Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagSuperposition

chess-pieces-on-board-for-game-and-strategy-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Chess Pieces on Board for Game and Strategy

The World’s First Quantum Chess Tournament Announces a Winner

Quantum chess allows for superposition, entanglement, and interference

Perimeter Institute’s Aleksander Kubica won: So what’s quantum chess? It’s a complicated version of regular chess that incorporates the quantum concepts of superposition, entanglement, and interference. “It’s like you’re playing in a multiverse but the different boards [in different universes] are connected to each other,” said Caltech physicist Spiros Michalakis during a livestream of the tournament. “It makes 3D chess from Star Trek look silly.” Jennifer Ouellette, “We have a winner in the world’s first quantum chess tournament” at Ars Technica Okay: Superposition: Elementary particles of our universe are not in one single specific place, they are only in a probable one. Entanglement: What happens to one elementary particle affects any other particle entangled with it, no matter how far Read More ›

colorful-quantum-world-fractal-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Colorful quantum world fractal

“Spooky Action at a Distance” Makes Sense—in the Quantum World

Einstein never liked quantum mechanics but each transistor in your cell phone is a quantum device

In last week’s podcast, “Enrique Blair on quantum computing,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with fellow computer engineer Enrique Blair about why quantum mechanics is so strange. The discussion turned to why Albert Einstein, a brilliant but orderly mathematical thinker, did not really like quantum mechanics at all and what we should learn from that: https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-110-Enrique-Blair.mp3 The discussion of Einstein and “spooky action at a distance” (his way of describing quantum particles’ behavior) starts at approximately 27:45. The Show Notes and transcript follow. Excerpts from the transcript: Robert J. Marks: Albert Einstein didn’t like quantum mechanics or certain aspects of quantum mechanics. Dd he die thinking that quantum mechanics was a fluke? Enrique Blair (pictured): That’s an Read More ›

blue-glowing-quantum-laser-in-space-with-rippled-beam-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Blue glowing quantum laser in space with rippled beam

The Final Ambiguous Truth About Schrödinger’s Cat

Schrödinger came up with the cat illustration to explain quantum mechanics to interested people who were not physicists

In last week’s podcast, “Enrique Blair on quantum computing,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with fellow computer engineer Enrique Blair about why quantum mechanics is so strange. Inevitably, the discussion turned to what really happened with Schrödinger’s cat, the one who is either dead or alive only if we actually look at it. https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-110-Enrique-Blair.mp3 [Schrödinger’s cat starts approximately at 21:50.] The Show Notes and transcript follow. Excerpts from the transcript: Robert J. Marks (pictured): We hear a lot in popular culture about Schrödinger’s cat. Now, Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) was one of the guys who formulated quantum mechanics. He won a Nobel Prize for it. He was trying to explain quantum mechanics to a layperson and he used Read More ›