Tag: physics

Following the footsteps of a rag doll dance…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Not all cultural references are directly transferable some are “time of life” and others are “time of man” related.  I personally view myself as being on the conservative side in that outwardly I am not outlandish. It always used to amuse me how the “goths” had less of an idea of the shadows than I did.

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But Siouxsie et al. were definitely a part to the soundtrack of my life.

In the “A Discovery of Witches” TV series the notion of the main protagonist being spellbound has come to the fore. In which her parents cast a spell which both hid and prevented the usage of her powers. She was literally bound by spell or spell bound. The narrative suggests that this practice was usually reserved for insane witches and that it was a harsh thing to do, to prevent the person from living to their full potential, to inhibit and otherwise hinder them. The back story is that the “creatures” are forced to hide from the discriminatory humans and their notions of normality. Humans are depicted as prejudiced. The story also has “time-walker” as a top echelon witchcraft skill. A lot of the plot revolves around “powers” of a magical and special kind. Power ever being the motivator for political intrigue, shenanigan and skullduggery. Somehow Diana is able to summon an old text which may or may not hold the secret(s).

In physics a lot of stock is made upon observables and making an observation. If one in any way makes an observation one changes the system. For example if one “observes” a photon using a detector that photon changes the energy state of an electron. The photon ceases to be. The energy has been transformed from one thing to another. At a very local and very tiny level every act of observation changes the system.  Science rhetoric is less explicit as to the nature of interpretation and subsequent assimilation caused by the observation, the act of observation. One could say that the observation of a “handful” of particles in a science experiment can have a truly dramatic and wide ranging impact because of interpretation and assimilation to or with a previously held thought form or model. I might infer that a photon is the witness to an act of proton transfer. My observation hints at a physical process. Any observation changes the system and it cannot be undone. If I talk about it down the pub that handful of photons triggers synapses and a train of thought heads off on whichever trajectories.

I have always had a few problems with the notion of time travel because of observation. It is impossible to travel back in time without altering its forward propagation. Although pleasant as an artistic and entertaining notion it is philosophically tricky. {Ok there may be some time reversal events at sub atomic levels that I am unaware of but these may be mathematical legerdemain}. In terms of karma time travel is also problematic.

In my mind it raises an interesting thought line. “Does reminiscence alter the past or merely our recollection and narrative assimilation thereof?” We do not travel back in time to the acts of perception but how we retell what we “remember” does change our futures because our basis for world interpretation has altered if only slightly.

If for example you held a view that I was a complete bastard and you hated my guts, then any future interaction would be coloured by this framing. If on reminiscing you decided I was only a partial bastard then you have already changed the future. Your change of mind changes the future(s).

Time-walking may be seen as a reinterpretation of events previously observed. Bearing in mind that the apparatus of observation must of course be error prone and never 100% accurate. Not all instruments are sensitive nor well calibrated. We do not actually go back in “physical” time rather review our mental registers of how we have constructed the time evolving narratives. We could re-consider, re-view and possibly re-perceive. Much like an astronomer may apply correction factors to space telescope raw data. There is some “algorithm” which enables (perhaps) a more reliable assimilation. We may refuse to apply said algorithm because we are stuck in our ways and like to cling to old perceptions, prejudices and world views.

The quantum mechanics of a 75kg lump of wet proteins and fats going backwards {or forwards} in time do not seem plausible. Perception and “mind” however are clearly much less physically tangible. In a sense these may be able to travel along what might be called time-registers. In the absence of matter time has no meaning. In a sense time as it is measured is a property of matter (vibration or time to travel between spatial coordinates). How we currently measure time is by the observation of photons in a fancy physics rig.

To extrapolate wildly by measuring time we are changing our futures.

Diverse Intellectuals – Seer Time – Philosophical Dead Ends – Dream 22-10-2025

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is last night’s dream had between 4 and 6:30 AM. I should note that I am on nocturnal low dose oral opium for the hip pain and have been for several weeks.

It starts in an urban setting on a terrace outside some kind of clubhouse or bar. I am with a man who is younger than me maybe forties. We are having a beer at a pub style table. I understand him to be an intellectual, a university professor of some sort. He is animated and has set me up with various meetings around campus. His accent has a very faint American lilt. He has crazy unkempt grey hair with partial male pattern baldness. From his random hair I guess he is Jewish of extraction. He has a satchel with papers. We are discussing models of the universe and I comment that nobody has data before the big bang and that I prefer a cyclical universe model. I am pretty sure that this is not the first universe and that this is consistent with the Vedas. He says there is no need to invoke prior universe. He says that he has lined me up with a busy day and that we should meet up later. He is a bit like the mad hatter running late. He means well and is jocular and friendly.

He leads me off to a mid-multi rise building which is an office block he wants me to meet someone there. She is a psychology-philosophy cross over academic. We get to her office which is clean and immaculate. More top end business than nutty professor. He leaves me with her. She is tall of Germanic demeanour with mustard brown immaculately pressed slacks and an expensive green silk shirt. She is interested in evidence for the psychology of the soul. It is a non-publishable sideline interest of hers. I explain some of my views. She says that she would like to have more discussions with me later that evening. She takes my left hand and places it between her legs on her pubis. I can feel her genitalia. I withdraw my hand. I ask if that is on offer later and she says that maybe it is. She does not understand that I am no longer fussed about sex. She is completely relaxed and unfazed, sex to her is no big deal, a kind of work out. She is pretty formidable and focussed clearly on what she wants.

The scene changes and I am introduced to a small more geeky-nerd come woman with dark hair. She is a professor in game theory and logistics. She and I start to talk about games of logistical journeys. On top of an empty upturned beer barrel she has a simulation of a game for a delivery. She shows me. I explain to her that I have not the faintest idea what game theory is. She moves onto to poker. She says that she can mentally calculate the odds of each hand from current position of play. I say that such a thing would bore me and take away the fun. I say that were I to play I would do so intuitively. Her eyes light up. She is fascinated by the statistics of intuition and is convinced that it is a real phenomenon. She suggests that we have a few hands of draw poker later.

She leads me off to a laboratory building in which I meet a tallish man dressed in a M&S style navy jumper and blue chinos. He is clearly some kind of physicist. We start talking a bit about ultrafast and he maintains that time is a very important thing. I say that time is subjective and nowhere near as objective as he imagines it to be. From the point of view of a seer, time can be expanded or compressed. Perception and time are a part of the same phenomenon. I explain that highly skilled martial artists and sports people can slow the time so that it is perceived differently from others. That is why a 100 mph tennis ball is easier for them to hit. From a seer’s perspective time is like a tram line along which one can place perception at will and this includes far into the past. The physics of time around the putative big bang was very much more nonlinear than it is imagined today.

The physicist takes me to a different part of the building. We are in an atrium outside a lift when the doors open and out flounces a tall man with and expensive long leather jacket and longish hair. With him is a younger acolyte whom I know to be his student and homosexual lover. The man in leather is a well-known published  philosopher. I think to myself that he is a right knob, a bell-end and pretentious. The physicist is also not a fan. I am led off into an office with sofa and armchairs. Alone with philosopher and acolyte we start to discuss. He drops names like a machine gun. I say that in my opinion philosophy as a discipline is at a dead end, stuck. This is because one has always to compare back to previous lines of thought and endlessly refence the development of thought over millennia. Who cares what people thought before modern science? Philosophy is therefore stuck in a bad time warp. He thinks me an uneducated uncivilised heathen and I think him a bell end.

The dream ends.

Alice & Bob – Quantum Jobs

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Prompted by the answer to a question on University Challenge, I typed Alice and Bob into the font of paid for promotion previously known as a search engine. The Mecca of product placed wisdom came up with a French quantum start up called Alice and Bob. They have received 100 million series B funding. They also have a fairly extensive job vacancy list. It was a tad French and probably not overly attractive internationally except for those fond of Alice in Paris Francophiles. French job descriptions can be as rigid as a rigid thing. They do not travel well.

Maybe there is a general shortage of quantum savvy job applicants….

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It occurred to me that the Quantum hype has been drowned out by the deafening AI roar. Maybe it has gone submarine like AUKUS.

That Luddite Herr Trump has been threatening the Harvard intellectual property (IP) portfolio. What a great way to ensure the death of US inventiveness and technological superiority, discourage invention and application for patents unless they are handled by MAGA lawyers, toadies and sycophants!! Already the incentive to NOT have an idea whilst at a university is high, because contractually the university owns your IP. Best stifle ideas until you are a free thinker…

Sometimes holes can be difficult to get out of. That can include ways of thinking and playbooks.

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It looks like Herr Trump is going to try again to leverage Ukraine into accepting a fait accompli agreed with Vlad the Impaler in Alaska. This forceful manipulation is an old Trump play. If he keeps alienating people, he may find himself in a hole like increasingly Billy-no-mates Israel. Trump does not understand that “friend” has a different meaning in KGB speak.

Oh look another groundhog…where did that come from….

What is the first rule when you find yourself in a hole?

Human beings can be pig-headed and stubborn. Inventive people do not share the same deal or no deal mentality as realtors. They are easily discouraged and disincentivised. One day the straw goes on the camel’s back, one too many.

Sometimes that tired old play book simply does not work. Thinking the same way that gets you into a problem cannot help to get you out of it.

There is no point in trying to explain this to someone who is vehemently adamant that they know best. Advice is as unwelcome as a dose of antibiotic resistant syphilis.

Some people are obsessed at the notion of a “corporate” solution when none exists. They may get all their ducks in line to present someone with a fait accompli sure that such a thing is irresistible. Even so-called intelligent people like professors can think like this. They can seek within group consensus oblivious that people outside the Olympian Ivory Towers do not think like them. This may not occur.

It is quackers.

People often talk with the monkey and ignore the organ grinder completely…

Anyway…

Has AI killed off the notion of quantum computation?

Where will they put all the server farms?

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Is this what our future looks like?

Gedankenexperiment – Quantum Telepathy or Quantum Telekinesis

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

In the background I have been mulling over whether to attempt to draft a patent application concerning quantum telepathy as it might be applied to the current groovy quantum area. This morning between a sleep and waking a question appeared to mind, “Quantum Telepathy or Quantum Telekinesis?”

I’ll make an initial comment.

It is safe for me to publicly publish my speculations on-line because in no way can they detrimentally harm any career of mine at some august institution into which I might have been sectioned under the mental health act. I am free to make a fool or an arse of myself because it cannot negatively impact on tenure or promotion.

There has been a lot of interest in things called parapsychology among the public if not academia. Taboos remain. The notions of telepathy and telekinesis have not yet been proven extant, though they are found throughout culture and in some cases religion. We have Professor Charles Xavier and the X-men, we have spoon benders. In Buddhism we have Abhijñā or higher powers.

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Abhijñā

In the Pali Canon, the higher knowledges are often enumerated in a group of six or of three types of knowledge.

The six types of higher knowledges (chalabhiññā) are:

  • “Higher powers” (iddhi-vidhā), such as walking on water and through walls;
  • “Divine ear” (dibba-sota), that is, clairaudience;
  • “Mind-penetrating knowledge” (ceto-pariya-ñāṇa), that is, telepathy;
  • “Remember one’s former abodes” (pubbe-nivāsanussati), causal memory, that is, recalling one’s own past lives;
  • “Divine eye” (dibba-cakkhu), that is, knowing others’ karmic destinations; and,
  • “Extinction of mental intoxicants” (āsavakkhaya), upon which arahantship follows.

From Wikipedia

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Your common or garden scientist is unlikely to have much credulity for these, though the script writer might. There have been experiments to test extra sensory perception using inter alia Zener cards.

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I don’t know about you, but these images a very boring, I could have used the F word in participle here. Who in their right mind would be excited to transmit or receive these? Not me, YAWN.

If you were to construct an experiment on telekinesis without Magneto you might want to start with the tiniest measurable change, something with a vanishing mass something like 1×10−18 eV/c2. In other words photons. If the mind can move anything or change anything then photons are a good starter for ten. They move quick but don’t weigh much.

In the field of quantum technology one branch pertains to spontaneous parametric down conversion. In this a single photon is “destroyed” “annihilated” and two daughter photons are “created”. Momentum of all types ought to be conserved. Under low light level conditions these daughter photons can be created in a quantum superposition state. Where their polarisation is a mix of horizontal and vertical polarisation, that is until said state in measured. If you measure one photon to have vertical polarisation then the other must have horizontal polarisation. The quantum superposition state collapses. The two photons somehow have information about the state of each other. This transfer of information is a faster than  speed of light thing. One photon says on measurement, “hey, I am vertical” and telepathically the other photon knows “I am horizontal.” The photons have a mind of their own and unless they are really clever, they do not know how we label them or describe them.  They do not care what we think or how we describe.

The photons could, to stretch things, be said to be in telepathic rapport with each other.

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At the single photon level the notion of polarisation is a bit tricky. Polarisation is a wave-like, multiphoton, phenomenon.  It describes how a bunch of photons pass through a selective physical device. There is a bit of magic between the descriptions of single photons and the more bulk properties, perhaps a grey area of science in the statistics of low particle count number. A single photon may fail to pass through a polarisation gate which means that its twin photon is allowed to go through, to get past the bouncers and into the night club. If the first photon is not on the guest list, its twin must be.

The physics when carried out over many events predicts well the number of horizontal and vertical photons. The detection of a horizontally polarised photon accurately predicts the arrival in time, and hence path length, of its erstwhile conjoined twin. The first observation operation separates the conjoined twins. One can accurately time bin polarisation heralded photons.

We now have a candidate scenario for a parapsychology experiment which has a miniscule change in terms of mass {momentum} and a binary change in terms of information.

If one was to try to influence the weighting of the quantum superposition state, the entangled state, in the equation above one could perturb the normal statistically verifiable distribution. In the equation above the horizontal and vertical are given equal weighting, 50:50 not ‘phone a friend.

By telepathy one might read and perhaps alter the information, by telekinesis one might rotate the polarisation sate weighting in the entangled pair. Conferring a more horizontal bias to one of the conjoined pair. It would be semantic if it is information or property which is altered.

To meditate  in a dark room with lasers is not to everyone’s taste. It was once to mine, the so-called Zen of laser alignment. It is a good, isolated environment for experimentation.

I think I might have the bones of an experiment which offers more likelihood of success than trying to mind-to-mind boring cards.

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It is not Possible – Fish ‘n Chips

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I am quite fond of a challenge from time to time. Especially when those challenges seem nearly impossible. A part of the motivation behind doing a start-up company was to find out, by way of experimentation, if it was actually possible. I was serious about the idea of the company as well. But the difficulty seemed like icing on the cake. We raised £5 million start-up funds {year 2000} based on one day of concentrated pitches. People were very surprised at the time. My personal pitch to fund hit rate remains very high at 100% with one outfit saying to come back later if/when we wanted a bigger funding tranche.

The more I think about it the idea of trying to get a potentially ground breaking {premature} patent in Quantum Telepathy granted under my new alias is attractive. We already have Quantum Heralding and Quantum Teleportation, so why not? Given that quantum remains a “hot topic” there will be tech companies and patent watchers doing key word monitoring. There may be governmental interest globally. When shit loads of money is involved people monitor intellectual property (IP). Portfolios are important and valuable. There is intelligence gathering.

It might be a flash in the pan tomorrows chip wrapper kind of story.

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Such a patent application would appear on the radar, so to speak. Nobody would take me seriously because Man-in-his-shed Ltd is not a renown company or institution. Someone would scan read the application because it would be their job so to do. In all likelihood it would stop there. Unless someone wanted a light interest kind of quasi-joke story to go with the cute fluffy animals at the end of the news. I am no industrial or corporate threat. My shed contains no lasers simply a sit-on mower and a hedge trimmer. I have not worn a suit in over a decade.

Already I am the only quantum optics patent holder in the rural farming commune where I live. At a guess the local newspapers might find this quirk worth a few column millimetres.

The weirdest outcome would be predictivity.

In a film script a number of possible yet unlikely plot lines could ensue…

You never know what might happen. It is sufficiently off-the-wall to have highly unpredictable results. Once the radar blips anything might happen…

hmmnnnnn…

Qubit Coherence Time Dream 20-03-2023

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This dream came after watching Roger Penrose discus “before the big bang” on YouTube. He suggested that in a thermalized black body compliant universe evidenced by the cosmic microwave background energy spectrum where E=hν = mc2, time or inverse time, frequency, does not exist in the absence of matter. “Time” can be curved to “before” the big bang of our current universe. Similarly at an infinitely expanded universe full only of radiation, photons, time again has no meaning without mass.

The dream starts in the refreshment area or bar off a hall full of poster presentations at a “perimeter” conference on quantum and quantum computing. I am talking with a “famous” prof in his early forties and he is holding court to some post docs and post grads. He is skinny with a beard and unruly hair. He is white. As far as he is concerned, I am a nobody.

I say to him that if I have understood it correctly the biggest drawback for quantum computing is qubit coherence time and thereby quantum fidelity. He says yes.

I say that a qubit is a counter-entropic state artificially manufactured in matter in many systems. In these matter based systems tremendous cooling is required to prevent coupling to the nearby thermal bath states which tend to bring about dephasing and lack of fidelity for the prepared qubit. He agrees.

I say that is why they need fuck off big fridges to get close to absolute zero, which is again a counter entropic state when viewed more than locally. He agrees.

That dephasing happens on a temperature and proximity dependent time scale.

I say that thermodynamics is a property of matter and hence time, without matter entropy as no meaning, nor does thermodynamics.

I ask him why nobody is pursuing fast or ultrafast time domain quantum computing? He does not reply.

I say to him if the prepared qubit state is addressed before dephasing occurs, we can use time to outwit or outpace thermalization to bath. Time domain quantum computing could be the answer.

He nods.

I say that the other problem stems from the cycle time of write to zero of the matter involved in the prepared qubits. It should be possible to use a second pulse similar to the state preparation one to reset the qubit clock on a hundreds of megahertz laser repetition rate. We then have a prepare and subsequent write to zero even if the qubit state has been used or partially used in computation. The matter is then ready for us to contravene entropy by writing a qubit.

As the dream ends, I think that it is a fair way from Guru Rinpoche.

Impossible Conversations – No Context

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One might say that I am an initiate of a certain degree in the church of physical sciences. I have a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate from a kosher university, I was at one time a member of two professional learned societies and they even let me teach for a decade or so. I have an albeit rusty context of how UK academia works. I was able to write and secure a quantum optics patent whilst “retired” and well away from the hurly burly. There is no chance that I could teach at undergraduate level these days, I might still be able to do some fancy-schmancy laser experiments. Were I to encounter someone from that world I could at least have a go at conversation, even though I no longer share the ambition or goals. There would be at least a partial context in common.

That background was held in suspicion on various courses such as foundation shamanic and I Ching. When I stayed up all night and kept the camp fire going in the middle of a wood, the would be shamans accepted me more freely. I was perhaps more rigorous and less angel-reiki-fairy. Perhaps more American Indian than they from the home counties. If you have never been in a drumming circle you have no idea what goes on there.

As a thought experiment imagine me sitting down with a university professor who had a reputation for top end molecular spectroscopy and the use of ab initio quantum calculations to elucidate intermolecular interactions and bonding. This was something that we once shared.

“Well, it has been a long while. From time to time, I see your articles. Since we last met at lot has happened to me. I have learned of a number of my previous incarnations and all the evidence points at me being a three pronged dreaming nagal of the elephant dreaming class, I am a dreamer by prediction and have been doubly severed.”

I suspect that I would have lost the professor in and around the previous incarnations bit. He was a Christian and fairly devout. It would be impossible to convey to this intelligent man what the last sentence means. I remember him as being philosophical and open minded. He could take it at face value being polite.

But where would you begin? If you read these books about Toltecs, I can visit you again in a couple of years and try to explain.

The chances are that there would be not much purpose in trying to explain. That sentence is of a different world and next to impossible to verbally contextualize. His eyes might glaze over.

So, I might change the subject and say I really enjoyed his paper on mass resolved rotational coherence stimulated Raman ion dip spectroscopy for large molecules without an absorption transition dipole moment. I would be back in context and even though I am rusty we could have an intelligent conversation which would be above the heads of many people who have never even heard of these things. I would be talking arcane chemical physics with a world expert. I still have residual arcane spectroscopy knowledge.

There are some conversations which are impossible if there is no shared context. Two ships might pass in the night oblivious of each other. Sure in their world, convinced of their reality and unaware that there are more than one reality.

Where Did the Singularity Come From?

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Following on from this morning’s dream I have been reading around cosmogenesis from an exoteric scientific viewpoint including a few articles on quantum loop gravity. It seems to me there are some whopping great gaps. Many of the schema talk of an initial singularity so dense that space-time as we know it in a corporeal and planetary sense was yet to come into being. But a singularity does have a Cartesian dimension of 1, a point. I am not sure a point, a thing, can exist without a no-thing a void.

So, already at singularity you have thing and no-thing.

Where did that singularity stem from? Was if from multiple quantum fluctuations in the true void. Where creation and annihilation operators act on the vacuum to spark particles in and out of matter. There would have to be a lot of fluctuations to create a massive gravitational singularity.

What is the void?

Does it have edges where stuff begins?

Is the void infinite?

If there is no-thing then finite has no meaning, so yes it could be infinite. Inherent here is a trap of dimension. How does the void where there is no-thing go on for ever. Dimension in absence of thing does not exist. A dimensionless void? Is that simply a human conceptual problem where we cannot conceive scale without matter, without stuff?

Some of the articles suggest that space is greater than the current evolving universe and that the matter of the universe is still expanding into that vacuum. The scale is mooted beyond the manifest, even though there is no matter it has space.

How does one envisage an infinite void, where there is absolutely no-thing?

A singularity arising out of a previously manifest universe seems more probable, the crunch of a prior manifest universe(s) into an ultra-dense singularity.

How many universes have there been? Which was the first?

In Toltec “cosmology” the universal spirit, the Nagal, without form contemplated the utter nothingness of the void. Eternity passed even though there was not as yet time. The Nagal noted that for it the no-thing, the void, was very much the known. It noted that for it the thing was the unknown. The Nagal wanted to better understand the no-thing by comparing it to thing. It wanted to find out and set its intent on so doing. As an effect of this cause the void started to stir, it stirred and the first thing was created out of no-thing. Nascent matter was created. The act of manifesting an entire universe so as to contrast thing against no-thing had begun. The Nagal wanted to separate the known, no-thing, into the unknown, thing, in order to learn.

Such an abbreviated verbalisation is consistent with quantum fluctuations, it stirred.

But how do we as carnate beings contemplate the no-thing of void, how do we touch the void out of which creation be-came.

I have used UHV vacuum equipment and ultra-high vacuum is enclosed by stainless steel. That is easy to get your head around. A complete and truly profound vacuum has never been attained on earth. So, any experiment to test for vacuum behaviours tests the behaviour of space in which there is still some matter and which is constrained by the dimension of vessel. We cannot experimentally probe utter vacuum unconstrained by any boundary conditions.

There is no way we can experiment on an infinite void, because in our universe that no longer exits. We are speculating on physics in a complete absence of any matter or dimension, we may be barking up the wrong tree.

Hmmn…

Messes with your swede a little bit…

Dreams With a Quantum Reference

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900-Year-Old Cloth Dream 24-11-20

Currently not sleeping very well. I suspect my body is starting to produce more acetylcholine after smoking cessation and it hasn’t got the balance right yet.

I am walking through a leafy park across an open gravelled space. I know this place to be Kensington.  I pass TJ whom I haven’t seen for over 15 years. He does a double take and recognises me. He gives me a small business card and a map. The business card is an invitation to an event at his university and is written partially in Arabic. The map shows how to find the venue on campus. I look at the date and it is for March next year. I return the invitation and map to him saying that I cannot attend. He is insistent and persuasive and tries to get me to take the invitation. I say that I cannot because I will be at home in Italy and it costs over a £100 per trip to come to the UK by car both in money for petrol and in coffee. He says that I really should try. Again, I politely decline. I congratulate him on his inauguration and say that I enjoyed his last paper. Which in the dream I have read and which demonstrates quantum entanglement of electronic spin wavefunctions in surface states. The entanglement is temporal and corresponds to the imaginary part of the wave function. He moves off.

I then enter a large semi-permanent marquee on a lawn. In the entrance area there are a lot of young women, smartly dressed, as if for an evening event. Somehow, they know me and ask me questions. I say that to me they do not look very happy. This they vehemently deny and wish to argue with me. I ask them; “how many of you are happy more than 50% of the time?” Many of them put their hands up. I walk over to them and say bullshit, bullshit, bullshit to several of them in turn. I turn to one of the young women and ask if she thinks her friends and colleagues are telling the truth about being happy.  She says that she thinks they are lying. At which point several of them now concur and admit that they are not generally happy. One of the most vehement deniers now sidles up to me in a friendly way and wants to dance with me. We move into the main part of the marquee and onto a dance floor.

Off the dance floor there is a glass construction which has waist high walls, is shaped like a corridor and has automatic opening and closing doors. The entire structure is lined with a pastel peach piece of cloth. The “corridor” is about one foot under water.

Two other smartly dressed young women come over to me, one is tall the other normal height. They have a quaisi religious role in whatever ceremony is taking place. I am joined by my wife. They say that they would very much like for us to walk down the corridor for them. I approach the entrance door and it opens. I am wet by a wave of water. I step through and the door closes. I then walk along the cloth and exit by the far door. My wife follows suite. I then ask the women what is so special about the cloth. The shorter one says that it is only brought out of storage every 900 years and hence this event is extremely rare. The cloth is substantially older than 900 years old. I ask her do they have records of the last time it was brought out of storage. No, they do not, but it is what the legend of their order says.

She offers to show me around. We are led out of the marquee and into a large private house. We come across a very simple but exquisite altar and in the far corner of the room a man is playing a white grand piano. He has crazy out of control wispy hair. I know this room; I have been here before. I know the man. I say to the woman that I came here before to ask the man about my mind, but he was unable to help. This house is his.

She says that he is not rich and is very humble. I point out that given the size of the house and its location Kensington, it must be worth over £5 million pounds. I ask by what scale is that not rich?

Dream ends….

Lost Marbles Dream 1-12-20

I had a restless night because my knee was playing up. I took paracetamol and ibuprofen and managed to nod off sometime after 3:30 am.

I am on a large grassy area in front of some kind of low-rise apartment block. I am naked but wearing trainers. In my hand I have a small string bag full of marbles. In the dream I understand that my nakedness is a metaphor for having nothing to hide. Various people try to chase me and catch me so as to send me to a place of “safety”. Each time someone tries to get hold of me one or two marbles escaped from my bag. They think that I need to go to Samaritans because I am a suicide risk. The men who are trying to chase me are not so quick as me and they are easy to evade. The number or marbles in my bag remains constant despite it shedding a few. In the dream I know that this is a metaphor for people thinking that I have lost my marbles because I do not think like them, whereas I am in fact in full possession of my marbles and it is just their mis-perception.

I escape from the grassy field and am now jogging freely along a street in a city at night time. I am not sure where I am but can see what looks to be a high street up ahead. I know that there will be signs there so I jog off in that direction. I run past two small yappy dogs. They bark around my ankles and try to bite me. So, I lash out at them with my leg. {I do this in real life in bed, my leg moves suddenly and painfully}. This warns the dogs off and I carry on.

I see an open space with a large shipping container covered in a tarpaulin. I pull myself up onto the shipping container and check my string bag of marbles. It will be a good place to rest. In the morning, I lower myself down of the container thinking, that given my bad leg, it was not such a good idea in the first place. On descending my leg hurts but is not too bad. Out of curiosity I open the container up and walk in. On the wall at about head hight a small white circle is painted. I understand that this is a target where those about to be executed by firing squad stand to be shot. This is where people who oppose those in power get “shot”.

In one corner I can see D who is dismembering some apparatus and what looks like an old oven door. He has a handle in his hand and is intending to throw it away. I understand that I am amongst those who are to be “shot”, gotten rid of. Someone hands me a six way crosspiece of UHV vacuum kit, it is shiny and has a pair of windows on each axis X, Y, Z. “They” want to know if I know what it is. I take it off them and have a look. I can see that the windows are very slightly damaged because they have had a deep UV excimer laser passing through them, this leaves a ghostly imprint. I can see the sample and know it to be a nitrogen vacancy centre diamond sample to be used in quantum experiments. I say this. “They” are surprised.

So, prompted I sit down in the lotus position and adopt mudra in my left and right hands.  I begin to chant softly “om mane padme hum” {the jewel in the centre of the lotus}. After doing this for some time “They” do not know what to do so they say that we are free to go and that we will not be “shot”. I motion to the others in the shipping container that we had better leave before they change their minds. Which we do.

Dream ends

No Phone Dream 18-3-21

I had a short snippet of a dream this morning.

I am in a large hall full of people. It is some kind of academic conference on quantum communication and non-linear optics. The hall is very busy, people are registering for the conference and collecting their lanyards with identity badges on. I sit down at one of the desks to register. Opposite me are two young women and a slightly older man, who is the “boss” of the table. He starts filling out a form on his laptop which will subsequently generate an identity card. He comes to a data entry point asking for a professional telephone number, a home land line and a mobile phone number. I explain to him that I do not have any of these. He does not believe me. He indicates that he thinks that I am taking the piss. I reiterate that I do not have any of these. He cannot progress my registration for the conference because the computer programme requires these data entry points. I ask, “am I therefore forbidden to attend, am I unacceptable?” He looks flummoxed. So, I get up and walk out of the hall.

Dream ends.

*In real life I do not have a land line, nor a professional telephone number, nor a personal mobile phone number. We have a pay as you go mobile which we use as a land line and for security authentication for online purchases. I think that I have probably made less than five telephone calls in the last twelve months and each of these less than a minute in duration. No phone is therefore close to a reality, and in this day and age.

Japanese Embassy – Patent – Dream 14-07-2021

Here is this morning’s dream.

In my hands I have a patent application on paper. I am walking through the corridors of the London office of the Intellectual Property Office. There are smartly dressed people everywhere. I enter a room where one can file patent applications by hand and on paper. There is a smartly dressed young woman sat behind a desk. I explain that I want to submit an application but because I am not a lawyer and am representing my own intellectual property nobody is taking me seriously. She asks a little of my background. She then writes on a piece of card a long code beginning with the letter K. She hands this to me and suggests that I go to the Whitehall office and hand them this code. This code means that they will take me more seriously. I thank her and leave her office. Once more I am walking down the corridor.

At the end of the corridor, I open a door, and this leads me into the reception area of the Japanese Embassy. There are several men and women on the welcome desk. They seem surprised to see me appearing in their foyer.  A man in his thirties in an old-style suit says hello and asks me to explain how I got there. I say that I was trying to file a patent application. He asks on what subjects. I say “quantum optics and entangled photon pairs” his ears prick up. He says that this is something we in Japan are very interested in. From beneath the counter, he pulls out an old-style document holder briefcase. He intimates that they would be helpful if my application was filed in Japan. Hinting that they would bear the costs of translating the application into Japanese. He wants me to hand him the application to put in the briefcase.

I briefly come to and make a mental note of the dream. I then drift back off.

In the dream I can now see a Japanese translation of my patent application. Each paragraph and each diagram have a very light violet coloured stamp of two kanji, two Japanese characters. The kanji are tiny but easily visible because they are glowing somewhat.

I awake thinking that is weird, because it all seemed so very realistic.

Threefold Ginormous Mess Dream 17-01-23

It is impossible to recall all of this because it went on for a very long time both before and after a short waking break. Here is the gist.

The dream starts in a very upmarket high specification domestic kitchen. I am tasked with cooking a meal therein. However, the kitchen is an absolute “bomb site”. All the surfaces are covered with plates, condiments, and debris. I remonstrate to the owner that they need to clear this mess up if they want me to cook. The mess is huge and it is of their making. The owner does not accept that the mess is a) bad and b) of their own making. I start to try to cook on the range. I have a clean pan and am able to gather some ingredients together in the sink. It is very difficult to work with all the heavily cluttered surfaces. I know in the dream that this is a metaphor for a huge mess in the web of life made by others. It is not my responsibility to clean up this mess but until it is cleared I cannot “cook” or do anything meaningful.

I am now in a laboratory setting. The laboratory is beyond chaotic. There are glassware and books everywhere. There are lab electronics, computers and displays. The optical table is littered with unmounted optics. The place is very unkempt. Again, I know that the mess is not of my making. The algorithm for convergence, a variational quantum method, is failing to converge. With each day it is more and more divergent. I know that we could use Møller-Plesset perturbation theory with a large basis set. A larger basis set is perhaps the answer. This might help the problem to converge. But the lab owners fail to accept that the mess is of their origin, so there is no chance that they will listen to my advice.

I am now in a house in South London. I am trying to figure out a way to solve the mess. A black woman is looking into my house. On the floor are rubble, empty cans and strips of pharmaceuticals. This is not the ideal place for me to work. The havoc in my house has not been caused by me. The terrible mess has been made by others. In the background I can hear, “They should not have killed Biko, Biko never trouble no one.” The black woman sighs and turns away.

Dream ends.

Quantum Key Distribution Dream 08-09-23

Here is this morning’s dream…

The dream starts with an internet Skype like call. I am speaking with an ex-student of mine. I can see him on the lap-top screen and he can see me. We are talking and there is a large amount of background noise and his image is juddering. I can see that he is flying a helicopter over some mountains. One of his friends has recently died and he would like to come visit to talk about this with me. He is on holiday with his father in the Swiss-French alps. I agree and he says that he will be here in a few days’ time.

 I think it odd that he is flying a helicopter but knew that his family are very wealthy.

He turns up with his father and I invite them in. We start talking about how he buried his friend. There were not many people at the ceremony and he said that it was very strange seeing someone his own age in a coffin. He had touched the coffin after it was placed in the grave as did his friend’s mother. She had freaked out a bit and he was concerned for her. I say that death touches all of us in different ways and that before grief there can often be denial. It sounds like that is what is happening. I say that I need to go and fetch something from outside.

As I come back into the house, I note the father’s car. It is a top of the range Mercedes convertible, bespoke even. I notice on the back of it the letters QKD. In the dream they stand out for me.

I go back inside. I say to the father, “Is that one of the new Quantum Key enabled prototypes?”

“Yes, it is fully Quantum Key enabled and if I need to make secure transactions, I can do it from the car while I am en route.”

I am impressed. I heard about these but have not seen one. The implication is that the father is very wealthy indeed a special client of the banks.

The ex-student says that I should tell his father about my patent applications.

I say to the father that I have two old patents concerning EUV and one for an entangled pair photon source. I say that this device could be integrated into a Quantum Key Distribution device.

His ears prick up. He reaches into a briefcase and pulls out a piece of paper. The paper is an email. On the top is his email address together with that of one of his technical people and his lawyer.

He says to get in contact with them with more details.

His ‘phone rings and he starts to speak animatedly in French.

The dream ends and I know that it is pointing towards looking again at Quantum Key Distribution.

Quantum Confinement in Water Clusters Dream 14-12-23.

I am just recalling a dream from the other night.

In the dream I am examining clathrate-like structures of water clusters and considering them from a permutation-inversion point group basis. These structures are icosahedra surrounded by larger icosahedra. They are fluxional yet stable. They are by way of proton traps and the allowed energy levels for the proton wave functions are confined and therefore quantised. They are by way of trapped protons, confined.  More than one proton may be found in these traps and as a consequence the proton wave-functions are entangled. Because the potential barriers in the hypersurfaces are low, geometrical tunnelling occurs. Or rather it can be explained that way.

–

–

I have found a way to make these structures and isolate them at liquid nitrogen like temperatures. They are a new class of material, proton quantum traps.

In the adjacent building there is a new kind of electron microscope which operates at very low beam currents and yet offers atomic resolution. It does not damage. It is equipped with cryo-transfer. I can walk across the corridor between my building and into his. He is in the basement and is of Chinese like appearance. The sense is that we are in Singapore.

I get across the corridor but do not have the access code to enter the building. I call down to him and he speaks to security who let me access the building. I go to the lift to get down to the basement. Again, I do not have the security swipe card needed. The ‘phone no longer works because the building is shielded for scientific purposes. The impinging EM radiation is kept to as low as possible. I look at the liquid nitrogen Dewar in which my samples are. I look at the security measures.

I cannot get down to the basement because I am not allowed. I do not have clearance. The structures will melt and there is nothing I can do about it.

Dream ends…

InAs Molecular Beam Epitaxy Dream – 07-03-2024

This is about as far out of the blue as one can get…

The dream starts in a semiconductor clean room. The laboratory is large scale and there are a number of molecular beam kits together with fume hoods and ancillary diagnostic equipment. I am talking with a dark-haired man who has a feint Irish accent. It is his facility.

“We have asked you here to help us with our InAs growth program”, he says.

I say that I will start to read up on it. To my mind’s eye come various physical review type journal articles.

He says, “that is good, but we would like you to get involved with the practical side of things.”

He introduces me to a young man with fair hair. He opens the load lock to the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) kit and introduces an etched wafer. He closes the load lock. The chamber pumps down as we wait for the wafer to outgas. When ready it is transferred to the growth chamber.

In the growth chamber we use the in-situ atomic force microscope to examine the morphology. The wafer needs to anneal at high temperature under an Arsenic over pressure in order to make it smoother and to clean up the atomic height step edges.

The man opens the Arsenic flux and starts to ramp up the temperature.

The lab dog, a spaniel, starts running around like a mad one and goes into the communal seating area.

From the lab there is a large ceiling to floor window which looks out onto a village style crossroads. I see a red bus go past and a woman on a bicycle.

I say to the man that not a lot happens here and that I had forgotten how much waiting there was in MBE growth. Growing one atomic layer per second takes a while.

They are interested in InAs as an optical emitter and are thinking of trying to get quantum dot behavior.

In the dream I knew that this is a follow on from yesterday.

Dream ends…

———————

InAs is a iii-v semiconductor. It therefore highlights the jewels 3,5 and 8.

*  In real life around twenty years ago I examined several Ph.D. theses on InAs MBE growth with inter alia Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy, quantum dots, luminescence and FTIR studies.