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7:30 pm, Wednesday, October 12
Fairmont Social lounge, St. John's College
Controlling the Future: Lessons from Quantum Mechanics
Moshe Shapiro
University of British Columbia
Even though Newtonian Mechanics of large bodies is completely deterministic,
our practical ability to predict the future, let alone control it, is a
practical
impossibility, because of "chaos". In contrast, for microscopic bodies
(e.g., a
molecule) where Quantum Mechanics reigns supreme, chaos does not exist! The
wave equations then allow accurate prediction even for relatively long
times. The
catch is that these quantum waves only tell us what is likely to happen
'statistically'.
Recently we have shown how to use lasers to change this situation, using
"coherent control", a concept now demonstrated experimentally in hundreds of
cases. I shall discuss a number of these demonstrations, and argue that they
shed light on the very act of measurement in quantum mechanics and on the
connection between wave functions and probabilities.
Find out more about Moshe Shapiro at his webpage.
Additional resources for this talk: video,
slides.
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