Quantum Physics Parts Ways With Reality 568
aeoneal sends us to PhysicsWeb for news guaranteed to induce headache in those wedded to the reality of, well, reality. Researchers from the University of Vienna have shown the violation of a stronger form of Bell's inequality known as Leggett's inequality. The result means that we must not only give up Einstein's hope of "no spooky action at a distance," we must also give up (some of) the idea that the world exists when we are not looking. From the article: "[Studies] have ruled out all hidden-variables theories based on joint assumptions of realism, meaning that reality exists when we are not observing it; and locality, meaning that separated events cannot influence one another instantaneously. But a violation of Bell's inequality does not tell specifically which assumption — realism, locality, or both — is discordant with quantum mechanics." From the Nature abstract: "Our result suggests that giving up the concept of locality is not sufficient to be consistent with quantum experiments, unless certain intuitive features of realism are abandoned." Only subscribers to Nature, alas, can know what features those are, as PhysicsWeb doesn't tell us.
bye-bye! (Score:5, Funny)
yeah (Score:5, Funny)
i knew it - i was right... (Score:4, Funny)
A layman's view (Score:4, Funny)
First Post! (Score:5, Funny)
From the ostriche's beak... (Score:5, Funny)
we must also give up (some of) the idea that the world exists when we are not looking
Does this mean that sticking your head in the sand actually works?
this is a test (Score:5, Funny)
if you are reading this, congratulations, you have participated in bringing this comment into reality
The virtual reality of it all... (Score:3, Funny)
It's a no brainer that marrying a real woman would be more trouble than marrying a virtual woman.
Well that explains everything! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:A layman's view (Score:5, Funny)
Disproving this theory... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:bye-bye! (Score:1, Funny)
Man, I never knew plain english could be so confusing. And this is someone with an Engineering degree!
Re:Spooky! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Universe (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Time to break out the ol' dictionary (Score:2, Funny)
That is because "spooky weird LSD-like shit goin' down" takes too long to say.
Re:A layman's view (Score:5, Funny)
and the quantum version lets both be right.
Re:Theistic fun (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Universe (Score:5, Funny)
Re:bye-bye! (Score:3, Funny)
Techno-theology (Score:3, Funny)
Re:bye-bye! (Score:1, Funny)
That's OK, you still get to wear one of those hats and a pair of overalls.
Re:What does it mean for us to observe something? (Score:4, Funny)
So I was right! (Score:4, Funny)
Tachyeons (Score:3, Funny)
It always worked on Voyager.
Re:mod parent up (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well, it makes sense (Score:3, Funny)
Re:bye-bye! (Score:2, Funny)
On another Note, based on what I read, this whole thing says that the universe is effectively "not rendering" when we aren't looking/sensing/etc. I think it makes sense, because the universe would totally lag if it were always rendering...
Religious texts (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, well... (Score:3, Funny)
Think explaining Linux or the Internet to my old grandma (otherwise a smart woman, but doesn't even have a computer) and see if you don't end up dumbing it down to "it's like some tubes" oversimplification to get it over with. Now think she goes forth and writes a book about it. Ouch. It's not going to be very accurate, to say the least.
I mean, I can just think God explaining a player wipe to Moses:
God: "So we just reformatted the hard drive and re-installed from backups."
Moses: "Uh, what's a hard drive, Lord?"
God: "Well, it's this thing, like a magnetic disc, where everything is stored. All you see around you is on it."
Moses: "So, like a flat platter lord? And it carries the whole world?"
God: "Ah, wth, yeah, the world is on a plate. Whatever. So, anyways, we reformatted it..."
Moses: "My Lord, what's a reformat?"
God: "We wiped it clean, really?"
Moses: "Wiped the whole world, Lord? How is that even possible?"
God: "(Gah, I'll never get to the bottom of it.) You know, rewrite it all... if you will, cover it all with the same value."
Moses: "With a value?"
God: "You know what? With water."
Moses: "Like a flood, Lord?"
God: "Yeah, I flooded the damned thing. Everything was cross-linked and corrupted anyway."
Moses: . o O (Damned? Corrupted? So the world must have been sinful and angered the Lord.)
God: "So, anyway, then we reinstalled the prototype files for everything from the backup and respaned them everywhere..."
Moses: "Curse this feeble mortal mind, Lord, you've lost me."
God: "You know, prototypes? Like a definition of each animal? A master copy of each animal, one per sex? Male lion, female lion, male zebra, female zebra..."
Moses: "So you had one male and one female of each species stowed away somewhere safe?"
God: "Yep."
Moses: "On a... what was the word, Lord? Backup?"
God: "Uh, a big boat. Really big boat. I told this guy Noah to put one of each there."
You can see where it's going