Can we explain the origin of life with quantum mechanics? And if so, are there quantum algorithms that can encode life itself? Today we are a little closer to finding the answers to these questions thanks to new research conducted with an IBM supercomputer.
Coding practices related to self-replication, transformation, communication between individuals or a recently created quantum program have been the ingredients used to demonstrate that quantum computers can reflect a part of the biology of the real world (certain patterns).
Obviously it is still an early concept, but it opens the way to delve into the relationship between quantum mechanics and the starting point of something as important as life.
Certainly the creation of artificial life has been the subject of numerous experiments in the past, but current software has a classical, Newtonian methodology, it is not limited to ones and zeros and can present a portion of the randomness that we see in the normal existence of the day. a day. In other words, the new study adds that degree of unpredictability to computer simulations.
The experts from the University of the Basque Country (Spain) used the IBM QX4 quantum computer for their work. They encoded units of quantum life made up of two qubits (the basic building blocks of quantum physics): one to represent the genotype (the genetic code passed between generations) and another to represent the phenotype (the outer manifestation of that code, the ” body”).
These units were programmed to reproduce, mutate, evolve, and die, in part using quantum entanglement, just as any real living thing would. They also introduced random changes using rotations of the quantum state to simulate a mutation, for example.
The good news is that these real quantum calculations coincided with the theoretical models that the team of researchers had already devised in 2015, in which natural selection, learning and memory were imitated in a quantum-theoretical model.
“The objective of the proposed model is to reproduce the characteristic processes of Darwinian evolution, adapted to the language of quantum algorithms and quantum computing,” write the authors in the journal Scientific Reports that publishes the study.
A whole new level of physics
Although there are still giant steps to take in this regard, but this achievement shows that it could be possible. The theory has taken the first steps to practical use within a real quantum computer. However, as with almost everything else in the field of quantum mechanics, scientists are learning as they go.
The IBM supercomputer used in the study only partly counts as a complete quantum computer, although these machines are becoming more powerful over time. “We left open the question of whether the origin of life is really quantum mechanical,” the researchers explain.
“What we prove here is that microscopic quantum systems can efficiently encode quantum characteristics and biological behaviors, generally associated with living systems and natural selection,” conclude the Spanish experts.
Reference: Quantum Artificial Life in an IBM Quantum Computer. U. Alvarez-Rodriguez, M. Sanz, L. Lamata & E. Solano Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 14793 (2018) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-33125-3
