Plans & Prospects 2023
Plans & Prospects is the annual magazine for alumni and friends of Wolfson College at the University of Oxford. We hope that you enjoy reading about life here at Wolfson, and welcome your feedback or article suggestions for next year's issue. Plans & Prospects is the annual magazine for alumni and friends of Wolfson College at the University of Oxford. We hope that you enjoy reading about life here at Wolfson, and welcome your feedback or article suggestions for next year's issue.
Will a quantum logic of “everything everywhere all at once” prevail or will it be replaced by something else? Below: Professor Albert Einstein / Credit: Getty Images them in succession. Ionisation attracts neighbouring gas which condenses around the ionized molecules. Therefore, the travelling and colliding particle leaves a track of condensed vapour in its wake. So far so good, but the problem was that the tracks are always straight lines. If, as quantum physics suggests, everything is a wave, why do we get straight lines from alpha-particles? Why not concentric circles, just like waves spreading in a pond when we throw a stone in it? The explanation was provided by Neville Mott in 1929. He actually set the scene for what is now called the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics (which should actually be called “Everything is a Q-Wave Interpretation”). Mott said that a single particle simultaneously traverses all the tracks in all directions (as a wave would), meaning that all trajectories exist in a superposition and at the same time. A single alpha-particle takes all the paths simultaneously and in all the directions, it’s just that when we look at it, we can only see one of these trajectories. The reason for this is that even though everything is a q-wave within which things exist at the same time, when we interact with this q-wave we can only reveal some of its aspects, one at a time (this is where Heisenberg’s Uncertainty comes from). But we ourselves are also a collection of q-waves. It is when our q-waves correlate with the q-waves of the alpha-particle that c-numbers emerge. These correlations between q-waves are called quantum entanglement and so the classical world owes its existence to quantum entanglement. In quantum physics, even a collision between two particles is actually described as an interaction between two q-waves. This constitutes our most accurate description of nature, called quantum field theory. A particle in this theory is just one stable configuration of the underlying q-wave (or, a single excitation of the quantum field, in a more formal language of quantum field theory). Erwin Schrödinger, in lectures given towards the end of his life, clearly spelt out the same picture that everything is a q-wave. He advocated this view not only because it avoids the confusion arising 18
Alumni lecture Above: Dr Vlatko Vedral Below: Sir Isaac Newton / Credit: Pixabay from the dualistic wave-particle language, but also because it contains no collapses of the wave-function, no abrupt discontinuities due to measurements and no quantum jumps (he was particularly keen to avoid quantum jumps, about which he said that if they turned out to be true he had wished he was a plumber and not a physicist). How far have we tested this q-wave picture? Schrödinger of course envisaged a by-now legendary experiment leading to a cat being simultaneously dead and alive, much like the alpha particle takes two different paths at the same time. But Schrödinger’s thought experiment is too hard to do simply because more complex objects are exceedingly hard to control quantum mechanically. However, all subatomic and atomic particles, and even some simple molecules, are capable of existing in many states at once. There is evidence that some more complex chemical processes are also fundamentally quantum mechanical. And now, we are starting to experiment with living systems. My colleagues and I have performed a sequence of experiments to entangle a single living bacterium to light, as well as another set of experiments to combine a tardigrade with two superconducting quantum bits. These experiments succeeded in showing that living systems can behave quantumly, though they are still very (very) far away from the states Schrödinger had in mind. Will a quantum logic of “everything everywhere all at once” prevail or will it be replaced by something else? We don’t have a clue at present, though all bets are still on quantum physics in the foreseeable future. And it is extremely exciting for humanity to be in a position to grapple with the fundamental mysteries of the universe in order to understand the ultimate logic of everything. 19
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Alumni lecture<br />
Above: Dr Vlatko Vedral<br />
Below: Sir Isaac Newton / Credit: Pixabay<br />
from the dualistic wave-particle language,<br />
but also because it contains no collapses<br />
of the wave-function, no abrupt<br />
discontinuities due to measurements and<br />
no quantum jumps (he was particularly<br />
keen to avoid quantum jumps, about<br />
which he said that if they turned out to<br />
be true he had wished he was a plumber<br />
and not a physicist).<br />
How far have we tested this q-wave<br />
picture? Schrödinger of course envisaged<br />
a by-now legendary experiment leading<br />
to a cat being simultaneously dead and<br />
alive, much like the alpha particle takes<br />
two different paths at the same time.<br />
But Schrödinger’s thought experiment<br />
is too hard to do simply because more<br />
complex objects are exceedingly hard to<br />
control quantum mechanically. However,<br />
all subatomic and atomic particles,<br />
and even some simple molecules, are<br />
capable of existing in many states at<br />
once. There is evidence that some more<br />
complex chemical processes are also<br />
fundamentally quantum mechanical. And<br />
now, we are starting to experiment with<br />
living systems.<br />
My colleagues and I have performed a<br />
sequence of experiments to entangle a<br />
single living bacterium to light, as well as<br />
another set of experiments to combine<br />
a tardigrade with two superconducting<br />
quantum bits. These experiments<br />
succeeded in showing that living systems<br />
can behave quantumly, though they are<br />
still very (very) far away from the states<br />
Schrödinger had in mind.<br />
Will a quantum logic of<br />
“everything everywhere all at<br />
once” prevail or will it be replaced<br />
by something else? We don’t have<br />
a clue at present, though all bets<br />
are still on quantum physics in<br />
the foreseeable future. And it is<br />
extremely exciting for humanity<br />
to be in a position to grapple with<br />
the fundamental mysteries of the<br />
universe in order to understand<br />
the ultimate logic of everything.<br />
19
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