Understanding the New Theory of UBIT: A Breakthrough in Quantum Mechanics

[ClamShell]

Hi, I've just finished reading the article "Reality Bits" in the
January 25-31, 2014 edition of New Scientist.

These links are introductions for those of you who do not read
New Scientist:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...aster-bit.html

http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.4535

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-bit

Can anybody explain what Dr. Wootters is talking about?

I don't think he is reformulating QM with the mere substitution
of sqrt(-1) for its matrix identity since that would only yield a
notationally equivalent and trivial reformulation and the math
would not change.

But instead, I think Dr. Wooters has a new approach to
avoiding imaginary numbers in QM.

At this point I don't have a clue what Dr. Wooters is proposing
and any incite would be greately appreciated.

EDIT: and some insights would be appreciated too.

 

[marcus]

Your New Sci link needs to be repaired---copy it from browser window, not from the page.
Other people more familiar with Quantum Information theory and/or Wootters' work can help more. I'll try to help by giving some links to other related work by Wootters
W. K. Wootters, “Entanglement Sharing in Real-Vector-Space Quantum Theory,” Found. Phys. 42, 19 (2012).
http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.1479
L. Hardy and W. K. Wootters, "Limited Holism and Real-Vector-Space Quantum Theory," Found. Phys. 42, 454 (2012).
http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.1479
I notice two year interval between preprint submission to arxiv and publication. No idea why that long, not all that unusual though.

Wootters got BS Stanford 1973 and PhD UTex Austin 1980. Notice that he hasn't published much (29 papers on arxiv) for someone in his 60s, but he has co-authored with Lucien Hardy (big name) on one occasion and he has published in good peer-review journals (Foundations of Phys, Physical Review A,…, and he is Prof at Williams College. So the news is mostly good. Here is the paper you linked:
A. Aleksandrova, V. Borish, and W. K. Wootters, "Real-vector-space quantum theory with a universal quantum bit," Phys. Rev. A 87, 052106 (2013).
http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.4535

Here is his most recent paper, but there is no arxiv preprint with that exact title:
W. K. Wootters, "Communicating through Probabilities: Does Quantum Theory Optimize the Transfer of Information?" Entropy 15, 3220 (2013).
It could be substantially the same as this recent preprint with different title:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.2018
Optimal Information Transfer and Real-Vector-Space Quantum Theory

Hi, I've just finished reading the article "Reality Bits" in the
January 25-31, 2014 edition of New Scientist.

These links are introductions for those of you who do not read
New Scientist:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...aster-bit.html

http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.4535

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-bit

Can anybody explain what Dr. Wootters is talking about?

I don't think he is reformulating QM with the mere substitution
of sqrt(-1) for its matrix identity since that would only yield a
notationally equivalent and trivial reformulation and the math
would not change.

But instead, I think Dr. Wooters has a new approach to
avoiding imaginary numbers in QM.

At this point I don't have a clue what Dr. Wooters is proposing
and any incite would be greately appreciated.

EDIT: and some insights would be appreciated too.

 

[ClamShell]

Your New Sci link needs to be repaired---copy it from browser window, not from the page.

Hope this works...

http://www.newscientist.com/article...o-u-searching-for-the-quantum-master-bit.html

EDIT: Maybe this one...

http://www.newscientist.com/article...o-u-searching-for-the-quantum-master-bit.html

I get to it in win8.1 metro IE, by tabbing back to the source page, then clicking
the blank page tab.

In fact, I am noticing the above technique needs to be done on the links you(marcus)
have also posted. ?

 

[atyy]

Wootters got BS Stanford 1973 and PhD UTex Austin 1980. Notice that he hasn't published much (29 papers on arxiv) for someone in his 60s, but he has co-authored with Lucien Hardy (big name) on one occasion and he has published in good peer-review journals (Foundations of Phys, Physical Review A,…, and he is Prof at Williams College. So the news is mostly good.

Of course famous people who've done good work can be crackpots (in the bad sense) like Josephson, but Wootters is one of the inventors of quantum teleportation. So he is at least as big a name as Hardy (I think).

 

[ClamShell]

Of course famous people who've done good work can be crackpots (in the bad sense) like Josephson, but Wootters is one of the inventors of quantum teleportation. So he is at least as big a name as Hardy (I think).

Or Bill Shockley...don't be lookin' at me...I ain't famous...

 

[marcus]

In case anyone is curious, here is what I believe is the original 1993 "teleportation" paper:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdo...BF7AFEE8?doi=10.1.1.46.9405&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Teleporting an Unknown Quantum State via Dual Classical and EPR Channels
Charles H Bennett, Gilles Brassard, Claude Crepeau, Richard Jozsa, Asher Peres and William K Wootters

Here is a 1995 followup with some of the same authors
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9511027

 

[ClamShell]

In case anyone is curious, here is what I believe is the original 1993 "teleportation" paper
Charles Bennett, Gilles Brassard, Asher Peres, Wootters, and several others
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdo...BF7AFEE8?doi=10.1.1.46.9405&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Teleporting an Unknown Quantum State via Dual Classical and EPR Channels
Charles H Bennett, Gilles Brassard, Claude Crepeau, Richard Jozsa, Asher Peres and William K Wootters

Here is a 1995 followup with some of the same authors
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9511027

I would never use "teleportation" to travel. But I would use
it for my luggage. Same goes for "airportation"; too many of
them are falling short of the target for my taste.

Remember what happened in "Twelve Monkeys"?

Give Wooters a break, even Kepler had some bad assignments.

EDIT: I surmise that Dr. Wootters was talking about sending
quantum information through a noisy copper wire with 100%
accuracy.

 

[atyy]

Give Wooters a break, even Kepler had some bad assignments.

Why should we give him a break? That's usually needed only when someone's done something not so good.

 

[ClamShell]

Why should we give him a break? That's usually needed only when someone's done something not so good.

Stand corrected, but at this point I'm not even sure if he's "not so bad".