- Director, Institute of Semantic Information Sciences and Technology, Affiliated to university of Mumbaiedit
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ABSTRACT The Copenhagen interpretation, which informs the textbook presentation of quantum mechanics, depends fundamentally on the notion of ontological wave-particle duality and a viewpoint called “complementarity”. In this paper, Bohr’s... more
ABSTRACT The Copenhagen interpretation, which informs the textbook presentation of quantum mechanics, depends fundamentally on the notion of ontological wave-particle duality and a viewpoint called “complementarity”. In this paper, Bohr’s own interpretation is traced in detail and is shown to be fundamentally different from and even opposed to the Copenhagen interpretation in virtually all its particulars. Inparticular, Bohr’s interpretation avoids the ad hoc postulate of wave function ‘collapse’ that is central tothe Copenhagen,interpretation. The strengths and weakness,of both interpretations are summarized. page 3 of 26 “I have been unable to achieve a sharp formulation of Bohr’s principle of complementarity,despite much effort I have expended,on it” Einstein (1949, 674) “While imagining that I understand the position of Einstein, as regards the EPR correlations,
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Density function theory, a subfield of quantum mechanics (QM), in combination with molecular mechanics (MM) has opened the way to engineer new artificial enzymes. Herein, we report theoretical calculations done using QM/MM to examine... more
Density function theory, a subfield of quantum mechanics (QM), in combination with molecular mechanics (MM) has opened the way to engineer new artificial enzymes. Herein, we report theoretical calculations done using QM/MM to examine whether the regioselectivity and rate of chlorination of the enzyme chloroperoxidase can be improved by replacing the vanadium of this enzyme with niobium through dialysis. Our calculations show that a niobium substituted chloroperoxidase will be able to enter the initial steps of the catalytic cycle for chlorination. Although the protonation state of the niobium substituted enzyme is calculated to be different from than that of the natural vanadium substituted enzyme, our calculations show that the catalytic cycle can still proceed forward. Using natural bond orbitals, we analyse the electronic differences between the niobium substituted enzyme and the natural enzyme. We conclude by briefly examining how good of a model QM/MM provides for understanding the mechanism of catalysis of chloroperoxidase.
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Quantum theory is applicable, in principle, to both the microscopic and macroscopic realms. It is therefore worthwhile to investigate whether it is possible to evolve a quantum-compatible view of the properties and states of macroscopic... more
Quantum theory is applicable, in principle, to both the microscopic and macroscopic realms. It is therefore worthwhile to investigate whether it is possible to evolve a quantum-compatible view of the properties and states of macroscopic objects in everyday thinking. It will allow a realistic interpretation of quantum theory in a manner directly consistent with the observations. The construction of such a view will provide a solution to what I term the observation problem. Toward solving the observation problem, I identify a category of new objective properties called 'relational properties' that are (so to speak) in-between primary and secondary properties. We regularly associate such properties with everyday objects, and I discuss how in fact these are quantum-compatible. If this relational-property viewpoint could be worked into quantum theory, it would altogether avoid the measurement problem, which is an artifact of our current inconsistent (albeit pragmatically successf...
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Vanadium haloperoxidases play an important catalytic role in the natural production of antibiotics which are difficult to make in the laboratory. Understanding the catalytic mechanism of these enzymes will aide in the production of... more
Vanadium haloperoxidases play an important catalytic role in the natural production of antibiotics which are difficult to make in the laboratory. Understanding the catalytic mechanism of these enzymes will aide in the production of artificial enzymes useful in bioengineering the synthesis of drugs and useful chemicals. However, the catalytic mechanism remains not fully understood yet. In this paper, we investigate one of the key steps of the catalytic mechanism using QM/MM. Our investigation reveals a new N-haloxy histidyl intermediate in the catalytic cycle of vanadium chloroperoxidase (VCPO). This new intermediate, in turn, yields an explanation for the known inhibition of the enzyme by substrate under acidic conditions (pH<4). Additionally, we examine the possibility of replacing V in VCPO by Nb or Ta using QM modeling. We report the new result that the Gibbs free energy barrier of several steps of the catalytic cycle are lower in the case of artificial enzymes, incorporating ...
Quantum theory is applicable, in principle, to both the microscopic and macroscopic realms. It is therefore worthwhile to investigate whether it is possible to evolve a quantum-compatible view of the properties and states of macroscopic... more
Quantum theory is applicable, in principle, to both the microscopic and macroscopic realms. It is therefore worthwhile to investigate whether it is possible to evolve a quantum-compatible view of the properties and states of macroscopic objects in everyday thinking. It will allow a realistic interpretation of quantum theory in a manner directly consistent with the observations. The construction of such a view will provide a solution to what I term the observation problem. Toward solving the observation problem, I identify a category of new objective properties called 'relational properties' that are (so to speak) in-between primary and secondary properties. We regularly associate such properties with everyday objects, and I discuss how in fact these are quantum-compatible. If this relational-property viewpoint could be worked into quantum theory, it would altogether avoid the measurement problem, which is an artifact of our current inconsistent (albeit pragmatically successful) strategy of retaining a classical view of the macroscopic world while applying quantum theory to the microscopic world. Some implications of the relational property viewpoint to neurobiological issues underlying cognition are touched upon.
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ABSTRACT I show that the classical coin tossing experiment involves two distinct definitions of probability, one ontological (the relative frequencies of initial deterministic states) and another empirical (the relative frequencies of... more
ABSTRACT I show that the classical coin tossing experiment involves two distinct definitions of probability, one ontological (the relative frequencies of initial deterministic states) and another empirical (the relative frequencies of observations). In quantum theory, I argue, only the latter definition can be invoked, since a single superposition state can give rise to multiple observation experiences. This difference explains why the present statistical quantum mechanics is an ontological dead end, despite its enormous pragmatic success. To get at the ontological content of quantum theory, I propose that the observations themselves can be interpreted on a different footing, without reference to determinate detector states.
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Quantum theory is applicable, in principle, to both the microscopic and macroscopic realms. It is therefore worthwhile to investigate whether it is possible to evolve a quantum-compatible view of the properties and states of macroscopic... more
Quantum theory is applicable, in principle, to both the microscopic and macroscopic realms. It is therefore worthwhile to investigate whether it is possible to evolve a quantum-compatible view of the properties and states of macroscopic objects in everyday thinking. It will allow a realistic interpretation of quantum theory in a manner directly consistent with the observations. The construction of such