The Catch-All Botany Thread

[Rayaan]

I read in an article that plants also perform quantum computations to convert sunlight into energy. An exciton (or a quantum particle of energy) in a plant does something called a "quantum walk" by taking many possible paths through a forest simultaneously.

This is something too nerdy which I don't understand for the most part, but it still sounds cool to me.

When sunlight hits the part of the bacteria that collects sunlight, it creates a quantum particle of energy called an exciton. That exciton must travel through a complex that Lloyd likens to a gigantic forest in order to get to a place where it can be turned into chemical energy.

"If you look at kind of a classical way of getting through some forest in the dark, surrounded by trees with no notion of what the direction is you're supposed to go, then you just wander around at random … and you just get completely lost," Lloyd said. Consequently, scientists were puzzled about how the exciton ever arrived at its destination.

The answer turns out to be a special kind of computation.

"If it uses quantum mechanics, it's not limited to just taking just one path through the forest," Lloyd said. "It can take all possible paths simultaneously. In quantum computing, this is what's called a quantum walk."

Full article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/...hings.html