Could Quantum Computers Break Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal?

Here is an article, from IO9, that is bound to fry a couple of neurons. Have you heard of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal? Simply put, it is possible to chart a particle's position or speed but never both. Have you ever wondered "why is that"? Well believe me, person's with more degrees in one place than I have ever seen, wrestle with it daily. Here is part of the problem.

Physicist Paul Diracone describes the problem thus: One of the very, very few ways to measure a particle's position is to hit it with a photon and then chart where the photon lands on a detector. That gives you the particle's position, yes, but it's also fundamentally changed its velocity, and the only way to learn that would consequently alter its position.

Has that weeeeeee little pain started just behind your eyes yet?

The thing is that Heisenberg really meant to say that you can not measure both "with any degree of accuracy" and this is where quantum computers might shine. At least that is what
five physicists from Germany, Switzerland, and Canada hope.

Prepare to fry synapses! From the article:

• Key to quantum computers are qubits, the individual units of quantum memory. A particle would need to be entangled with a quantum memory large enough to hold all its possible states and degrees of freedom. Then, the particle would be separated and one of its features measured. If, say, its position was measured, then the researcher would tell the keeper of the quantum memory to measure its velocity.

Can you just hear Hugo Farnsworth going yeuuuuuuuuuuhwhaaaaaaaaaaaa?

This is what they hope for:

• Because the uncertainty principle wouldn't extend from the particle to the memory, it wouldn't prevent the keeper from measuring this second figure, allowing for exact.....
• ...would fundamentally alter our understanding of quantum mechanics and particle physics.

complete IO9 article

Is the Universe Aware?

I got to fess up here, I was watching the Sci-fi channel Friday. Oh come on, I was waiting for Atlantis and I like Dr. Who. As I mentioned last week, they replaced Charlie Jade with Joan of Arcadia, which is about a girl who "sees" God. Good? Bad? Not part of the conversation. But what got me thinking was a question she asks her brainy brother. She asked him does he think there is a God. His curious reply was something to the effect, "Well considering that the Universe is mostly electro-magnetism and it seems as though electromagnetism is aware, it's not inconceivable." That started the wheels turning - what did the writers mean by aware? Then I went back and watched that film about the double slit experiment. You know....electron, single slit - electron makes a single bar. Double slit - should be two bars wasn't. What they get is an interference pattern. Even when firing single electrons! What is even more curious is the fact that when they put a measuring device in to see what slit the electron is REALLY going through, the interference pattern collapses. The act of observing collapses the interference field. But the strange thing is the narrator said the same thing..... the electron acted as if it were aware of the detector and changed its behavior accordingly. I have always thrown out the standard mantra, at the quantum level probability waves collapse when observed. As we have been hearing, the Uncertainty principle says that we can not simultaneously know the energy level and position of an elemental particle at the same time. Truly spookiness at a distance. comments?