The Quantum World at Low Energies

Y. Fang, Christina Gao, Ying-Ying Li +6 more

Tom Banks

I propose that much recent history can be explained by hypothesizing that sometime during the last quarter of 2016, the history of the world underwent a macroscopic quantum tunneling event, creating, according to the Many Worlds Interpretation, a new branch of the multiverse in which my consciousness and that of my readers is now trapped. The failure of much political polling is then understood by assuming that the particular branch we are on had very low amplitude in the quantum wave function of the multiverse. In this view, one must take a different attitude towards alternative facts than that proposed by the mainstream media. We know that quantum tunneling can change the low energy laws of physics in the different branches of the wave function. Alternative facts may simply be the reflection of the media's ignorance of the state of the world after a quantum transition of this magnitude.

Sungbin Lim, Roslan Abd-Shukor, K. H. Kwek

Hartmut Ising

Information and the Three Worlds View in Science and the BibleThis article develops a three-worlds perspective in which information provides a conceptual link between the physical, mental/quantum, and timeless worlds. Drawing on Wheeler, Zeilinger, Penrose, and biblical sources, it is proposed that a photon, prior to absorption, may be regarded as one bit of information in its eigen-world. A gedankenexperiment with a double slit and a photodetector is used to associate the absorption interval with one optical period and to interpret Planck’s relation E = hν as E = h i₁, where i₁ is the elementary information flux.The article then extends this interpretation to complex information fluxes and proposes the hypothesis that an information flux I has an energy equivalent E = Ih, with positive information flux corresponding to negative energy. This leads to the generalized conservation expression E + mc² + Ih = constant. An experimental test is proposed: measure the repulsive force between two optical fibers carrying a high-rate information flux. As information flux computer software with low redundancy may be used and a fully redundant signal as control. The feasibility of such an experiment using the current technology is demonstrated. The proposal is intended as a falsifiable experimental test of the hypothesized equivalence between information flux and energy.

Abner Shimony

Charles S. Adams, J F McCann

Quantum fluids are able to flow past obstacles without creating drag and through channels without any resistance. This superfluidity is a consequence of Bose–Einstein condensation, a process in which all the particles gather in the same, lowest-energy quantum state. At low flow velocities, energy exchanges between the obstacle and the fluid are forbidden because of the twin requirements of energy and momentum conservation. As the flow speed is increased, however, the superfluidity breaks down at some critical velocity above which excitations in the fluid can occur. These excitations can be phonons (i.e. quantized vibrations), vortices or, in the case of superfluid liquid helium, rotons (see Rotons: a low-temperature puzzle by Russell Donnelly Physics World February 1997 p25)