{"id":9973,"date":"2015-03-19T09:34:08","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T13:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/?p=9973"},"modified":"2015-03-19T09:34:08","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T13:34:08","slug":"favorite-quantum-physics-in-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2015\/03\/19\/favorite-quantum-physics-in-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Favorite Quantum Physics in Fiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ll be accepting applications for The Schrödinger Sessions workshop at JQI<\/a> through tomorrow. We already have 80-plus applicants for fewer than 20 planned spots, including a couple of authors I really, really like and some folks who have won awards, etc., so we’re going to have our work cut out for us picking the attendees…<\/p>\n

We’re also discussing the program for the workshop– more details when we have something more final– which has me thinking about good examples to use of storytelling involving quantum physics. I’d like to be able to give a few shout-outs to already-existing fiction involving the ideas we’ll be discussing. And while I know several already, I’m always happy to hear more…<\/p>\n

Things on my mental list already:<\/p>\n

— Robert Charles Wilson’s “Divided by Infinity”<\/a>, probably the best fictional exploration of Many-Worlds that I’ve seen. Yes, I’m aware of Larry Niven’s “All the Myriad Ways.” This is better.<\/p>\n

— Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life,” though that’s less explicitly quantum. It turns on the idea of the principle of least action, which is essential for Feynman’s formulation of quantum physics, but originates in classical physics. It’s an amazing story, though.<\/p>\n

— Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief<\/a> and sequels make heavy use of ideas from quantum technology. He even specifically cites ion traps when talking about quantum computing infrastructure, which is a great fit with the labs at JQI.<\/p>\n

— Charlie Stross mentions quantum communications a lot in his SF. He’s really hit or miss for me, and sadly most of what misses for me hits with a lot of other people, so he’s evolving toward a less appealing state, but one of his early books– either Singularity Sky or Iron Sunrise, I forget which– had what’s probably my favorite hand-wave involving this use of quantum entanglement for FTL communications, with the idea that FTL travel via hyperspace breaks entanglement, and thus the entangled qubits used for instantaneous communications are a precious resource shipped through normal space at great expense.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to think of on-screen examples of quantum technology, though, largely because it’s been years since I’ve had the free time to watch many movies. Interstellar name-checks the need for “quantum data,” but it’s really about astrophysics, not quantum mechanics. I know the Coen brothers did a movie a few years back where quantum physics plays a metaphorical sort of role, but I haven’t seen it. Quantum computing as a way of cracking encryption may have been a McGuffin in a thriller movie or two, but I don’t recall specific examples.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I would love to have a longer list of stuff to suggest\/ cite\/ name-drop. Please leave ideas in the comments…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ll be accepting applications for The Schrödinger Sessions workshop at JQI through tomorrow. We already have 80-plus applicants for fewer than 20 planned spots, including a couple of authors I really, really like and some folks who have won awards, etc., so we’re going to have our work cut out for us picking the attendees…… Continue reading Favorite Quantum Physics in Fiction?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,78,265,35,7,37,683,11,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-conferences","category-in_the_media","category-movies","category-physics","category-pop_culture","category-schrodingersessions","category-science","category-television","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}