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Monday, April 14, 2014

Science behind the photosynthesis bit: "Energy transfer in light-harvesting macromolecules is assisted by specific vibrational motions of the chromophores," said Alexandra Olaya-Castro (UCL Physics & Astronomy), supervisor and co-author of the research. "We found that the properties of some of the chromophore vibrations that assist energy transfer during photosynthesis can never be described with classical laws, and moreover, this non-classical behaviour enhances the efficiency of the energy transfer." "The negative values in these probability distributions are a manifestation of a truly quantum feature, that is, the coherent exchange of a single quantum of energy," explained Edward O'Reilly (UCL Physics & Astronomy), first author of the study. "When this happens electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom are jointly and transiently in a superposition of quantum states, a feature that can never be predicted with classical physics."
"Greetings... We are from the future. Everything is going to be okay. The future is a beautiful place ... But you will need some training in order to inhabit it.
“How can we be from the future?” you might ask. Let us explain. Plants harvest light with near perfect efficiency. You may not realize it, but this is impossible under classical physics. Along the way to the photosynthesizing core - photons of light should collide with other particles, but they don’t. A photon succeeding in reaching the core is as likely - as you sprinting blindfolded through a dense forest - reaching the center without striking a single tree.
This is why man made solar panels get nowhere near the efficiency of a simple leaf. Plants are engaged in a kind of miracle. The plant puts the photon into a state of quantum superposition, multiplying it by every route that photon could possibly take. Imagine - blindly sprinting through a forest - being multiplied into every one of the billions of possible paths. If any one of your possibilities were observed hitting a tree, the superposition would collapse - and that would be your final outcome, but the plant patiently refuses to observe any of these casualties - while at it's heart it sings “Let there be light.”
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