This thesis explores assumptions regarding the nature of the Self as it relates to the World. The exploration, a hermeneutic investigation initially shaped by the authors interest in the role of the unconscious in thinking, develops through the emergence of questions which move from the role of the unconscious to the conceptualization of self and reality and finally to the role of language. To answer these questions, the author examines ontological and epistemological assumptions about the nature of the Self and the World by analyzing various boundaries, imposed both (a) as spatial metaphors used to speak of subjective experiences and (b) as notions of locality grounded in the classical physics world view. The assumptions of a locally-grounded, boundaried subject create separations between Self, mind, body and the World, and thus are worthy of exploration. Instead of setting out to provide a definitive answer to pre-set questions, the thesis chronicles the evolution of the authors questions and answers produced through her examination of various texts on metaphor, philosophy of mind, and consciousness studies. Thus, the thesis is written as the authors search to understand how it is possible to move beyond locally grounded boundaried subjects towards a form of knowing that considers simultaneously the distinctiveness of Self, and the unity of Self with the whole of what is. The metaphor of tracking emphasizes the importance of possessing attentiveness to the specific while not losing sight of the larger context or whole. Ultimately, the author suggests an attitude of speculative tentativeness constantly on the verge of reconfiguring the whole The thesis is presented in multiple formats including essay, multi-voiced essay, poetry, dialogue, and story. These formats capture the continuous interplay of various faces of knowing presented as forms of perception, unconscious appreciation, and conceptualization. In this way, the overall format of the thesis reflects the content of the thesis where the author portrays her experience of tracking how her living interactions in the world are forms of awareness uninhibited by boundaries. In her conclusion, the author recognizes her experience as a form of direct realism in which human knowing is symbolic of the emergent nature of reality.

This study is about quantum physics and the role it can play in a religious perspective. I intend to examine how moderna physics may be related and understood as New age and Myths. My material consists of two books in the new age genre: "The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra and "The Quantum Self" by Danah Zohar. My first two question to these books are which 1) religious and 2) scientific content they have. My other questions are too 3) investigate and demonstrate how these books are new age and 4) to exanine how the books can function as myths and adopt mythical features. And last 5) to compare important content and ideas between the books. My methods are a simple hermeneutic close reading with a qualitative inductive analysis grounded in previous research and theory. My method is also inspired by a contextual analysis of ideas and an exploratory study. In the investigation I start by showing what religious and scientific materials the books contain. My conslusion is that these two books thoroughly fulfill many criteria for the New age genre. They should however not be counted as Myths becuse they do not meet the requirenents I have defined in the theory section. Moreover, the books share many similarities, such as many common references and resistance to some ideas from the Western tradition of ideas. But there are also some differences, mainly in how they use quantum physics. Firstly, a difference is that Capra primarily make parallels between quantum physics and Eastern philosophical tradition which Zohar does not. Secondly, Capra uses quantum physics to approach the mesage, that is primarily derived from Buddhism, which is that the reality is dynamic and in the end that the world is a "non-existing thing". Zohar is opposed to this and she would call it an extreme solipsism. She argues that the reality consists of both a particle and wave structure wich she applices at the consciousness.

Grand Variations is a work for large orchestra built on an original theme and six variations. My primary concerns when composing were communication, continuity, and distortion. To musically communicate an idea repetition is essential, and the type of repetition presented in theme and variations provided what I was looking for. In addition, the fact that the theme will be repeated over and over leads to a built in continuity. The final concern, distortion, may be achieved by pulling away from a more straightforward presentation of the thematic material. Two additional elements played a large role in the work—cyclic forms, and quantum physics. The composition Déserts by Edgard Varese, and the jazz work Nefertiti by Wayne Shorter, both contain strong cyclic features. Nefertiti uses the same melody repeated over and over, while Déserts, on the other hand, repeatedly presents the same musical gestures, and sound objects, but with slight changes to achieve its own cyclic sound world. These two works framed the way that I approached variations, yet are at odds with each other. Through my reading of quantum physics, I found a way to join the two into a working structure, and the book, The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, helped me to do it. Because of this, I decided early on to honor that influence, and the title Grand Variations reflect that.

This thesis explores assumptions regarding the nature of the Self as it relates to the World. The exploration, a hermeneutic investigation initially shaped by the authors interest in the role of the unconscious in thinking, develops through the emergence of questions which move from the role of the unconscious to the conceptualization of self and reality and finally to the role of language. To answer these questions, the author examines ontological and epistemological assumptions about the nature of the Self and the World by analyzing various boundaries, imposed both (a) as spatial metaphors used to speak of subjective experiences and (b) as notions of locality grounded in the classical physics world view. The assumptions of a locally-grounded, boundaried subject create separations between Self, mind, body and the World, and thus are worthy of exploration. Instead of setting out to provide a definitive answer to pre-set questions, the thesis chronicles the evolution of the authors questions and answers produced through her examination of various texts on metaphor, philosophy of mind, and consciousness studies. Thus, the thesis is written as the authors search to understand how it is possible to move beyond locally grounded boundaried subjects towards a form of knowing that considers simultaneously the distinctiveness of Self, and the unity of Self with the whole of what is. The metaphor of tracking emphasizes the importance of possessing attentiveness to the specific while not losing sight of the larger context or whole. Ultimately, the author suggests an attitude of speculative tentativeness constantly on the verge of reconfiguring the whole The thesis is presented in multiple formats including essay, multi-voiced essay, poetry, dialogue, and story. These formats capture the continuous interplay of various faces of knowing presented as forms of perception, unconscious appreciation, and conceptualization. In this way, the overall format of the thesis reflects the content of the thesis where the author portrays her experience of tracking how her living interactions in the world are forms of awareness uninhibited by boundaries. In her conclusion, the author recognizes her experience as a form of direct realism in which human knowing is symbolic of the emergent nature of reality.

The game QuantoJump is developed in the programming language Java to be an educational game in quantum physics. By illustrating quantum mechanical laws of electron transitions with shapes and colours, QuantoJump hopes to spark interest and create a more intuitive understanding of quantum physics. The result is a game where the player plays as an electron in the outermost shell of an atom, with the goal of getting to the innermost shell. This while not making forbidden jumps by following the laws of electron transitions dictated by quantum physics. The programming of the game was done in the integrated develpoment environment Eclipse. The soundtrack and graphic illustrations were created uniquely for QuantoJump.

Le Goût piquant de l'Univers is written by the Francophone Belgian writer Elisa Brune. Brune holds a Ph.D. in environmental sciences, and this novel does not stray far from her training in science. The setting of this oeuvre is that of a Provençal village of Peyresq, the premiere annual rendezvous for the world's foremost cosmologists. The vocabulary employed in this book is that of highly scientific coteries. The work's sentence structure is a mix of dialogue, and unruly compound phrases. These two aforementioned stylistic choices made the translation of this work especially difficult. In translating, I worked with Dr. Gaëtan Brulotte, a French-language writer and professor; Dr. Roberta Tucker, a French literature professor; and Dr. David Rabson, a theoretical physicist. All of their unique knowledge, in tandem with my familiarity with French and English, allowed for engaging exchanges on subtleties, nuances, and technicalities in the translation.

<p>The trapped atomic ion qubits feature desirable properties for use in a quantum computer such as long coherence times, high qubit readout fidelity, and universal logic gates. While these essential properties have been demonstrated, the ability to scale a trapped ion quantum system has not yet been shown. The challenge of scaling the system calls for methods to realize high-fidelity logic gates in scalable trap structures. Surface electrode ion traps, that are microfabricated from a silicon substrate, provide a scalable platform for trapping ion qubits only if high-fidelity operations are achievable in these structures. Here, we present a system for trapping and manipulating ions in a scalable surface trap. Trapping times exceeding 20 minutes without laser cooling, and heating rates as low as 0.8 quanta/ms indicate stable trapping conditions in these microtraps. Coherence times of more than one second verify adequate qubit and control field stability. We demonstrate low-error single-qubit gates performed using stimulated Raman transitions driven by lasers that are tightly focused on the ion qubit. Digital feedback loops are implemented to control the driving field's amplitude and frequency. Gate errors are measured using a randomized benchmarking protocol for single qubit gates, where residual amplitude error in the control beam is compensated using various pulse sequence techniques. Using pulse compensation, we demonstrate single qubit gates with an average error per randomized Clifford group gate of $3.6(3)\times10^{-4}$, which is below the fault-tolerant threshold for some error-correction schemes.</p> / Dissertation

<p>Beauty quarks are pair-produced by strong interactions in multi-TeV proton-proton (pp) collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Such interactions allow for a test of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in a new energy regime. The primary beauty-antibeauty quark b<span style="text-decoration:overline"> b</span> pair production mechanisms in perturbative QCD are referred to as flavor creation, flavor excitation, and gluon splitting. These three mechanisms produce b<span style="text-decoration:overline">b</span> pairs with characteristic kinematic behavior, which contribute differently to the shape of the differential b<span style="text-decoration:overline"> b</span> production cross section with respect to the difference in the azimuthal angle &Delta;&phis; and the combined separation variable &Delta;<i> R</i> = [special characters omitted] between the beauty and antibeauty quarks (b and <span style="text-decoration:overline">b</span>, respectively); with &Delta;&eta; being the change in the pseudorapidity &eta; = &mdash; ln (<i>tan</i> (&thetas;/2)), &thetas; being the polar angle. These &Delta;&phis; and &Delta;^R variables are collectively referred to as angular correlation variables and hence forth referred to as &Delta;<i> A</i>. By measuring the shape and absolute normalization of the differential production cross section distributions with respect to &Delta;<i>A</i> a test of the predictions of perturbative QCD can be performed. </p><p> This dissertation describes a measurement of the differential production cross sections with respect to the &Delta;<i>A</i> between two hadronic jets arising from the hadronization and decay of b or <span style="text-decoration:overline">b</span> (referred to as <i>b</i> hence forth) produced in pp collisions at the LHC observed with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector. Hadronic jets are identified as originating from b quarks, i.e. b-tagged, based on the presence of high impact parameter tracks with respect to the primary pp interaction point in events in which a muon is also produced. The study presented in this dissertation corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 3 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the CMS experiment at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. </p><p> The visible kinematic phase-space of the differential production cross sections probed in this study is given by the requirement of two b-tagged hadronic jets with [special characters omitted] > 30 GeV and &par;&eta;^jet&par; &lt; 2.4, with an angular separation of &Delta;R > 0.6 between them, one of these jets has a muon within its constituents with [special characters omitted] > 8 GeV and &par;&eta;^&mu;&par; &lt; 2.1. The results obtained in data are compared with predictions based on perturbative QCD calculations given by CASCADE, MADGRAPH/MADEVENT, and PYTHIA Monte Carlo event generators. The predictions of perturbative QCD are found to be in agreement the measured differential cross sections within uncertainties. </p>

<p> Historically our understanding of the microscopic world has been impeded by limitations in systems that behave classically. Even today, understanding simple problems in quantum mechanics remains a difficult task both computationally and experimentally. As a means of overcoming these classical limitations, the idea of using a controllable quantum system to simulate a less controllable quantum system has been proposed. This concept is known as quantum simulation and is the origin of the ideas behind quantum computing. </p><p> In this thesis, experiments have been conducted that address the feasibility of using devices with a circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) architecture as a quantum simulator. In a cQED device, a superconducting qubit is capacitively coupled to a superconducting resonator resulting in coherent quantum behavior of the qubit when it interacts with photons inside the resonator. It has been shown theoretically that by forming a lattice of cQED elements, different quantum phases of photons will exist for dierent system parameters. In order to realize such a quantum simulator, the necessary experimental foundation must rst be developed. Here experimental eorts were focused on addressing two primary issues: 1) designing and fabricating low disorder lattices that are readily available to incorporate superconducting qubits, and 2) developing new measurement tools and techniques that can be used to characterize large lattices, and probe the predicted quantum phases within the lattice. </p><p> Three experiments addressing these issues were performed. In the rst experiment a Kagome lattice of transmission line resonators was designed and fabricated, and a comprehensive study on the effects of random disorder in the lattice demonstrated that disorder was dependent on the resonator geometry. Subsequently a cryogenic 3-axis scanning stage was developed and the operation of the scanning stage was demonstrated in the final two experiments. The rst scanning experiment was conducted on a 49 site Kagome lattice, where a sapphire defect was used to locally perturb each lattice site. This perturbative scanning probe microscopy provided a means to measure the distribution of photon modes throughout the entire lattice. The second scanning experiment was performed on a single transmission line resonator where a transmon qubit was fabricated on a separate substrate, mounted to the tip of the scanning stage and coupled to the resonator. Here the coupling strength of the qubit to the resonator was mapped out demonstrating strong coupling over a wide scanning range, thus indicating the potential for a scanning qubit to be used as a local quantum probe.</p>

<p> This thesis presents a scheme for preparation of trapped molecular ions with a high degree of internal state purity by optical pumping with a broadband pulse-shaped femtosecond laser; the internal structure of SiO⁺ permits fast stepwise pumping through the tens of rotational levels populated in a room-temperature distribution. Two analyses, which guided the experimental implementation, are presented: (1) a novel method of quantifying anharmonicity in the trapping potentials, which limits the number of ions that can be trapped, and (2) a rate-equation simulation of the quantum state evolution during pumping. Experimental implementation of pulse shaping and its characterization are discussed, as is the molecular spectroscopy used to reference this light to the rotational cooling transitions. Internal state analysis can be performed using resonance enhanced multiphoton dissociation.</p>