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Creating a Quantum Superposition of Living Things
KentuckyFC writes "Having created quantum superpositions of photons, atoms, and even molecules, scientists are currently preparing to do the same for larger objects — namely viruses. The technique will involve storing a virus in a vacuum and then cooling it to its quantum-mechanical ground state in a microcavity. Zapping the virus with a laser then leaves it in a superposition of its ground state and an excited one. That's no easy task, however. The virus will have to survive the vacuum, behave like a dielectric, and appear transparent to the laser light, which would otherwise tear it apart. Now a group of researchers has worked out that several viruses look capable of surviving the superposition process, including the common flu virus and the tobacco mosaic virus. They point out that after creating the superposition, scientists will be able to perform the Schrodinger's Cat experiment for the first time, which should be fun (but less so for the virus)."
ladaladaladalada
Viruses are not living things. They have no metabolism and need a host to reproduce. They're basically just packets of proteins containing DNA.
-- Cheers!
won't someone think of the viruses? I'm going to pen a letter to the Amercian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Microscopic Organisms That May Or May Not Be Alive immediately!
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Will looking in a box for a cat that may or may not exist destroy the universe? Tune in and find out!
We are still experimenting on this mans cat after all these years? Im surprised PETA isnt all over this...
Don't try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make its own judgment - Zemfram Cochrane
The virus will be both dead and alive! So this is how the zombie plague will begin...
I'm not certain that this technique will scale to cats.
At the physics conventions....my best pickup line is always "hey baby, want to go back and create a quantum superposition of living things?"
Seriously, people, anyone who has read comic books knows that strange scientific experiments involving lasers, quantum mechanics and viruses can only lead to an acute case of superheroitis.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Since the collapse of the state vector is an illusion caused by the entanglement of the experimenter with the experiment, whereupon the experimenter (now in a superposition of states) can only measure one outcome, this recless creation of macromolecular superpositions will deplete the multiverse's supply of world-lines and immanentize the eschaton. We'll have doppelgangers racing madly through the streets, and it will all end in tears.
uh? it's not less alive, per-say, than a single celled amoeba or an atom. They didn't say sentient.
20+ comments in and no Tron references. Sad.
Maybe they can time this to coincide with the TR2N release?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
...to get sick.
A lot of the researchers who work with viruses consider them to be alive. See for example this piece by Abbie Smith explaining why viruses should be considered to be alive and why most of the arguments against are not convincing: http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2009/03/ten_five_reasons_clumsy_excuse.php. The people who argue that viruses aren't alive are almost inevitably non-biologists or biologists who don't work with viruses.
I was under the impression that there was nothing to be gained by doing the schrodinger's cat experiment. The idea is that in collapsing the probability wave of any object, the "observer"-object (really anything that the collapsing object interacts with, conciousnes not required!) essentially becomes a superposition of states. This forms an outward expanding wave of super position with the individuals caught within the wave observing it as collapsed and those outside the event observing all those that interact with the superpositions becoming superpositions themselves.
For example scientist-A is in an isolated box and has a cat in an isolated box. The cat is a superposition either dead or alive, is definately one or the other when he opens the box. Let's say for him, the cat is dead when he opens it and that makes him sad. However the scientist-B, outside the larger box which contains scientist-A can now say that the box is filled a superposition of A-with dead cat (sad scientist), and A-with live cat (happy scientist). This is because scientist-B does not know the result of scientist-A opening the box,only that room now contains a superposition of a sad or happy man with a dead or live cat. Only when B opens this larger box does it the superposition of A collapse for scientist B. Now B is in the same position - he is now be a superposition of states of scientist-B seeing sad-man with dead cat, and scientist-B seeing happy-man with live cat. So the idea is that ALL quantum events function in this way. Performing this on any object, be it virus or molecule or cat. Of course because the real world has no such isolation boxes, these wavefronts of collapse and local superposition happen continuously and undetectably.
So what will happen is they'll go through all this difficulty to superpose two states. Then view the virus, seeing it in one state - all the while oblivious that they are now intertwined with that superposition to an outside observer.
Getting something where we aren't so certain whether it's really alife into a state where we actually aren't so certain whether it's really alife.
Behold the miracles of science. :-)
This experiment reeks of philosophic undertones. The liife /vs/ quantum mechanics angle might look good for a grant proposal...but this scenario is sort of a tired on the experimental level.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Surely all you need to perform the Schroedinger's Cat experiment for real is a box, a cat and a radioactive substance which decays into a poison. I thought the whole idea of superposition is that the object is simultaneously in multiple states until you observe it, at which point it is in a single state. If they can observe something in different states simultaneously, doesn't that debunk the whole theory? If they can't then what is the point of the experiment? My layman's knowledge of quantum physics is obviously lacking. Could someone explain?
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
With the Schroedinger cat you didnt know if it was alive or dead in the physical experiment. But biology has decided yet if virus are alive to start it? What will be the next thing they will use for this test? a meme?
It could be sent on a virused space mission.
I can see it now...
Me: Tell me Doc, do I have HIV?
Doctor: Well, yes and no.
But what will doing this show? I'm not a physicist, although the topic in very interesting to me. I sort of understand why it is useful in quantum computing but what effect would this have on the virus? Would it interact with other matter/organisms differently? Would it return to its normal state upon removal from the vacuum/cold or would it stay in this quantum superposition? What are the applications of this research aside from recreating Schrodinger's cat (they aren't nicknaming the virus the T-Virus are they...)?
Most probably. Most high level science is made on Linux, with "shared" code (not open source, but just because nobody even cares to select a license).
The smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste the Slashdotters' stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.
So, basically, Coca Cola is the unified field underneath reality?
The definition of life is somewhat squishy, even in Biological fields, but still, technically, viruses are not living as they do not exhibit many traits that living creatures do (eg. homeostasis, metabolism, growth, asexual or sexual reproduction, etc).
In common language, and philosophically speaking, the argument for calling a virus living could be made, but it's all just semantics.
Wikipedia has an interesting article on life and its varying definitions throughout time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life
Seriously, just re-read your post.
Great! Now we're going to infect another dimension with our viruses... Just what they need...
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
An organism is alive when it is so complex that it's impossible to create a completely accurate scheme for how it is transformed when subject to various conditions.
This would satisfy most current popular definitions of life. You cannot completely predict the movements of a human, dolphin or fly when you place a cherry pie next to them. You can however completely predict the movements of a rock when you place a cherry pie next to it. For the "deterministic brain" crowd: Obviously life is a meaningless concept, but the difficulty of predictive determinism would be a handwavingly useful point at which to start measuring it. For the "nondeterministic brain" crowd: This should be a no-brainer (pun intended).
Although in this sense, plants would probably not be defined as "life". I'm not sure whether virii and bacteria would be.
Schrodinger's Flu!
Shroedinger's point with the cat experiment was to explain how stupid it would be to take the quantum model for something that could work at human scale.
Too bad people took it seriously, as if the quantum model was more than what it is: a model.
I was under the impression that to detect the superposition you'd have to observe the experimentee having collapsed into one state while evidence exists for something it intereacted with having collapsed into a state that would have been incompatable.
For instance: Schrodenger's cat is a tom and there's a queen in heat in another compartment, with the partition opening between them after the half-death event. Sometimes when you open the box you find a pregnant queen and a tom killed by the machinery that operated before the partition opened.
(But I'm not a quantum mechanic. Perhaps a qualified physicist can vet that statement.)
How do you perform a similar detection for a virus? (And if that's not how you do it with quantum kitty, how DO you detect that the cat was in a superposition?)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Well technically they will not be able to perform Shroedinger cat's experiment since viruses in biology are not defined as living things.
They will have to evolve their experiments to be able to superposition cells at the least.
But all nitpicking aside, its still quite a nice experiment.
It's all fun and games until you create the descolada! We'll all be Pequeninos or sentient philotic trees before this is done!
The alive/not-alive debate is, I think, the wrong question.
.
The better questions would be:
.
"What invariant properties do all self-replicators (e.g. salt crystals in solution, books, money, religions, cats, etc.) share?"
.
What specific properties do self-replicators in the domain of organic chemicals share, in addition to the more general case of self-replicators?"
.
I think that's all you can meaningfully ask. I believe the second question is what we usually mean by "alive."
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Got it. Magic.
I just hope they don't call it the qvirus. Please. Don't do it!
Next you'll have is biologists who will invent the field of quantum biology (which already exists, but forget about it for the fun of the moment), and claim that it is about harnessing the biological variety of parallel universes.
And then presumably, head back to the church of scientology.
--exa--
This is certainly a (remarkable article/slow news day). I will be looking (forward to this experiment/for something better to read) and the result will (more than likely/fat chance) collapse this waveform so I better know whether I (cheer for science/give a rat's ass).
Virii don't respond to external stimuli, slalshdotters DO when they're mothers call to them from upstairs..
"GET THE F*** OFF THAT COMPUTER AND COME UP HERE AND TAKE OUT THE TRASH!" .......
Oh, wait, nevermind!
I read the title as "Creating a Quantum Suppository"
The C2 wiki had a massive debate about the definition of "life". We explored scenarios like self-replicating robots, prions, brain emulations on chips, viruses, etc. No consensus was ever reached, but it was a fun debate.
After thinking about it, I drafted a multi-factored criteria/algorithm:
* Shaped by natural selection - 12 points (co-requisite A)
* Ability to adapt to changes - 4 points (co-requisite B)
* Reproduces - 8 points
* Maintains self - 7 points
* Consumes energy - 3 points
* Complex - 2 points
An item must score at least 15 points to qualify and have at least one of the first two properties (natural selection or adaptability). The various criteria may also get partial scores if they only partially qualify.
The reason that at least one of the first two are needed is that life cannot be "static". If it's static, it's merely a machine. It must somehow change based on circumstances. A race of robots that simply makes exact copies of themselves forever is not "life" because the group does not adapt. However, if they re-engineer themselves based on circumstances, they then qualify.
A tricky borderline case would be cloning Einstein's brain and emulating it electronically. Such brain(s) will stay the same brain forever. However, brains can learn and adapt. Thus, it qualifies at least partially on the 2nd.
Table-ized A.I.
Wait, are viruses ever 'alive' ? This is hardly schrodinger's cat.
It also sounds like a really good way to destroy every shred of life on the planet -- or at least set up a doomsday scenario in your screenplay that will never get published. Or maybe turn yourself into the Hulk.
What are you people thinking?? Haven't you ever seen a science fiction movie?? Viruses teleporting themselves through isolation barriers will threaten the entire WORLD!!!
The macro viruses on star trek voyager kind of remind me of half-life head suckers.
Wouldn't a superposition of all the possible quantum states of the virus also include all possible mutations of the virus' DNA? i.e., instant mutant lethal super-swine-flu!
Or are we just generating a subset of the possible quantum states without any real comprehension of how that would affect the DNA...
We are the 198 proof..
I'm not sure, but isn't it the case that Bose-Einstein condensates have been created (a collection of super cooled particles) and shown to behave as if they were a single particle?
Specifically, haven't physicists achieved putting such a condensate in a superposition? Wouldn't that count as a larger scale demonstration of superposition?
I can see that a virus is going to be much more complex than a bunch of uniform particles, but why should scale matter whether superposition is possible? Don't all objects experience some level of superpostion, only it occurs for immeasurably small time periods before wave collapse?
Hell, there are no rules here-- we're trying to accomplish something. --Thomas A. Edison
If it can reproduce, it's alive.
In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
I thought Schrodinger's Cat was meant to mock Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics and superposition... not actually suggest a rational experiment for proving or disproving anything.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Alright, I have to admit that this particular article went way over my head. Anyone care to explain the summary in laymen terms, so that stupid, ignorant and uneducated people can understand ?
Last time I checked (admittedly, that was five years ago in AP Bio), viruses still didn't fit biology's qualifications for life. They don't maintain homeostasis. Viruses aren't "alive." You can't really quantify if an virus is alive or dead - only "active" or "dormant."
Let me put it to you theoretical types in your own language. The virus ALREADY exists in a superposition of states - those of "alive" and "dead" - and you can't collapse that wavefunction until biology solves the Schroedinger Virus Equation for the system.
You must be new here. Welcome to slashdot.
this creating superimposed states of living things is just waiting for "The Fly" sorts of outcomes - scientist goes home with normal body, head of a virus, tiny virus with scientist head screams at camera in voice too high to hear
Worse still will be the quantum flu containing all possible mutations that collapses into just the right one to kill each person it infects
The concept of detecting multiple levels of viruses' sense of fun makes my head hurt. I think I can deal with a single level: ``Are we having fun yet [yN]?''
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
Since Schrodinger demonstrated their strange quantum properties by studying his own.
I'm sure my cat exists in a supposition of all possible locations including next to the food bowl and the wave function only collapses when the food container lid is cracked.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I think you guys have more than completely missed the point. As a student working on empirical quantum models in the social sciences, and in particular in IR, the fact that scientists are moving from empirical data on particles to empirical data on quasi-cellular models is a quantum leap.
Get over yourselves. If anything, the title is slightly off, but this debate is quite irrelevant to the importance.
I think you guys have more than completely missed the point. As a student working on empirical quantum models in the social sciences, and in particular in IR, the fact that scientists are moving from empirical data on particles to empirical data on quasi-cellular models is a quantum leap.
If anything, the title is slightly off, but this debate is quite irrelevant to the importance.
as far as i'm concerned i just want my virus dead.
Yeah, so, when are we going to do this with people? Oh, wait...
> The technique will involve storing a virus in a vacuum and then
> cooling it to its quantum-mechanical ground state in a microcavity.
Okay, maybe not.
Also, when did viruses become living things? I still remember when they changed the definition of "alive" to include plants and exclude fire, but I've *never* heard a definition that would include viruses.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
the H1H1 virus into us. no0o0oo0oo
Will this enable teleporting viruses?
(disclaimer IANARS)
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I have made the experience with a real cat, but with no laser:
http://www.raphisme.ch/general/general/Artworks/Entrees/2009/5/3_Schrodingers_cat.html
really?