Michio Kaku on Quantum Supremacy | Closer To Truth Chats

Michio Kaku is a professor of physics at the City University of New York, cofounder of string field theory, and the author of several widely acclaimed science books. He is the science correspondent for CBS’s This Morning and host of the radio programs Science Fantastic and Explorations in Science.

Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[bently]

Thank you very much for the very interesting conversation with Michio please have him on again at your best convenience

[Wtvldoc]

Thanks, Robert and Michio for this great webcast. I love the Closer to Truth discussions. As a 93 year old going on to 94th in a few months, I have nothing else but to learn. I have maintained that music is the soul of mankind and learning is the very essence of life. Looking forward to your next web casts.

[joshkeeling]

Favorite YouTube channel, hands down! I'm so thankful for the closer to truth series

$100 bucks says Michio starts by saying "When I was a kid, my mother..." 😂

[orenwright]

Robert, your guidance of this interview is simply brilliant, an amazing display of intellectual virtuosity! You magnificently navigate all the minefields of the popular interview genre, and thoroughly manage to focus on the objective rather than descending into ego reactions. It's clear in all these Closer To Truth releases that you are often as well informed, as well read, and as intellectually adept as your guests. Amazing to watch! Michio Kaku, notwithstanding his genius, unfortunately is prone to calling up popular media-based replies, and you do a brilliant job of pressing him to refine his responses.

[patrickl]

Kaku is just as sharp as ever. This is a very entertaining interview. Closer to Truth rarely lets me down. What a fantastic channel!

[Sammasambuddha]

Michio says: I'm a...
a scientist
a professor
a teacher
a researcher
a physicist
a internet personality
a thinker
a writer
and more!

Thanks for letting us know what you are!

[philjohn]

Stumbling across Closer to the Truth is right up there with taking up running, both happened nearly 4 years ago and both are life sustaining ❤

[TerryBollinger]

28:23 Kaku _“… in a room … there are radio waves [from] all over the world … but your radio is only tuned to one frequency… Now replace these radio waves with electron waves… of dinosaurs, pirates, atoms of all sorts of things… Why can’t you touch them? … Because, just like in radio, … your electrons do not vibrate in unison with them.”_

Michio Kaku, using pirates and dinosaurs makes this one of the more entertaining many-worlds explanations I’ve seen. It reminded me of my early teen years when I entertained friends with stories of how different dimensionalities — e.g., Flatland, though I didn’t know that name then — might intersect invisibly with our own 3D space, allowing all sorts of marvelous things to exist next to us without us seeing or touching them.

Given the Fourier relations of quantum mechanics, I readily understand the temptation, even to Nobel Laureates, of explaining astronomically subtle distinctions between adjacent Everett composite system states by replacing them with a blindingly obvious and utterly non-physical radio-carrier-wave model. It’s utterly non-physical, not just because Everett never proposed such an idea, but because even for the low energies of ordinary FM radio broadcasts, the needed density of carrier waves needed to represent even a “small” multiverse in such a room would instantly vaporize its residents. It would be akin to labeling ants by applying a distinctive mountain to each of their backs.

So what mechanism _did_ Everett propose to separate his universe states?

In his view, the creation of a single new observer-observed pair somewhere in the universe was the _only_ difference that, after a universal Fourier transform, created a new and _fully_ distinct state of the entire universe, one that in his model was just as distinct as spin-up and spin-down in a single electron. That new state would then slice off some astronomically small slice of the _entire_ energy of the universe to make the state real. It would be extraordinarily similar to other states but quite real, with finite energy.

Ditching the carrier-wave nonsense, let’s look more carefully at what “extraordinarily similar” means for Everett’s actual strategy for creating multiverses.

Imagine an electron wave function one meter across — difficult, but not impossible. Someone at the edge of the wave function observes it and finds the electron either next to his instrument or a meter away. That’s an example of the situation that, in Everett’s view, creates a new state of the _entire_ universe.

Next, picture the state of the universe as one of those Pinscreen pads that captures the shape of whatever presses against it. Observing the electron results in a single meter-wide pin clicking into either an up or down position. That pin, and that pin _only, _ is the difference that keeps the two Pinscreens “unique” in quantum superposition space.

To give you some feel for the size of this universal state Pinscreen compared to a one-meter-wide up-or-down observation pin, shrinking the universe-spanning Pinscreen from one meter per pin to one _atom_ per pin gives a Pinscreen about 10 lightyears across.

Since the massive-overkill FM wave analogy has nothing to do with Everett’s thesis proposal, what is the _actual_ distinction he used to distinguish between two possible outcomes of an observation?

It’s that _one_ pin: a single atomic column in two sheets 10 lightyears across. Everything else is _identical_ on both Pinscreens. But at that one point, there’s a mismatch that keeps the sheets pushed apart from each other. That’s the correct image for how subtly and delicately the two states are isolated. Furthermore, the sheets must also be rigid in a way not comprehensible to material physics. And finally, the two sheets must _instantly_ separate if they are to become entirely separate states — you can’t have annoying speed-of-light delays. (A side note: While many feel the greatest attraction of the Everett model is its “smooth” use of differential wave, the astonishing impact of _every_ observation on the _entirety_ of the rest of the universe makes it anything but smooth. A more accurate description is that it uses upside-down quantum collapse on universe-spanning steroids.)

You might think, well, at least the “instant” part is OK. These are _quantum_ wave functions, and photon wave functions millions of light years across collapse instantly when telescopes look at distant galaxies. So, “instant” is not a problem. Right?

Ah… no.

Ask anyone in quantum security how long it takes for entangled states to spread far enough from each other to become usable for security. The answer, part of commercial hardware, is easy: The speed of light. Break that assumption, and you get no entanglement and no encryption.

That _has_ to be the case. Otherwise, you could use entanglement to transmit data faster than light speed. It’s widespread, though I genuinely don’t understand why, for folks to _assume_ that the formation of an entangled wave function is just as “instantaneous” as collapse. However, the two phenomena are entirely different. The event that _spreads_ the entanglement is the Schrödinger wave equation, which, in its 3D embedding, spreads no faster than the speed of light. It is only the event that _collapses_ the wave once it forms that appears “instantaneous” to observers.

What this means for Everett’s idea is not complicated: According to physics _as observed in labs, _ you must wait 93 billion years for the impact of observation to reach the edges of the observable universe before you get a new, entirely orthogonal universe state. That’s give-or-take an eternity since that universe keeps expanding as this goes on.

Finally, a critical closing note: The math behind the Everett approach is _classical_ math. That is, it is math based on the assumption that perfect points, lengths, angles, and orthogonality of infinite numbers of dimensions are all _fundamental_ concepts that need no further explanation. Special relativity and quantum mechanics have not supported such thinking for over a century. However, because these maths arose in the 1700s and 1800s and are emotionally appealing to human analytical styles, they got grandfathered in and applied as if they were _more_ fundamental than the classical physics that inspired them.

The observable universe doesn’t use classical maths, but one of the essential features of the maths it _does_ use is that they powerfully and persuasively support the emergence of the classical approximation, that is, of locally “real” xyzt spaces. This support is why classical maths are so incredibly practical for such a broad range of physics problems and can even be bent and fractured (renormalization, anyone?) enough to support most aspects of special relativity and quantum mechanics. This support is also the source of the powerful temptation to _assume_ that their infinite limits of the xyzt approximation must necessarily be “just as true” as the partial versions that enable history, life, and the persistence of information. The infinite rigidities and speeds behind Everett’s observation-driven, hyper-speed, quantum state formation model are an excellent example of the dangers in applying antiquated classical-first maths and axioms to the deeper structure of the universe that gave rise to such approximations in the first place.

(a PDF copy of this 2023-05-07 comment is available at sarxiv dot org slash apa)
(expanded and updated the PDF copy, but not this one, on 2023-05-08)

[bibib]

Kaku is the best … running 🏃‍♀️ to buy his new book for sure .

[kandaboy]

Kaku is a world treasure. I love him.

[africanfiestacafe]

Thank you, Professor Kaku. I like to have my mind teased and my thinking stretched in all directions. With my husband, we used to enjoy our pillowtalk of multiverses, entropy and the quantum computer.
And ever since I was a kid, I always thought that if humans can imagine something new, never before done or made, it will eventually be possible to do or make it. The tools and methods will need to be developed, but the original ideation is enough to spark the energy required . Thanks again for your insight, explanations and hypotheses to watch closely

[ytb]

The best ever explanation of quantum computing using parallel universe

[VipulAnand]

Thanks Robert. As always curiosity increases after watching episodes of closer to truth .

[dangraboi]

Great chat! I have lots of new insight into the universes of quantum computers. Thanks.

[Joe-xves]

When answering the simulation question, Prof. Kaku went back to digital computing it seemed. I wish the question would have been asked again in regards to the quantum computer with all the infinite possibilities of supersymmetry- could an advanced civilization that has solved the problems of quantum computing use that quantum computer to simulate a universe like our own? Perhaps your next question 'Is the Universe a quantum computer?' answers the question in that the size of the quantum computer would need to be the size of the Universe itself- in which case, my mistake. Either way, I so appreciate you both. So many years- so much enrichment. Thank you

[mylaexpatlivinginus]

I can’t wait for quantum computers revolution. I been watching all michio kaku video and he’s one of the greatest physicists. His theory and explanation’s the most easily understood.

[alejandropflucker]

ASTONISH ME WHAT AN EXTRSORDINARY PERSON IS MR. KAKU....INMENSE CURIOSITY AND KNOLEDGE AND GENEROSITY TO SHARE ALL OF IT . .THANKS A LOT BOTH FOR THIS EXCEPTIONAL INTERVIEW. SO MARVELOUS AND A LOT.

[letsif]

Michio's eternal positivity and optimism is very welcome and refreshing.

[monchoglu]

Love Michio, such a optimistic thinker but grounded to the physical principles, he would be an amazing science fiction writer.

[johnn]

What a delight that someone like Robert's exist, it seems that people with a real urge to find the truth while applying the fullest objective attainable measures are very rare!