BocaRatonPaper.pdf

<i>Arthur Clark and Michael Kube–McDowell (“The Triger”, 2000) suggested the sci-fi idea about the direct transformation from a chemical substance into another by the action of a newly physical, “Trigger” field. Karl Brohier, a Nobel Prize winner, who is a dramatic persona in the novel, elaborates a new theory, re-reading and re-writing Pauling’s “The Nature of the Chemical Bond”; according to Brohier: “Information organizes and differentiates energy. It regularizes and stabilizes matter. Information propagates through matter-energy and mediates the interactions of matter-energy.” Dr Horton, his collaborator in the novel replies: “If the universe consists of energy and information, then the Trigger somehow alters the information envelope of certain substances –“. </i> <i>“Alters it, scrambles it, overwhelms it, destabilizes it” Brohier adds.</i> <i>There is a scientific debate whether or how far chemistry is fundamentally reducible to quantum mechanics. Nevertheless, the fact that many essential chemical properties and reactions are at least partly representable in terms of quantum mechanics is doubtless. </i><i>For the quantum mechanics itself has been reformulated as a theory of a special kind of information, quantum information, chemistry might be in turn interpreted in the same terms. </i> <i>Wave function, the fundamental concept of quantum mechanics, can be equivalently defined as a series of qubits, eventually infinite. A qubit, being defined as the normed superposition of the two orthogonal subspaces of the complex Hilbert space, can be interpreted as a generalization of the standard bit of information as to infinite sets or series. All “forces” in the Standard model, which are furthermore essential for chemical transformations, are groups [U(1),SU(2),SU(3)] of the transformations of the complex Hilbert space and thus, of series of qubits. </i> <i>One can suggest that any chemical substances and changes are fundamentally representable as quantum information and its transformations. If entanglement is interpreted as a physical field, though any group above seems to be unattachable to it, it might be identified as the “Triger field”. It might cause a direct transformation of any chemical substance by from a remote distance. Is this possible in principle?</i>

亚瑟·克拉克（Arthur Clark）与迈克尔·库布-麦克道尔（Michael Kube–McDowell）在《触发者（The Triger）》（2000）中提出了一项科幻构想：借助一种全新的物理“触发场（Trigger field）”，实现化学物质间的直接转化。诺贝尔奖得主卡尔·布罗希尔（Karl Brohier）是该小说中的标志性人物，他重新研读并重写了鲍林的经典著作《化学键的本质（The Nature of the Chemical Bond）》，并在此基础上构建了一套全新理论。布罗希尔提出：“信息组织并分化能量，它规整并稳定物质。信息通过物质-能量传播，并介导物质-能量间的相互作用。”小说中他的合作者霍顿（Horton）博士回应道：“若宇宙由能量与信息构成，那么触发场会在某种程度上改变特定物质的信息包封（information envelope）——”
布罗希尔补充道：“改变它、扰乱它、击溃它、瓦解它。”
学界围绕化学在多大程度上可被基本还原为量子力学存在科学争议。但毋庸置疑，诸多关键化学性质与化学反应至少可部分通过量子力学的语言加以阐释。
由于量子力学本身已被重构为一种特殊信息——量子信息（quantum information）——的理论，化学或许也可通过相同的逻辑得到诠释。
作为量子力学核心概念的波函数（wave function），可等价地定义为一系列量子比特（qubit）的叠加组合，乃至无限序列。量子比特被定义为复希尔伯特空间（complex Hilbert space）中两个正交子空间的归一化叠加态，可被理解为标准信息比特向无限集合或序列的推广。标准模型（Standard Model）中所有对化学转化至关重要的“基本力”，均为复希尔伯特空间乃至量子比特序列的变换群[U(1)、SU(2)、SU(3)]。
我们可以提出如下构想：一切化学物质与化学变化本质上均可被表征为量子信息及其变换过程。若将量子纠缠（entanglement）诠释为一种物理场——尽管上述变换群似乎无法与纠缠建立直接关联——则可将其认定为“触发场”。它或许能够通过远程作用直接实现任意化学物质的转化。这一构想在原理上是否可行？