There has been quite a flurry of excitement about quantum mechanics in the news. First there is the paper reported in MIT Review claiming an experiment that “suggests” objective reality does not exist. Massimiliano Proietti at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and colleagues recreated what is known as the Wigner’s Friend thought experiment in the lab. These authors suggest that, ” that one or more of the assumptions—the idea that there is a reality we can agree on, the idea that we have freedom of choice, or the idea of locality—must be wrong.”
Not to be outdone by proving that an objective reality doesn’t exist, another group of researchers claim to have used a quantum computer to reverse the arrow of time. The authors write that, “Using this algorithm on an IBM quantum computer enables us to experimentally demonstrate a backward time dynamics for an electron scattered on a two-level impurity.” If you are wondering where the semester went, perhaps we can turn back time after all. Or maybe that isn’t objectively true, it just seems like it.
