Teen solves quantum physics problem 'for fun'

While many of us struggle with common mathematical problems, a teenager in the United States has already solved a problem on quantum entanglement —for fun.

 

Ari Dyckovsky, barely 18, already had his paper on quantum entanglement, a mind-bending aspect of the quantum world, published by leading journal Physical Review A.

 

“Yes, he’s very young, but he’s the first author on that publication and rightfully so. All of the brute force calculations and things like that — Ari did most of it, if not all of it,” said co-author Steven Olmschenk, a researcher with the Joint Quantum Institute, a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland at College Park, on Wired.com.

 

Wired.com said the paper breaks new ground in the ongoing effort to build a quantum computer, so often called the holy grail of technology research.

 

The paper is a theoretical analysis of how two distant and very different particles can be entangled with light. It involves about 90 percent brute force calculation.

 

But Ari's mother Amy is not surprised by the publication, as she traced his quantum ambitions to a cross-country car ride when he was barely three.

 

"At an age when most children are still learning to put words together, Ari sat in back seat solving math problems tossed out by his father, a market researcher and high-tech exec with a degree in economics and a Yale MBA," Wired.com said.

 

While the games were simple addition and subtraction at first, they quickly progressed into multiple-digit multiplication and the square roots of very large numbers.

 

“I would get bored at school, but when I got home, he would make me these math worksheets … algebraic word problems. After a while, they became less about math and more about how would you use math to describe something, to show what’s going on. That’s what physics is,” Ari said.

 

Intro to quantum physics

 

When Dyckovsky was 15, he watched a PBS documentary that ended with a group of physicists creating a new form of matter called the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).

 

BEC, first predicted in the 1920s by Albert Einstein and Indian scientist Satyendra Bose, is not a solid or a liquid or a gas, and exists only at extremely low temperatures.

 

The feature on BEC had such an impact on him that he decided quantum physics was the life for him.

 

Accelerated education 'slows'

 

Ari's accelerated education slowed when he was 9 when his father died after an unexpected heart attack, at age 47.

 

“He took a serious downward spiral. We all did,” his mother said.

 

This continued for years, with Ari saying he lost hope in many ways, especially when it came to education.

 

“For two weeks, I refused to leave the house, and I was finally forced to attend school. I was not happy about it. It really was a major setback,” he said.

 

But Ari said his maternal grandfather revived his natural curiosity.

 

Eventually, he was accepted at the Loudoun County Academy of Science in Sterling, Virginia, a selective, part-time high school for promising science and math students.

 

After his experience with the BEC, he taught himself the basic tenets of quantum mechanics.

 

When he reached his limits there, he emailed about 70 university professors and researchers, asking if they would help take him further.

 

Only Olmschenk responded, but their ties became a collaboration, settling on quantum entanglement, the subject of Olmchenk’s Ph.D. thesis.

 

Quantum entanglement

 

Dyckovsky also put together a poster presentation on his paper on quantum entanglement, titled “Analysis of Photon-Mediated Entanglement Between Distinguishable Matter Qubits.”

 

Quantum entanglement is a way of linking together two particles that are physically isolated.

 

It is counter-intuitive to the world of classical physics - if the quantum properties of one particle are altered, a change happens in the other particle.

 

“Separate observations of the two quantum objects are random, but when observed together, their states are correlated. Basically, measuring the state or information in one of the objects will necessarily determine what state is measured in the other object,” Dyckovksy said.

 

He explained this using two coins - If you and a friend each flip a quarter, the result of each flip is completely random. But with quantum entanglement, it’s as if the result of one flip is always the same as the other — no matter how far apart you and your friend are standing.

 

Wired.com said IBM researcher Charles Bennett showed in the 1990s that this sort of entanglement could be used to send information between two quantum objects, such as atoms or quantum dots (artificial atoms).

 

With his paper, Wired.com said Dyckovsky helped show that you can have quantum entanglement with vastly different particles, not just particles that are similar.

 

“Nearly all the past and even most current research has looked at the remote or long-distance entanglement of indistinguishable quantum memories — such as two identical atoms or ions,” Dyckovsky said.

 

“We extend the current knowledge to not only include entanglement between identical sources, but entanglement with two sources that are very different,” he added.

 

This is so useful because different particles are suited to different parts of a quantum machine. Some are suited to the equivalent of memory, others the equivalent of a processor, Wired.com said.

 

Dyckovsky also pointed out that since quantum entanglement can be achieved over long distances, his research could also be used to build a new form of secure communication.

 

“You could use this entanglement scheme to link an ion and a quantum dot, which can be used to perform a teleportation protocol that allows quantum information to be transferred,” he said.

 

“A government agency could use this for message transfer and no eavesdroppers could intercept the message because none of the sensitive info actually traverses the distance,” he added.

 

Dyckovsky’s research has not only earned him a place in Physical Review A, but also won him a $50,000 college scholarship from the Intel Foundation and a spot in this fall’s freshman class at Stanford University. — TJD, GMA News