Jennifer - what a delightful essay. Despite my initial reaction to Gameboy, Pac-man and Pokemon analogies, I started to get interested when you brought in Penrose's Quanglement.

The tide turned when I read my favorite paragraph from your essay:

"Yet in a world where nonlocality is now considered the best explanation for entanglement, it is obvious on some level that the two objects entangled in acausal correlation are involved with one another more profoundly than the two objects exchanging causal info in time via a transactional game of information ping pong. Something important is being shared here, even if we can't directly exploit it."

Now I understand why you were encouraged by my essay and left a comment on my web page some time ago (which I will get to later today).

After that point, I recognized that "your connecting the dots" between Penrose, Vedral and the entangled (what I call "dark") Higgs Boson was pure genius:

"It is thus not only possible but absolutely necessary that classical information is intimately related to how processes evolve in time altogether."

Well done. Super high marks for a concise, interesting, well researched and inspiring essay.

Kind regards, Paul

    Dear Jennifer,

    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.

    Checking out your essay!

    I think that reality is not based on information, but rather that what we typically think of as information is based upon reality. However I believe that another kind of information, quanglement, may be at the heart of reality.

    Quantum entanglement is not a simple and ordinary physical interaction, at least not in the sense that it is classical. It is not possible to describe in classical mechanics. The simplest case is electrons which are entangled in terms of spin. When one pair is found to be spin up, the other will be found to be spin down. When you measure the electron, it changes the spin. But if you change the spin of one, the other will immediately change as well, no matter how far away that electron is.

    Cheers!

    Carlo,

    I've argued in my essay that both classical and quantum information are based upon reality (rather than reality based on info) but that quantum entanglement is another form of information entirely that may be at the heart of things. I think if what Wheeler considered was established we would not be having this essay contest :)

    forgive my cheekiness,

    Jennifer

    My opinion (which is actually not particularly unusual amongst physicists studying nonlocality) is that quantum particles which are entangled are part of a larger system and are in some way one system. Mathematically, with entangled wave functions, they are part of the same larger object, and nature reflects this. I believe the "share" is an absolute entity and a quantum resource different from any connection we can describe classically. The objects aren't "connected" classically; they are one.

    Cheers,

    Jennifer

    Thank you so much for your kind words Paul, I greatly appreciate it! Thank you for catching the gist of my paper -- I am pleased it stood out.

    Will be reading and rating your essay today!

    Cheers and best of luck,

    Jennifer

    Hello Rob,

    When I look at one of the electrons, I immediately impact what the other one is. Each time I check, the spin result changes, and the other one has changed in sync.

    No classical system works like that!

    Cheers,

    Jennifer

    Thank you Vladimir! I believe I gave yours a good rating. Apologies if I did not leave a comment; I will be catching up on all of this (a bit late in the game, I realize!) this evening.

    Cheers!

    Dear Jennifer,

    Thank you for your kind message on my blog. I also very much liked your essay. We can further discuss CHSH inequality and more after the contest if you wish. I rated your essay highly on July 11. I would appreciate your own mark. Good luck.

    Michel

    Professor Corda,

    Thanks so much for your kind words, I am very encouraged that the author of your wonderful paper finds my paper likeable! I am working through the mathematical presentation in yours and am learning a lot, thank you for presenting it here and sharing and thank you for sharing your comments on my thread!

    Cheers,

    Jennifer

    Hi Jennifer,

    As promised in my Essay page, I have read your pretty Essay. Congrats, I have found it fantastic! I strongly appreciated your ability to join and mix profound physical concepts together your intriguing sense of humour. From the pure scientific point of view, I liked both your invoking Godel's theorem concerning the limitation of binary code and your discussion on Quanglement.

    Thanks for giving me such a enjoyable reading, I am going to give you an high rate.

    Cheers,

    Ch.

    Jennifer,

    When I look at one of the coins, I immediately impact what the other one is. Each time I check, (along a different observation axis) the result changes, and the other one has changed in sync.

    SOME classical systems works like that!

    Rob McEachern

    Hi Jenny,

    I was reading your essay on my way home from a trip just now (and really enjoying it, by the way), and when I sat down to get back to it, I got caught up reading the comments here. I see that you've been gone for a while, but you're online today, so I thought I'd ask now if you could read my essay? I even linked it for you, since you wrote somewhere above that you wished they'd automatically link our essays when we post. That makes two of us! I actually suggested that on the main essay blog after the last contest--but alas, no such luck. Maybe next time...

    I'll post again when I get through your essay.

    All the best,

    Daryl

      Dear Jennifer,

      Your post on my blog :

      « "Science today has an urgent need for a revolutionary theory, logical and qualitative, on the Functioning of the Universe and affects all aspects: mathematics, physics, philosophical, cosmological, sociological, economic, political, etc."

      Do you think such a theory is actually possible? I enjoyed your thoughts though I feel the essay could benefit from some organizational work. Cheers and thanks for rating my essay!! »

      Yes, the theory exists. I am writing the book.

      If somebody ask me to speak about it, I am ready.

      About my essay :

      This is not an essay for having the best ranking. I just wanted to draw attention to the duality and see what scientists think about this important subject.

      I'm glad I participated. And I had a favorable response. Some refuse to see any track to be the theory of everything. But the truth is that it is the first theory that explains everything.

      Quantum mechanics and also relativity, mathematics, philosophy and our reasoning, and so on ...

      (I see your rank decreasing. For somebody else rank obtained is more important than scientific value.)

      Best wishes,

      Amazigh

      Dear Jenny,

      Thanks for the really great essay. It was so well written and thought provoking. You presented such an elegant discussion. I know from the comments here that you spent a lot of time on it--but honestly, you made it look easy!

      You've done a nice job of presenting Goedel's incompleteness theorem, which I think definitely applies to the debate. Something that I've said more than once during this contest is that as unrealistic as it may be, I can still think of completely empty space existing, but I can't think of a universe full of stuff in which that stuff has to actually be the cause of existence. I think all the information in the Universe can't bring about the information's own existence. As you said at the end of your essay, "at least we can be satisfied that bits are representing some*thing*"--and I think that really is the bottom line. Actually, the way I think time has to pass, if it's going to pass at all, puts such a huge restriction on existence that the idea of bits coming to be all over the place AND causing their own existence is really untenable--which is really what my essay is about. So I guess the reason I liked the way you handled Goedel's theorem so much--"From within a Gameboy universe, the Gameboy cannot be entirely encoded and explained"--is that it applies so well to a point in the debate that I think is really important.

      But you really went beyond all this in a way, and looked at quanglement as something that's got more to it than billiard balls popping in and out of existence all thoughout space, and then bouncing into one another and interacting according to the classical laws of physics. You gave "it from bit" a really fair shot. (By the way, I really liked your "matter does not just inter-act, it "inter-is""). In the end, however, you still find that information's got to be about something, and as I said I agree with that.

      Also, I wanted to note that I've read pretty much every Michael Crichton novel. They are all good fun to read, as was your essay. You get a full score from me. I really like the quote you used.

      Lastly, I should say that I'm sorry it took so long to get back to you after my first post. I went for supper with some friends and had to finish your essay when I got back.

      Best of luck with everything!

      Daryl

      While your essay has layperson appeal, after reading through, I'm not sure I have any better idea whether things really can or cannot be represented as binary.

      Jennifer,

      Cool essay I must say. I like how well rounded your arguments were regarding the topic at hand. Of all the statements you made the one that strikes me the most is:

      "Yet in a world where nonlocality is now considered the best explanation for entanglement, it is obvious on some level that the two objects entangled in acausal correlation are involved with one another more profoundly than the two objects exchanging causal info in time via a transactional game of information ping pong. Something important is being shared here, even if we can't directly exploit it."

      I found your last sentence to be most profound and reflective of the 12 year experiment I have recently concluded and so I have rated your essay highly. Your most intuitive perspective and the manner of which you express it was most enjoyable to read.

      I hope that you find the time to read and rate my essay before this is all over.

      Best wishes,

      Manuel

      Thanks so much to everyone who commented ! I tried to respond to everyone but was somewhat flooded with summer teaching and other duties :) If you commented and I read your comment, I made an effort to look up your paper and read/rate (and comment if I had time), but I may have missed some of the comments towards the end.

      In any case cheers everyone, good luck in the final rounds, or "good game" if you are done now! I hope to see everyone here again next year!

      Best wishes all,

      Jennifer

      10 days later

      Thanks for the note, Peter! If you are on Facebook feel free to keep in touch at http://www.facebook.com/JennyLN, or my email is JLNielsen@KU.edu. I enjoyed your paper and will read your others :) It's cool we have research areas in common! I'm fairly new to the blogosphere but I will definitely continue to be around ;) ^_^

      Thanks all -- learning from all of your comments. In particular researching Bell's theorem and complex numbers and further exploring Godel's theorem. I wish all of you luck in the final judging.

      Cheers,

      Jenny