The quantum world is a kingdom where the rules of conventional physics dissolve and leave place to behaviors that challenge our understanding. From subatomic particles that exist in multiple places at the same time, to phenomena that suggest that our reality may not be as “real” as we believe, quantum physics is a field that continues to fascinate both scientists and the Wired team.
Therefore, we ask Professor Keisuke Fujii who participates in the research of quantum computing at the University of Osaka, Japan, to speak of works that have quantum elements in their narrative.
1 | Titans attack
Hajime Isayama
What is reality?
The manga SHINGEKI NO KYOJIN (attack on the Titans) It tells the story of Eren Jaeger, who lives in a world where humanity is being extinguished because of superintelligent monsters called “Titans.” The survivors take refuge behind three major walls. Jaeger decides to join the army to destroy the Titans, which triggers important repercussions for the protagonist and his peers.
This work is a very good analogy to explain the relationship with quantum mechanics. In it Titans attack The “real world” expands with each gap in the wall. This overlaps with the discovery and control of quantum mechanics, and with the fact that humanity comes out “out of the walls” with the new quantum computer technology. The impossible calculations within the classic walls become possible in the quantum world.
2 | Tsuru does not interfere
Setsuko Hasegawa
The Japanese version of the Schrödinger cat.
Tsuru no Ongaeshi (the return of a favor of the crane) It is a very popular story. In the story, a man finds a crane with a nailed arrow, sells the wound and a few days later, he becomes a little girl. The crane can stay in its original form or be a girl, a condition that resembles “overlap” in the quantum world. And what is more important, man cannot look inside the room where the little girl remains.
When the protagonist looks inside the room, the crane disappears, which corresponds to what quantum mechanics calls “contraction of the wave function by observation.” Quantum states have the property that they break at the time they try to observe and are fixed in one or another state. This means that overlays cannot be observed directly by the human being. Schrödinger’s cat is a parable about the well -known overlap in the West, but for the Japanese, popular stories such as Tsuru does not interfere They are more interesting to tell it.
3 | Reversi
The key is played or not
He Reversi It is a board game that is usually used to explain the “overlap.” The binary and black values are analogous to zeros. In other words, the same piece can be white and black at the same time. Even more important is the relationship between the observer and the game. In classical mechanics, the forces of the universe play reversi and we observe the rules from outside. For example, if we play with White, the stone in the middle will be white. In other words, the observer is outside the physical system and does not influence it. On the other hand, in quantum mechanics, oneself is a player, and their observations and actions affect the game itself. It is as if nature were white and you black, and they hit each other.
4 | Hello World
Toho
Digital twins
Hello World It is a futuristic love story in Kyoto, Japan. As the protagonist of the future tries to alter the past, the border between reality and virtual reality is blurred and the truth of the world is revealed. An interesting aspect of the film is the world’s digital twin vision, created from a memory device. This accumulates large amounts of data, storing various historical events from the past to the future, that is, superimposing the states of several temporal axes. This is very similar to the “states of history” in the investigation of quantum computers. The historical states refer to the concept that the State at a given time can be obtained by measuring the overlap of states in several steps from the initial moment of the computation. Although it is a great way to understand the quantum world, it would be difficult to create a real digital twin with such precision. It would be like calculating every atom of the planet.
5 | Summer Wars
Warner Bros. Pictures
Kenji’s mind is like a quantum computer
The first interesting thing about Summer Wars It is that the protagonist, Kenji Koiso, studies the “Shor algorithm.” This was one of the main catalysts of quantum computers in the 1990s, and was created to resolve the factorization of prime numbers efficiently. In the film, when the virtual world “Oz” is kidnapped, Kenji works on the factorization of prime numbers to decipher the code. There is a scene in which the Kenji supercomputer cools with the ice of a fishing boat while performing the calculations, but the problem that still could not be solved could be described as a quantum computer.
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6 | Steins; Gate Elite
Mages
What if we consider the divergence of the world’s lines from a theoretical-communication point of view?
The division of the world lines represented in the history of Steins; Gate Elite It is related to the “interpretation of many worlds” of quantum mechanics. The same can be said of the aforementioned “overlap”, in which different events occur at the same time, which in turn can be interpreted as ramifications in different parallel worlds. It is what is called “interpretation of many worlds.” Another interesting aspect is that the alteration of the world in the work is similar to the concept of “amplification of the amplitude of probability” in quantum computers. In a quantum machine, the probability of a concrete result can be increased using interference effects of a superposition of several possibilities. In other words, it is possible to increase the probability of a “desirable future.” However, from the point of view of quantum theory, it may be more exact to say “manipulate the possibility of a different future through interference” instead of “return to the past and change the future.”
7 | Galactic Auto -Estate Guide
Douglas Adams
The novel itself has an air of quantum mechanics.
The text of this novel is in itself quantum mechanics. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (Galactic AutoStopist Guide) It develops a scenario in which the earth is designed as a supercomputer. A machine called “Deep Thought” makes 7.5 million years of calculations in search of “the definitive response to humanity, the universe and life.” The result is “42”, but to understand the answer and meaning of the question in the first place, a computer called “Earth” was created. This configuration is similar to that of a quantum machine. Nature has made several “calculations” for billions of years, such as photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation, to find the optimal solution. Humanity has only been shown the answers and does not know how to solve them. If we manage to understand the process with a quantum computer, we can open the path to applications. It is exciting to think that the earth was created to understand the “42” and that humanity is creating computers to understand the answers.
8 | Interstellar
Warner Bros Films
Science fiction blockbuster of Christopher Nolan. The film describes a quantum contact theory between multiple worlds that transcends time and space. The film’s scientific advisors published an article on the results of the research conducted for the film.
9 | Godzilla: singular point
Toho
Two young geniuses use science to avoid a “catastrophe” caused by Godzilla. Science fiction animation with script and history of Enjou to. The “Shiva” time superculator is used to decipher the future, and elements of quantum mechanics are perceived.
10 | Outer Wilds
Mobius Digital
Adventure video game and science fiction action set in a star system trapped in an endless temporary loop. A key element of quantum mechanics is that a State cannot be determined until it is observed, and this is the key to the game strategy.
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11 | Spider-Man: Spider-Hamper
Sony Pictures Entertainment
This film presents several Spiderman from different universes. The idea that there may be multiple universes and worlds simultaneously is similar to the interpretation of the many worlds of quantum mechanics.
12 | Tenet
Warner Bros Films
Tenetanother film by the filmmaker Christopher Nolan, is key to the “temporary investment” of which cinematographic quantum physics speaks. The work exciting the phenomenon of inverted causality, with bullets that return to the mouth of the canyon and fighting scenes that advance as a reverse reproduction.
13 | Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumanía
Walt Disney Japan
The heroes of 2 meters high ant-man and the wasp enter a “quantum world” where even the concepts of time and space are staggered. His trip, which challenges the accepted wisdom of classical physics, pays tribute to quantum physics here and there.
14 | Quantum break
Remedy Entertainment
A science fiction action game set in a world in which the flow of time has broken. He was developed in collaboration with a physicist who worked in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) as a consultant, and incorporates concepts of both classical and quantum physics.
Article originally published in Wired Japan. Adapted by Alondra Flores.
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