Quantum Information cannot be thrown away. Nor can it be copied. Information is conserved. *Apart, perhaps, from Copenhagen collapse). Information can be made difficult to retrieve by e.g. entanglement with the environment, specifically propagating modes that take it beyond your control, but it’s still “in principle” there.
Is there a meaningful difference between “propagating modes that take it beyond your control” and “throwing it away”? In my mind, the first is a much longer restatement of the second, but I apologize that it was unclear. (Here, you’re throwing it back into the electron, not the outside world, but the idea is the same from the computer’s point of view.)
Yes, they have very different effects. Throwing it into the electron allows recoherence in principal. Throwing it into the environment makes that impossible.
Quantum Information cannot be thrown away. Nor can it be copied. Information is conserved. *Apart, perhaps, from Copenhagen collapse). Information can be made difficult to retrieve by e.g. entanglement with the environment, specifically propagating modes that take it beyond your control, but it’s still “in principle” there.
Is there a meaningful difference between “propagating modes that take it beyond your control” and “throwing it away”? In my mind, the first is a much longer restatement of the second, but I apologize that it was unclear. (Here, you’re throwing it back into the electron, not the outside world, but the idea is the same from the computer’s point of view.)
Yes, they have very different effects. Throwing it into the electron allows recoherence in principal. Throwing it into the environment makes that impossible.