A roll of the dice
Quantum mechanics researchers show that nature is unpredictable
2012-07-10
(Press-News.org) Many of the predictions we make in everyday life are vague, and we often get them wrong because we have incomplete information, such as when we
predict the weather.
But in quantum mechanics, even if all the information is available, the
outcomes of certain experiments generally can't be predicted perfectly beforehand.
This inability to accurately predict the results of experiments in
quantum physics has been the subject of a long debate, going back to
Einstein and co-workers, about whether quantum mechanics is the best way
to predict outcomes.
Researchers from the University of Calgary's Institute for Quantum
Information Science along with researchers from the Perimeter Institute
in Waterloo and the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in
Zürich/Switzerland have published a paper in Physics Review Letters that
suggests quantum theory is close to optimal in terms of its predictive
power. The research in this paper looks at measurements on members of
maximally entangled pairs of photons that are sent into
Stern-Gerlach-type apparatus, in which each photon can take one out of
two possible paths.
"In our experiment, we show that any theory in which there is
significantly less randomness is destined to fail: quantum theory
essentially provides the ultimate bound on how predictable the universe
is," says Dr. Wolfgang Tittel, associate professor and GDC/AITFIndustrial
Research Chair in Quantum Cryptography and Communicationat the
University of Calgary.
Dr. Renato Renner, Professor at the ETH in Zürich adds: "In other words,
not only does God 'play dice,' but his dice are fair."
Randomness in quantum theory is one of its key features and is widely
known, even outside the scientific community, says Tittel. "Its appeal
is its fundamental nature and broad range of implications: knowing the
precise configuration of the universe at the big bang would not be
sufficient to predict its entire evolution, for example, in contrast to
classical theory."
INFORMATION:
The paper: "An experimental bound on the maximum predictive power of physical
theories" is by Terence E. Stuart,Joshua A. Slater, Roger Colbeck, Renato
Renner and Wolfgang Tittel is available: http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v109/i2/e020402
END
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[Press-News.org] A roll of the dice
Quantum mechanics researchers show that nature is unpredictable
