Dear Neil Bates,

I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments.

Regards and good luck in the contest.

Sreenath BN.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

Antony,

Thanks. Yes, I think that information can only approximate reality, since in quantum mechanics there is always that which is out of reach. However, we can *get closer* as I have argued. I'll take a look at your essay (don't be afraid to remind me to comment there if need be, I have been much occupied outside of FQXi for awhile.)

Hi Neil,

It's hard to find time to read all the essays - so appreciate that! Certainly QM is fuzzy at best, so must have impact on reality.

As I said - great approach - all the best in contest!

Antony

Neil,

If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, "It's good to be the king," is serious about our subject.

Jim

    8 days later

    Hello Neil,

    Good to see you in here from the blogosphere :)

    1--your statement, "There is thus more to "it" than democratically available as bit" -- is probably true on many levels.

    2--The exploration of different states with the same density matrix is interesting, this relates somewhat to Corda's cosmologically oriented paper and the black hole information loss paradox wherein info is lost since a pure state is potentially reduced to a mixed one. He predicts that the information is actually preserved as pure, but if it were not, it would be another area in which the its potentially outnumber the bits.

    Have you checked out the research going on here http://www.researchgate.net/publication/2193502_Distinctness_of_ensembles_having_the_same_density_matrix_and_the_nature_of_liquid_NMR_quantum_computing etc?

    I will read your paper in more detail and speculate more on the nature of your experiment and statements (the experimental setup is somewhat outside my specialty area), but I like your overall line of logic.

    Cheers!

      Hi Jenny. First, thanks for appreciating that QM still says that not only is there that which nobody can find out, there are also kinds of information that some people can know, and others can't find out (or so we think!) There are two classes of "observers," and this has not been widely appreciated. To recap: I can create a photon in a specific state of polarization that *I know.* OTOH, you can't find out what that state is, you have to guess. The (conventional) measurement gives only binary probabilities of it being such and such, and ruins the photon, too.

      I have come up with a few ways to get around that. Previously, I had the idea of using repeated interactions to build up angular momentum in a HWP along a range of values. That could reveal whether a single photon was L or R circular, or elliptical, or linear.

      My current proposal pertains to your point #2 (best put not as "states" with the same DM, but rather ensembles with the same DM. After all, does a single state really and truly "have" a DM itself? It is more a way of talking about them as a whole, in relation, and the chances of finding one or another etc.) I truly think my method could distinguish e.g. R and L mix from H and V mix, etc. Sadly, it would be very difficult in practice due to need for the enormous number of "runs" of improbable detection sequences, to get enough angular momentum to detect. Well it is still of great theoretical interests since supposedly there is no way in principle to distinguish such mixtures. Note that this impotence principle is based on traditional kinds of measurement and assuming "typical" outcomes!

      I will check more of that paper (most directly at http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0408079), am looking at abstract right now. Yes it sounds a lot like my idea and note this:

      "We show that differently constructed ensembles having the same density matrix may be physically distinguished by observing fluctuations of some observables. An explicit expression for fluctuations of an observable in an ensemble is given. This result challenges Peres's fundamental postulate and seems to be contrary to the widely-spread belief that ensembles with the same density matrix are physically identical...."

      Yep, bingo. I will need to send them my paper and share ideas. Perhaps you can show mine to some of the profs in your group. I'll take another look at your essay, too and have some comments when I have a good point to make. (BTW, well "of course" the test letter was "Q" ...

      Regards.

      7 days later

      Dear Neil,

      I truly enjoyed your insight and exploration of the question if information is preserved in space-time (It from Bit). Although you have a different approach to spin than I do, I find your mechanical spin transfer approach inspiring and most worthy of merit.

      It has been a pleasure to review and rate your outstanding essay accordingly. Best of luck to you in this competition.

      Regards,

      Manuel

      8 days later

      Hello Neil

      Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech

      (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html)

      said: "It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the relationship. And example of this is the Schrodinger equation and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum mechanics. I don't know why that is - it remains a mystery, but it was something I learned from experience. There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn't look at all like the way you said it before. I don't know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature."

      I too believe in the simplicity of nature, and I am glad that Richard Feynman, a Nobel-winning famous physicist, also believe in the same thing I do, but I had come to my belief long before I knew about that particular statement.

      The belief that "Nature is simple" is however being expressed differently in my essay "Analogical Engine" linked to http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1865 .

      Specifically though, I said "Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities" and I put it schematically as: wave-particle ~ quantum-classical ~ gene-protein ~ analogy- reasoning ~ linear-nonlinear ~ connected-notconnected ~ computable-notcomputable ~ mind-body ~ Bit-It ~ variation-selection ~ freedom-determinism ... and so on.

      Taken two at a time, it can be read as "what quantum is to classical" is similar to (~) "what wave is to particle." You can choose any two from among the multitudes that can be found in our discourses.

      I could have put Schrodinger wave ontology-Heisenberg particle ontology duality in the list had it comes to my mind!

      Since "Nature is Analogical", we are free to probe nature in so many different ways. And each of us surely must have touched some corners of it.

      Good luck and good cheers!

      Than Tin

      11 days later

      Dear Neil,

      We are at the end of this essay contest.

      In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.

      Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.

      eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.

      And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.

      Good luck to the winners,

      And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.

      Amazigh H.

      I rated your essay.

      Please visit My essay.

      Neil,

      Final review and scoring time. I note you didn't respond to my message above and I don't recall a post on my blog. I hope you have read or can read mine before the deadline as it has strong conceptual agreement and I'm convinced you'll love it. Orbital angular momentum is where it's all at and QM is blind to it!

      Some have said the dense abstrct put them off, but loved the essay, with comments including; "groundbreaking", "clearly significant", "astonishing", "fantastic", "wonderful", "remarkable!", "superb", "deeply impressed", etc. But I'd rally like your views on my identification of weak measurement weaknesses and the other inconsistencies we both identify. I hope you'll give me lots more points too.!

      Very well done and thank you for your excellent analysis anyway. Strap in for a boost. Best wishes.

      Peter

        Peter, I will take a close look at your paper as I can see from Abstract it is about a subject dear to my heart and similar to that explored in my own essay: quantum states and whether there are novel experimental tests that can reveal new truths about them. I had gotten a bit depressed and lost much interest in this contest after seeing so many "speculative" papers without specific proposals, and seeing my own effort sink rather low in the ratings. Somehow I had forgotten that ours is instead, like mine in proposing testable new perspectives: "New experiments comparing single-photon pairs are proposed, ..." Indeed! That deserves some cogent comments and I will get back to you before day is done.

        (Erratum: "yours" - lol no your paper was your own and not a joint effort.)

        Neil - Enjoyed your essay and gave it a good rating. I particularly liked your proposal on how to distinguish supposedly "indistinguishable" mixtures. I came up with something similar - the principle of "retroactive indiscernability", and would love to hear your comments on it:

        http://fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/Borrill-TimeOne-V1.1a.pdf

        (sorry if the fqxi web site splits this url up, I haven't figured out a way to not make it do that).

        Kind regards, Paul

        Paul, I will take a look this evening. BTW these comment forms don't use HTML the way that ordinary blogs use since on LaTeX. I use shortcut of "/1610" so people know how to find my essay. Cheers.

        Dear Neil,

        I am not an expert of weak measurements but your excellent work needs a boost I am happy to offer. My topic is very close to quantum information and quantum computing. May be you have a chance to look at it before the end of the contest.

        http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1789

        My very best regards,

        Michel

        Dear Neil,

        I am pleased to read your essay in the spirit of Descartes, with very deep radical ideas on the theme of the contest, the evidence and conclusions.

        Especially liked: "..tangible angular momentum is clearly not incidental to what we can know about quantum objects"..."We still won't really understand wavefunction collapse, despite various controversial attempts to explain it."

        Please look at my essay and vote ideas.

        Good luck in the contest,

        Best regards,

        Vladimir

        Dear Neil,

        Thanks for visiting my site. I have downloaded your essay and now you immediately contact me at, bnsreenath@yahoo.co.in , for further details.

        best,

        Sreenath

        Dear Neil,

        As I promised in my Essay page, I have read your intriguing Essay. Here are my comments/questions.

        1) As I told in my Essay page, your Essay is connected to my one. In fact, finding a way to distinguish quantum mixtures of the same density matrix this is also of fundamental importance for the black hole information paradox.

        2) Your statement "There is more to "it" than democratically available as "bit"" is beautiful.

        3)The basic asymmetry in possible knowledge for observers was one of the reasons because Einstein rejected quantum mechanics. This is a issue that also gets under my skin.

        4) I like your statement that "Observers who create a particle are able (at best) to know its complete wave function - the complete quantum specification of that particle". In fact,in quantum physics all the information is encoded in the wave function.

        5) By "postulating that photon interactions transfer spin (at least cumulatively) based on the original expectation value (average measured value) rather than final apparent detection type" you are, in a certain sense, making quantum mechanics deterministic.

        6) Although I like your humble declaration that "Most of the proposals here are impractical" I agree with you that being possible even in principle is of theoretical interest in order to have further insights on various limitations of quantum mechanics.

        7) Do you think that your statement on the dominance of "it" over "bit" is compatible with my one "Information tells physics how to work. Physics tells information how to flow"?

        In general, I find your essay very pretty as reading it gave me lots of fun. Then, I will give you an high score.

        Cheers,

        Ch.

        Dear Christian,

        First of all thank you for your enthusiastic comments here and at your own essay (/1856.) I am flattered to get kudos and recognition from the current top-rated essayist. (That BTW is not surprising to me, considering that your essay most resembles a journal paper proposing an advance.) Sadly I have a bit of visual trouble reading your essay, perhaps my older pdf SW did not render it right (it has the scratchy look for me of "Ghostview" altho I downloaded the file itself.) [I left a long comment at Dr. Corda's essay.]

        To answer your points:

        1) Thank you for recognizing what I was attempting, and the importance of distinguishing supposedly "indistinguishable" mixtures in a novel way.

        2) Thank you, this is a foundational insight for us all to appreciate.

        3) Yeah, it is unsettling and of course Einstein was human, too. I think I have chipped away at some of that peculiar asymmetry, as you have.

        4) Yes, the info is encoded in the WF but a random "observer" out there normally can't "map" that WF if she doesn't already know what's there. That phrase "quantum tomography" of a WF is really about an ensemble, not the characterizing of e.g. the complete polarization state of a single photon. Yet I have found a way that at least offers hope for finding more about such individual states, as well as ensembles - leading right into 5):

        5) That much, is sort of determinism since we can find a given ellipticity and not just "here is a chance of this or that being recorded."

        6) Thanks for your appreciation of the significance of thought experiments.

        7) I am still reflecting on this, not sure. I think we still have to admit to a basic idea of it-to-bit "working" but then a free-spirited "flow" imposed on that, which is simply not all reducible to exact formulas and predictions - like the basic knowledge that water will go into various channels etc as it flows down, but we can't be sure just what ripples and splashes will happen. To the extent that is what you mean, it sounds similar.

        I am glad too, my essay could be considered "fun." I was worried my title was a bit pretentious but the political analogy appealed to me.

        Cheers.

        Hi dear Neil,

        It is enjoyable to read your nice essay! However my comments I will send

        after some time. I have rated your work properly!

        Best wishes,

        George