- #1
Hornbein
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Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna was trying to design experiments to produce certain quantum states and wasn't having much luck doing it. "I realized I was just guessing," he said. So why not have a program do that guessing. It can try a million guesses. So he did.
While the resulting experiments are simple, no human seems to be able to "understand" them. That is, they can check and see that the math is correct, but can go no further than that.
It's not really surprising. Those experienced in quantum mechanics often say that intuition gets in the way. They try to concentrate on the math. Since the computer has no intuition to mislead its guesses, it has an advantage.
Zeilinger was working on entanglement of three photons, which evidently is exceptionally weird.
"Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." -- John von Neumann
http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/25
While the resulting experiments are simple, no human seems to be able to "understand" them. That is, they can check and see that the math is correct, but can go no further than that.
It's not really surprising. Those experienced in quantum mechanics often say that intuition gets in the way. They try to concentrate on the math. Since the computer has no intuition to mislead its guesses, it has an advantage.
Zeilinger was working on entanglement of three photons, which evidently is exceptionally weird.
"Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." -- John von Neumann
http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/25