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Q is for quantum and 'Q-life'
July 08, 2009As the world celebrates Charles Darwin, who was born 200 years ago, physicists can be forgiven a certain jealousy at the spotlight being placed on his profound legacy. But physicists have in fact had a huge impact on biology - no more so than in helping to discover the structure of DNA and in developing medical-imaging techniques like MRI. The July issue of Physics World marks those achievements and examines at some of the ways in which current ideas in physics are still changing biology.
Features in this issue include a close look at how physics is informing our understanding of cells and of the brain, while Paul Davies, a physicist, astrobiologist and director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University, suggests there are tentative signs that life itself may have arisen as a result of physicists' long-cherished theory of quantum mechanics.
Many of the pioneers of quantum mechanics, such as Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger, hoped that their theory, which proved so successful in explaining non-living matter, could one day explain living matter too. But although quantum mechanics can explain the sizes and shapes of molecules -- and how they are bonded together -- no clear-cut "life principle" has emerged from the quantum realm.
Still, Davies points to increasing, albeit controversial, evidence that suggest that fundamental quantum processes like quantum tunnelling and quantum superpositions can play a fundamental role in biology.
In particular, researchers think that quantum mechanics could lie at the heart of the mechanism by which the European robin can navigate over spectacularly long distances by means of the Earth's magnetic field. Others, meanwhile, think that quantum mechanics is essential to the process of photosynthesis.
Davies also asks whether some form of "quantum replicator", or "Q-life", could provide a solution to the challenge of understanding the origin of life itself. Most researchers suppose that life began with a set of self-replicating digital-information-carrying molecules or a self-catalyzing chemical cycle but, Davies argues, they key properties of life -- replication with variation and natural selection -- does not logically require structures to be replicated. "It is sufficient," writes Davies, "that information is replicated, which opens up the possibility that life may have started with some form of quantum replicator."
The advantage of copying information is that it would be much faster than building duplicate molecular structures, while quantum fluctuations provides a natural mechanism for variation and coherent superpositions could let life Q-life evolve rapidly by exploring an entire "landscape" of possibilities at the same time.
As Davies writes, "Life has had three and a half billion years to solve problems and optimise efficiency. If quantum mechanics can enhance its performance, or open up new possibilities, it is likely that life will have discovered the fact and exploited the opportunities."
Institute of Physics
Still, Davies points to increasing, albeit controversial, evidence that suggest that fundamental quantum processes like quantum tunnelling and quantum superpositions can play a fundamental role in biology.
In particular, researchers think that quantum mechanics could lie at the heart of the mechanism by which the European robin can navigate over spectacularly long distances by means of the Earth's magnetic field. Others, meanwhile, think that quantum mechanics is essential to the process of photosynthesis.
Davies also asks whether some form of "quantum replicator", or "Q-life", could provide a solution to the challenge of understanding the origin of life itself. Most researchers suppose that life began with a set of self-replicating digital-information-carrying molecules or a self-catalyzing chemical cycle but, Davies argues, they key properties of life -- replication with variation and natural selection -- does not logically require structures to be replicated. "It is sufficient," writes Davies, "that information is replicated, which opens up the possibility that life may have started with some form of quantum replicator."
The advantage of copying information is that it would be much faster than building duplicate molecular structures, while quantum fluctuations provides a natural mechanism for variation and coherent superpositions could let life Q-life evolve rapidly by exploring an entire "landscape" of possibilities at the same time.
As Davies writes, "Life has had three and a half billion years to solve problems and optimise efficiency. If quantum mechanics can enhance its performance, or open up new possibilities, it is likely that life will have discovered the fact and exploited the opportunities."
Institute of Physics
Quantum Mechanics Current Events and Quantum Mechanics News RSSNIST demonstrates 'universal' programmable quantum processor
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated the first "universal" programmable quantum information processor able to run any program allowed by quantum mechanics-the rules governing the submicroscopic world-using two quantum bits (qubits) of information.
First Bose-Einstein condensation of strontium
In an international first, scientists from the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) produced a Bose-Einstein condensate of the alkaline-earth element strontium, thus narrowly winning an international competition between many first-rate scientific groups
Quantum gas microscope offers glimpse of quirky ultracold atoms
Physicists at Harvard University have created a quantum gas microscope that can be used to observe single atoms at temperatures so low the particles follow the rules of quantum mechanics, behaving in bizarre ways.
Quantum computer chips now 1 step closer to reality
In the quest for smaller, faster computer chips, researchers are increasingly turning to quantum mechanics -- the exotic physics of the small. The problem: the manufacturing techniques required to make quantum devices have been equally exotic. That is, until now.
Field experiment on a robust hierarchical metropolitan quantum cryptography network
Key Laboratory of Quantum Information (CAS), University of Science and Technology of China has recently demonstrated a metropolitan Quantum Cryptography Network (QCN) for Government Administration in Wuhu, China. Because of its scientific significance and social impact, the project is reported in Volume 54, Issue 17 (September, 2009) of the Chinese Science Bulletin authored by Fang-xing Xu et al.
UA scientists discover quantum fingerprints of chaos
Chaotic behavior is the rule, not the exception, in the world we experience through our senses, the world governed by the laws of classical physics.
Building a better qubit
Exploiting quantum mechanics for transmitting information is a tantalizing possibility because it promises secure, high speed communications.
Physicists at UC Santa Barbara make discovery in quantum mechanics
Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have made an important advance in quantum mechanics using a superconducting electrical circuit. The finding is reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
A tiny, tunable well of light, and a string theorist's toolbox
Photonics, the science of using photons to carry information, promises to continue improving a wide variety of technologies, from computing to high-speed communication.
Atoms don't dance the 'bose nova'
Hanns-Christoph Naegerl's research group has investigated how ultracold quantum gases behave in lower spatial dimensions. They successfully realized an exotic state, where, due to the laws of quantum mechanics, atoms align along a one-dimensional structure.
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