Nuclear Fusion Power and World's Weather in Real Time

@FTL " Can a quantum computer reverse entropy?" Sure, but you don't need a quantum computer to reverse entropy. You've probably done it yourself, e.g. by sorting your socks. In fact, Schrodinger's definition of a living organism is one that reverses entropy. The key is that the entropy in some other part of the universe went up when we extracted energy to do the work that reduced the entropy in the sock drawer. We could leave it at that, but for the sake of completeness and keeping it interesting, I'll mention that there are attempts to understand how entropy and entanglement relate to each other, whether in connection with black holes or at a more abstract level. You can find an example of this type of work here: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/17/10/103027/meta.

Rad Antonov

My pleasure Tracey, truly. Probably best to just chill over the holidays. There is no upside to figuring it out. If you do, you can’t even tell anyone about it. They’ll think it’s hyperbole. Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2023!

Rad Antonov

This is fantastic, Rad, thanks for posting. Moving to an AdS universe is a bit out of my price range, but perhaps I can construct a small AdS bubble in this universe -- yeah, that's it, there's plenty of time over winter break to figure it out.

@FTL "Could it be possible to use a quantum computer to alter the universal quantum wave function on a large scale to teleport an object?" In theory, yes. In practice, you might want to test it on the in-laws before beaming the kids home for the holidays. ER=EPR is a claim made in a 2013 paper by Maldacena and Susskind (link below). I won't pretend to have read the whole thing or digested every detail of the sections I did read, but am happy to offer my top of the waves understanding. They start by considering a specific type of black hole called an eternal AdS-Schwarzschild BH. Eternal I think means it won't radiate away through Hawking radiation and AdS is a type of spacetime that became popular in the 90s when it was shown that the equations of gravity in such a spacetime are dual to equations of quantum mechanics on the boundary of this spacetime, aka holographic principle. They then say this type of eternal black hole can also be represented by two entangled black holes in disconnected spaces but sharing a common time. The argument relies on the AdS/CFT duality to treat the black holes as quantum mechanical objects described by a wave function. The ER bridge is a geometric construct that connects the entangled pair of black holes, i.e. the EPR and thus, ER=EPR. The implication is that any entangled particles in a quantum theory of gravity are connected by some kind of bridge...whatever that means. That's not enough however to get you teleportation. The authors even make the point in the paper that their idea does not imply FTL communication. To get teleportation, you need an interaction Hamiltonian that couples the boundaries of the black holes and produces a matter stress tensor with negative null energy. That was shown in another paper linked below, which quickly geets technical, as you might surmise from the language in the preceding sentence. The Hamiltonian of choice to implement all of this on a quantum computer is known as SYK. It was developed by condensed matter physicists to describe strongly interacting electrons at low energies. The paper that shows how SYK can be used as an analogue for a traversable wormhole is densest of all and introduces the idea of using a quantum computer to decode the message sent through wormhole: "After a message falls into the black hole, the interaction that leads to traversability causes it to emerge on the other side, e.g. in the quantum computer." To summarize, move to an AdS universe, grab a pair of entangled black holes, hook them up to a quantum computer with SYK coupled qubits and teleport whoever you want to your New Year's Eve party. ER=EPR https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0533 Traversability: https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.05687 SYK: https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.05333 Bonus: https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.01064 P.S. The other questions will have to wait.

Rad Antonov

Sho'nuf! We're overpopulated and have caused severe declines in wildlife populations that are leading to the next mass extinction. The fossil record is replete with such events and people choose to ignore the warnings. All that's needed to send us into the extinction spiral is to lose a foundation specie and it's over.

The only way I know of understanding something is to try explaining it, so I'll give it a shot and attempt to answer your questions. If you don't mind though, it will be in separate posts that address each question, prefixed by @FTL (alas, it won't be faster than light). Hopefully, that works better with the Patreon conversation threading and gives others an opportunity to comment or disagree on the specific topics.

Rad Antonov

I agree with the idea of using fission now. They way you humans plod along, it will be 1000 Earth years before fusion becomes viable. Did I say you humans? I meant "we humans". The hold up here is public acceptance, and the coal, oil, and gas industries. The above-mentioned industries have too many politicians in their back pocket. Also, we may have to stray far beyond the tipping point before a majority of the public thinks this is a good idea.

D Brown

I'm so very fuzzy on the whole "ER=EPR", and the new wormhole inside a quantum computer. From listening to Leonard Susskind, he suggests an very interesting picture in which any change to the state of a quantum wave function should have an equivalent representation in terms of quantum logic gates. Could it be possible to use a quantum computer to alter the universal quantum wave function on a large scale to teleport an object? Can a quantum computer reverse entropy? How is negative energy actually achieved? What does this mean for exotic matter? A recent talk by Leonard Susskind on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqHHRDHLIgQ How Physicists Created a Holographic Wormhole in a Quantum Computer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOJCS1W1uzg

I agree with you about fusion, I just argue that we need to develop the integral fast reactor now as a replacement for coal fired power plants now. That shouldn't be incredible difficult as it was proven capable and safe already, it's just a scale issue. Later, when and if fusion becomes viable, it can replace fission reactors.