Schrödinger’s microbe: implications of coercing a living organism into a coherent quantum mechanical state

Abstract

Consideration of the experimental activities carried out in one discipline, through the lens of another, can lead to novel insights. Here, we comment from a biological perspective upon experiments in quantum mechanics proposed by physicists that are likely to feasible in the near future. In these experiments, an entire living organism would be knowingly placed into a coherent quantum state for the first time, i.e. would be coerced into demonstrating quantum phenomena. The implications of the proposed experiment for a biologist depend to an extent upon the outcomes. If successful (i.e. quantum coherence is achieved and the organism survives after returning to a normal state), then the organism will have been temporarily in a state where it has an unmeasurable metabolism-not because a metabolic rate is undetectable, but because any attempt to measure it would automatically bring the organism out of the state. We argue that this would in essence represent a new category of cryptobiosis. Further, the organism would not necessarily retain all of the characteristics commonly attributed to living systems, unlike the currently known categories of cryptobiosis. If organisms can survive having previously been in a coherent state, then we must accept that living systems do not necessarily need to remain in a decoherent state at all times. This would be something new to biologists, even if it might seem trivial to physicists. It would have implications concerning the physical extremes organisms can tolerate, the search for extraterrestrial life, and our philosophical view of animation.

Quantum superposition, entanglement, and state teleportation of a microorganism on an electromechanical oscillator

“…In 2009, Romero-Isart et al [25] proposed to optically trap a living microorganism in a high-finesse optical cavity in vacuum to create a superposition state. That paper increased our hope to experimentally study the quantum nature of living organisms [1,26,27]. Meanwhile, Li et al demonstrated optical trapping of a pure silica microsphere in air and vacuum [28], and cooled its center-of-mass motion from room temperature to about 1.5 mK in high vacuum [29].…”

“…Our proposal also works for viruses. Since many biologists do not consider viruses as living organisms [27], we focus on small bacteria in this paper. Our proposal has several advantages.…”

Parallels of quantum superposition in ecological models: from counterintuitive patterns to eco-evolutionary interpretations of cryptic species

“…However, there is increasing evidence that the ways the brain (Wendt 2015), human societies (Zohar and Marshall 1995), and economic systems (Orrell 2018) work is often reminiscent of quantum physical phenomena. This highlights synergies that can be exploited for genuinely novel interdisciplinary research (Bull and Gordon 2015).…”

“…It is increasingly recognized that the adoption of quantum analogies in classical systems has potential to inspire novel interpretations of their dynamics that are not at odds with classical logic (Wendt 2015, Orrell 2018). In the broadest sense, this suggests that the logics of a quantum and classical world are reconcilable and that ultimately current theories can be advanced through the cross-fertilization of both logics (Bull and Gordon 2015). This paper attempts such unification by showing that quantum superposition can inspire discussions about eco-evolutionary theories.…”

Bringing quantum mechanics to life: from Schrödinger’s cat to Schrödinger’s microbe

“…With the help of a superconducting circuit, the state of a living microbe may also be teleported to another microbe [12]. It was proposed that a microbe in a quantum coherent state would represent a new category of cryptobiosis [13]. Meanwhile, some organisms seem to be able to harness quantum coherence in biological processes, such as photosynthetic light harvesting and avian magnetoreception, to gain a biological advantage [14,15].…”