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Researchers from the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology (VCQ), and the University of Vienna
have developed a new quantum imaging technique in which the image has been obtained without ever detecting the light that was used to illuminate the imaged object.
Their sketch of a cat was generated with photons that have never touched the object, instead using entangled pairs of photons and discarding the photons that have interacted with the sketch. The researchers are confident that their new imaging concept is very versatile and could even find applications where low light imaging is crucial, in fields such as biological or medical imaging.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by pkrasimirov on Friday December 19 2014, @11:38AM
> This alludes to the famous Schrödinger cat paradox, in which a cat inside a closed box is said to be simultaneously dead and alive as long there is no information outside the box to rule out one option over the other. [...] The object (e.g. the contour of a cat) is illuminated with light that remains undetected. Moreover, the light that forms an image of the cat on the camera never interacts with it.
I don't pretend to understand quantum physics but isn't that light already defined the cat state, no matter if it went to the camera or in the environment around the camera? Isn't the cat in informational superstatus (relative to the observer) only if its entire info-universe separated from the observer info-universe? Maybe I got it all wrong in first place. But to me this entanged particles observation sounds like they can now observe Medusa, not Schrödinger's cat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 19 2014, @01:18PM
Well, their cat image is purely classical (no cat superposition), it is only the light whose quantum properties are used.
(Score: 2) by dlb on Friday December 19 2014, @02:15PM
but isn't that light already defined the cat state, no matter if it went to the camera or in the environment around the camera?
You've hit the nail on the head, here. I don't understand quantum mechanics, either, but isn't one of the tenets that you cannot get information about the state of an object without changing that object's state in the process? Something doesn't sound right in the summary. (Disclaimer: not only do I not understand Q.M., but I didn't read the article. With apologies....)
(Score: 3, Informative) by strattitarius on Friday December 19 2014, @07:39PM
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7515/full/nature13586.html [nature.com]
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