-wave theory
- 13. Quantum physics: What is really real? : Nature News & Comment
- 14. Is the Many Worlds hypothesis just a fantasy? – Philip Ball – Aeon
- 15. Famous Fluid Equations Are Incomplete | Quanta Magazine
- 16. Purifying Physics: The Quest to Explain Why the “Quantum” Exists/ Chiribella
- 17. [hep-th/0110125] Selected topics in integrable models
- 18. Sign in to read: Quantum purity: How the big picture banishes weirdness – physics-math – 08 April 2015 – Control – New Scientist
- 19. How the Hippies Saved Physics by David Kaiser
- 20. Review by Stephen Parrott of Collective Electrodynamics by Carver A. Mead
- 21. Engineering simulation: past, present and future – Applications – Scientific Computing World/ 3 ages of CFD
- 22. Quantum computers have failed. So now for the science • The Register
- 23. quantum mechanics – Are there resources for simulating and/or theoretically describing solitons? – Physics Stack Exchange
- 1. New optical chip lights up the race for quantum computer — ScienceDaily
- 2. D-Wave: ‘Whether or not it’s quantum, it’s faster’ • The Register
- 3. D-Wave Systems Breaks the 1000 Qubit Quantum Computing Barrier | QuBitsNews
- 4. Google and NASA Team Up on Quantum Computer – The Daily Beast
- 5. D-Wave Systems Breaks the 1000 Qubit Quantum Computing Barrier | D-Wave Systems
- 1. The Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos That Weren’t: The Data That Threatened to Break Physics
- 2. Subatomic particles that appear to defy Standard Model points to undiscovered forces – Yahoo News UK
- 3. Subatomic particles that appear to defy Standard Model points to undiscovered forces / IBT
- 4. The Rise and Fall of Supersymmetry – Starts With A Bang
- 1. An Algorithm Set To Revolutionize 3-D Protein Structure Discovery | MIT Technology Review
- 2. Supercomputers enlisted to shed light on photosynthesis — ScienceDaily
- 3. Jim Al-Khalili: How quantum biology might explain life’s biggest questions | TED Talk | TED.com
- 4. A new algorithm to predict the dynamic language of proteins — ScienceDaily
