Wave Function

WASHINGTON, D.C., DC, UNITED STATES

04.05.2021

Story by Petty Officer 2nd Class Levingston M Lewis and Petty Officer 2nd Class J. Keith Wilson

All Hands Magazine

This is a story. This is not a story.

Welcome to the world of quantum mechanics.

If you ask most people what their knowledge of quantum is, or even mention quantum, they’ll probably say something like, “I love that show!” or “You mean that Ant-Man thing?” Do not fear. This is common. The general population doesn’t have a clue as to what quantum theory is or how it works; however, there are the special few who dedicate their lives to understanding this vast and complicated field.

“We have our sort of everyday world that’s governed by rules and laws that we understand,” said Dr. Adam Black, an Atomic Physicist in the Optical Sciences Division at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratories (NRL). “Everyone’s learned about Newton’s laws of motion, probably in high school, like F=ma [Force = mass x acceleration]. People tend to remember that even if they don’t remember anything else about high school physics class. What they discovered was basically that there were things that didn’t fit. There were certain observations you can make in a laboratory that simply didn’t work with that earlier foundation. So, they had this audacious idea to change the laws of physics.”

True to the nature of science, when something didn’t fit, a better explanation was needed to describe what was being seen in the lab. Great minds of the early 20th century, like Einstein, Heisenburg, Schrodinger, and more, developed these new laws of physics called quantum mechanics to more accurately describe the world. If we were able to observe atoms on a macroscopic scale, it would be easy to imagine them as billiard balls: bouncing around as if a game of 3-dimensional pool is being played. But, in reality, these atoms didn’t seem to follow the rules of traditional mechanics.

“A lot of the aspects of wave behavior turned out to describe particles with very small scale,” said Black. “We understand waves really well. For example, real atoms described by quantum mechanics can interfere with each other...that interference can happen because of what’s called a superposition state. It turns out that an atom can be described as being in two different states at the same time: for example, being in two different places at the same time, in some sense. There’s another property called entanglement. That’s another way to sort of highlight differences that we can get into that enable some of these quantum technologies. It’s these foundational differences we can pick out and say, ‘There’s not interference of matter in the normal world. There’s not superposition in the normal world. There’s not entanglement in the normal world.’ That leads to these particular changes in the way we see things.”

These are the basic foundations of quantum mechanics that have been explored and tested during the last hundred years. The Navy’s interest in quantum technology, however, has only grown stronger as it has grown from theory to practical application. NRL has been exploring some of these practical applications. Quantum sensing technology could use magnetometry to precisely measure magnetic fields, allowing for extremely accurate detection of enemy submarines. Quantum gyroscopes could be used in conjunction with atomic clocks to determine a ship’s global position without the use of satellites. Quantum computing could eventually provide us with unprecedented processing capabilities that reach into the worlds of other sciences.

“Well, one of the issues that we always seem to come up with in the quantum technologies is this corrosion problem, which is a really important problem in ships,” said Dr. Tom Reineke, the Senior Scientist for Nanoelectronics and the head of Quantum Phenomena and Modeling Section of the Electronics Science and Technology Division at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratories. “That all goes back to the kinetics of chemical reactions. It’s sort of an odd point that the computational technologies and algorithms available in the pre-quantum days didn’t treat these kinetic problems about chemistry so well. Quantum computers have a unique capability of getting at the kinetic side of them: the underlying energetics. It’s the kinetics thing, which is really important in the corrosion problem.”

Solving the problem of corrosion on ships is the blessing deck department has been waiting for. Finally, endlessly chipping paint with a needle gun and protecting the ship from rust has an end in sight. It all lies in solutions to complex chemical reactions, likely solved by future quantum computing technologies.

As mentioned earlier, this is a story. It’s the story of a team of talented scientists and dedicated minds. It’s the story of America’s Navy and it’s endeavor to explore new technologies, maintaining our place as the world’s strongest and most innovative seapower. Much like a dual quantum state, however, this is not a story. It’s an understanding of the rules that govern our reality. It’s an exploration of an invisible world, unknown for eons, but existing all around us.

This is also a written story, and not a written story. It’s a podcast! Wave Functions by Ears Adrift. If you prefer audio stories, or simply want to hear more about this topic, visit our website www.ah.mil.

• Date Taken: 04.05.2021
• Date Posted: 11.01.2021 09:30
• Story ID: 408009
• Location: WASHINGTON, D.C., DC, US