Nicole Yunger Halpern - Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterdays Tomorrow

2022 Nicole Yunger Halpern

All rights reserved. Published 2022

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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Johns Hopkins University Press

2715 North Charles Street

Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363

www.press.jhu.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Yunger Halpern, Nicole, 1989 author.

Title: Quantum steampunk : the physics of yesterdays tomorrow / Nicole Yunger Halpern.

Description: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021028550 | ISBN 9781421443720 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781421443737 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Quantum theory. | Thermodynamics.

Classification: LCC QC174.12 .Y86 2022 | DDC 530.12dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021028550

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

All illustrations by Todd Cahill.

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ONCE UPON A TIME IN PHYSICS

Forgive me for arriving late, Audrey. A shadow detached itself from the doorways other shadows and stepped into the drawing room. The firelight played over a man in his mid-twenties, looking like a raven whos tumbled into a ditch. One wouldnt believe that the cloak hed handed the butler had borne the brunt of the storm. Our friend Ewartah, arranged for me to be delayed.

Our friend, indeed. A girl, about ten years younger than Caspian, shut her book and beckoned him into the warmth. You have never flattered a soul in your life, Caspian, so pray do not begin with Ewart. Daisy insisted on bringing out the tea things before you arrived, she added as Caspian squelched his way across the red-and-gold carpet. Would you care for a cup?

Please. Caspian stretched his hands out toward the fire as a raindrop trickled into his right ear. I trust that your brother is well?

If any unwellness were ill-informed enough to approach Baxter, he would turn a cartwheel, and it would sail straight past. Audrey set down the teapot. Sugar?

If you would be so kind. Caspian turned from the fire to settle himself into the high-backed chair beside the table, as only a long-time family friend or a cat can in anothers house. You said that you had a discovery to report. He leaned closer. A discovery about time, and about rewriting time on the quantum scale.

Looking up to pass Caspian his cup and saucer, Audrey saw a spot flicker by his right cheekand not because of the firelight. Frowning, she set the china down.

Indeed, she said, feeling around the table without taking her eyes off the spot. Her hand met a miniature crystal vase, which she emptied of its violets and water. Precisely why I invited you. The flicker hovered closer to Caspians cheek. In fact

Thwack! Audrey clapped the vases mouth to Caspians right cheek and clapped a hand to his left cheek, immobilizing his head. Caspian flinched, and his eyes grew wide, but he didnt move otherwise.

Keep still, Audrey hissed, and hold this. Caspian took hold of the vase while she fetched a sheet of paper from a nearby table. She slid it under the vase, then lifted the vase away from his face, pressing the paper against the vases mouth. The two of them stared at the vase in the firelight as a small, copper body buzzed against the glass.

That is no insect, Caspian murmured.

Audrey shook her head.

Whilst flattered by Ewarts eagerness to overhear my discovery, she said, I could do without the compliment. Audrey set the vase upside-down atop the table and peered more closely. I could never have caught this spy-fly of his if it had not been moving so slowly, but it must be nearly drained of energy.

Poor thing, Caspian murmured. Audrey smiled.

Baxter is developing a superior version, which can extract energy from a certain type of light quite efficiently. Not the type here, she added, waving at the fireplace, but a type that Ewart would have in his laboratory.

The two of them watched the mechanical buzzing insect awhile longer, the fireplace crackling behind them, till a raindrop trickled down Caspians nose.

I neglect my duties as hostess, Audrey said, reaching for his cup and saucer. Tea?

AUDREY AND CASPIAN belong to a steampunk novel that lives in my imagination. Steampunk is a genre that stretches from literature to art and film. H. G. Wells and Jules Verne sowed the movements seeds in nineteenth-century novels such as The Time Machine and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. In steampunk works, technologies of the future populate nineteenth-century settings. Youll find Victorian parlors, factories belching smoke, Western American saloons, and a Meiji Japan reinventing itself. Men wearing top hats and women wearing bustles engineer dirigibles, clockwork robots, and time machines. Steamsheepdog of the Industrial Revolutiondrives the fantasies technologies. Yesterday and tomorrow blend into an aura of nostalgia, adventure, and romance.

Steampunk fans write novels, paint and draw, work metal and glass, and film movies. They don cravats and corsets, array themselves with telescopes and magnifying glasses, and gather at conventions. Ive attended only one steampunk convention, I confess. The most steampunk costume Ive worn was a dress from one of those theme-park stands where you choose an outfit from a rack, dress up, and take family photos for the cost of a set of steak knives. I was about six, and the skirt was almost as wide as I was tall. But, despite my dearth of petticoats, I now live the story that steampunk fans dream of.

Im a theoretical physicist who works at the intersection of quantum physics, information processing, and thermodynamics. Thermodynamics, the study of energy, developed during the 1800s to explain why steam engines work. Quantum physicsthe study of electrons, atoms, and other small particlesunderlies a breed of computers that will one day outstrip even supercomputers on certain information-processing tasks. I intersect the futuristic technology of quantum computers with the Victorian setting of thermodynamics, after the fashion of steampunk. This intersection I call quantum steampunk. It centers on how quantum physics can transform and enhance thermodynamic technologies, such as engines, as quantum physics is transforming and enhancing computers. Quantum steampunk also provides fundamental revelations, such as a detailed understanding of why time runs only forward, and insights into the rest of the universe, such as black holes. The field has roared to the forefront of scientific advances over the past decade, embodying the excitement and promise of steampunk. This book is intended to impart that excitement and to explore that promise.