
An international team of researchers are claiming to have performed the first ever experiment successfully āquantum entanglingā a multi-celled organism.
The team, whose research was recently published in a pre-print paper, says itās managed to place a tardigrade ā a tiny critter affectionately known as a āwater bearā ā in a state of quantum entanglement between a pair of superconducting qubits.
In other words: the researchers managed to put a tardigrade in a state where it was directly connected to the qubits in such a way that anything that happens to the water bear or the qubits would simultaneously affect all three.
This is a fundamental property of quantum computing. But this kind of quantum function usually only occurs with particle-sized objects. Researchers have put single-celled organisms in a state of quantum entanglement before, but this would mark the first time scientists have done so with a complex biological organism.
Eureka?
There is, however, some debate as to the significance of the teamās efforts. Per the researchersā paper:
We observe coupling between the animal in cryptobiosis and a superconducting quantum bit and prepare a highly entangled state between this combined system and another qubit. The tardigrade itself is shown to be entangled with the remaining subsystems. The animal is then observed to return to its active form after 420 hours at sub 10 mK temperatures and pressure of 6 Ć 10ā6 mbar, setting a new record for the conditions that a complex form of life can survive.
Thereās a lot to unpack there, but first and foremost: other physicists are being critical of this work early due to what appears to be a loose definition of āentanglement.ā
As spotted by Live Scienceās Brandon Specktor, the buzz on social media appears to be entirely skeptical:
The qubit is an electrical circuit and putting the tardigrade next to it affects it through the laws of electromagnetism we've known about for more than 150 years. Putting a speck of dust next to the qubit would have a similar effect.
11/n
ā Ben Brubaker (@benbenbrubaker) December 18, 2021
But, as Specktor also points out, this is all likely to get sorted in peer-review. For now, letās talk about the experiment itself.
The nightmare before Christmas
Tardigrades are among the most resilient creatures we know of. They can enter a state of suspended animation where they have no observable biological functions in order to survive in extremely hostile environments.
Itās for this reason the scientists chose to attempt integrating them with quantum bits in a circuit. The ideaās pretty basic. You freeze the tardigrades to the point that theyāre next to absolute zero, and then you can put them in a state of entanglement just like any other super-cold particle.
However, because the tardigrades are living beings, the storyās a bit more visceral than your standard āwe entangled several photonsā variety of experiment.
According to teamās paper, these particular tardigrades were ācollected in February 2018 from a roof gutter in Niva, Denmark.ā
So, to sum up, a group of humans in white coats kidnapped a bunch of cute little water bears, who were already living in a literal gutter, and then exposed them to the coldest temperatures a tardigradeās ever experienced before forcing them into a three-way entanglement with superconducting qubits.
The team was able to revive one of the tardigrades that were successfully involved in what theyāre calling entanglement. But, as for the others, the researchers wrote āwe wish to point out that it is very important for the revival of the animal to change the external temperature and pressure gently.ā
Rest in power little science bears, weāll never forget you.
Further reading: Physicists might have created quantum entanglement in bacteria
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