Slashdot Mirror
Quantum Information Can be Negative
nerdlygirl writes "In a development that would probably even puzzle Claude Shannon,
information can be negative -- at least when the information is quantum.
The discovery, by
Horodecki, Oppenheim, and Winter, appears in the
current edition of the leading journal Nature.
If I tell you negative information, you'll know less. Apparently, researchers hope to use this to gain deeper insights into phenomena such as quantum teleportation and computation, as well as the very structure of the quantum world. More details can be found here and
here
A popular account of the article can be found on Oppenheim's
homepage, and a free version of the article can be found in the arxiv for those of us
without subscriptions to Nature."
Karl Rove has known this for years.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
No it can't.
Initially, I believed that negative information was an abstract math concept, but after a significant amount of additional study I've determined rather conclusively that it exists in our frame of reference and that the effects are actually easy to detect. The trick is to *locate* some of this negative information. Fortunately, I've managed to work that out as well -- I'm not publishing for a few months yet, but I figure I'm far enough along to spill some of the beans:
Experiencing negative inforamtion is all about occupying a point in space and time which intersects with the negative information stream. This was initially tricky, but through months of tireless research I've worked out the optimal conditions: I find that your best chance of encountering it is roughly around 1 AM when you're at the bar with your friends after a long night of drinking and one of them says something along the lines of, "Awright! Time for some shots!"
Bang! Negative information. What happened after that? How did I get home? All lost in the quantum flow, never to be accurately described by anyone involved (except, occasionally and for reasons I still haven't managed to factor into my equations, the bouncer and the police). I assume the headaches and liver damage are just a nominal side effect.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
If I tell you negative information, you'll know less. Sounds like what happened in that mind numbing English class I had to take last semester.
it was negative information so I forgot how to get my socks in the dirty clothes.
After trying to read those articles, I do feel like I know less.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
404-File Not Found
Now THAT'S negative quantum... information.
Considering some of the posters here, I wouldn't be surprised if that were discovered.
Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
somebody must have commented some negative information here because I don't see anything!
sometimes after reading /. comments i feel like i know less.
I guess this is the answer to a previous Slashdot article about why public education in the US is bad.
fp
Of course negative information is cool, but it would be even cooler if you could combine negative information and positive information to produce a huge explosion.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
If I tell you negative information, you'll know less.
So, if two people tell me negative information, I'll know more?
If I tell you negative information, you'll know less.
I experience this almost everytime I speak to my boss.
"If I tell you negative information, you'll know less."
This is nothing new, the effect is known as 'the dumbening.' It can be easily reproduced in the home by watching Harold & Kumar go to White Castle. Watch that movie, and I guarantee you'll know less!
Have you never heard of Entertainment Weekly? It must be full of negative quantum information, because reading it definitely make you dumber.
Since a black hole's entropy is directly proportional to it's information content, this, if true, would have an effect on black holes.
If I recall correctly (and I may not -- my physics isn't what it used to be), the amount of information contained by a black hole is directly proportional to its surface area -- specifically, I believe that the total number of bits contained is equal to 1/4 of its surface area as measured in Planck units.
Now, if information can be negative, that would provide another method of shrinking a black hole, in addition to Hawking radiation.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I wonder if Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf was a quantum physisist.
"Lead my skeptic sight."
Finally, an explanation for those John 3:16 signs.
"In the quantum world, there are things we just cannot know, no matter how clever we are. For example, we cannot know both the position and momentum of a small particle exactly. One can also have situations where someone knows more than everything. This is known as quantum 'entanglement', and when two people share entanglement, there can be negative information. "
My brain hurts!
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
letters; T and V, in that order.
try { Signature mysig = new CleverAttempt(); } catch(NonCleverSignatureException e) { postanyway(); }
If I tell you negative information, you'll know less. Apparently, researchers hope to use this to gain deeper insights into
So less really is more?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
if incorrect knowledge can be considered as negative knowledge. For example, if I believe that the Earth is flat, I might actually be worse of compared to having no idea what the shape of the Earth is. That's because if I base certain designs on my incorrect assumption that the Earth is flat, I might actually get in trouble.
Does negative information want to be free?
And secondly, er, I used to know the second question, dunno what happened there.
Heh, and here I was all excited to hear about some breakthrough science, when negative information is nothing more than my brain trying to forget all the uglies.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
It's got negative information in it!
If I tell you negative information, you'll know less.
I don't think that really works. You can't make someone know less by just telling them something, unless by doing so you somehow alter their brain chemistry to store less information or remove information already stored. I suspect this might be closer to the quantum idea.
Suppose you have two pieces of quantum information, one positive and one negative. The negative piece could negate the positive one which would result in 0 total pieces of information instead of 2.
However, the idea of this negative information is still kind of abstract and not that easy to understand. The quantum nature of this is key I think. It doesn't look like it extends that well to our concept of information (which would be the kind stored by the brain), at least not yet.
1 am?! wtf did your mommy call you on your mobile to come home or what?!
You should try browsing at -1 sometime! You'll wish you knew less...
My girlfriend fed me negative information for years. Then she broke up with me because I couldn't remember her name! What a bitch!
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
This article is not bogus.
The concept of a "quantum eraser" is not a new one. Consider the classic double-slit experiment, where electrons are shot at a double slit and form an interference pattern on a screen which corresponds to the probability distribution of the particle's position. If you were to place detectors so that you knew which slit the particle went through, the interference pattern would disappear-- that is, there would be no uncertainty in the position (because obviously, you know which slit it went through). This is intuitive if you consider the interference pattern to be a probability distribution.
However, if you were to place a 50/50 beam splitter in front of the detectors, the interference pattern would reappear! By destryong the which-path information, the interference pattern (uncertainty) is restored. Bizarre, but true.
Google "quantum eraser" for more info.
"Apparently, researchers hope to use this to gain deeper insights..."
Taking into consideration the sentence before that, it seems like the hope of those researchers is unfounded... Irony.
"One thing only I know, and that is that I know less than nothing" - Socratum
If I tell you negative information, you'll know less.
So, American television programming has been giving us negative information
for decades now....
What exactly do you mean by this?
But one day Tom, he went and caught the River-daughter, in green gown, flowing hair, sitting in the rushes
Quantum theorists need to stop smoking pot and look at the world around them. You can't have negative information, seeing something occur doesn't change the outcome, oh and the earth is square.
Is it like when you talk to somebody and they make a comment/statement soooo stupid that you actually lose IQ hearing it?
First off, QM isn't the easiest subject; even experts say that if you say you understand QM (as oposed to just apply it) you're lying.
:P). Then you need to understand the concept of information, in the context of QM. After that you need to know what's meant by /positive/, in the context of information and in the context of how a Quantum Mechanic would apply that. And then you'd need to read the papers and grok what negative quantum information means.
:)
So first off you need an understanding of QM (it's statistical information, so screw the Kopenhagen interpretation
Shit, I'm getting to my third year of applied physics, and I'm just grokking the basics of QM, let alone the concept of 'information' (let alone positive or negative) in QM
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
That explains all those lecturers I had that would put me to sleep instantly...and I would wake up a few hours later completely clueless until I had a few beers...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college."
That, plus any other saying that makes the listener dumber.
All this time I wondered how so many people could be so stupid as to believe the mountains of bullshit pushed by the creationist movement, and this explains it!
As information regarding the field of biology -- specifically in the study of evolution -- increases, a balance must be made. As a result, the increase of information in biology causes a reaction of an equal increase of negative information with respect to the creationist movement. The more biologists figure out and the more knowledgable experts become, the dumber and more gullible the general populace must become to balance the information flow out.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Negative information may be, or may not be, equivalent to expanding the set of all possible information. In that sense, you discover more of what you do not know, hence know less of the total knowledge.
This may not be what they are talking about, but this notion of expanding the cardinality of the problem by introducing new information has been a helpful analogy in other mathematical problems.
He wrote, "The scholar learns something every day, the man of tao unlearns something every day, until he gets back to non-doing."
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
I always feel like I know less after reading Darl's various enlightenments....
Do you have ESP?
This discovery is itself, negative information.
...having things that act like negative probabilities. For example the classic two slit experiment shows that we can make it less likely for a particle to travel from A to B even though we have increased the number of paths by which it can travel from A to B. I'm not terribly suprised, therefore, by the existence of negative information.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
No really, can someone give an example of this in non meta physical world? I am having trouble understanding... idea seems very interesting... but how?
So if we can figure out a way to manipulate this could we not "erase" someones memory? Isn't it possible that we already know all about this yet our memories may have been effected in some way?
I haven't RTFA (yet) but this seems one of them "If we saw invisible people would we even know?" type questions..
I like muppets.
Negative information? Doesn't that happen when one watches TV? I swear I get stupider every time I turn it on.
Error: Id10t detected
This is not the information you're looking for.
as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.
Sometimes even politicians show their scientific side!
Yes, in this news room, it does smell like Microsoft... there's even some really bad smell left from Enron and a few others!
Information is defined as -log2(p), where p is the probability of the event. E.g, in a coin toss, the probability of H(ead) or T(ail) is 0.5, so the information about this event is -log2(0.5) == 1 (i.e, 1 bit).
Negative information means that the probability p must be higher than 1... well, if this is true, then an entire new probability theory (or quantum information theory) will have to be built! A piece of information of -1 bit is informing something with probability 2.0... what does this means? An event that is doubly sure to happen? =p
will this hold up in court? Seriously. Please forward your thoughts to my lawyer ASAP.
Perhaps it's just information in a grayishy area.
Go to the w3.org and put Slashdot.org through the validator.
"If I tell you negative information, you'll know less."
Anyone who watches any of the 24 hour cable news networks should know this by now. Well, they probably don't because I'm guessing it's hard to observe information loss...because you won't remember it. This is probably redundant by this point thought, huh?
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
But that just about matches my expectations...
The truth of the Time Cube surrounds even the most educated stupid researches of us. -(1) + -(1) = +(A North American).
I have freaks! I did something right...
now if i can get the right negatve information i can finally get those awfull images of goats.cx pictures out of my mind :P
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If you absorb enough negative information, will that collapse your head?
Negative information has been known about for some time. A study at the University of Maryland revealed its existence in the media realm a couple years ago.
Fox News. The More You Watch, the Less You Know.(tm)
Would it be accurate to analogize this to antimatter, in the sense that the latter was found mathematically first, and observed later (and maybe not yet)?
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
Browse at -1
0100100101101101011100000110010101100001011000110
Thanks in advance,
Kilgore Trout, CEO
The question is does transmitting negative information from point A to point B cause the informantion level of A to increase? If so it would explain how universities work.
Simply put they bring in the best and brightest students, hire professors to send these students negative information in their lectures and writings, and thus the university gains information.
Keep this up for a couple of hundred years and it is quite obvious how top universities become famous as such great centers of learning.
I distinctly remember a lecture by Feynman at Caltech in the early 1980's where he talked about negative information (probability). I am sure I still have notes for it somewhere. Of course, you can never see negative information; any actual measurement has to have positive probility. But it can give quantum interference effects in measured quantities.
Feynman presented it as just a different way of having quantum interference, from negative probability instead of complex amplitudes.
It looks like the author's already experimenting with negative information...
I forget what 8 was for.
...to Fox News Network.
When encountering p > 1, I take the reciprocal [sp] automatically. So, if p is a probability, p := 1 / p.
Forgive me, but aren't you talking about the entropy of information and not a definition of information itself? I was just reading about this in "Mastering Algorithms With C." In the book it is used to calculate the amount of actual bits needed to represent information for compression techniques.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
"Beam Me Up, Scotty!"
Man: I came here for a good argument.
Mr Vibrating: No you didn't, you came here for an argument.
Man: Well, an argument's not the same as contradiction.
Mr Vibrating: It can be.
Man: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition.
Mr Vibrating: No it isn't.
Man: Yes it is. It isn't just contradiction.
Mr Vibrating: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
Man: But it isn't just saying "No it isn't".
Mr Vibrating: Yes it is.
Man: No it isn't, an argument is an intellectual process... contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.
Mr Vibrating: No it isn't.
Man: Yes it is.
Mr Vibrating: Not at all.
Man: Now look!
Mr Vibrating:(pressing the bell on his desk) Thank you, good morning.
Man: What?
Mr Vibrating: That's it. Good morning.
Man: But I was just getting interested.
Mr Vibrating: Sorry the five minutes is up.
Man: That was never five minutes just now!
Mr Vibrating: I'm afraid it was.
Man: No it wasn't.
Mr Vibrating: I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to argue any more.
Man: What!?
Mr Vibrating: If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to pay for another five minutes.
Man: But that was never five minutes just now... oh come on! (Vibrating looks round as though man was not there) This is ridiculous.
Mr Vibrating: I'm very sorry, but I told you I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid.
Man: Oh. All right. (pays) There you are.
Mr Vibrating: Thank you.
Man: Well?
Mr Vibrating: Well what?
Man: That was never five minutes just now.
Mr Vibrating: I told you I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid.
Man: I've just paid.
Mr Vibrating: No you didn't.
Man: I did! I did! I did!
Mr Vibrating: No you didn't.
Man: Look I don't want to argue about that.
Mr Vibrating: Well I'm very sorry but you didn't pay.
Man: Aha! Well if I didn't pay, why are you arguing... got you!
Mr Vibrating: No you haven't.
Man: Yes I have... if you're arguing I must have paid.
Mr Vibrating: Not necessarily. I could be arguing in my spare time.
Man: I've had enough of this.
Mr Vibrating: No you haven't.
Nearly all political ads on TV leave the viewer even less informed!
I am glad to see there is a theoretical basis for this in quantum mechanics.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
If I watch TV, I become stupid, hence TV is a quantum information device.
Information cannot travel faster than the speed of light.
But if information and negative information are transferred at the same time, would >c speeds be possible? The net information transfer would still be zero, so I could see this becoming one of those crazy quantum loopholes.
...wants to be enslaved?
Nerd Rock In Progress
This negative information thing is a new feature of Internet Explorer, right?
That's not really how you use that word. His spell checker must have provided negative information.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."
.. what C++ operator overloading can lead to.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
This is like Lavinsky's theory of the antibrain. The idea (if I recall correctly) is that bad habits are encoded in some parts of the brain. With selective drug abuse or drinking, we can selectively destroy the antibrain that usually opposes our "better half", canceling out the "good brain". So destroying antibrain is equivalent to creating brain. It's like drinking to forget - forgetting to drink too much. I'll drink to that!
Have I told you about Lavinsky's theory of the antibrain? Stop me if you've heard this one...
--
make install -not war
- Where did Pat transmute into Alex? (Oppenhiem's simple explanation.)
- How would I know if I got negative information? Like, would there be a "knowledge hole" left, or would the memory of previously having the information be gone too?
Dang, that negative information stuff must be working... paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
IANAQP, but just from reading the first summary, they were talking about 'infinite' knowledge and such...are they referring to the discontinuities in QM mathematics that prevent its unification with general relativity? I thought this was the problem that string theory is supposed to help solve.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
Geez, don't be so cynical. After I got my PhD from Berkeley, with a dissertation in quantum mechanics, I taught the stuff to graduate students for five years or so. I've published QM papers in PRA and all that, too. So, yeah, I know what they mean. I'm perfectly qualified to review their Nature paper, if it comes to that, and I doubt I'm the only one like this reading /.
I have to say I'm not especially impressed by the work, however. The frisson of defining information as negative emerges ultimately from a semi-deliberate muddling of the distinction between the definition of information in the quantum computing context and information as we use the word in daily life. This is not hard useful scientific discovery so much as the scientific equivalent of making an outrageous pun.
But then I feel similarly about most of what's published in the Bell's Inequality, EPR paradox, quantum tele-whatever field. Getting cynical myself, maybe I am....bah, humbug...grumble...
it is the guiding principle behind Fox News.
(eom)
You don't know less. It's just that alot of things you know is now false. False information is still information.
It seems that after watching what's on TV for any amount of time I definitely feel a lot stupider.
Negative information is how you erase data on a quantum storage device.
To erase data on a Quantum storage device, you only need an electromagnet or a hammer.
This is extremely obvious. If I tell you that the Earth is flat, that is negative information. If you believe this negative information, you know less.
You now think that the Earth is flat, when before you thought it was round, which is is.
I recall a few years back of hearing the hypothesis: "Combining two parts of zero information resulted in negative information."
It went something like: "If we know nothing about a subject, then do both of us together know less?" (Discussing electric brakes on a trailer.)
Tom & Ray Magliozzi -NPR's Car Talk guys.
Maybe the experiment is still running -the real 'slashdot effect'
How do they know their "detectors" are detecting what they think they are detecting. Just because a the screen deflects into a wave pattern doesn't mean a wave hit it.
I wish there was a filter for "Abuse of Modern Physics". Anyone want to explain what the article's *really* talking about, minus the stupid jokes? Wikipedia's a bit terse for something this high-level.
Visit the
The trick is that you can use quantum entanglement to have excess unspecified knowledge, which can be converted into specific knowledge. It's like being on a quiz show where you are given a certain number of times you can look up an answer. These bonuses have to count in your total knowledge (I know 100 facts, plus I can look up things twice). If someone tells you something, you get positive information. If you look something up, you get zero information (you trade a bonus lookup for a fact). If you look something up, and you already knew the answer, you get negative information.
Now think about it as if someone else controlled the book. They can tell you things over the phone, and they can cause answers to pop out of the book. If they waste the book on something you actually already knew, your total information goes down, so the information in the transaction is negative.
This paper just provides a hand-waving argument. This maths-free approach, would be swiftly rejected if submitted to the journal where this topic really belongs - IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.
However, I can't wait for the longer technical account. Is it common for Nature to publish exciting results without proof?
BTW, there seems to be a bit of confusion regarding negative entropy and negative information (or rather channel capacity). Entropy is a measure with respect to some coordinates. By changing the scale of the coordinates of a probability distribution, e.g. by changing its variance, you can change its entropy - even making it negative. However, channel capacity is always the same regardless of the coordinates used, as it measures a difference. Its like measuring voltage in a circuit.
Its corporate policy at Microsoft, only they call it FUD.
Is information about negative information a positive, or a negative information itself?
What about the information about the information about negative information?
And so on?
"If I tell you negative information, you'll know less".
Is this really news? It's obvious to anyone looking at the results of "education" provided by public schools and positions about science put forth fundamentalist right. Most of American society seems to be knowing less every single day....
think about it as if someone else controlled the book. They can tell you things over the phone, and they can cause answers to pop out of the book. If they waste the book on something you actually already knew, your total information goes down, so the information in the transaction is negative
Nicely explained. Thanks.
-kgj
-kgj
This is completely unrelated to unification.
"If I tell you negative information, you'll know less."
This is great news for Call of Cthulhu player characters!
My karma is in a nose dive
Flaimbait??? Parent post is hilarious!
It's called POT. Or Weed, grass, green, ganja, maui wowee, MJ, the viper. And since the discovery of BC bud, it works WAY beyond the quantum level...
This explains the phenomenon that is Fox News
The paper says that you still need to use classical communication to communicate the quantum information and receive the "free" future communications.
In some ways, this revelation parallels counting in the west.
Consider counting pies. For the longest time, you either had "N" pies (N > 0), or you had "no" pies (a special, non-numeric state). Of course, the idea of having less than no pies was considered nonsense - "You can you have less than no pies?"
Eventually, this was generalized - the idea that you might have less than no pies (you might own the Widow Johnson a pie, for example), the idea that having no pies is just another number, etc. were added, and more forms of calculation were made possible.
So, now we have quantum information. And we have the idea that having "N" bits (N >= 0) makes intuitive sense, but the idea of N being less than zero seems odd. This sounds to me like we are starting to generalize the idea of information just as we did for numbers.
Now, the question I have is, that given the linkages between information and entropy, what does this mean for entropy?
Also, I can't help but wonder, will we generalize this to the idea of imaginary and complex information?
And what would that signify?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Then, my comrades, we have a paradox....
All my posts are negative quantum information.
Let's not forget the lessons from Godel, Escher, Bach! For every perfect record player (or system recieving information), there exists some pattern of music (information) which will destroy the system.
As for the memory analogy, of course you will forget something if someone tells you just the right info to make your brain explode!
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right." -Isaac Asimov
I'm sure Microsoft will be using this as an excuse for future security holes.
This is what I got from the abstract (being an undergrad in EE).
We've always been taught that the conditional entropy, H(X|Y) >= 0, but what they're saying is that somehow in a Quantum communications channel, H(X|Y) can be 0 by definition as well.
So yeah I guess this comment contributes nothing.
I dont think you understand his question. The slit (or at least the material it is made out of) is just as much a 'detector' as the photomultiplier, because they both interact with the photons. One absorbs, the other deflects. Or are you saying that the photomultiplier is somehow different because it has a scientist at the end of it?
PS Intefering wave functions eh? I think you should go learn some QM too.
Well, there are particles in QM that have to be roatated a full 720 degrees to complete a full rotation.
Couldn't a probability of 2.0 be taken to mean that two atoms are going to be created using one atoms complete energy to create antimatter. One atom being the antimatter, and one being normal matter. When these two pieces of information meet, they anhilate each other and all the information about each other if their informations are completely equal.
I could be completely and utterly wrong, but I think that's what happens when they make antimatter.
Sig
even weird is when they say the channel capacity can be negative, since I(X;Y) is > 0 by definition, and C = max over I(X;Y).
The Fry's employees are well known for their ignorance and the amount of misniformation they spew.
For years I've said that asking a question about a product from a Fry's clerk resulted in you knowning less than you did before asking the question.
It's nice to know that there's proof now.
Is that like how in Soviet Russia, information knows you?
"If I tell you negative information, you'll know less."
I now understand why George W. Bush is the way he is...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
When I learned about C++ operator overloading, I thought it was absolutely brilliant.
Of course, I was in fourth or fifth grade at the time, so I have at least something of an excuse...
"In this instance, Alice and Bob can have more than just a cheap classical chat: they can also gain an advantage for future exchange, when they will be able to transfer quantum information at no further cost."
Stop invalid scientific research. Ask your local scientists to feed their lab rats with a phytoestrogen-free chow.
Nah, that just bolsters my theory that the liver is actually not a poison-processing organ, but actually a secondary brain, which, through evolution, has been developed to counter the quantum effects of "negative information". Information such as, "I really shouldn't have another drink", and "I really shouldn't kiss that person, especially with my wife in the restroom", and "Oh, so that's how I wrecked the car" and "Here is why you don't tell the nice police officer what I think of him and his family." Unfortunately, evolution hasn't quite gotten around to hooking up the necessary signaling nerves to make this information available to the other brain that has actual control over motor functions. Oh well, maybe next species.
You know they're coming.
Maybe you're reading one right now.
Here's a straightforward example of negative information.
Suppose there are 3 possible outcomes of an experiment: A, B, and C. A priori you know that A is 98% likely, B is 1% likely and C is 1% likely. Your uncertainty (i.e. entropy) about the outcome is quite low (because you are almost sure that the outcome is A). Now it is revealed that the outcome is not A. Your new probabilities are 50% on B and C. Your new uncertainty about the outcome is now much higher.
Being told that A did not occur thus has negative information because it increases your uncertainty (i.e. entropy) about the outcome.
I will never take my software problems to a quantum mechanic again.
I feel so much dumber after reading this. Geez.
I am Spartacus
Your are kinda dumb :P
Wow, now how do we convert this to a boolean algebra? Instead of 1 and 0, we also have -1.
1 AND -1 = ?
1 OR -1 = ?
1 XOR -1 = ?
NOT -1 = ?
etc.
Seriously; this discovery can lead to a whole new way of creating a CPU architecture. The -1 bit can be used for a whole new array of calculation possibilities, none of which have probably been thought of seriously. Architectures might possibly be able to be simpler, or they might turn out to be magnitudes higher in complexity due to the addition of a destructor bit.
I find it likely that a whole new branch of mathematics could be made from studying 3-point comparison. We are so used to having only 2 sides to an equation (look at the pre-QED standard model for instance; quarks having three sides to balance out really messes with your mind) that this can help in more than one way.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
if you don't understand this article at first glance, try these tips:
-cross your eyes and squint
-smoke a big doobie beforehand
-read it with your eyes closed and while looking at something else...
one of these is bound to help you understand what they are talking about.
"If I tell you negative information, you'll know less."
/. anytime.
You can see the effects on
Nothing new here. Move along.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Since you have defined a system with at most two states because you are using log2. Why not extend this to Shannons Entropy and say:
H = -sum(plog2p)
Now one method that I have recently used to help solve a data-mining/similarty problem in chemistry is to use an Information Gain metric to select a set of features that are useful in searching for compounds with similar properties to a query set:
I = H1 - H2;
In essnece I want to select features from the query subset the show a low Entropy in H2 but a high Entrpy in H1. Thus creating a net gain in information.
Now what if we plug your -2 in for H2? Net negative information gain?
Not really sure what the implications of this are but it is interesting non-the-less.
The Fine Article doesn't mention one exciting development in the field of information theory, related to negative information, which may one day tie it to Vacuum Energy or Zero Point physics in a grand unified theory that, once we come to understand it, could form the basis of a star drive to power star ships.
It seems that virtual particles of antimatter and exotic particles of normal matter that spontaneously emerge from the void, and then disappear without interacting with anything. [1] The theoretical potential of tapping this particle flux has brought vacuum energy to the fore of research by the NSA into Quantum Information Theory.
Experiments conducted by the NSA and the DOE on large data samples gathered in large bureaucracies (both public and private) indicate that Microsoft Word Documents are effective containers for Negative Information, which hitherto had been considered a transient phenomenon, almost impossible to store given our current understanding of physics. The phenomenon of massive amounts of stored negative informisinformation, as it turns out, makes the typical corporate or government intranet much more resiliant to cyber terrorist attack than previously predicted -- nearly as resiliant as the typical government organization to a FOIA request today, for comparison.
It is expected that once we understand the characteristics of MS Word Documents which allow them to efficiently store negative information in a stable form, Quantum Physicists and Information Theorists should be able to get together, perhaps over a nice hot cup of tea, and stitch the two branches together, getting us one step closer to faster than light travel, finally bringing the stars within reach -- except it won't really be FTL, it will be something that we don't presently understand. [2]
Only the humor-impaired need read this bootnote.
[1]Yes, I see the grammar error. I've intentionally borrowed a pattern, common in conspiracy theory writing, of constructing a complex sentence, perhaps full of objects, perhaps full of verbs, perhaps full of nouns, on the theory that it might amuse, whereas it normally serves to confuse, as sometimes subjects or verbs may go missing. Oops I did it again! Or did I?
[2]Yes, I realize I mention antimatter only in the title, and not in the text.
[3]Yes, I realize there are 3 bootnotes, not a single bootnote as referenced above.
[4]Yes, I realize that only 2 of the bootnotes are indicated by reference numbers in the text. (Absurd bootnotes are also common in conspiracy theorist writings.)
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
In order to learn something, you have to make a measurement. Of course, in the quantum world, measuring a system will change it, so you are giving up what you know by measuring. It seems that in negative information situations, you are giving up your certainty in order to measure something, but your aren't learning anything in return. So your net 'gain' of information is negative.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
It's a trick!
Scientists discover usenet.
-- This void intentionally left null.
This is why "Funny" moderation needs to have a karma bonus.
So, a hard disk drive about to crash is a negative information storage device?
I am not a physicist, yet. In the situation you describe, it seems that the sum of the information within the black hole and universe outside the black hole would remain a positive constant. The information in the black hole would also remain positive. The information outside the black hole would remain positive. Only the change in information inside the black hole would be negitive. This doesn't seem the least bit exotic to me. Now, if you could make a black hole with negitive area, that would be something different! A "white hole" so to speak, ought to have negitive mass and repel everything.
Now I shall attempt to read the article. Perhaps you can explain what you mean in more detail.
Simon's Rock College
If I tell you negative information, you'll know less.
/. story...
Sort of like reading the comments attached to a
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
All the research I have read points to PowerPoint as a better method of Negative Information storage.
A blog about stuff.
Certainly this is nothing to do with quantum physics, in fact it is more disinformation than negative information, but you know the old line about the best lies being hidden in between two truths?...well take this as an example:
www.indiadaily.com
Looks like the web-site of an Indian newspaper right?
Wrong, I'm afraid, although at first it seems to be the completely legitimate web-site of a real newspaper, it is in-fact not even Indian, it is run from San-Jose, in the United States of America!
AND it is run by just one person!
How is this negative information, I hear you ask?
Well look more closely - at the technology pages in particular:
http://www.indiadaily.com/comp.asp
Haha! Are you freaked out yet?
Now needless to say if you have checked the links, this site is the worst piece of yellow journalism you are ever likely to see, although the term 'science fiction' would be more appropriate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism)
However I think this is a good example of real-world negative information, think about it for a moment, and you will realize that this 'news' site is not designed for people in India, as it is written in the English language, with no other languages available.
My guess is that it is most likely designed for immigrants living in other country's where they have little or no access to printed news material in there own language.
As for the negative (or dis-) information - well most of it is very clearly spotted, however there is also much on this site that is yet more delusional fantasy, even in the 'world news' and 'politics' sections, the simple way to tell what's fact from distorted fiction, is the name of the writer / reporter, The delusional fantasy crap has either regular (Indian) names, or is marked at 'indiadaily technology team' where as all the real news, is simply marked as 'media release' and 99% of the time is copy and pasted from other *real* news sites.
As for the Effect this negative information would have on any mentally vulnerable person or even someone who is not so well educated and who is separated from his home country, one doesn't really want to imagine.
Any script-kiddies out there willing to *cough* *cough*.....did I say something?
Imagine if this "theory of negativity" thingy applies not just to information alone.... So If "I" am not here, then I can be where I "don't" want to be.. Say I "dont" want to be near Natalie Imbruglia... and Poof! Iam there.... Thank you Quantum Technology for such a quantum leap....
Then at the moment we are able to perfectly reconstruct the item, it could be nowhere, or anywhere? Sounds like it's already been done to me, in the Heart of Gold!
But more seriously, anyone care to try to laymanise how the existence of negative quantum information can help with research into teleportation?
Now technically, this really isn't negative information as you still retain all the knowledge you have, but if you wished to rationalize it, you now know less because there is more to understand.
Think of it this way. If you know five pieces of information, and you know of five other pieces you aren't sure about (for example, the post in question) you would effectively know half of the information known to you in existance. If a piece of information is unconclusive, only raising the awareness of something you don't know, then it effectively reduces the percentage of what you know (ie. 5/11 as opposed to 5/10), leaving you knowing less. And although I am not quite sure that this was the purpose of the post, it's effect can be clearly seen.
Hoped this help :)
try { Signature mysig = new CleverAttempt(); } catch(NonCleverSignatureException e) { postanyway(); }
Wow, I didn't know SCO had a quantum research program in their Linux division.
(and with turnover + slashdot attention span, this just went over the head of 60% of readers, sorry)
That's a pretty obnoxious sig. Maybe they have faith that it's the right way to live? Bothering to enforce one's beliefs would be, if anything, a sign of their sincere faith in the way of life.
What if I were to say to you: if you really believed murder were wrong, you wouldn't need the government to enforce the idea.
Enforcing some parts of religion as law is obviously wrong, but given that much of our law arose from Judeo-Christian tradition, I think you could tone down the near-religious anti-religious agitprot.
But predictably, I observed the negitive information and it erased the information that I had discovered negitive information.
Sorry, with only the bachlors degree in physics the only thing I can contribute to the conversation is my weak sence of hummor. Go a head, mod me down. I think we are all stupider having read this and may God have mercy on my soul.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I had a professor in college where the more he told the class, the less we knew...
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
I like negative quantum information the first time I saw it when it was called "error."
Utter ignorance is the total lack of information, or the complete absence of knowledge. We all know that nowledge is power, and power is force over time. Time is money, so knowledge is force over money. Ergo, someone who is ignorant has no force over money, which is certainly ironic given that the Nature article is entitled "Quantum Information: Putting certainty in the bank". Yes, poor people are easy to make fun of even in quantum states (which were formally known as blue states until the manic depressives complained about trademark infringement).
Finally, an explanation of homeopathy I can understand!
There is no "I" in B-O-R-G.
I rarely bother to read the front page except to spread occasional comic relief to a group of people who take themselves WAYYYY too seriously. As far as I'm concerned, about 90% of the front page at any given time is negative information. If you want real useful info, join a group of friends and read JEs. There's much higher quality in there if you choose the right people.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I'm sure that a lot of Slashdotters have had the same observations in high school, so let me explain it for you:
there were people who gave off destructive mental interference waves. Sitting next to these people would result in a decrease in brain function because their brainwaves were 180 degrees out of phase than the brainwaves of normal people,
Those people are called women.
thus cancelling them out and creating a thought-free zone.
That thought-free zone is called lust.
Of course negative information is cool, but it would be even cooler if you could combine negative information and positive information to produce a huge explosion.
That huge explosion is called sex.
I hope it helps.
Whatever you do, don't read it!!
What homepage?
Doh!
He wrote, "The scholar learns something every day, the man of tao unlearns something every day, until he gets back to non-doing."
An apotheosis of ignorance is hardly an achievement in science in general and quantum mechanics in particular. If Max Planck had followed the way proposed by Lao Tzu he would have never introduced the idea of quantised energy in the first place. He would've been be too busy with "non-doing" (i.e. doing nothing). Please don't confuse the scientific method with catchy religious phrases.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
I've seen a couple of very interesting articles on quantum physics. Since I lack the background, it seems as if I'm really missing out on a great subject.
Could anyone recommend a book for someone interested in learning the basics of quantum physics?
It happens to me every day on slashdot. I know... or do I? Come on, mod this up! It's wicked funny!
"I'm not religious, but at the same time I don't get why science always has to have something to prove."
brain_cells--;
RUPERT! I TOLD YOU TO WATCH THE BAGS! You were looking at the boys again, WEREN'T YOU.
Before you read a "holy book" you know that you don't know.
After you read a "holy book" you no longer know that you don't know.
from the you-are-now-dumber dept.
Funny, don't all slashdot stories come from this department?
Finally, proof that anything that all political utterances (writing, speech, etc) may have negative information content!
Of course, this is something which we have all suspected for years...
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
your total information goes down, so the information in the transaction is negative.
Yep, I know that is what the paper say's but I can see a flaw that is never really addressed.
You have the S (state before transaction) & E (Entangled state before transaction). After the transaction you have S' (state after transaction) & E' (Entangled state after transaction). You also have a new piece of information (S' AND E') which is created/shed which transcends the subjects' state and tells you something about the systems during the event.
The new information should be called transcend information. Perhaps this is a clue into how the chaotic quantum world combines to form the regular world.
Login details for nature.com
Account #1
flagger1
happy1
http://www.bugmenot.com/
Bypass Compulsory Web Registration -- http://bugmenot.com/
Last post?
Isn't negative information what the rest of us call FUD? In that case Microsoft have known about this for years!
The more information you have, the more uncertain you are which information is correct.
-- No Text --
Wikileaks, no DNS
Thus, no bonus, but no major injustice!
I'd have a +5 Funny give a +1 Karma bonus; +5 is more than "smart-arse"; it is often actually funny!
Wikileaks, no DNS
I believe, as person who knows only from layman's text on quantum physics, is that it should be learnt like a different language...
Some things may correlate to what you know, other things may only be described in blunt approximations of what they really are
For this reason I believe that if anyone does understand quantum physics, it is probably impossible to communicate in such a way that truely demostrates such knowledge.
Another thought is that if there is negative knowledge in the quantum world, maybe it can be brought forward into the macroscopic world in a method simalar to which Schrodinger demonstrated that indeterminate effects could be brought forward with his hypothetical cat.
Actually, it has been known for a while that the quantity called quantum conditional entropy (which is defined analogue to the classical conditional entropy) can be negative. The problem was that in the quantum setting, the meaning of this quantity was an open question. This paper gives a nice interpretation that is somewhat analogous to the classical interpretation (using quantum communication instead of classical communication).
A more descriptive title (but more boring for the general public) could have been "Interpretation of Quantum Conditional Entropy".
That's a pretty obnoxious sig.
Try not to cry about it.
Maybe they have faith that it's the right way to live?
What's that got to do with it? People who rely on government to enforce their faith apparently don't have much faith in their Gods ability to convince others of their devine infalability. In other words, they don't have much faith in their own God.
What if I were to say to you: if you really believed murder were wrong, you wouldn't need the government to enforce the idea.
I'd say you failed Logic 101 and never made the Debate Team. Just for shits and giggles though, the government doesn't "enforce the idea". I'm certainly not planing on murdering anyone any time soon; the government don't need to tell me it's wrong. Notice that no government can ever stop someone; the best they can do is punish after the fact.
Your argument contains a goodly amount of negative information.
next it will be Infinite Improbability
There is only one practical example of negative information I can think of:
Quantum Physics Research
Unless you happen to be well educated in the subject, the more you are told about it, the less you know.
For instance, now that negative information has been discovered, I now know even less that I did before about quantum physics, so this research is negative information.
--- SER
..."A man with a watch knows exactly what time it is. A man with two is never certain."
-- Can't Remember Who
Whenever I need to call any company's tech support and have to deal with their level 1 support, I feel as though I know less after talking to them.
But why is the rum gone?
Is being a patronizing asshole some minimal requirement for an AC post?
What's that got to do with it? People who rely on government to enforce their faith apparently don't have much faith in their Gods ability to convince others of their devine infalability. In other words, they don't have much faith in their own God.
You're making assumptions. Most religions explicitly acknowledge the notion that people have free will. Laws enforcing religious moral codes doesn't really consitute a lack of faith.
I'd say you failed Logic 101 and never made the Debate Team.
Another AC tactic: make ad homimum insult about logic and then go on to commit worse acts of abuse to logic.
Just for shits and giggles though, the government doesn't "enforce the idea". I'm certainly not planing on murdering anyone any time soon; the government don't need to tell me it's wrong. Notice that no government can ever stop someone; the best they can do is punish after the fact.? That strawman argument was a lot more shit than giggle. You've completely missed the... Nevermind. I can't believe I just responding to an AC troll.
Good analogy.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
That's nothing. I discovered the formula for cancelling out negative information and licensed the process under the GPL!
You simply have to wait until the hangover wears off, then drink an equal or greater quantity of a negative-information-inducing substance. As you cross over the threshold into a negative existance you will slowly remember all of the information that was negative since the last time you drank. Alcohol will actually convert positive information (you knew it while you were drunk) to negative information, but then, amazingly, after weeks of not knowing any of that information, it will magically convert the positive-turned-negative information back into positive information! Until the information-transforming effects of alcohol wear off you will have full knowledge of all previous negative information but may have a severe positive information incapacitation.
In non-scientific terms, when you get really drunk you remember all the things you did the last time you were that drunk.
I'm still working diligently, day and night, to discover a process to allow this negative information to remain positive after The Alcohol Effect(TM) has worn off. Unfortunately the NSF has been rather stingy about providing me a grant to fund my research and I have been unable to reuse any of my previous experiment equipment yet.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
Homer: "Remember when I took that home wine-making course and I forgot how to drive?"
Marge: "That's because you were drunk!"
Homer: "And how."
Class room doors work simular during finals. Pass through one in one direction (in 99.9% of the cases this is the direction in which you move into the room) and it automagicaly blanks out everything that was taught in said class. You get the reverse effect when you move through in the opposite direction.
Some point to investigate: Does the moving-outwards-effect cummulate? Repeatingly climbing throught the window and leaving the class room might reveal this. (check with your teacher before attemting this as this might be considered cheating.)
Untill more research has been done I advise entering classrooms through the windows rather than the door.
Big deal, MIBs have those things since before Will Smith joined!
... I believe 'Undo' should be very easy to implement on a quantum computer.
.. hmm, like Calculus I, if you don't pay the scholarship
.. hmm, makes me wonder if this really hasn't been invented before ?
But possibly also erasing human memory
Laws enforcing religious moral codes doesn't really consitute a lack of faith.
Of course it does. It's blindingly obvious to anyone who is capable of aplying the slightest bit of objective logic to the idea.
Lets take Christian faith as an example. The Judeo-Christian God gave mankind free will. Man has the choice to worship God and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and enter Heaven in the afterlife, or to not worship God, ignore Jesus Christ and act immoral (In the context of a Judeo-Christian God) To do so is simply man excersising his God given free will.
Now if a group of people who believe in the Judeo-Christian God and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ use the government to enforce Christian morality on those who choose not to believe then they are effectivly saying "We do not believe that people should, by their own free will, choose not to worship our God." Which is a round-about way of saying "We do not accept mans free will and therefore do not have total faith in our own Gods decision to give mankind that free will."
Get it yet? Free will is a cornerstone of Judeo-Christian faith, yet a large contingent of Christians blithly ignore it and try to impose their faith on people who should be free to ignore it, by their own Gods design. Pretty hypocritical and shows lack of faith in Gods decision.
I can't believe I just responding to an AC troll.
Think that's bad? I have mod-points.
Nope, no text here either.
...information knows you!
Bullish Machine Tzar
Blake: What are the surface conditions on Horizon?
Zen: Negative information.
Blake: Population?
Zen: Negative information.
Blake: Well, is there any information on Horizon?
Zen: Negative.
Blake: Well, is the information on Horizon classified?
Zen: Negative information.
Vila: Well, that was a whole lot of nothing.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Nope, I don't get it yet. I fail to see how acknowedging that God stays out of the business of controlling humans means that humans who believe in God must stay out of the business of protecting themselves from the actions of other humans, or even protect other humans from actions of other humans. It seems pretty consistent to me. They believe God told them how humans should live to be happy and fulfilled. They believe God, allowing us free will, isn't going to keep others from doing wrong and infringing on their ability to lead said prescribed life. Ergo, laws. Believe it or not, much of your beloved liberalism comes from Christianity. So I find it highly amusing to watch pseudo-intellectual liberals berate religion when their ethics are so clearly a product of it. Where do you think you got the idea of welfare? Liberalism is pretty much Christian ethics without the supernatural fun stuff.
The Judeo-Christian tradition has had thousands of years to get the consistencies worked out just fine. You think your idea (or the idea of the guy with the lame sig) is so fricking clever that in the thousands of years between Moses and now that nobody had thought of it? Are we supposed to now say: "Oh shit. He's right. Let's get rid of all laws that have anything to do with morality." Consider the possibility that while religion is not provable, nor is it an easily destoyed sham that we've all been waiting for somebody smart like you to dismantle. Granted, that's not a logical argument meant to refute your statement (though the paragraph that preceded it was) but an appeal to investigate the notion of humility.
Anyway, how the heck do you plan to defend wealth redistribution laws except as moral codification? You think socialism isn't a moral code of sorts? Similar attacks could be made against any underlying moral theory underlying a law, and they would be equally wrong.
They always punish the kid who throws the second punch.
Free Adam Smith! (Or best offer.)
(Page 2 bottom left)
Um, me too... I think.
I find the idea that you have decided that I am both a Liberal and a Socialist, with no evidence of either, quite interesting. It neatly underlines the problems you have with evidence and logical though, I guess.
You think your idea..is so fricking clever that in the thousands of years between Moses and now that nobody had thought of it?
Until the late 1940's the majority of people in the western world accepted the Judeo-Christian God as "right". They attented Church like all good Christians and kept their mouths shut. Luckily these days we've had fifty years or so to drag ourselves out of that tar-pit. These days a large minority of the populace don't believe in invisible sky-Gods who'll smit them if they're naughty and subsequently do not accept the concept of legislating Judeo-Christian morality upon the populace.
We're still a minority though. Hopefully in another fifty years time humanity will have finally gotten over it's superstitious unsubstantiated beliefs and get a grip on itself, and we can all get on with our own lives without interference from well meaning but misguided politicies copying down from a badly translated 2000 year old book.
Or a fox news basher...
Well, you guys are pretty easy to spot these days. Anyway, I never said you were a socialist with a capital S. Perhaps it's fair to say I'm more right about you than you'd like to believe I have evidence for?
We're still a minority though. Hopefully in another fifty years time humanity will have finally gotten over it's superstitious unsubstantiated beliefs and get a grip on itself, and we can all get on with our own lives without interference from well meaning but misguided politicies copying down from a badly translated 2000 year old book.
We'll see how well that works. My guess is we'll come full circle (maybe leaving out a few things) and find that Christianity was based on a lot more than superstition. Look, I don't believe the supernatural elements of it, either, but if you think it's all just made up, you're sort of missing your own point to say it's bogus. If it's contrived, than perhaps it was contrived (or, alternatively, evolved) for a reason and to address issues that are universal to humans. My point is basically this: dismissing ideas solely due to their origin is just as irrational as the religion you criticize. Being anti-religious is, itself, a form of religion. A truly rational person can't be anti-religious, because they have to admit they don't really know the answer and that there's probably truth to be found coming from all sides.
I think that cynical means "dog-like" ... what do you think it means? :)
Right you are. Poor guy became the poster child for all kinds of absurd stuff.
One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoons says it all: Hobbes asks Calvin if he maybe shouldn't be worried about his math grade, Calvin says: Heck no! Remember, Einstein got a bad math grade once and look how he turned out! And my grades are even worse...!
i hope they all rot in hell! ...
p.s. sure, you want me to elaborate
Just think of all of the negative news stories every day.
This sounds like the type of situation you get into when you are trying to do quantum cryptanalysis. You start with the ciphertext, which is partial information about the plaintext (unless it's a one time pad) and you're using the quantum cloud to find the actual plaintext.
Let's predict that this drives a stake through the heart of quantum cryptanalysis.