Quantum Lightning Never Strikes the Same State Twice

Public key quantum money can be seen as a version of the quantum no-cloning theorem that holds even when the quantum states can be verified by the adversary. In this work, investigate quantum lightning, a formalization of "collision-free quantum money" defined by Lutomirski et al. [ICS'10], where no-cloning holds even when the adversary herself generates the quantum state to be cloned. We then study quantum money and quantum lightning, showing the following results: - We demonstrate the usefulness of quantum lightning by showing several potential applications, such as generating random strings with a proof of entropy, to completely decentralized cryptocurrency without a block-chain, where transactions is instant and local. - We give win-win results for quantum money/lightning, showing that either signatures/hash functions/commitment schemes meet very strong recently proposed notions of security, or they yield quantum money or lightning. - We construct quantum lightning under the assumed multi-collision resistance of random degree-2 systems of polynomials. - We show that instantiating the quantum money scheme of Aaronson and Christiano [STOC'12] with indistinguishability obfuscation that is secure against quantum computers yields a secure quantum money schem

Cluster growth in the dynamical Erd\H{o}s-R\'{e}nyi process with forest fires

We investigate the growth of clusters within the forest fire model of R\'{a}th and T\'{o}th [22]. The model is a continuous-time Markov process, similar to the dynamical Erd\H{o}s-R\'{e}nyi random graph but with the addition of so-called fires. A vertex may catch fire at any moment and, when it does so, causes all edges within its connected cluster to burn, meaning that they instantaneously disappear. Each burned edge may later reappear. We give a precise description of the process $C_t$ of the size of the cluster of a tagged vertex, in the limit as the number of vertices in the model tends to infinity. We show that $C_t$ is an explosive branching process with a time-inhomogeneous offspring distribution and instantaneous return to $1$ on each explosion. Additionally, we show that the characteristic curves used to analyse the Smoluchowski-type coagulation equations associated to the model have a probabilistic interpretation in terms of the process $C_t$.Comment: 31 page

Decrypting the Central Mystery of Quantum Mathematics:: Part 4. In What Medium Do Elementary Waves Travel?

We live in a world, half of which consists of invisible elementary waves, of which we know very little. They are not electromagnetic waves: they travel in the opposite direction and convey no energy. What is the medium in which they travel? Franco Selleri (1936-2013) of University of Bari, Italy, devoted his career to answering that question. He developed his own theory of relativity. Zero energy quantum waves travel in Lorentz aether at rest. His relativity differs from Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity (TSR) in terms of Absolute Simultaneity. If two events are simultaneous for one observer, they are simultaneous for all observers. Although this contradicts TSR, international treaties have adopted Absolute Simultaneity as the basis for coordinating all atomic clocks to the nanosecond. Atomic clocks control all other clocks. Absolute simultaneity is essential for commerce and computer networks.. Selleri’s relativity can be divided into two parts: time and aether. Time can be understood without ever speaking of the speed of light. When it comes to aether, a subject rarely mentioned today, it appears to be Isaac Newton’s absolute time and space, modified to fit the Lorentz transformations and the non-Euclidean curved space of Einstein’s General Relativity

Alternative Energy Solutions

Providing a self-sustaining, efficient, and cost-affordable source of energy is perhaps the greatest challenge posed in modern society. With supplies of common fossil fuels and many other non-renewable resources nearing depletion, humanity must soon find safe, dependable, and inexpensive fuel sources capable of adequately fulfilling our heat and electricity generation needs. In this report, unique solutions and regulatory policies are proposed after closely examining the advantages, disadvantages, and sociopolitical concerns of many different fuels in both qualitative and quantitative respects

On the Necessity of Collapsing for Post-Quantum and Quantum Commitments

Collapse binding and collapsing were proposed by Unruh (Eurocrypt \u2716) as post-quantum strengthenings of computational binding and collision resistance, respectively. These notions have been very successful in facilitating the "lifting" of classical security proofs to the quantum setting. A basic and natural question remains unanswered, however: are they the weakest notions that suffice for such lifting? In this work we answer this question in the affirmative by giving a classical commit-and-open protocol which is post-quantum secure if and only if the commitment scheme (resp. hash function) used is collapse binding (resp. collapsing). We also generalise the definition of collapse binding to quantum commitment schemes, and prove that the equivalence carries over when the sender in this commit-and-open protocol communicates quantum information. As a consequence, we establish that a variety of "weak" binding notions (sum binding, CDMS binding and unequivocality) are in fact equivalent to collapse binding, both for post-quantum and quantum commitments. Finally, we prove a "win-win" result, showing that a post-quantum computationally binding commitment scheme that is not collapse binding can be used to build an equivocal commitment scheme (which can, in turn, be used to build one-shot signatures and other useful quantum primitives). This strengthens a result due to Zhandry (Eurocrypt \u2719) showing that the same object yields quantum lightning

Nature’s Queer Performativity*

In this article, Karen Barad entertains the possibility of the queerness of one of the most pervasive of all critters – atoms. These “ultraqueer” critters with their quantum quotidian qualities queer queerness itself in their radically deconstructive ways of being. Given that queer is a radical questioning of identity and binaries, including the nature/culture binary, this article aims to show that all sorts of seeming impossibilities are indeed possible, including the queerness of causality, matter, space, and time. What if queerness were understood to reside not in the breech of nature/culture, per se, but in the very  nature of spacetimemattering, Barad asks. This article also considers questions of ethics and justice, and in particular, examines the ways in which moralism insists on having its way with the nature/culture divide. Barad argues that moralism, feeds off of human exceptionalism, and, in particular, human superiority and causes injury to humans and nonhumans alike, is a genetic carrier of genocidal hatred, and undermines ecologies of diversity necessary for flourishing