The Quantum Theory of Life

In Physics, quantum mechanics is a theory that describes the world in atomic scale. It is probabilistic in construction, and claims that everything is non-deterministic with the famous uncertainty principle. To put things more mathematical, this theory uses wavefunction to describe the wave particle duality behaviour of matter and energy. Any wavefunction can be written in terms of a linear combination of basis state, which resides in the Hilbert space. The modulus square of the coefficients give the probability of that state, and they are normalized. When a measurement is made, the eigenvalue of one state will be observed. I shall not go on to the collapse of the wave-function interpretation as they are highly debatable.

Now if we want to define our life, we can think of it in terms of defining a wavefunction, in a very similar way that we define the state of matter. For example, the languages we speak can form a basis state, with the coefficient representing how well we speak that language. In my case, it can be approximated easily as (using Dirac notation for wavefunctions) |Yun> = 1/sqrt(2) |Chinese> + 1/sqrt(2) |English> . However, this is approximation, as I know a few words of Japanese and German, but they definitely don't count as the coefficient would have at least 20 zeros after the decimal point.

Another interesting basis set we can use is the countries we have stayed in. In this highly globalized world, more and more people are born in one place, raised in another, and working or studying in a third country. Maybe for some none of these are their ethnic native country. Quantum theory somehow can sort of model this highly dynamics society.

So what is your wavefunction?

BBC featured a similiar random walk on Wikipedia

BBC featured a similar random walk on Wikipedia. It is definitely more sophisticated.

The article is called Lost in Wikipedia. It is part of a series of programme to celebrate Wikipedia's 10th anniversary.

Wandering of the Mind

Consider a walk on the Internet.

I went on Wikipedia to look for information on Fresnel half-period zones. It turned out that the page on Fresnel zone is about something completely different. Clicked on "near field" in the See Also section to see what it is about. I was overwhelmed with wordy descriptions. Scrolling down I started reading the "Analysis" section as the paragraph begins with the words "Maxwell's equation". I stumbled upon "Bessel's function", which was mentioned in my notes but not explained. Click and it was pages after pages of mathematics. WOW. Didn't bother to understand any of it. But Bessel's functions are first defined by Daniel Bernoulli? Lots of things seem to be related to him. Have to see what other things he has accomplished. His page is definitely the most friendly so far, with many familiar names and concepts. Since I'm doing fluid mechanics next term, why not check out it, as he made important contributions.

I shall end it here. Potentially I can go on and on, just clicking on links that catch a glimpse of my attention. Similar things occur on the BBC website and more dangerously Facebook. I say dangerous as it is interactive, and high tendency to stay on for much longer.

A simple "random walk" like this costs me at least half hour before I even realize I am walking. I will continue walking even after that, as it is so addictive. The feeling to getting a reply with a simple click is just enormous. Ever since English was no longer a barrier, I have been just browsing through pages and pages on the Internet. The amount of information I come across also increased, as I begin to get interested in more and more topics. To cope I begin to skimming through the text faster and faster. It has developed into such a daily routine thing that I think my brain has been wired to just skim through things. It's a daily caffeine dosage that it cannot miss. After receiving training in this area, it seems to have lost its function to stay focused on a single article or topic. Now this is a problem.

I can't seem to focus on a very long article or commentary on the newspaper. I find it very hard to read my lecture handout slowly enough to understand the previous sentence before moving on. In less than 30 minutes into any lecture, my mind will wander away. These are all the signs of restlessness. I cannot foresee this problem going away easily, just like addiction.

Internet has brought the world to the computer screen. Everything is just a click away. However, is it going to make us evolve in the reverse way? Has the brain become too used to accepting answers with a click, that it has slowly lost its function to think and analyze?