Live data from Hacker News

Quantum Darwinism, an Idea to Explain Objective Reality, Passes First Tests

quantamagazine.org

41–44 of 44 posts

Re: Quantum Darwinism, an Idea to Explain Objective Reality, Passes First Tests

#41

From the first paragraph of the article: > An atom typically can’t be assigned a definite position, for example — we can merely calculate the probability of finding it in various places. Is this really the case? Or maybe author meant 'electron' instead of 'atom'? I mean, if we wouldn't be able of calculating the position of an Atom, how could "A Boy And His Atom" would be possible? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSC…

There is a limit to the precision of a position measurement of any particle, and atoms are made of many particles. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that the uncertainty of the position and momentum of a particle are related. In particular, the product of the errors has a constant lower bound. Visually, if you think of (1d) position and (1d) momentum plotted on a 2d graph, then Heisenberg's principle means that particles are not points, but rectangles with a minimum area.

Re: Quantum Darwinism, an Idea to Explain Objective Reality, Passes First Tests

#42
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evocative "sorta" names have a tendency to spread misinformation when the scientific details are opaque to most people. It's not a practice that I think is okay.

Then you should probably express your displeasure to guy who picked the name :) Seriously though, all evocative names are imperfect. Laymen always over interpret them. I don't like "quantum Darwinism" much, but if your standard is that the name of a mathematical concept not be misinterpreted, then basically all English words are out.

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/895/

Re: Quantum Darwinism, an Idea to Explain Objective Reality, Passes First Tests

#43
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment isn't useful, but I really can't get a handle on anything "quantum" related. The only thing I sort of understand is that if you could entangle a massive amount of photons/electrons, you could have "quantum radar" which would be jam-proof. I don't really understand even that though. Could you verify an electron reflecting back is entangled with an electron you have on hand, or are they all just "entangled"…

>My comment isn't useful, but I really can't get a handle on anything "quantum" related. That is probably because you have tried to read "applications" papers/articles (some of them of dubious scientific value, and more sci-fi/futurology) without properly understanding the fundamentals first. I strongly recommend "Quantum Mechanics", Cohen-Tannoudji et al. The first two chapters are the best introduction to quantum m…

Thanks for the recommendation!
Post reply on HN