Photo credit: Erna van Wyk
WHEN NATURE HUMBLES US “May I please have an extra pillow, Sir,” I ask the reception clerk in the hotel lobby on my first visit to Rome some years ago. “It is possible,” he answered, friendly with the appropriate Italian hand signal. Thinking that the pillow will be on my bed when I return after a day of exploring ancient fortresses, it never occurred to me that there may be many possibilities hidden in his answer. To name but two: it is possible that I will get a pillow, and it is possible that I will not get a pillow. For the duration of the stay, I awaited the arrival of the pillow. I could have complained and insisted on the pillow. At first, I thought that it was a good experiment in observing Italian guest relations, but I have now realised this was quantum mechanics at play on an observable scale. Waiting for the pillow to come felt like waiting for someone to open the box holding Schrödinger’s Cat. I was suspended in a superposition state where all the possibilities were possible at the same time: the cat is both alive and dead in the box. In my case, I will get the pillow or I will not get the pillow during my stay in the hotel. 30
By Erna van Wyk WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING The pillow never came. Such is life. But possibility only became reality upon me checking out of the hotel. This act was equivalent to opening the box to find Schrödinger’s Cat either alive or dead. This is what Nature does. She collapses everything into a single state (possibility) when observed but when we are not looking, she merrily goes about being in all the states, of all the states that she can be in, all of the time. It is the harnessing of this power of Nature that scientists developing the world’s first quantum computer are after. Confused? You are not alone. Even the researchers working with quantum mechanics, quantum computing and all things quantum, struggle daily to make sense of the quantum world, says Dr Ismail Akhalwaya, Visiting Lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at Wits University. “Nature is tricky. She humbles us. She says: I can make all the calculations at the same time but I will reveal only a little bit to
