Quantum Zeno Effect, Counterfactuality, and The Weeping Angels

Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And… don't… BLINK. Good Luck.

Dr. Who, Blink

The quantum Zeno effect (also known as the Turing paradox) is a situation in which an unstable particle, if observations are repeatedly made i.e., by shining a laser on the sample to take its measurement under a microscope or using some other form of atomic measurement, the unstable particle will never decay. Sometimes this is stated as "a system can't change while you are watching it." One can "freeze" the evolution of the system by measuring it frequently enough in its known initial state. The meaning of the term has since expanded, leading to a more technical definition in which time evolution can be suppressed not only by measurement: the quantum Zeno effect is the suppression of unitary time evolution in quantum systems provided by a variety of sources: measurement, interactions with the environment, stochastic fields, and so on.

Wikipedia – Quantum Zeno effect.

HI ATS. Just bored and ran across the Quantum Zeno Effect in my readings and put it together with the Weeping Angels.

Original article.
Phys.org – Researchers achieve direct counterfactual quantum communication.

In the non-intuitive quantum domain, the phenomenon of counterfactuality is defined as the transfer of a quantum state from one site to another without any quantum or classical particle transmitted between them. Counterfactuality requires a quantum channel between sites, which means that there exists a tiny probability that a quantum particle will cross the channel—in that event, the run of the system is discarded and a new one begins. It works because of the wave-particle duality that is fundamental to particle physics: Particles can be described by wave function alone.

Well understood as a workable scheme by physicists, theoretical aspects of counterfactual communication have appeared in journals, but until recently, there have been no practical demonstrations of the phenomenon. Now, a collaborative of Chinese scientists has designed and experimentally tested a counterfactual communication system that successfully transferred a monochrome bitmap from one location to another using a nested version of the quantum Zeno effect.

They set up a Quantum Zeno Effect between two photon detectors. Letting in a photon the detector on the far side either reads the same or not (if they can’t tell they discarded the particle and tried again). They “encoded” black or white “pixels” on this detection. They essentially sent a binary message of the photo they had (a Chinese Knot)


Source: Wikipedia

But in black and white.

Thought it was pretty cool news. I couldn't help but think of that episode.

I also thought that it was pretty cool that right after telling Sally that dreadful warning what does The Doctor do? Blinks.

The Weeping Angels were an extremely powerful species of quantum-locked humanoids (sufficient observation changes the thing being observed), so called because their unique nature necessitated that they often covered their faces with their hands to prevent trapping each other in petrified form for eternity by looking at one another. This gave the Weeping Angels their distinct "weeping" appearance.

tardis.wikia.com - Weeping Angel.

Bow ties are cool!

this is actually very interesting. You have a habit of writing very interesting posts. Thanks for giving me something to read about tonight

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Hi BASS!

I'm not certain what this really means but it seems important. Information theory and quantum mechanics have collided and both are changing each other.

And the fact it was discussed on basically a kids TV program years ago I found interesting!

Seems that a bit more theoretical ideas need a bit of modification. I'm seeing more talk is spin seebeck effect. You probably have it right on using quantum spin as work at the macro level. At least as far as the Higgs field goes (you know what I'm talking about...) lol

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Another thing you might be interested is Quantum Immortality.

Given specific conditions, and if the Many-World hypothesis is true, then,

the experimenter continues to exist through all of their superpositions where the outcome of the experiment is that they live. In other words, we may say that the experimenter survives all iterations of the experiment, whichever its number. Since the superpositions where the experimenter lives occur by quantum necessity (again, under the many-worlds interpretation), it follows that their survival, after any realizable number of iterations, is physically necessary; hence, the notion of quantum immortality.

a reply to: swanne

Add in counterfacuality and multi-universe is your oyster!!



Will read after the horse race!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

More of a Doctor Who reference but, the easiest way to defeat or repel weeping angels is to release a bunch of insects in the area. The more the better.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

This brought to mind some thoughts I had recently following consideration of the "Hamlet's Mill" theory, elements of the precession of the equinoxes, the tale of 'the Watchers' in certain ancient Mid-East scripture.

There's another relevant fact which has recently come to community awareness, regarding ideas suggestive that Time is extremely fluid, in terms of how one experiences it when a system is encircled in a certain mass-space-orbit-gravity scenario. I've probably totally misrepresented what I'm trying to describe, I will have a look at recent reading in order to clarify.

The thrust of the theory which began to formulate after reading up on the time/relative issue, is a possible connection with the stories of an ancient cosmic war, with the devil & his rebel angels being cast to earth, unable to ascend as they had previously. I began to suspect that there might be a Time-Space related restriction, perhaps with our solar system in some way having been manipulated to 'imprison the guilty within a recursive Time anomaly'.. Similar to how the Stargate SG-1 team tried to deal with the 'Replicant' problem (a vast, dangerous, & ever expanding Artificially Intelligent Nanobot Swarm, for those who aren't au fait with the Stargate mythos), by steering them into a gravity well/ black hole anomaly, preventing them from expanding their realm of influence to destroy surrounding civilisations.

Being trapped here in the sphere of influence of an enemy which is apparently an almost limitless horror of evil, hidden below the surface of our society, in some way infecting our spiritual awareness & capacity for proper & decent mental expression of peace, harmony, grace, mercy, love, wisdom & so on - basically like having a virus in the soul, with no proper immune response for many of us, we might call this scenario as was once said, "..fallen from grace". We are somehow tainted by association, with some vast magickal working having been deployed aeons ago, where our forebears ('Adam', the archetypal patriarch) seemingly entered into a dark contract of assumed power & demonic protection, of material increase in return for the blood of our descendants, etc.

I will try to locate the science bit & will edit to clarify properly what I'm trying to explain, tomorrow though as it's bedtime here in the UK..

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

I know!! Drunken postulation seems to be my forte!!

Certain this has ties to reality but am unclear how it works. Drunken comment coming,.. explains Mandela Effect, counterfactually, that is.

The Quantum Zeno Effect is kind of hard to grasp. For those that would like a video explanation. Here you go.

Watched Quantum Pots Never Boil - Quantum Zeno Effect

a reply to: swanne

Oh my!

I see it now!

Recursion is a pain as are infinitives. There must be some way to keep them all at bay.

It starts with maths. Every "new" discovery starts with new math.

Teleportation is a type of quantum communication which requires two particles that are inextricably linked that they affect each other no matter how far their distance is from each other. Entanglement happens when another particle, such as photons, travel between the two particles.

However, there's a type of quantum communication called direct counterfactual quantum communication that does not require entanglement because it uses a phenomenon called quantum Zeno effect.
...

Counterfactual quantum communication is based on this phenomenon where a quantum state transfers from one place to another without using any particle between them.
...

The system worked because they embedded the messages in the light which functions as a wave rather than particles in the quantum world. Thus, they were able to transmit messages without actually sending particles.

UniversityHerald.com - Researchers Prove That Quantum Teleportation Is Possible Without Entanglement.

The emphasis is on "without entanglement." In other words, you do not need to create entangled pairs of particles BEFORE teleporting (fancy term for "sending the quantum state of the particle") to the remote location. On the other side, you read the information and create a particle with the exact information.

If that can be done with every molecule in your body then Star Trek teleportation!

But before the horse gets in front of the cart...

The research will be checked by independent researchers to make sure that counterfactual quantum communication was indeed achieved.

(same)

The sourced article also has the "Watched Quantum Pots Don't Boil" video. They're missing the Weeping Angels...

You've probably heard about Schrödinger's cat, which famously is trapped in a box with a mechanism that is activated if a radioactive atom decays, releasing radiation. The act of looking in the box collapses the atom's wave function—the mathematical description of its state —from a "superposition" of states to a definite state, which either kills the cat or let's it live another day.

But did you know that if you peek into the cat box frequently—thousands of times a second—you can either delay the fateful choice or, conversely, accelerate it? The delay is known as the quantum Zeno effect and the acceleration as the quantum anti-Zeno effect.

phys.org, June 16, 2017 - How the quantum Zeno effect impacts Schroedinger's cat.

Those Zeno and anti-Zeno effects happen at the quantum level. They were wondering what effect both have on a quantum system, like a computer. So the "looked" at a qubit without reading any of the quantum information which they called a "quasimeasurement" (same source). Turns out that quasimeasurements produce Zeno effects.

I added this here because it is a really good explanation of quantum Zeno effect (better than I could do). Any help I can get to help wrap my mind around quantum mechanics is a good thing!