A new scam! Using "quantum technology" to grow crops can help fight diseases, disasters and increase yields?

Recently, a news program exposed a case of defrauding farmers. The general idea is that some merchants claimed that they could empower crop seeds through quantum technology. After farmers handed over the seeds to them for processing with the so-called "high-tech quantum equipment", they could resist drought, flood, lodging, diseases and insect pests, and increase production and income and improve crop growth rate.

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During the reporter's undercover visit, the person in charge of the relevant company also introduced seriously that different crop seeds need different processing methods and frequencies, etc. So does this so-called "quantum empowerment" technology really have the legendary effect?

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Let me first state the conclusion. Within the scope of our daily lives, when we see advertisements for products and services labeled as "quantum", we can simply ignore them. You won't miss out on anything good, but you will only avoid a lot of pitfalls.

Let’s briefly talk about why things under the banner of “quantum XX” are unreliable (if the quantum mechanics part below is a bit difficult to read, you can skip it quickly and look at the rumor analysis at the end).

What exactly does quantum mechanics study?

Quantum mechanics and relativity are recognized as the two basic pillars of modern physics.

At first, quantum mechanics appeared as a "patch" of classical physics. When developing energy-saving incandescent lamps, physicists discovered that according to the energy equipartition theory at the time, when the radiation frequency tends to infinity, the radiation energy will also become infinite, which is seriously inconsistent with the real world. So Planck made a "patch" for physics that he himself did not understand, proposing that energy is not continuous, but comes out in pieces, which is also the origin of the word "quantum".

Later, Einstein used the "quantum" theory to explain the photoelectric effect. In this phenomenon, whether light can "knock" electrons out of the metal plate has nothing to do with the intensity of the light, but with the frequency of the light. Einstein pointed out that light is composed of discrete photons, not continuous waves, and the energy of each photon is proportional to the frequency and cannot be divided. By the way, Einstein won the Nobel Prize for this research, not for the theory of relativity...

Later, with the deepening of research on atomic structure, diffraction phenomena of electromagnetic waves and elementary particles, the "patch" of quantum mechanics became bigger and bigger, and gradually became the basic theory of physics.

The emergence of quantum mechanics began in the microscopic world. In the microscopic world, there are many counterintuitive phenomena, such as the electron double-slit experiment, which, in straightforward terms, means "an electron passes through two slits at the same time." In the macroscopic world, we have never seen a person walk out of the east gate and the west gate at the same time. Therefore, in the early development of quantum mechanics, physicists proposed various interpretations of quantum phenomena, and the various interpretations were in great conflict.

Later, these wars of interpretation gradually subsided (or were moving towards subsiding). With the emergence of Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and Schrödinger's wave mechanics (these two theories are actually equivalent), the interpretation of quantum mechanics slowly entered the era of non-interpretation mathematics of "shut up and do the math!"

In other words, people gradually recognize that quantum mechanics is the basic law of the world, which can be established on a strict mathematical basis and does not need to be interpreted. On the contrary, the macroscopic world is the one that needs to be "explained" - if the microscopic world can do it, why can't the macroscopic world do it?

Since the foundation of quantum mechanics has now shifted from experimental physics to mathematics, and mathematics is a discipline that is "invincible", the predictions of quantum mechanics can often be verified by experiments, and it is one of the most accurate theories in the scientific field that describes the world. I am afraid that the only area that directly conflicts with it is in the field of black hole research, where general relativity and quantum mechanics have not yet been unified.

However, under the manipulation of illegal personnel, quantum mechanics suddenly appeared in the fields... Source See the picture logo

It doesn't matter if this long paragraph is difficult to read, the next part is easy to understand. Let's talk about what quantum mechanics is normally used for and what quantum mechanics cannot be used for.

Where is quantum mechanics used?

With the development of quantum mechanics, more and more physical phenomena have been predicted, confirmed and applied. The device that everyone has is a mobile phone, which is based on semiconductor technology, and the foundation of semiconductor science is quantum mechanics (fortunately, no one has put up a sign of "quantum mobile phone" yet).

The principles behind lasers, superconductivity, nuclear magnetic resonance, atomic clocks and even the light and heat of the sun are all quantum mechanics.

In addition, quantum mechanics can also be used in informatics. I am not talking about the "information tea" that scammers talk about, but about remote communication and information encryption. At present, these research areas are still making steady progress.

However! Science is developing, and pseudoscience is not idle either. Now, there are more and more "quantum XX" in society, such as quantum wave reading (it is better to say that it is fanning with a book), quantum energy seeds (the "quantum energy cabin" is just a tin house), and other shocking news, which are emerging in an endless stream.

Do you still remember the funny and annoying quantum wave speed reading scam? Image from the Internet

Back to the "quantum breeding" incident, the merchant said that the seeds do not need to be unpacked, and the bags do not need to be glaring, and that the seeds can be "quantum-powered" directly through light to increase yields. I was a little amused when I saw this statement. Why?

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For example, we can dry the seeds in the sun, or bake them in the house. As we said before, sunlight or infrared rays are composed of light quanta, which contain energy. So, if we really want to get to the bottom of it, the process of drying seeds in the sun must involve both quantum and energy... After the harvest, the grains must be dried in the sun, so can the rice, noodles and steamed buns we eat be considered "quantum-enabled" delicacies? Can we say that there is any high-end "quantum technology" here?

The so-called "quantum empowerment" seeds this time have another trick: the first year is free "enabling", and if you think it works, you can come back and pay for it in the second year. Maybe someone will say, I used this, the yield really went up, and it feels pretty good.

On the one hand, the yield of crops is related to many factors. It is not reliable to rely solely on the merchants' lies. Without controlled experiments, it is impossible to figure out which factors are effective. It is obvious that the harvest is brought about by hard work from dawn to dusk, good seeds and good weather. It is not acceptable for the credit to be stolen by "quantum empowerment". Moreover, some farmers have done experiments, and some have found that the yield of "empowered" seeds has actually decreased...

On the other hand, we can give a similar example: We know that the idea of ​​favoring boys over girls was once deeply rooted. Someone had an idea and developed a "male-birthing medicine" using mung bean fried noodles. The price was very high. However, he promised that if the baby did not give birth to a boy, he would refund the money in full. Therefore, those who gave birth to girls did not complain, and those who took the "medicine" and gave birth to boys helped him promote it...

Let's analyze how he makes money. Is there any effect of the medicine he needs?

It’s so easy to identify quantum scams

How to identify "quantum" scammers? A simple and crude method is "At present, anyone who mentions 'quantum xx' in the promotion of daily products is a scammer."

"Quantum" is a neutral word that describes the laws governing the operation of the world, not a positive word that means "something extra is good". Quantum theory describes the most basic laws, and "quantum" is often mentioned in basic research fields: quantum chemistry, quantum encryption, quantum teleportation, quantum gravity theory, quantum computing, etc., to distinguish it from traditional methods (also a neutral word).

Once quantum theory is applied in daily life, such as laser and chip technologies, the word "quantum" is generally not mentioned. To put it simply, any "quantum" product in daily life or any product that specifically promotes the use of quantum theory can be regarded as an "IQ tax".

The picture comes from the Internet

To sum up, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know enough about “quantum mechanics”. We just need to know that when a merchant mentions “quantum XX”, it is most likely to cheat you out of your money.

In addition, the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China clearly stipulates that "advertisements that deceive or mislead consumers with false or misleading content constitute false advertising." "Using fictitious, forged or unverifiable scientific research results, statistics, survey results, abstracts, quotations and other information as supporting materials" can be considered false advertising. If you suspect you have been scammed, please contact the local industrial and commercial department directly or call 12315 or other telephone numbers to report it.

Author: Qu Jiong, popular science creator

Review丨Liu Qian, Researcher at Beijing Planetarium