On first reading and studying the quantum world I was immediately awe struck and dumbfounded with what I was reading, I thought, why does not everyone in the world know about this? The mere mention of quantum to many people means nothing at all to possibly to a vague connection to a relatively recent James Bond film, staggering really.
It has been famously paraphrased that unless ‘the hairs on the back of your neck go up’ you do not understand it.Yes the theory does illicit an emotional response along with denial and logical conundrums.
Einstein’s relativity sat nicely with all known theories of his time, all of his work and ideas were logical so to speak, beautifully complex math, succinctly condensed into a singular expression which most of us could understand relatively easily, the classic of all such being E=MC2, no description necessary.
Neils Bhor who was a very close friend of Einstein first postulated the existance and math of quantum theory, which sat very uneasy with Einstein, who liked to think of the universe in a homegenous isatropic view way, the same every where in all directions.
In one of Einsteins famous quotes he said ‘I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.”
Yes perhaps I now have your attention, that is what the great man himself said regarding the theory, OK it may have been said slightly tongue in cheek, but his sentiments are expressed quite adequately.
To explain further let us deal with the old chestnut of light, is it a particle or a wave? Well experiments tell us that it can be both, however surely this is not the case is it? The double-slit experiment covers much of this.
Quantum theory would say that light and wave particle duality is resolved on how you observe it, because the crux or main point is that of observation or more likely consciousness, as particles appear to ‘know’ they are being observed, hairs on the neck going yet? They should be.
Yes the quantum world is based on observation and consciousness, until and object is observed it does not exist, as a famous philosophical question once asked many years ago’ does a tree make a sound when it falls in an empty forest’
The famous EPR Einstein Podolsky and Rosen thought experiment also sought to make people think about the long reaching effects of quantum theory, they suggested that two particles, called A and B were entangled, then one of the particles was sent to the other side of the universe,(this is a big experiment), because you know what particle A is doing you would instantly know what particle B was doing, this breaks faster than light and all other known laws by a country mile, and of course is illogical, however falls well within the laws and framework of quantum entanglement.
So why not use this as a form of communication? Entanglement is not that easy to setup, however there have been and are in roads into this fascinating new technology.
Superposition, decoherence and the qubit.
Classical computers with binary 0 or 1, on or off with a quantum qubit the system would utilize superposition of both 0 and 1, further to this there has been a white paper entitled Solid-state quantum memory using the P nuclear spin, both of these technologies if developed would represent a paradigm shift the like of which has never been seen before the the massive processing and storage potential would be staggering and mid blowing.
