Re: Quantum Computers [was Read any good books lately?]

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Wed, 18 Aug 1999 11:14:08 -0700 (PDT)

> Bell's inequality has been experimentally proven to be false and that pretty
> much torpedoes the hidden variable idea, certainly the loopholes are very
> small and they seem to keep shrinking even more every year. Anyway, how
> could you be proven wrong, all good scientific theories need a way to do
> that. If you don't see interference bands many worlds is dead and Copenhagen
> is possibly right, if you do see interference bands Copenhagen is dead and
> many worlds is probably correct.
>
> There are only two possible outcomes, what's your prediction, do we get
> interference bands or not, how do you place your bet?

But doesn't the experimental disproof of Bell's inequality give us the answer? We will see the interference pattern, because our requirement that the QC be entirely reversible and maintain quantum coherence throughout the experiment forbids us from assuming that the electrons went through either slot. Our QC cannot by definition /record/ its observation (or even the fact that it made one), because that would be irreversible, so we are forbidden from assuming that it /made/ an observation; we only want to assume it did because we have chosen to call it conscious. But the electrons don't care about our silly definitions--either we record the measurement irreversibly (ringing a bell, writing it down, killing a cat--whatever) and we get one slot or the other, or else we don't and we get the interference pattern. There's nothing special about the QC to change that.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC