Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence by 
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16 +Created 1970-01-01
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16 +Created 1970-01-01The idea the the wave function of a small observed system collapses "obviously" cannot be the full physical truth, only a very useful approximation of reality.
Because then are are hard pressed to determine the boundary between what collapses and what doesn't, and there isn't such a boundary, as everything is interacting, including the observer.
The many-worlds interpretation is an elegant explanation for this. Though it does feel a bit sad and superfluous.
The Schrodinger equation Hamiltonian has to be Hermitian by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16 +Created 1970-01-01
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16 +Created 1970-01-01The Schrödinger equation Hamiltonian has to be a Hermitian so we will have only positive energies I think: quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/12113/why-does-a-hamiltonian-have-to-be-hermitian
Contains the full state of the quantum system.
This is in contrast to classical mechanics where e.g. the state of mechanical system is given by two real functions: position and speed.
The wave equation in position representation on the other hand encodes speed in "how fast does the complex phase spin around", and direction in "does it spin clockwise or counterclockwise", as described well at: Video "Visualization of Quantum Physics (Quantum Mechanics) by udiprod (2017)". Then once you understand that, it is more compact to just view those graphs with the phase color coded as in Video "Simulation of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation (JavaScript Animation) by Coding Physics (2019)".
Analogous problem to the secondary structure of proteins. Likely a bit simpler due to the strong tendency for complementary pairs to bind.
Or in other words: there is no Turing machine that always halts for every input with the yes/no output.
Every undecidable problem must obviously have an infinite number of "possibilities of stuff you can try": if there is only a finite number, then you can brute-force it.
Lists of undecidable problems.
Coolest ones besides the obvious boring halting problem:
Quantum circuits vs classical circuits by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16 +Created 1970-01-01
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16 +Created 1970-01-01Just like a classic programmer does not need to understand the intricacies of how transistors are implemented and CMOS semiconductors, the quantum programmer does not understand physical intricacies of the underlying physical implementation.
The main difference to keep in mind is that quantum computers cannot save and observe intermediate quantum state, so programming a quantum computer is basically like programming a combinatorial-like circuit with gates that operate on (qu)bits:
For this reason programming a quantum computer is much like programming a classical combinatorial circuit as you would do with SPICE, verilog-or-vhdl, in which you are basically describing a graph of gates that goes from the input to the output
For this reason, we can use the words "program" and "circuit" interchangeably to refer to a quantum program
Also remember that and there is no no clocks in combinatorial circuits because there are no registers to drive; and so there is no analogue of clock in the quantum system either,
Does not require entangled particles, unlike E91 which does.
en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_key_distribution&oldid=1079513227#BB84_protocol:_Charles_H._Bennett_and_Gilles_Brassard_(1984) explains it well. Basically:
- Alice and Bob randomly select a measurement basis of either 90 degrees and 45 degrees for each photon
- Alice measures each photon. There are two possible results to either measurement basis: parallel or perpendicular, representing values 0 or 1. TODO understand better: weren't the possible results supposed to be pass or non-pass? She writes down the results, and sends the (now collapsed) photons forward to Bob.
- Bob measures the photons and writes down the results
- Alice and Bob communicate to one another their randomly chosen measurement bases over the unencrypted classic channel.This channel must be authenticated to prevent man-in-the-middle. The only way to do this authentication that makes sense is to use a pre-shared key to create message authentication codes. Using public-key cryptography for a digital signature would be pointless, since the only advantage of QKD is to avoid using public-key cryptography in the first place.
- they drop all photons for which they picked different basis. The measurements of those which were in the same basis are the key. Because they are in the same basis, their results must always be the same in an ideal system.
- if there is an eavesdropper on the line, the results of measurements on the same basis can differ.Unfortunately, this can also happen due to imperfections in the system.Alice and Bob must decide what level of error is above the system's imperfections and implies that an attacker is listening.
Quarks, Gluon flux tubes, Strong Nuclear Force, & Quantum Chromodynamics by Physics Videos by Eugene Khutoryansky (2018)
Source. Some decent visualizations of how the field lines don't expand out like they do in electromagnetism, suggesting color confinement.PHYS 485 Lecture 6: Feynman Diagrams by Roger Moore (2016)
Source. Despite the title, this is mostly about QCD. Organization developing quantum software by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16 +Created 1970-01-01
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16 +Created 1970-01-01 There are unlisted articles, also show them or only show them.