- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Frontispiece
- Epigraph
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- How This Book Came About
- Powerful Ideas Dealt with in the Book
- I The Physical World
- 1 Quantum Physics Takes Free Will into Account
- 2 Unifying Particle Physics with the Cosmology of the Primordial Universe
- 3 For Exoplanets, Anything Is Possible
- 4 From Casimir Forces to Black-Body Radiation: Quantum and Thermal Fluctuations
- 5 The Challenge of Climate Change
- 6 Graphene and Its “Family”: The Finest Materials Ever to Exist
- 7 The Laws of Thermodynamics Tell You What Is and What Is Not Possible
- 8 Wisdom Hewn in Ancient Stones
- 9 Galileo Programme: Planning Uncertainty and Imagining the Possible and the Impossible
- 10 Looking Forward in Architecture by Looking Back
- 11 The Seamless Coupling of Bits and Atoms
- II Information
- 12 Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
- 13 The Logic of Physics versus the Logic of Computer Science
- 14 The Pillars of MIT: Innovation, Radical Meritocracy, and Open Knowledge
- 15 We Need Algorithms That Can Make Explicit What Is Implicit
- 16 The Emergence of a Nonbiological Intelligence
- 17 Remembering Our Future: The Frontier of Search Technologies
- 18 The Challenge of the Open Dissemination of Knowledge, Distributed Intelligence, and Information Technology
- 19 Technology Is Something to Make the World a Better Place
- 20 Encryption as a Human Right
- 21 Order in Cyberspace Can Only Be Maintained with a Combination of Ethics and Technology
- 22 The Free Software Paradigm and the Hacker Ethic
- III Intelligence
- 23 “Affective Computing” Is Not an Oxymoron
- 24 Mind, Brain, and Behavior
- 25 MIT Collaborative Innovation: It Takes >2 to Tango
- 26 Mind over Matter: Brain-Machine Interfaces
- 27 We Want Robots to See and Understand the World
- 28 Between Caves: From Plato to the Brain through the Internet
- 29 There Will Be No End of Work
- 30 A Smart Mob Is Not Necessarily a Wise Mob
- 31 Measuring the Intelligence of Everything
- 32 Touching the Soul of Michelangelo
- IV Epilogue
- 33 Geometry of a Multidimensional Universe: Weightless Art and the Painting of the Void
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Quantum Physics Takes Free Will into Account
Quantum Physics Takes Free Will into Account
- Chapter:
- (p.5) 1 Quantum Physics Takes Free Will into Account
- Source:
- Is the Universe a Hologram?
- Author(s):
Ignacio Cirac
Adolfo Plasencia
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
In this dialogue, the physicist Ignacio Cirac, director of the Theoretical Division of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, outlines why quantum physics has brought about a much greater change than that caused by Einstein’s theory of relativity, how quantum physics takes free will into account and how it combines with philosophy. He describes why quantum theory defines “everything else,” yet is unable to define itself. Explaining how, together with Peter Zoller, he developed and presented the first theoretical description of a quantum computing architecture based on trapped ions, and, how this quantum architecture will be viable and capable of performing calculations we cannot perform at present. Their quantum computer calculates in qubits, which would require at least 100,000 qubits to function, rising to 1,000,000 if error correction is implemented. It will be able to perform calculations previously unachievable and create encrypted messages impossible to decipher. Building a functional quantum computer still requires a huge technological change, which has yet to come about. Lastly, Cirac explains the differences between European and American visions of science and why mathematicians are even more conservative than physicists.
Keywords: Quantum physics, Quantum computing, Free will, Microscopic determinism, Teletransportation, Quantum computer, Qubits, Superpositions, Quantum theory
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Frontispiece
- Epigraph
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- How This Book Came About
- Powerful Ideas Dealt with in the Book
- I The Physical World
- 1 Quantum Physics Takes Free Will into Account
- 2 Unifying Particle Physics with the Cosmology of the Primordial Universe
- 3 For Exoplanets, Anything Is Possible
- 4 From Casimir Forces to Black-Body Radiation: Quantum and Thermal Fluctuations
- 5 The Challenge of Climate Change
- 6 Graphene and Its “Family”: The Finest Materials Ever to Exist
- 7 The Laws of Thermodynamics Tell You What Is and What Is Not Possible
- 8 Wisdom Hewn in Ancient Stones
- 9 Galileo Programme: Planning Uncertainty and Imagining the Possible and the Impossible
- 10 Looking Forward in Architecture by Looking Back
- 11 The Seamless Coupling of Bits and Atoms
- II Information
- 12 Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
- 13 The Logic of Physics versus the Logic of Computer Science
- 14 The Pillars of MIT: Innovation, Radical Meritocracy, and Open Knowledge
- 15 We Need Algorithms That Can Make Explicit What Is Implicit
- 16 The Emergence of a Nonbiological Intelligence
- 17 Remembering Our Future: The Frontier of Search Technologies
- 18 The Challenge of the Open Dissemination of Knowledge, Distributed Intelligence, and Information Technology
- 19 Technology Is Something to Make the World a Better Place
- 20 Encryption as a Human Right
- 21 Order in Cyberspace Can Only Be Maintained with a Combination of Ethics and Technology
- 22 The Free Software Paradigm and the Hacker Ethic
- III Intelligence
- 23 “Affective Computing” Is Not an Oxymoron
- 24 Mind, Brain, and Behavior
- 25 MIT Collaborative Innovation: It Takes >2 to Tango
- 26 Mind over Matter: Brain-Machine Interfaces
- 27 We Want Robots to See and Understand the World
- 28 Between Caves: From Plato to the Brain through the Internet
- 29 There Will Be No End of Work
- 30 A Smart Mob Is Not Necessarily a Wise Mob
- 31 Measuring the Intelligence of Everything
- 32 Touching the Soul of Michelangelo
- IV Epilogue
- 33 Geometry of a Multidimensional Universe: Weightless Art and the Painting of the Void
- Name Index
- Subject Index
