Related papers: Unpredictability and the transmission of numbers
In earlier papers we showed unpredictability beyond quantum uncertainty in atomic clocks, ensuing from a proven gap between given evidence and explanations of that evidence. Here we reconceive a clock, not as an isolated entity, but as…
A clock steps a computer through a cycle of phases. For the propagation of logical symbols from one computer to another, each computer must mesh its phases with arrivals of symbols from other computers. Even the best atomic clocks drift…
Quantum theory reflects within itself a separation of evidence from explanations. This separation leads to a known proof that: (1) no wave function can be determined uniquely by evidence, and (2) any chosen wave function requires a guess…
We argue that (1) our perception of time through change and (2) the gap between reality and our observation of it are at the heart of both quantum mechanics and the dynamical mechanism of physical systems. We suggest that the origin of…
Quantum mechanics---the theory describing the fundamental workings of nature---is famously counterintuitive: it predicts that a particle can be in two places at the same time, and that two remote particles can be inextricably and…
Although quantum states nicely explain experiments, the outcomes of experiments are not states. Instead, outcomes correspond to probability distributions. Twenty years ago we proved categorically that probability distributions leave open a…
The world runs on communicated sequences of symbols, e.g. numerals. Examining both engineered and natural communications networks reveals an unsuspected order that depends on contact with an unpredictable entity. This order has three roots.…
We demonstrate an unsuspected freedom in physics, by showing an essential unpredictability in the relation between the behavior of clocks on the workbench and explanations of that behavior written in symbols on the blackboard. In theory,…
A source of unpredictability is equivalent to a source of information: unpredictability means not knowing which of a set of alternatives is the actual one; determining the actual alternative yields information. The degree of…
A perplexing problem in understanding physical reality is why the universe seems comprehensible, and correspondingly why there should exist physical systems capable of comprehending it. In this essay I explore the possibility that rather…
The study of complex systems has attracted widespread attention from researchers in the fields of natural sciences, social sciences, and engineering. Prediction is one of the central issues in this field. Although most related studies have…
Our knowledge of quantum mechanics can satisfactorily describe simple, microscopic systems, but is yet to explain the macroscopic everyday phenomena we observe. Here we aim to shed some light on the quantum-to-classical transition as seen…
Quantum communication is built on a set of disruptive concepts and technologies. It is driven by fascinating physics and by promising applications. It requires a new mix of competencies, from telecom engineering to theoretical physics, from…
Communication in a network generally takes place through a sequence of intermediate nodes connected by communication channels. In the standard theory of communication, it is assumed that the communication network is embedded in a classical…
Many empirical time series are genuinely symbolic: examples range from link activation patterns in network science, DNA coding or firing patterns in neuroscience to cryptography or combinatorics on words. In some other contexts, the…
Networked dynamical systems are common throughout science in engineering; e.g., biological networks, reaction networks, power systems, and the like. For many such systems, nonlinearity drives populations of identical (or near-identical)…
It has been suggested, on the one hand, that quantum states are just states of knowledge; and, on the other, that quantum theory is merely a theory of correlations. These suggestions are confronted with problems about the nature of…
With an increasing amount of observations on the dynamics of many complex systems, it is required to reveal the underlying mechanisms behind these complex dynamics, which is fundamentally important in many scientific fields such as climate,…
Communication scenarios between two parties can be implemented by first encoding messages into some states of a physical system which acts as the physical medium of the communication and then decoding the messages by measuring the state of…
We show that a quantum clock cannot be teleported without prior synchronization between sender and receiver: every protocol using a finite amount of entanglement and an arbitrary number of rounds of classical communication will necessarily…