Quantum physics just got less complicated

[n2doc]

Here's a nice surprise: quantum physics is less complicated than we thought. An international team of researchers has proved that two peculiar features of the quantum world previously considered distinct are different manifestations of the same thing. The result is published 19 December in Nature Communications.

Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner made the breakthrough while at the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore. They found that 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum 'uncertainty principle' in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.

"The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information," says Wehner, who is now an Associate Professor at QuTech at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

The discovery deepens our understanding of quantum physics and could prompt ideas for new applications of wave-particle duality.

more

http://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html

[drm604]

1. Seems obvious once it's stated.

[longship]

2. I thought that pretty much all of quantum springs from Heisenberg's formulation.

When I studied physics in the 70's, that was pretty much the physics narrative at that time. IIRC.



But who knows? I never went beyond a BS degree, and these things are plunged into much more deeply in graduate level physics.

R&K

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. I've been conflating them since I learned about quantum physics. I had no idea I was brilliant.

[xocet]

4. Here is the video....

[Scuba]

5. I feel smarter just reccing this post.

[nilram]

8. lol. Like some books on my shelf, I feel smarter just having bought them

[phantom power]

6. I bet this has some interesting insights to add to the double slit experiment

[AlbertCat]

7. This reminds me....

of a discussion I read ages ago about the Quantum "instant communication" problem.

That thing where: you have two quantumly linked particles A & B. They shoot off in opposite directions at the speed of light or thereabouts. After a while, you measure, say spin, for particle A. If it's left spin, then particle B, no matter how far it is from A, must instantly spin right. It's like some kind of instant communication even at great distances.

I remember some physicist musing that it seems counter intuitive and breaking the laws of physics because of ignorance of the whole system. He likened it to:

You are indirectly observing, you surmise, two fish in two tanks. You cannot actually see the fish for real, but you have two monitors (A & B) that appear to be viewing two fish. In reality there is one fish in a single tank but one monitor, A, is viewing it head on and the other monitor, B, is viewing it at a right angle from the monitor A.... the same fish. But for all you know, it is 2 different fish. When the fish suddenly turns to the side, it appears to you that the two different fish instantly changed at the same time. somehow communicating! But that is only because you are actually ignorant of the true situation.

Now apply that to particles A & B.

I though that was interesting

[F4lconF16]

9. Yeah it is interesting.

I don't have anywhere near the technical knowledge to know if it makes any sense or not, but hey, it sounded cool to me.

Some good food for thought, anyways.

[qazplm]

10. that's the issue with this that is tough from a common sense perspective

the common sense answer is, particle A was always spinning left, particle B was always spinning right, you just didn't know which was which until you measured one of them...the other didn't instantly start spinning in the opposite direction, it was always spinning in that direction.

quantum says it's spinning in both directions until you measure it, then it collapses down to one, which makes common sense want to take out a gun and shoot quantum, then itself.

[groundloop]

11. Well hell.... I wish someone would have made it less complicated when I took it

Quantum physics kicked my ass when I took it, many of it's concepts just flat out made my brain hurt. I swear the people who think this stuff up must be doing some heavy duty hallucinogenics.