In two precognition experiments, the subjects were faced with four colored lamps which were lit in random sequence.Their objective was to guess which of the four lamps would light up next and to press the corresponding button.In the first experiment, there were three subjects, who carried out a total of 63,066 trials.Their combined results were highly significant (p < 2 x 10 -9 ).In the second experiment, two of the same subjects plus a third had their choice of trying to predict, as before, which lamp would light up next (to try for high score) or to choose one which would not light next (low score).In a total of 20,000 trials, the subjects were again successful in achieving their aim to a highly significant extent (p < 10 -10 ).For providing the random target sequence, use was made of single quantum processes which may represent nature's most elementary source of randomness.A practical advantage of the device is that it works fast and that the randomness can be easily computer tested.The author is a physicist who is particularly interested in statistical physics and the foundations of quantum theory.After teaching at universities in Germany, Canada, and the U.S. he has joined Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories.---[Original]Ed.
In two precognition experiments, the subjects were faced with four colored lamps which were lit in random sequence.Their objective was to guess which of the four lamps would light up next and to press the corresponding button.In the first experiment, there were three subjects, who carried out a total of 63,066 trials.Their combined results were highly significant (p < 2 x 10 -9 ).In the second experiment, two of the same subjects plus a third had their choice of trying to predict, as before, which lamp would light up next (to try for high score) or to choose one which would not light next (low score).In a total of 20,000 trials, the subjects were again successful in achieving their aim to a highly significant extent (p < 10 -10 ).For providing the random target sequence, use was made of single quantum processes which may represent nature's most elementary source of randomness.A practical advantage of the device is that it works fast and that the randomness can be easily computer tested.The author is a physicist who is particularly interested in statistical physics and the foundations of quantum theory.After teaching at universities in Germany, Canada, and the U.S. he has joined Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories.---[Original]Ed.
Abstract : It is generally assumed that experiments involving statistical processes can always be designed in such a way that the outcome is independent of the experimenter. In order to test this basic assumption a series of experiments was performed with carefully designed apparatus whose central feature is a device utilizing a quantum process to generate random numbers modulo 4. The random number generator is connected to four lamps and four corresponding pushbuttons. Pressing any one of the four buttons triggers a quantum process and produces a random number, which is indicated by the lighting of one of the four lamps. The system is designed such that there should be no correlation between the number (1..4) of the button pressed and the number (1..4) of the lamp lighted, and furthermore, no correlation between successively generated random numbers. A large number of human subjects were asked to press the buttons manually with the objective in mind of obtaining a high number of coincidences (hits), i.e., events where the lamp next to the pressed button lights. From the results, it is tentatively concluded that there exists a weak but significant correlation between the statistical processes operative in these experiments and the experimenter who initiates the processes.
PK experiments with prerecorded targets (Schmidt, 1976) are interesting because they suggest a variety of new test arrangements to study the basic PK mechanism. In addition, they permit the inclusion of independent observers who, with little time investment, can obtain first-hand evidence of any anomalous effects that may occur. Four such experiments with different independent observers, different subject populations, and minor variations have been performed previously (Schmidt & Braud, 1993; Schmidt, Morris, & Hardin, 1990; Schmidt, Morris, & Rudolph, 1986; Schmidt & Schlitz, 1988) with the first author as main experimenter and the other one or two authors acting as independent observers. The results of PK experiments with prerecorded random events appear most interesting and most puzzling because the subject's mental effort is made long after the random events to be affected have occurred. One tentative viewpoint (Schmidt, 1978; Walker, 1979) is that the subject's mental effort could act backward to the time when the random events were generated and recorded. This would imply a noncausal mechanism in the sense that the effect (the biasing of the random events) occurs before the cause (the mental effort). It might be this element of noncausality that makes psychic phenomena so intuitively implausible and at odds with the known principles of physics. Another viewpoint (Schmidt, 1982) is based on the quantum theoretical notion that there is no if there is no observer. Thus, the decisions of the random generator might become reality only when the subject observes the outcome during the test session. The subject's effort would not have to act into the past because the decision on the outcome would not yet be made until the subject received feedback during the PK test session. In this case, a preobservation of the recorded events should inhibit the subject's success, because the preobservation would make the random decisions real so that the subject's subsequent mental effort would come too late. For this reason it seemed particularly interesting to conduct an experiment in which half of the prerecorded random events had been preinspected so that one could compare the possible PK effects on the preobserved and not-observed events. One previous study (Schmidt, 1985) has indicated an inhibition of the PK effect by preobservation. In view of the central role of the question, however, further studies of the preobservation effect seem most important. In this and the four previous studies, the question of highest priority was whether a PK effect could be demonstrated under tightly controlled conditions. Because preobservation might inhibit the PK effect, we decided in advance to base the possible evidence for the existence of PK only on the results from the not-preobserved events. Although the independent observer was somewhat skeptical about the existence of PK, he was very interested in a possible preobservation effect because of its possible implications for quantum theory. Our subject pool consisted primarily of martial arts students as a matter of practical convenience. This population was relatively easily accessible and one that the experimenter had not yet explored. No attempt was made, however, to compare martial arts training and skill with PK performance systematically. METHOD The study was structured into 20 units such that a unit could be considered as a mini-experiment. Each unit was subdivided into 100 blocks of binary data. The sequence of binary data in each block determined two partial results, an even result and an odd result, arising from the even- or odd-numbered bits in the sequence. The partial results were defined so that by inverting the bits in the sequence (interchanging 1s and 0s) the signs of the partial results were inverted. In following the procedure for each unit, the experimenter used a true random generator to record the random bit-sequences for the 100 blocks on floppy disk. …
Quantum theory is a mathematical formalism that allows physicists to predict the probability of observing different outcomes in experiments on sub-atomic systems. It has been tested more rigorously than any theory in science, and has never been wrong. However, strictly speaking it does not “explain” the behavior of sub-atomic systems, since it does not propose a mechanism to account for it. It tells us that they will behave in certain ways, but not why . Thus, quantum mechanics is not a theory in the sense familiar to social scientists, namely a body of laws that explains some part of reality. The explanatory question is the subject of the interpretive debates that surround the theory, not of the theory per se. That said, the literature routinely refers to quantum mechanics as a theory, and I shall use the terms interchangeably below. A common way to introduce quantum theory is through some of the key experiments that have confirmed its predictions. In this chapter I describe three of the most well-known: the Two-Slit Experiment, the Bell Experiments, and the Delayed-Choice Experiment. While painting the same overall picture, each reveals distinct features of the quantum realm. While their interpretation is contested, here I will do my best to present just the theory's findings, saving interpretive questions for later. The Two-Slit Experiment This experiment actually had its origins long before the quantum revolution. One of the most controversial questions in classical physics was whether light was made of particles or waves. In keeping with his atomistic worldview, Newton favored the particle or “corpuscular” theory of light, which was the majority view among physicists through the eighteenth century. However, in 1801 Thomas Young performed an experiment that seemed to prove conclusively that the wave theory was correct. In his experiment, Young set up a light source behind an opaque screen with one small opening or slit, through which the light passed in a concentrated beam.
In two precognition experiments, the subjects were faced with four colored lamps which were lit in random sequence.Their objective was to guess which of the four lamps would light up next and to press the corresponding button.In the first experiment, there were three subjects, who carried out a total of 63,066 trials.Their combined results were highly significant (p < 2 x 10 -9 ).In the second experiment, two of the same subjects plus a third had their choice of trying to predict, as before, which lamp would light up next (to try for high score) or to choose one which would not light next (low score).In a total of 20,000 trials, the subjects were again successful in achieving their aim to a highly significant extent (p < 10 -10 ).For providing the random target sequence, use was made of single quantum processes which may represent nature's most elementary source of randomness.A practical advantage of the device is that it works fast and that the randomness can be easily computer tested.The author is a physicist who is particularly interested in statistical physics and the foundations of quantum theory.After teaching at universities in Germany, Canada, and the U.S. he has joined Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories.---[Original]Ed.
Consider a device which, on each round, prepares one pure quantum state out of three possible ones. The overlaps between the possible states are∣⟨ψ0∣ψ1⟩∣≥δ,∣⟨ψ0∣ψ2⟩∣≥Δ02and∣⟨ψ1∣ψ2⟩∣≥Δ12. A measurement will be performed on each round. Our goal is to certify the amount of randomness that can be extracted from the measurement.
Experimental chapter that presents examples of quantum processes concerning single quantum systems, i.e. sequences comprising a state preparation part, an evolution or propagation part due to the interaction with the outer world, and a detection part. The whole sequence is repeated and its successive results stored. The examples concern quantum control of trapped ions and microwave photonsinteracting in a nondestructive way with Rydberg state cavities. It also presents "boson sampling" of photons placed in a multimode linear interferometer, a system likely to exhibit "quantum advantage," atoms trapped in an optical lattice, a promising platform for quantum simulation of complex systems, generation of "Schrödinger cats" in superconducting circuits.