by Flemming Funch
Scientists have apparently figured out that information can be negative. Article here and some news items here or here.What could negative information possibly mean? In short, after I send you negative information, you will know less. Such strange situations can occur because what it means to know something is very different in the quantum world. In the quantum world, we can know too much, and it is in these situations where one finds negative information. Negative information turns out to be precisely the right amount to cancel the fact that we know too much.
Now, if I didn't know anything else, I might guess that it would be something like this: If somebody had information about my name as "Fxlemyminxg Fxunzch" and I told them to take away the x, y and z's, they'd have the real name. But that's not really what they mean. They don't mean either that it is when people pass around false or confusing information. It is more like this:
Particles in a quantum state are uncertain. If they're isolated from everything else, one doesn't really know anything about them. They have to be observed somehow. So, if you have a quantum particle, and I have the knowledge of its state, then we have some information. We could ask somebody else to come and verify it. But if I give that knowledge to you, and forget about it, assuming that would be possible, then you would have both the thing and the information about it, and it is no longer as certain. Because you could decide that it is just about anything, and nobody could be quite sure what it is. So, there's less information.
Another piece of the idea is quantum entanglement. Two particles might be entangled, even though they're in different places. And then they can know things about each other without having to transfer any pieces of information. So, you can sort of have a credit, so you'll able to know stuff in the future, without any information having to be transferred. Information can just suddenly be there, and to make the information accounting add up, that is as if negative information had been transferred.
I can't say I entirely get that, but, as usual, quantum mechanics provide plenty of material for useful metaphors for daily life.
For us to know something with some certainty, we normally need to be separated from the process by which the object of attention is generated. I can be a knowledgable stamp collector if there's a limited number of agencies that can issue stamps, which can be listed in a book, and if it is kind of difficult to manufacture stamps. If anybody could make the stamps themselves, and nobody could see the difference, then my knowledge of the world's stamps would probably become less. Sufficiently high quality color copiers and printers might subtract information, because I might no longer know what is original and what isn't. A nano replicator would subtract information, because a lot of people suddenly wouldn't be sure what stuff really is, because anybody could make it or change it. Is it a real Van Gogh, or a $5 nano-generated replica? I suddenly don't know.
Might be a solution to information overload. There are potential technologies that suddenly, disruptively, would make it a whole lot less meaningful to keep track of certain kinds of information.
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