88
votes
Accepted
Would anything bad happen to humanity if quantum tunneling stopped working overnight?
We wouldn't notice anything because we would be dead. And with us all life forms.
Oh, yeah, that count as "the worst which could happen", I guess.
Why? Quantum tunneling plays a role in ...
- 301k
50
votes
Quantum Based AI getting around Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"
Asimov himself proposed ways to circumvent the Three Laws.
"A robot may not harm a human": but what is a human? George-series robots are so human-like that they deduce they are humans. They are ...
- 55.9k
49
votes
Accepted
Could negative kelvin be achieved?
To use scientifically correct terms: forget about it.
The first reason comes from the definition of temperature. In layman's terms, temperature measures how much the molecules of matter vibrate around ...
- 301k
42
votes
How small could an animal be before it is consciously aware of the effects of quantum mechanics?
You appear to have a misunderstanding of how physics works. Classical physics (i.e., the thing we generally refer to when discussing how things interact) is merely an approximation of quantum ...
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38
votes
Could negative kelvin be achieved?
The short answer is that it is indeed possible to create systems with negative temperatures. Unfortunately, that doesn't imply that the system in question has a negative energy density.
What is ...
- 102k
30
votes
Would anything bad happen to humanity if quantum tunneling stopped working overnight?
What the heck is quantum tunneling?
This is key to a coherent discussion of the question. Unlike the name suggests, the phenomenon does not necessitate a repeated interaction, nor does it involve the ...
- 2,705
28
votes
Accepted
What is the most plausible way to rule out string theory?
First, I agree with L.Dutch; so I am avoiding duplicating that answer!
String Theory is already defeating itself; there have been two books written on the problems within it. Not Even Wrong (The ...
- 34.8k
25
votes
Can a crystal grow or propagate faster than 'c'?
Information can't travel faster than c. That's what the implication of light speed boils down to.
Crystal formation faster than c would require that atoms at some great distance change position/...
- 12.6k
24
votes
How small could an animal be before it is consciously aware of the effects of quantum mechanics?
In the world of processors 5nm was assumed as smallest size before quantum tunneling starts to be a problem. If you shrink your wasp 1000 times it will become 200nm long, since its legs are much ...
- 4,948
24
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How small could an animal be before it is consciously aware of the effects of quantum mechanics?
My day job is (currently) designing the software/firmware/electronics for nanopositioning systems. With our current best kit, we can reliably and repeatably move something to 70pm accuracy over a ...
- 21.3k
24
votes
Accepted
Quantum supercomputers in orbit?
2.7 K is the background temperature of space. In Earth orbit, you've got a huge pile of fusing plasma 1 AU away, and a big warm planet filling nearly half the sky. The equilibrium temperature of an ...
- 6,483
23
votes
Quantum Based AI getting around Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"
I don't see the question as making any sense. What the computer is built on, how it operates is irrelevant to how it's programmed. Quantum processer = hardware. Laws = software. You can program any ...
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20
votes
What would be some ways to balance energy/mass from a parallel universe to another when someone - or something - travels through a wormhole into it?
Energy conservation is not a universal constraint. It is a consequence of a symmetry called time translation invariance and energy is not conserved if this symmetry is broken. In fact our own universe ...
- 1,622
19
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Accepted
How small could an animal be before it is consciously aware of the effects of quantum mechanics?
It is hard to put an exact number on this, but it seems like the answer would be maybe 1000 atoms at most. From Wikipedia,
The [double slit] experiment can be done with entities much larger than ...
- 3,407
17
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What is the most plausible way to rule out string theory?
Following on Popper's theory of science, a theory is scientific if it can produce forecasts on the outcome of an experiment which can be falsified.
That is, one can make an experiment and show that ...
- 301k
16
votes
How small could an animal be before it is consciously aware of the effects of quantum mechanics?
Quite large animals are "affected" by quantum mechanics, because even large animals consist of small parts and many mechanisms at the smallest scales of animal bodies rely on quantum mechanics.
For ...
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15
votes
Quantum Based AI getting around Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"
Asimov's laws of robotics are not technical laws; they're societal laws, imposed by humans to ensure that robots don't destroy mankind.
You can make a robot that breaks any of them, still using ...
- 102k
15
votes
What would be some ways to balance energy/mass from a parallel universe to another when someone - or something - travels through a wormhole into it?
In our world we know that, because of thermodynamics, the entropy of a closed system can only increase. Yet we have systems where locally the entropy decrease. This does not violate the thermodynamic ...
- 301k
15
votes
Accepted
Could variation of the universal constants affect computation?
The problem is that too much else depends on those constants. If you change them, lots of things besides microchips will break. Like star formation, or the exceedingly delicate and complex organic ...
- 8,841
12
votes
How small could an animal be before it is consciously aware of the effects of quantum mechanics?
Your question is rather vague, in that you don't specify what you mean by "affected". Quantum mechanics can affect everything at the molecular level. By that logic, even blue whales are affected by ...
- 449
12
votes
Accepted
How could two alternate realities "blend" at a single point in space time?
Fundamentally, you're not going to get into the subatomic physics of the blend. In fact, it's almost certain that if you tried, you'd get the physics wrong (since there is no physical version of this)...
- 133k
11
votes
How small could an animal be before it is consciously aware of the effects of quantum mechanics?
The world we know, macroscopically, would not be without quantum mechanics. Even solid matter wouldn't stay in cohesion without it. The sun wouldn't shine, chemical reactions wouldn't exist etc.
You ...
- 349
10
votes
Why would futuristic cities still keep live pets when there are convenient realistic holograms and animatronics?
This is like asking why a book is better than an ebook, or why a letter is better than an email. No matter how convenient or easy or clean something is, there's just something about knowing it's real. ...
- 2,150
10
votes
Accepted
As a time traveler, how would I see quantum randomness change history?
It depends on the time-travel model.
In the “closed timelike curve”, there is only one history and your actions in the past are as they always were. It’s impossible to change anything.
If it has ...
- 69.8k
10
votes
Can this FTL communication, based on quantum entanglement, work?
No.
The Speed Of Light is Really the Speed Of Information Transfer
The speed of light isn't the speed of light, it's the fastest that information can be transferred across spacetime. Light travels ...
- 30.2k
10
votes
Could a charge with more than 3 types be self consistent?
Yes, it could be consistent.
For each of the fundamental forces, we have a certain conserved quantity, which we refer to as a charge. The converse of a result called Noether's theorem tells us that ...
- 102k
10
votes
Quantum supercomputers in orbit?
Heat transfer in earth atmosphere
In earth atmosphere, heat is transferred from hot CPU to heat sink by conduction and then a fan transfers heat from heat sink to outside by convection (using air as ...
- 5,631
10
votes
Accepted
Could a quantum computer be integrated into a biological medium?
You don't need to explain. The more you explain, the more you risk of rising an eyebrow in your readers, because you will end up stumbling in one of those nitty gritty details which make the entire ...
- 301k
9
votes
How small could an animal be before it is consciously aware of the effects of quantum mechanics?
Although it's correct to answer "QM happens at macroscopic scales and it affects humans", I'll try to answer in the spirit of the question.
What is a "quantum mechanical effect"? I'll pick one: ...
- 2,269
8
votes
How to steal money if you have a quantum computer?
For the purposes of this answer I'm going to treat your hypothetical quantum computer's prime benefit as being it's capability to perform conventional computational mathematics in a way that's ...
- 2,316
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