I don’t know anything about quantum computing, so please tell me if this idea makes sense… if you imagine many-worlds, can it help you develop better intuitions about quantum algorithms? Anyone tried that? Any resuts?
I assume an analogy: In mathematics, proper imagination can see you some results faster, even if you could get the same results by computation. For example it is easier to imagine a “sphere” than a “set of points with distance at most D from a given center C”. You can see that an intersection of a sphere and a plane is a circle faster than you can solve the corresponding equations. Even if computationally the sphere is the same as the given set of points, imagination runs much faster on the visual model.
Analogically, the copenhagen interpretation and many-world interpretation should give same results. Yet, is it possible than one of them would be more imagination-friendly? Would it be possible to immediately “see” the results in one model, which have to be mathematically calculated by the other model? Could then one of these models be a comparative advantage for a quantum programmer?
To avoid misunderstanding: I don’t suggest using imagination instead of computation. I only suggest using an imagination to guess a result, and then use a proper mathematical proof to confirm it. Just like the “an intersection of a sphere and a plane is either nothing, or a point, or a circle” can be translated to equations and verified analytically, but is much easier to remember this way.
Are you aware that David Deutsch is (1) the loudest proponent of MWI and (2) the inventor* of the quantum computer? Moreover, he claimed that MWI lead him there. He also predicted that quantum computers would convince everyone else of MWI. So far, that claim doesn’t look very plausible.
I am skeptical of the possibility of many worlds contributing to imagination. I prefer the phrase “no collapse” to the phrase “many worlds” because there are a lot of straw men associated with the latter phrase. But phrasing it as a negative shows that’s it’s really a subset of Copenhagen QM, and thus shouldn’t require more or different imagination. You might say that the first incarnation of many worlds is Schrödinger’s Cat, which everyone talks about, regardless of interpretation.
There is some discussion of the fruitfulness here; in particular Scott Aaronson says “I think Many-Worlds does a better job than its competitors...at emphasizing the aspect of QM—the exponentiality of Hilbert space—that most deserves emphasizing.”
* Manin, Feynman, and maybe other people could claim that title, too, but I think they were all independent. Moreover, I think Deutsch was the first person to produce a quantum algorithm that he could prove was better than a classical algorithm; he exploited QM rather than saying it was hard. It is this exploitation that he attributes to MWI.
Deutsch discusses his predecessors, but he didn’t know about Manin. I think Manin’s contribution is all in the 3 paragraph Appendix (p25).
I didn’t know about David Deutsch, thanks for the information!
it’s really a subset of Copenhagen QM, and thus shouldn’t require more or different imagination.
Then perhaps the only advantage is that you don’t have to waste your time worrying “what if my proposed solution is already so big that the wavefunction will collapse before it computes the result”. But to get this advantage, you don’t really have to believe in MWI. It’s enough to profess belief in colapse, but ignore the consequences of that belief while designing algorithms, which is something humans excel at.
I don’t know anything about quantum computing, so please tell me if this idea makes sense… if you imagine many-worlds, can it help you develop better intuitions about quantum algorithms? Anyone tried that? Any resuts?
I assume an analogy: In mathematics, proper imagination can see you some results faster, even if you could get the same results by computation. For example it is easier to imagine a “sphere” than a “set of points with distance at most D from a given center C”. You can see that an intersection of a sphere and a plane is a circle faster than you can solve the corresponding equations. Even if computationally the sphere is the same as the given set of points, imagination runs much faster on the visual model.
Analogically, the copenhagen interpretation and many-world interpretation should give same results. Yet, is it possible than one of them would be more imagination-friendly? Would it be possible to immediately “see” the results in one model, which have to be mathematically calculated by the other model? Could then one of these models be a comparative advantage for a quantum programmer?
To avoid misunderstanding: I don’t suggest using imagination instead of computation. I only suggest using an imagination to guess a result, and then use a proper mathematical proof to confirm it. Just like the “an intersection of a sphere and a plane is either nothing, or a point, or a circle” can be translated to equations and verified analytically, but is much easier to remember this way.
Are you familiar with the Quantum Bomb Tester?
Are you aware that David Deutsch is (1) the loudest proponent of MWI and (2) the inventor* of the quantum computer? Moreover, he claimed that MWI lead him there. He also predicted that quantum computers would convince everyone else of MWI. So far, that claim doesn’t look very plausible.
I am skeptical of the possibility of many worlds contributing to imagination. I prefer the phrase “no collapse” to the phrase “many worlds” because there are a lot of straw men associated with the latter phrase. But phrasing it as a negative shows that’s it’s really a subset of Copenhagen QM, and thus shouldn’t require more or different imagination. You might say that the first incarnation of many worlds is Schrödinger’s Cat, which everyone talks about, regardless of interpretation.
There is some discussion of the fruitfulness here; in particular Scott Aaronson says “I think Many-Worlds does a better job than its competitors...at emphasizing the aspect of QM—the exponentiality of Hilbert space—that most deserves emphasizing.”
* Manin, Feynman, and maybe other people could claim that title, too, but I think they were all independent. Moreover, I think Deutsch was the first person to produce a quantum algorithm that he could prove was better than a classical algorithm; he exploited QM rather than saying it was hard. It is this exploitation that he attributes to MWI.
Deutsch discusses his predecessors, but he didn’t know about Manin. I think Manin’s contribution is all in the 3 paragraph Appendix (p25).
I didn’t know about David Deutsch, thanks for the information!
Then perhaps the only advantage is that you don’t have to waste your time worrying “what if my proposed solution is already so big that the wavefunction will collapse before it computes the result”. But to get this advantage, you don’t really have to believe in MWI. It’s enough to profess belief in colapse, but ignore the consequences of that belief while designing algorithms, which is something humans excel at.