AutoRicerca is a journal whose mission is to publish writings of value on the topic of inner research (but not only). This nineteenth issue of AutoRicerca is entirely dedicated to the topic of quantum physics, with three essays by Massimiliano Sassoli de Bianchi. The first is an updated and expanded edition of a booklet that the author published in 2013, entitled "Observer Effect". The second is the "transliteration" of a video that the author published in 2012, on the subject of the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and quantum non-spatiality. Finally, the third is a short article in which the possibility of spontaneous self-teleportation of a human body is explored.
AutoRicerca is a journal whose mission is to publish writings of value on the topic of inner research (but not only). This eighteenth volume is the first to be published only in English. It contains an interesting conversation between D. Aerts, K. W. Ekeson, M. Sassoli de Bianchi and V. Schneider, on "The secret of life". It also contains two original articles, written by D. Aerts and K. W. Ekeson, which complete the content of the conversation.
Recent years have been characterized by tremendous advances in quantum information and communication, both theoretically and experimentally. In addition, mathematical methods of quantum information and quantum probability have begun spreading to other areas of research, beyond physics. One exciting new possibility involves applying these methods to information science and computer science (without direct relation to the problems of creation of quantum computers). The aim of this Special Volume is to encourage scientists, especially the new generation (master and PhD students), working in computer science and related mathematical fields to explore novel possibilities based on the mathematical formalisms of quantum information and probability. The contributing authors, who hail from various countries, combine extensive quantum methods expertise with real-world experience in application of these methods to computer science. The problems considered chiefly concern quantum information-probability based modeling in the following areas: information foraging; interactive quantum information access; deep convolutional neural networks; decision making; quantum dynamics; open quantum systems; and theory of contextual probability. The book offers young scientists (students, PhD, postdocs) an essential introduction to applying the mathematical apparatus of quantum theory to computer science, information retrieval, and information processes.
"Real black magic calculus" is how Albert Einstein described quantum mechanics in a letter in 1925. Quantum mechanics is now rather more widely understood by physicists, but still many "outsiders" are unaware of what quantum mechanics is, how it has changed the course of development of physics and how it affects their everyday lives. This book gives a fascinating account of the evolution of the ideas and concepts of quantum theory and modern physics, written by an "insider" but aimed specifically at the general science reader. Many anecdotes from famous past physicists give an insight into their work and personalities. The many illustrations are an important and attractive feature of the book. Leonid Ponomarev is a leading theoretical physicist. His deep understanding of the subject is allied with his wide knowledge of history, literature and philosophy to produce this history of the development of modern physics and its impact on our lives.
The book discusses laws of quantum mechanics, several amazing quantum phenomena and the progress in understanding the connection between quantum and classical worlds,How the paradoxes arise and how to solve them has been explained in detail, besides highlighting the significance of Bell s theorm.
Scientific, technological, and cultural changes have always had an impact upon philosophy. They can force a change in the way we perceive the world, reveal new kinds of phenomena to be understood, and provide new ways of understanding phenomena. Complexity science, immersed in a culture of information, is having a diverse but particularly significant impact upon philosophy. Previous ideas do not necessarily sit comfortably with the new paradigm, resulting in new ideas or new interpretations of old ideas.In this unprecedented interdisciplinary volume, researchers from different backgrounds join efforts to update thinking upon philosophical questions with developments in the scientific study of complex systems. The contributions focus on a wide range of topics, but share the common goal of increasing our understanding and improving our descriptions of our complex world. This revolutionary debate includes contributions from leading experts, as well as young researchers proposing fresh ideas.
Einstein Meets Magritte: An Interdisciplinary Reflection presents insights of the renowned key speakers of the interdisciplinary Einstein meets Magritte conference (1995, Brussels Free University). The contributions elaborate on fundamental questions of science, with regard to the contemporary world, and push beyond the borders of traditional approaches. All of the articles in this volume address this fundamental theme, but somewhere along the road the volume expanded to become much more than a mere expression of the conference's dynamics. The articles not only deal with several scientific disciplines, they also confront these fields with the full spectrum of contemporary life, and become new science. As such, this volume presents a state-of-the-art reflection of science in the world today, in all its diversity. The contributions are accessible to a large audience of scientists, students, educators, and everyone who wants to keep up with science today.
This volume presents essays by pioneering thinkers including Tyler Burge, Gregory Chaitin, Daniel Dennett, Barry Mazur, Nicholas Humphrey, John Searle and Ian Stewart. Together they illuminate the Map/Territory Distinction that underlies at the foundation of the scientific method, thought and the very reality itself. It is imperative to distinguish Map from the Territory while analyzing any subject but we often mistake map for the territory. Meaning for the Reference. Computational tool for what it computes. Representations are handy and tempting that we often end up committing the category error of over-marrying the representation with what is represented, so much so that the distinction between the former and the latter is lost. This error that has its roots in the pedagogy often generates a plethora of paradoxes/confusions which hinder the proper understanding of the subject. What are wave functions? Fields? Forces? Numbers? Sets? Classes? Operators? Functions? Alphabets and Sentences? Are they a part of our map (theory/representation)? Or do they actually belong to the territory (Reality)? Researcher, like a cartographer, clothes (or creates?) the reality by stitching multitudes of maps that simultaneously co-exist. A simple apple, for example, can be analyzed from several viewpoints beginning with evolution and biology, all the way down its microscopic quantum mechanical components. Is there a reality (or a real apple) out there apart from these maps? How do these various maps interact/intermingle with each other to produce a coherent reality that we interact with? Or do they not? Does our brain uses its own internal maps to facilitate “physicist/mathematician” in us to construct the maps about the external territories in turn? If so, what is the nature of these internal maps? Are there meta-maps? Evolution definitely fences our perception and thereby our ability to construct maps, revealing to us only those aspects beneficial for our survival. But the question is, to what extent? Is there a way out of the metaphorical Platonic cave erected around us by the nature? While “Map is not the territory” as Alfred Korzybski remarked, join us in this journey to know more, while we inquire on the nature and the reality of the maps which try to map the reality out there. The book also includes a foreword by Sir Roger Penrose and an afterword by Dagfinn Follesdal.
This book shines bright light into the dim recesses of quantum theory, where the mysteries of entanglement, nonlocality, and wave collapse have motivated some to conjure up multiple universes, and others to adopt a "shut up and calculate" mentality. After an extensive and accessible introduction to quantum mechanics and its history, the author turns attention to his transactional model. Using a quantum handshake between normal and time-reversed waves, this model provides a clear visual picture explaining the baffling experimental results that flow daily from the quantum physics laboratories of the world. To demonstrate its powerful simplicity, the transactional model is applied to a collection of counter-intuitive experiments and conceptual problems.
