CAN TIME FLOW BACKWARDS IN QUANTUM PHYSICS?

Denyse O’ Leary at Uncommon Descent reports that some scientists are now of the opinion that time can flow backwards in quantum mechanics. Image from http://www.dailygalaxy.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/07/19/time_travel_use_2.jpg  Read More →

CAN SCHROEDINGER’S CAT EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN OF TIME?

The FQXi Community has published an interesting article on the quantum arrow of time.   On the microscopic scale, the movement is time reversible.  That is, theoretically, the equations that govern how molecules interact with each other work just as well backwards as forwards.  Physicist Jonathan Dowling believes that quantum mechanics - not entropy, which most physicists use to explain the arrow - can give answers as to why time is not reversible... Read more

BREAKTHROUGH IN QUANTUM CONTROL OF LIGHT

Researchers have recently demonstrated a breakthrough in the quantum control of photons, the energy quanta of light. Photons were stored in a microwave cavity, a “light trap” in which the light bounces back and forth as if between two mirrors. In earlier work, researchers showed they could create and store photons, one at a time, with up to 15 photons stored at one time in the light trap. The research shows that they can create states... Read more

THE QUANTUM WAVE FUNCTION OF THE UNIVERSE THROUGH HOLOGRAMS

Alex Mahoney claims that right now, holography is the most powerful tool to understand precise formulations of quantum gravity and that by hologramming the universe and finding its quantum wavefunction, we can understand the birth of the cosmos.  Read More →

PROBLEMS WITH ALCUBIERRE WARP DRIVE

The release of the film Star Trek has reinvigorated talk of interstellar and intergalactic flight and the engines needed to get us there.  Check out gfish’s discussion on Weird Things about possible problems - Hawking radiation, for example - with the Alcubierre “bubble” drive. Additional insight provided by Zeeya Merali on FQXI.  Read More →

UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE USED TO DETECT ENTANGLEMENT

Using the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed an efficient method to detect entanglement, a property of a system of two or more objects in which the quantum states of the constituting objects are linked together so that one object can no longer be adequately described without full mention of its counterpart.  Read More →