Reports from the Heart of the Machine
Editors: Zenan, Boat
The first question to be answered is: Is the experiment quantum or classically physical?
You must have heard of Schrödinger's cat, which was the famous physicist Erwin A thought experiment proposed by Schrödinger in 1935 was to lock a cat in an airtight container containing a small amount of radium and cyanide. The decay of radium depends on the probability, if the radium decays, it will trigger the mechanism to break the bottle containing cyanide, and the cat will die. If the radium does not decay, the cat survives.
According to the theory of quantum mechanics, since radioactive radium is in the superposition of decay and non-decay, the cat should be in the superposition of dead cats and live cats. This dead and alive cat is the so-called "Schrödinger cat".
But common sense tells you that there can be no cat that is both dead and alive, and the observer must open the container to know the results. This experiment attempts to explain the problem of the principle of quantum superposition at the microscopic scale from the macroscopic scale, and to link the existence form of microscopic matter as a particle or a wave after observation with the macroscopic cat, so as to verify the existence of the quantum when the observation intervenes. With the development of quantum physics, Schrödinger's cat also extended to physical problems and philosophical controversies such as parallel universes.
"I don't like it, I'm sorry to be associated with it," physicist Schrödinger is said to have said of quantum theory.
Austrian physicist Erwin Erwin Schr dinger (12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961) was a 1933 Nobel Laureate in Physics.
How annoying is that? So much so that he struggled to prove it absurd with the most famous ideological question in physics, which involved putting a cat in a box.
According to the theory, a split in space-time can only be said to have occurred if observed. Otherwise, it must be considered indeterminate. Since the fate of the cat coincides with the fate of the atom, Schrödinger's cat must also be considered neither dead nor alive.
It's pure nonsense, Schrödinger concluded. However, later researchers found ways to translate this thinking problem into actual experiments that actually validated the predictions of quantum theory. One experiment used a resonator that cooled almost to absolute zero, causing it to be "entangled" between two quantum states, whether vibrating or not. These two states later appear as superimposed.
In fact, the entanglement of living things is a feat for physicists, and perhaps even more so for biochemists. Complex chemical systems don't usually stand still for inspection, but if you can freeze them to a temperature that demonstrates quantum mechanics, you can probe their components.
Some argue that biochemical processes such as photosynthesis must involve quantum effects, and this approach may be a good idea to prove this.
Freezing a creature to absolute zero? If you think so, there seems to be only one candidate - the "net red" tardigrade in the field of popular science. Tardigrades are ideal candidates for an almost complete vacuum, and then freeze to extreme temperatures while still having a chance to remain viable.
To entangle a life form, you have to put it in an extreme vacuum and cool it to almost absolute zero without killing it. Bacteria can be entangled in this way. Now, a group of scientists say they're entangled in a tardigrade, a small animal that's barely visible to the naked eye, mostly less than a millimeter long.
Eleven researchers presented their work on arXiv, an online preprinted paper site, on December 16. These include Rainer Dumke of the Centre for Quantum Technology at the National University of Singapore and Tomasz Paterek of the University of Gdansk in Poland, who won the Funny Nobel Prize in 2019 for their work on magnetizing cockroaches for their research involving methods of animal navigation.
Thesis link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.07978
Sounds a little unorthodox? But records show that at least one of the hilarious Nobel laureates, André Andre Geim won a real Nobel Prize. He won the Funny Nobel Prize in 2000 for floating frogs, and the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for discovering graphene.
A tardigrade animal is almost as endowed with the environment as a microbe, and when you put it in an extreme environment, it goes dormant by curling up into a ball called a "tun," a process known as "Cryptobiosis."
Tardigrades have all four cryptophytic properties, namely low-humidity cryptogenesis, low-temperature cryptosons, metathermal cryptosomym and hypoxia cryptogenesis, which can stop all metabolism in harsh environments. Tardigrades are therefore considered to be the most vigorous animals. In cryptosophysis, it can generally survive for minutes to days at high temperatures (151°C), near absolute zero (as low as -272.8°C), high radiation, vacuum, or high pressure. There have been records of tardigrades that have been cryptozoan for more than 120 years.
Sounds like a dehydrated trisolaran.
Although some argue that at least some metabolism must continue during cryptogenesis, the best description of this may be a life that has been shelved. In 2019, when Israel's first lunar spacecraft, Genesis, accidentally crashed and a group of slow-moving animals were deposited on the moon, many speculated that these small animals would survive even there. Unfortunately, later shock experiments involving the firing of nylon bullets showed that this did not happen.
Dumke and his colleagues became interested in studying the process of superconducting qubits, and many hoped that such electron oscillators would produce entirely new computers based on quantum effects. They wondered what would happen if a dormant walking animal were placed on a qubit that brought the system close to absolute zero.
First, they learned that even such tardigrades survived. This in itself is an important discovery.
"In such extremely low temperatures, almost nothing is moving, everything is in the ground state (all atoms vibrate to stop). Animals are a grain of dust," Dumke told IEEE Spectrum. "Restore it to a viable condition, slowly increase the temperature and pressure, and then it will recover." Some argue that in the cryptobiological state, some metabolism is underway. Not really."
This finding raises the question: What is the power of natural selection that makes tardigrades so tough? It appears to be over-engineered for its normal land habitats, including moss and lichen.
In addition, Dumke et al. believe that they achieved true quantum entanglement between qubits and slow-moving animals. Larger objects are so entangled, but those objects are inanimate matter. It's a bolder proposition — and harder to believe.
"We start with superconducting qubits with an energy state of 0, similar to atoms in the ground state. There's no oscillation — nothing happens," Dumke said. "We can use microwaves to provide the right amount of energy in the right amount of time to raise it to Level 1. It's like the second orbital of an electron in an atom. Now the shock begins."
"Or maybe it's important that we can add so much energy, but in half the time we can raise the system to 1/2 of the quantum state, which is the superposition state." In this state, the system oscillates at the same time and does not oscillate. You can do extensive tests to measure all three states."
The researchers then tested the system under many different conditions to determine the quantum state, and they found that the system made up of qubits and tardigrades occupied a lower state of energy than any one alone. The researchers concluded that the two were already entangled.
A few days later, however, some criticism of the study emerged.
Ben Benbruker, a physicist-turned-reviewer, argued on Twitter that the experiments did not prove what the authors claimed. He believes there are three possibilities:
Quantum entanglement is achieved with the entire tardigrade;
Quantum entanglement is achieved in part of the water bear worm;
Quantum entanglement is not achieved at all.
The last case means that any effects are caused by some classical physical (non-quantum) process.
The study's researchers also admit that they couldn't perform the perfect experiment because that involves using two probes to independently measure tardigrades and qubits. The study's tardigrade animals are encapsulated with qubits to form a hybrid structure, making it difficult to control the two probes independently.
Experimental sketch
Another researcher, Vlatko Vedral, a professor of physics at the University of Oxford, said: "You have to build a model that represents qubits as a quantum mechanical system. If you experiment in the classical way, you won't be able to explain all the features. These features are the states of quantum energy that a combined system can achieve. In fact, most of the chemicals are based on this van der Waals force."
Kai Sheng Lee, the first paper, said: "When introducing the second qubit, the paper gives a partial answer to the above questions about quantum entanglement." The presence of two superconducting qubits next to tardigrades reinforces the rationale for entanglement, as there appears to be a qubit in the 0 state (|0>) superimposed on another qubit in the 1 state (|1>).
However, Vedral also acknowledges that the main weakness is that "no direct measurements were made of tardigrades."
Can each part of this entangled triangle be measured directly? Dumke said after trying, "You can try to find a specific resonance frequency inside a tardigrade animal and then use that frequency to find the cause of stronger entanglement."
Vendral proposes: "Perhaps resonate by genetically modifying tardigrades." 」
Do you want to artificially design such creatures? Maybe they're thinking about it, maybe they're wondering if it's worth it. Maybe it's also a superposition.
Reference: https://spectrum.ieee.org/schrodingers-tardigrade
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