Quantum information can be negative

[Celebration]

http://www.physorg.com/news5621.html

What could negative knowledge possibly mean? "If I tell it to you, you will know less," explained Dr Andreas Winter.

Such strange situations can occur because what it means to know something is very different in the quantum world. "In the quantum world, we can know too much," added Dr Oppenheim, "and it is in these situations where one finds negative knowledge." Negative knowledge (or more precisely – ‘negative information’) turns out to be precisely the right amount to cancel the fact that we know too much.

In the quantum world, there are things we just cannot know, no matter how clever we are. For example, we cannot know both the position and momentum of a small particle exactly. One can also have situations where someone knows more than everything. This is known as quantum ‘entanglement’, and when two people share entanglement, there can be negative information.

While all this might appear to be very mysterious,Dr Michal Horodecki is quick to point out that the idea of negative information can be put on a rigorous scientific footing. "We can quantify information in terms of how much stuff I need to send you before you get to know something. In the case of negative quantum information, you can get to know something without me sending you any quantum particles. In fact, you will gain the potential to learn more quantum information in the future."

[papau]

1. I love QM - it makes religious faith seem "easy" - but then I am filled

up with negative knowledge and it will take at least a few more grad school degrees to get me "even on knowledge" so as to be able to apply for and get hired at that McJob flipping burgers.

Or - if I have huge amount of negative knowledge - am I smart - just negative?

So many questions....

LOL - yet the math is solid - it just the interpretation that is fun!

:-)

[Celebration]

3. Love all the new physics too

It's kind of the "gotcha" factor and it is quite amusing.

Seems as soon as we think we know something, the "laws" of physics say "Ha. Gotcha!" I had thought that was indirect, with observors affecting experiments, quantum entanglement, spooky action at a distance. But it appears more direct than that!! What giveth taketh away!! There is a nice symmetry to that.

McJobbs probably value negative knowledge.

Funny how we can think of non quantum examples of negative knowledge. This may be one too. Maybe it was negative knowledge that produced the math proving negative knowledge.

LOL. In any case I love it.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are...

As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know.
Don Rumsfeld
February 12, 2002

Could he be moonlighting as a QM/physiscist??

[papau]

4. LOL - He has a future in QM!

:-)

[Igel]

6. If I ever have grad students, I want them to learn that bit on the

first day of classes.

Researching known unknowns is sometimes easy--it's the unknown unknowns that get you in hot water. But uncovering an unknown unknown can be really exciting.

Although it sometimes turns out that some of the known knowns we really don't know, and it sometimes turns out some unknown unknowns are actually unknown knowns.

[ken-in-seattle]

5. quote:

Anyone who says that they can contemplate quantum mechanics without becoming dizzy has not understood the concept in the least.
--Niels Bohr

[Nihil]

7. Duh

Fox News & co have been proving this for years ...

[Tesha]

8. Sort'a like Fox news...

> "If I tell it to you, you will know less,"

It's just like what happens to you, hour-upon-hour, as you watch
Faux News...

Tesha