Vlatko Vedral on Portals to a New Reality - podcast episode cover

Vlatko Vedral on Portals to a New Reality

Jan 21, 202640 minEp. 231
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Summary

Vlatko Vedral argues that physics is on the brink of a revolution, driven by advancements in quantum technology and a need to rethink our understanding of quantum mechanics. His book, "Portals to a New Reality," details five experiments designed to test the quantum nature of gravity, time, and even living systems, suggesting a universe that is fundamentally quantum "all the way down." He aims to shatter the classical-quantum divide and push physics towards a unified, consistent view of reality.

Episode description

Oxford physicist Vlatko Vedral seeks to shatter complacency in modern physics and show why five revolutionary experiments in quantum physics promise to open the gates separating us from a true understanding of the universe. They may sound very strange—one essentially involves entangling a human with Schrödinger’s cat—but they lay bare elements of our theories that are particularly problematic, such as the widespread belief that nothing truly exists unless it is observed.

 

Vedral's book, Portals to a New Reality: Five Experiments to Unlock the Future of Physics, is available for purchase: https://amzn.to/3LGqd77

 

Vlatko Vedral is a Serbian-born British physicist. He is best known for his contributions to quantum information theory, quantum mechanics, and quantum entanglement. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Imperial College London, where he graduated with a PhD.

Transcript

Intro / Opening

You're listening to a podcast edition of Closer to Truth. For more information about this series, visit our website, closerTotruth.com. Robert Lawrence Kuhn here, host of Closer to Truth. If you enjoy our podcast, be sure to check out our other platforms like our YouTube channel, featuring thousands of video interviews with the world's leading scientists, philosophers, thinkers.

And follow us on X and Instagram to stay up to date with announcements, giveaways, new content and more. Thank you for your support wherever you follow us. Now, on to the show.

The Future of Physics Breakthroughs

Welcome to Closer to Truth. I'm speaking with quantum information physicist Vladko Vedrel about his profound and provocative new book. Portals to a New Reality, Five Pathways to the Future of Physics. Welcome, Vladko. I love the book. Thank you very much. I'm extremely happy to be talking to you about it. Good. Well we'll have a lot a lot to say. Let let's start with uh I said it's provocative.

And your your subtitle talks about the the future of physics. It's about the future of physics. Now, some say that physics doesn't have much of a future. Uh what's your view of the charge uh that some make that particle physics s is stuck that it hasn't made any progress since the discovery of the Higgs boson in in in twenty twelve.

Yes, I think that's uh partly what prompted me to write the book, actually. It's uh it's an answer to these kind of um um statements that you frequently hear these days. I think we're actually um at a very good Time for physics. Um, because our technology has now reached a level of sophistication that we can actually ask some of these very fundamental questions. So I think it's a great time to be physicists.

uh and probably will have a breakthrough uh in the near future. So what kind of breakthrough are you looking for? Um I'm really looking for something that would go beyond the current uh two theories that we have. Um everything that we know. uh in our universe, in the micro domain um and in the macro domain is described by quantum mechanics

on the micro side and general relativity on the macro side. And that really covers all of the experimental evidence we've uh we've had so far. There is not a single deviation uh on either the micro or the m uh the macro side. However, the two theories really have never been tested in the region where both of them could matter equally. So some somehow they have a separate, peaceful coexistence at at present. Uh whereas I think what's gonna have to happen ultimately is that we test them together.

And we we will get into all of that, but first I I owe it to our audience to uh give a proper bio. So uh Vlad Kovedro is professor of quantum information science. At the Oxford Quantum Institute at the University of Oxford. His group investigates quantum information from a variety of angles that range from the very abstract in mathematical physics.

To the more applied in quantum biology. We'll be talking about that later. Uh an area of current interest is the interface between thermodynamics and quantum physics. He says there are possible applications to finding the limits of energy efficiency in future technology. So he you uh integrates uh most fundamental physics with with current technology.

Book's Overarching Themes

So Vladko, let's let's start by just giving me the overarching theme of the book. Uh the overarching uh theme really is that um we've had um two fundamental uh theories in physics, quantum mechanics and general relativity. um really unchallenged um for the last hundred years or so.

Um, for two reasons I think, and and th those are the two main themes of the book. One reason is simply that we haven't had the right technology, and what changed in the last maybe two or three decades um is that there has been an exponential expansion of quantum technology. Um people realized round about the the year two thousand uh that quantum computers um and quantum communications could have a wide range of applications.

Um and actually the whole activity then left universities if you like and was absorbed by by the heavy industry. So now we have Google uh, Microsoft, IBM, all of them are trying to really build a large scale quantum computer. And the technologies that are developed in that direction are the ones that I think will now um uh tell us quite a bit about fundamental physics. So I really want to use the technologies that are already out there to do.

Challenging Reign of Existing Theories

So that's reason number one. Reason number two, in my view, is that we've had a wrong view of what quantum mechanics is really trying to tell us. So I think we've been stuck um with a number of interpretations that seem to me not very helpful when it comes to asking questions what we should really be probing and what what should we be experimenting. So on both counts, that's both co very controversial. Normally we think of technologies like quantum computing.

as being uh derived a a one way approach where the fundamental uh science leads to new technologies like quantum computing. But now you're suggesting that it can go in the reverse direction as well. And I think that's a controversial claim. Uh, as well as I I think used to say in the book that uh although every experimental data or observation in cosmology supports general relativity and quantum

mechanics is what? Ten digits in in accuracy, uh experiment experiment to uh theory. But you say that uh even though all this is true, that the their uh supreme reign uh as being the most fundamental may be coming to an end. So that's a pretty strong state. Yes, and I thought it was worth communicating precisely that as you say, when uh if you look at many uh debates uh that people are having

Uh the feeling one gets is that somehow we are stuck. We haven't had a revolution for a long time. And the question is what next? And I thought actually the picture that I'm getting from my own uh research is is is very different. It it feels much more exciting and it really does feel like we are on the brink of a of a revolution.

Radical Quantum Reality Vision

Doctor, you make the statement that there is uh no space, no time, no particles uh that you have a radical vision of what quantum reality is and it relates to quantum information theory. So what generates that uh Hubert? Um I uh the main thesis really in the in the book is that we frequently end up having um a dichotomy in our view of reality. So we di we tend to describe the small uh world using uh quantum mechanics.

And then at some point we introduce we tend to introduce an artificial division and say the rest of the world is really classical. And um it seems to me that this generates all uh the apparent paradoxes. Of course, there are no paradoxes in quantum mechanics really. Uh but I think if you do introduce if you sneak in a classical world in some of your assumptions, then you will end up um uh concluding something wrongly and it will look inconsistent.

Mm. So again, very a very big claim. Uh you say there are these five experiments that might be able to um to reveal this. Uh just pick one and and describe.

Testing Quantum Gravity in Labs

Uh if I was to go for one, probably it would be testing quantum gravity because that seems to be the biggest open problem in physics at present. Um and that's actually my portal number three in the book. um which is to say that um We can do that with lab-based experiments. I think that's the surprise number one. So we don't need the heavy machinery involved in places like CERN or Fermilab. any any activity of that kind. Uh it could be done at much lower energy.

Um and it could be done with the technology that we have now, which actually comes directly from from quantum technology. So what this is testing is whether gravity

um even at a very low energy limit has any quantum degrees of freedom. The experiment would be designed to put two masses in a superposition and let them couple uh through gravity, and then by making measurements at the very end to confirm whether they get entangled, quantum entangled, you would actually be testing the quantum nature of gravity. Wha what is the mass of the uh the two objects that you want to put into uh uh super

That's probably a a a big surprise number two because it's um below a nanogram. So uh we are talking about usually usually people are talking uh about the Planck mass. uh which is actually quite a large mass if you if you come from atomic physics that's ten to the minus eight kilograms. Here we are talking about, for instance, 10 to minus 14 kilograms or even below. It all depends on how long you could maintain the superposition of these masses. Of course, the longer you could do that.

um the the better it is and the lower the money. Uh a and you can get accurate measurements from uh masses that's Yes, I think the idea is really to to to get um to make a spatial superposition, which is of course extremely challenging. than to make sure that the masses themselves are shielded from any other influence, of course, it could be vibrations, any other noise, electromagnetic, so that whatever remains, you know, really could be attributed to gravity itself.

Yeah, that sounds like a challenge, but g given the given the uh sophistication of LIGO, the gravity wave detectors and the remarkable uh capabilities that it has, I mean it it it it it sounds like it could be feasible. I think so.

A Quantum-First Universe

Great. Um uh uh let's assume that all of the experiments that uh uh the the the five portals w work out as you would predict. Uh what then would be the new reality? I think that's always difficult to to tell because I think my um the portals that I'm talking about. um are really designed to probe our current understanding. And of course I have my own prejudice and I'm betting on uh how they will come out uh the experiments. However, they could always go

uh differently, in which case we have to adjust our view to uh to that. Sure, and I I appreciate that's the right scientific approach, but I'm trying to get at your pre your prejudices, your predisposition, w w where you're coming from. Yes, my main prejudice here really would be that I think we have a uh long way to go with uh quantization uh that started of course hundred years ago with Heisenberg.

Uh and uh my feeling is that um uh these first experiments will imply that gravity certainly at the lowest level is quantum mechanics. Uh and that will then force us to think longer and hard how we should quantize it. Because even if you conclude that it's quantum at that level, there's still many different ways in which gravity could be.

And as a result of that, uh, which way would you be headed? Because you have uh uh a a um a statement in the book which uh you know uh invites incredulity that i the uh the universe could have no bedrock fundamental uh reality of at which you're y you stop, that it could go on uh uh uh with an infinite regress. And you know, my my simple finite mind says that that's not

Yes, it yeah you see that's that's what um uh that's what you have to engage in when you're speculating. Of course none of us really know what comes next. But I thought It was an interesting observation that when we do quantum mechanics, we actually start with classical mechanics. And then we convert some of these classical entities into quantum entities, into into quantum numbers. And and actually why stop there is the question. Why why do we have this hybrid model where

Still half of the parameters that matter to us are are classical numbers. It seems to me we'll get a lot of mile mileage by looking at everything quantum mechan mechanically consistently. Um in which case, you know, the classical universe is only a very special limit of this, but quantumness never disappears and and and it's all the way down really. It's not just the first level that you can quantize that level in in in uh I don't know how many, but and if that again that that boggles the mind.

Yes, and and it could be tested, which is interesting. So whenever you couple two as you say, whenever you couple uh quantum mechanically two systems, there is always a constant in front, which is a classical parameter which tells you how strongly they couple to one another. And then i immediately with this frame of mind you're thinking, why not quantize that? What if that's part of a larger reality as well?

Physics Revolution and Quantum Expansion

Okay. Uh what's a take home message that you would like readers to get from uh the book? Um I you know, it's uh it's um portals to a new reality. Each of those those segments, the idea of the portals being the experiments to really understand it in depth and the new reality. So what's a take-home message from the book? I think the the the the take home message is you know, I wrote the book for uh

probably the teenage version of myself. You know, I was imagining what would I like to have read. This is the time when I was starting to get into uh into science myself. And I think Uh the message really is that um physics is um physics is still an extremely exciting activity. It's telling us something very profound about the universe. And in fact, it seems to me um what I envisage is that the next three or four decades in science in general.

um will be dominated by quantum mechanics leaving the microscopic domain and going into the macro domain, going into chemistry, going into biology, going even beyond that, trying to explain the whole So I wanted to communicate this excitement about what I think will be the near future development of science.

Book Chapter 1: Setting the Scene

Congratulations on the book, Portals to a New Reality, Five Pathways to the Future of Physics. Let's get a sense of the arc. of the book, the the flow of ideas that you're communicating by just g getting a sense of the of the chapter organization. So I'll give you the chapters, give me some sense of of what's in them, and you know, maybe I'll ask you a little bit of a little bit of a little

specific question. If you have something very uh what you think is the most interesting part of that, just uh let me know. So first you start with an introduction, you say, uh the view from here. And I assume that that that as I read it, it's it's a bringing the reader sort of current with current understanding and quantum physics and general relativity and and some background for people uh who uh m may not be as familiar

Yes, I think the that's just a gentle introduction and also to motivate the book really to communicate this excitement that even though it seems like we've had um these two major theories for over a hundred years now, um, it seems to me really that now is the time to start um

probing um the reality that would come beyond these two theories and and maybe result even in a new uh theory. So the introduction exposes all of these questions, discusses a little bit I think the philosophy behind the physics and why different interpretations uh matter. So I think that was uh that was important to set the scene.

Book Chapter 2: Unifying Core Theories

Okay, then in chapter two you go into depth on quantum physics and general relativity. Uh you give the background and how how how they work. Uh but you have a a predisposition uh to to show that they're even though they are perfectly compatible with all observational or experimental data, that they're still something missing and that something missing could be very, very big.

Yes, I think that's the feeling that unifying these two theories is really the biggest outstanding open problem in physics. Um that that chapter was uh was a bit challenging for me because of course there is so much to be said about uh both of these theories. uh that one has to stay focused and think what comes after and really erase all of the you know these two topics obviously deserve books uh in their own right and there is so much you can say on this.

Um and and so I really try to stay focused and talk about what I thought were the main issues, uh what people think is preventing us from unifying and and what I uh think we should really be testing.

Book Chapter 3: Reality Unobserved

Uh good. Then chapter three is has a wonderful title, which when you read it you think you understand it, but then you realize it's completely the reverse of what you what you think. So the title is uh The World Exists Only When It Is Not Observed. And of course that's the that's the uh exact opposite of what the the philosophical question is, is does the world exist when you're not looking at it? And you exist

You you flip flip it around. So it's the opp the opposite of what's the common expectation. So what's the point of Uh yes, th that's a good question. Actually the book is full of um statements like that because I think um Frequently when we communicate quantum mechanics and general relativity, I I think we we get it wrong. We don't really communicate the the true spirit of of this theory.

So what I had in mind is that uh this talks about the the dichotomy that interpretations like the Copenhagen interpretation introduce into quantum mechanics. So they say the world of the small objects behaves Fully quantumly, there is no deviation. However, in order to probe this world, we must engage, and we ourselves are classical logic.

Um and it's never unclear in these interpretations where the boundary is, but I think they would all suggest that there must be some boundary between quantum and cluster. And this leads to this statement that you mentioned that the world is only there when you observe it. It's only then that you create reality. Now I flipped that on its head and I think it's the exact opposite that if we should really treat everything quantum mechanically.

Even the world that includes us as observers, any experimental equipment, the universe at large. should really be understood with by exactly the same through exactly the same formalism of of quantum mechanics. And what's interesting then, what the measurement does, if you think about it, It actually restricts all of this multitude that quantum mechanics tells you exist there.

But it restricts it not through collapsing quantum mechanics, but through making entanglements between different systems in the universe. So actually the key thing, um how to understand what it means to measure something is quantum entanglement that Schrdinger discussed extensively um a long a long way back. So That's why I said the quantum reality is always there. You can actually never destroy it. The quantum numbers that pertain to various objects always exist.

uh out there. It's just that when we entangle ourselves to the numbers that we want to measure. At that point you really get one of these realities to emerge. But not that the the other realities are still there. It's just in your own branch there is only your own reality. So this is obviously a a very important point and there's a lot of uh

lot of elements in what what you said. Let me try to tease a couple of them apart. So the Copenhagen interpretation requires an observer and some people think that it has to be a conscious observer and uh You know, th that never sat too well with me, but yes we have very different kinds of of interpretation. Um and w what you're saying is the observer is also a quantum system. It's not a classical system. So already from from Avenitia, from right from the beginning

y you y you've created a problem. Yes. And so th there's something wrong even with the foundations of what you're talking about. At the other extreme, um i i i it's been commonly said that there's a a wave function of the whole universe. Um and but that's not the same thing that you're saying. You're saying you you're saying something stronger than

Yes, I'm saying something stronger that that we should really include um all of the properties which classically of course you would think of as numbers. So you if you take a particle it has a position, it has a speed, it has uh energy and all of these properties. And classically they're simply numbers.

uh you say the particle is you know five meters away from me or it's moving ten meters per second. In quantum mechanics, and that was the the the breakthrough that actually Heisenberg uh achieved in nineteen twenty five, he said Classical equations of motions are all fine, we don't need to really dispose of them, but but we need to reinterpret the entities.

uh that are inside these equations of motion, they can no longer uh remain uh real numbers or C numbers as Dirac called them. We must up upgrade them into quantum numbers. And actually with Heisenberg these quantum numbers are infinite by infinite matrices. You can think of them as really um huge matrices. And of course what he noticed is that

If you now multiply position and the momentum as a quantum number, then the order in which you multiply them is crucial. You're not going to get the same result. And that's of course the heart of the Heisenberg uncertainty. R right. And that's commutative or non commutative. That's it. A and and that's a very significant difference'cause if you multiply w one number by another number either direction in in classical it's the same. Uh but in quantum mechanics the order is is critical. That's it.

Exactly. And I think these properties um uh in quantum mechanics um are always there. You can never destroy um uh the position of a particle in quantum mechanics in much the same way as you cannot destroy the position of a particle in classical mechanics. You can change the position of the particle in move it further away or closer, but you can never destroy that property.

Um so so m it i the picture of the universe is very similar that uh that that I'm promoting, that all of these Q numbers exist all the time. But what happens when we measure, when we interact, when the different systems interact with one another, then you get these correlations with Schrdinger called entanglement, which somehow act to subselect uh what you can see. And and as I see the fundamental um uh The idea that you have.

is very different than all the the the foundations of quantum mechanic theories and you know there are three, four major ones but probably a dozen or more others as well. All of them have some s kind of a break. Uh that that there's a there's a place where th it breaks, uh quantum collapse or some something. Other than the multi world uh theory, which we'll talk about later. Um and so uh but what you're saying is maybe that's not the case. Maybe it never.

It never breaks, yes, and it seems to me it's the most consistent view. Certainly it's consistent with all the experiments we've done so far, because we've never contradicted quantum mechanics. But I think if you want to talk properly about various conservation laws, conservation of energy, momentum, all other symmetries

The only way to do it consistently is to look at everything uh as being quantum mechanical. As soon as you introduce an artificial divide, you won't be able to conserve energy. Exactly. And your claim is is that that uh divide is what causes the apparent paradoxes. Yes. I think uh the strong statement would even be that all our apparent paradoxes are are of this kind. Right, right. And the book is known for its strong statement.

Book Interlude: Quantum Information Tools

We'll give you that for sure. Uh okay. Uh then you intro you have an what you call an interlude, which are the key tools of quantum information. And so just just give us a sense very briefly of what those tools are. Yes, I think uh uh quantum information uh has uh helped us a great deal. um uh that um it it clarified like I said, quantum information of course is extremely important in terms of applications, but I think what's exciting to uh

Physicists like me is that it really clarifies a number of uh of things in quantum mechanics. It's t it teaches us to understand quantum mechanics. So the the first thing of course is this concept of a of a superposition that things can exist in many different states in uh at the same time which leads to this idea of a quantum bit or a qubit. Then what's interesting and I think this um uh this uh property is really not understood uh in the wider even in the wider physics community.

is that when you have two quantum bits entangled, so that's the that's the second key property, this correlation which results uh in the property that if you measure something on one qubit The other qubit will have exactly the same value. uh for that property. So these entangled qubits mirror one another perfectly. And this created, of course, in the early days l a great deal of discussion and and complaints about quantum mechanics. But what's interesting is something I call local tomography.

That despite the fact that they are very strongly entangled and correlated, you can actually measure them individually. And obtain the information about the global state, the total entangled state, just by making individual measurements. And this is an extremely important feature that actually allows us to test.

uh a lot of these uh these things. And I think the the last property that I uh that I would really um bring to to this discussion is the conservation of information. So I think in quantum mechanics Uh information can never be lost. Uh it always stays conserved, which basically means that distinguishability between different states at the beginning of your evolution is exactly the same throughout this.

And and that led of course to the information paradox with the uh the event horizon of black holes and is information uh conserved or or lost in that process? That's right. So if you look at the very strong regime of gravity, then I think this suggest to some people that there may be a problem with merging the two theories together because it seems the gravity says that there is an absolute boundary there that cannot be crossed. Whereas my view here is that information never actually gets lost.

Book Chapter 4-5: Quantum Waves and Time

Okay, uh let's go on. Uh the next few chapters get more specific. Um the chapter four is uh everything is a Q-Wave, uh interpretation of of of quantum physics. Uh briefly what's the theme? Yes, so here is that's what I wanted to outline, uh d um uh what I think is the right way to think about quantum mechanics and the idea is really to

get rid of as many classical notions as possible. So I think what's frequently preventing us um from actually understanding quantum mechanics is that we don't even have the right language to talk about these basic uh quantum properties like superposition, entanglement, measurements, all of these things that we uh that we keep discussing. Um so I'm talking about um waves because everything ultimately is a wave really.

But it's a wave with a twist, because obviously we had waves in classical physics and and in classical physics there was a problem of uh why the universe consisted of particles and waves and they looked like completely different entities. There was Newton's particles, there was Maxwell's, if you like, uh Um and quantum mechanics unified these two pictures very beautifully.

Uh and the unification says yes it is a wave, but it's a quantum wave. So um one way of understanding that is is to go back to Q numbers and to Actually understand that every wave, of course, has an amplitude. It would be the height of the wave. And this height of the wave changes in time. Sometimes you have a bigger wave, a smaller wave.

In quantum mechanics, again, this can no longer be a number. It must be upgraded to a quantum number, which really is this table of numbers, a matrix ultimately. And if you envisage that these matrices that pertain to every point uh in space and change in time, that they obey a a wave equation in their own right, then I think that's all there is to this kind of underlying reality.

Okay, uh the next few chapters deal with some very specific things. Uh chapter five was on quantum experiments with time. So time is another element that uh general relativity and quantum mechanics treat a little differently. Yes, I I thought it was um uh timing um i is a separate uh topic in its own right. And I think um in physics also, but not just in physics, in philosophy we're

We try to understand time. What what what what is time really fundamentally and all that comes with it, like the flow of time. What's interesting, um with the interface when you impose quantum mechanics on on on relativity, you get some very interesting uh possibilities which I thought uh we could now be testing. So in relativity the

Uh the signature maybe experiment we talk about is the twin paradox. Again, you hear the word paradox in physics all the time, but it's not really a paradox. We we've tested that and we know it works that that way. So you have two twins and one of them goes on a on a journey and comes back and and it's suddenly younger than the than the twin that stayed behind.

What's interesting in quantum mechanics, and it's again to do with quantum superpositions, is that a single particle, out of a single particle in a superposition, you can actually create these twins.

So if you put the particle in a superposition of two different locations and then in one of those locations you take this particle on a journey and back What happens then when you bring these two possibilities to one location is that you suddenly have one and the same particle, but it's actually younger and older at the same time. And and and you can again see the deficiency of the language because

I said younger and older at the same time, but but what time am I talking about in this experiment? So actually the beauty of these multiple times that are a message not just of relativity, but actually quantum mechanics. Fully complies with this kind of reality. And we've never done this. We have super accurate atomic clocks.

um that uh actually are so accurate that you can start them at the beginning of the universe and they would barely lose a second up to now. So I think with these kind of clocks, if we could manage to put them in a superposition execute this experiment, it would open all sorts of interesting doors.

Book Chapter 6-7: Gravity and Life

Okay, then um next chapter is uh why uh quantize uh gravity. Uh to some people it's obvious that they need to be brought together. There are a few people who say that maybe that that's not necessarily the way the world works. Yes, and that's what I wanted to um uh to explore there, because you're right, there is um there is a nice argument to be put to say gravity is so weak. Um that if you for instance excite an atom

Um if you excite an atom, it will very rapidly emit a photon, a particle of light. It will take it a bi billionth of a second, roughly, to emit a photon. However, because gravity is orders and orders of magnitude weaker it would take it something like forty orders of magnitude longer. So basically well beyond the age of the universe. We we we cannot l wait that long for the graviton to to be emitted.

So this led uh many people, including people like Freeman Dyson, I think, to suggest that maybe this is not a problem. Maybe we don't need to worry about the two theories because they will never have the common ground to test. We uh we interviewed Freeman at uh in Princeton and he said exactly that that's that's who I was refer that's who I was referring to. And I I remember being s uh surprised when he said that.

He said it with this twinkle in his eye. Uh you know I was asking him how do you unify and he said, Maybe maybe we don't have to. Maybe maybe we shouldn't. Yes. I didn't know what to say. Th no it is a possibility. I think th that's what surprised us and I think um uh my colleagues Sugato Bose and uh and uh at University College in London and Chiara Maleto and and myself here at Oxford actually

uh wrote papers where um where we thought that we could go well beyond this. And we can do this, t test it without testing directly the existence of gravity. But we can indirectly through creating entanglement between material massive objects actually tell whether gravity is quantum mechanical. And I thought this is exciting. You know, within five to ten years Uh we could actually have the first a piece of evidence that Einstein's classical

gravity general relativity is actually falsified. And I think this would be hugely exciting. Okay, the next chapter is entangled living systems and here's where your uh uh expansive way of thinking gets really Exciting or bizarre, you might say. And that living systems uh i i not viruses or Bacteria, single cell, tetragarts, they be everything. All living systems are totally quantum mechanical systems.

Yes, uh uh this is another uh frontier and even though it sounds more like the subject for chemistry and biology, as you said. It seems to me for a physicist, again, it's very important because of our understanding of quantum mechanics. uh many people uh in the past people like um uh Wigne maybe von Neumann various people like that claim that quantum mechanics collapses

when it encounters living systems. Some of them would say even conscious systems. So it's not again it's not clear where the boundary ought to be, but somehow living systems ought to collapse quantum superposition. So I think that's uh hugely interesting to test. Even at the most basic level, can we entangle two bacteria?

Can we really create a quantum entangled state? So even even before going in the direction of Schrdinger's cat and exploring this the real macro domain, I think we have many open questions.

Book Chapter 8: Quantum Ghosts Conclusion

Good. Um and then uh chapter eight um is uh detecting quantum ghosts. So tell me what a quantum ghost is very quick. Um that's reflecting back on the foundations of quantum physics and what we call the standard model. So I thought Uh y you know, I I I I've explored all of these big questions that that go well outside, but but in fact there are many problems even with our current understanding. So relativity suggests to us that everything must be uh made up of vectors that have four components.

A bit like three spatial X, Y, and Z and one temporal component. So any entity you take, if you want it to comply with relativity, it must have four components. Bizarrely though, when you talk about the electromagnetic field, there are four components on paper, because we need them to comply. However, many approaches claim that only two of these four components can actually be detected.

And the other two as a result are called ghosts. And so so I end up speculating a great deal that actually if we quantize, if we really think of these ghosts as quantum mechanical, we could in principle measure them as well.

And then your conclusion is that maybe it's uh quantum mechanics uh all the way down, quantum physics all the way down and the famous story about turtles all the way down you you use, but um an and does that mean that you don't need something like a more fundamental theory, string theory, loop quantum gravities, supposedly that sit below quantum mechanics and and and yields quantum mechanics as its uh early limit.

Uh are you rejecting that and you say I think that would uh that that would be the intuition. I agree. Of course that chapter is extremely speculative because uh none of us really know what will come next be before we do any of these experiments. And I think none of the experiments I mentioned, even if they succeed the way they

uh they they would succeed. I think they wouldn't rule out string theory as you mentioned. It it would be a possibility still at that level. But I think in the long run that that's probably not the the best approach in my And the best approach is? The best approach is really to explore the full quantumness of these numbers. So it really could be that the underlying reality is made up of pure numbers and we will never reach any kind of more solid

classical like ground. So I don't think it's ever gonna be a return to classical physics. Meaning, visit our website.

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