Quantum Trickery - Einstein's Strangest Theory 531
breckinshire writes "The New York Times is running an interesting story on Einstein's strangest theory. The theory was brought to light this past fall when 'scientists announced that they had put a half dozen beryllium atoms into a "cat state." [...] These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time.' It is an interesting writeup for even the uninitiated and also concentrates on Einsteins role as a 'founder and critic of quantum theory.'"
Founder? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Founder? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Founder? (Score:5, Funny)
I want to teach a cat to surf... (Score:3, Funny)
This is Pseudo-Scientific Juornalism (Score:3, Interesting)
And PKD failed to address... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Founder? (Score:5, Funny)
Of course there was a single founder, but his identity is uncertain. Whenever you ask a scientist, you can't be certain beforehand who he'll name; you can only say that the founder will be named as a certain person with certain propability.
Re:Founder? (Score:3, Informative)
If not, then you have a problem I call the "Schroedinger's Lab Assistant" problem where if you have two individuals measuring spins of entangle electrons independantly, the measurements should indicate that each one is spinning both directions *until* one attempts to com
Don't forget Schrödinger, Heisenberg, and Dir (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Founder? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Founder? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Founder? (Score:2)
Re:Founder? (Score:5, Informative)
Strangely enough, almost all of the power of quantum computing derives from the strange consequences of this would-be counter-example.
Quantum teleportation and basically all of other quantum computation tricks use qubits in EPR states, but even 'teleportation' doesn't really allow sending information faster than light, since you have to send conventional bits of information about the observations in order to reconstruct the quantum state on the other end.
So in one sense, the original Einstein concern about information traveling faster than the speed of light is valid. It just takes a different form to fit into quantum mechanics.
One point of clarification (Score:3, Informative)
EPR does suggest (and this has been proven in tests) that states measured at one side of the entangled matter are exactly opposite of those on the other side thus enabling a method of distribution of random sets without comprimise (as measuring in transit violates the sets).
So, if you want to call it teleportation, go ahead, just understa
Re:One point of clarification (Score:3, Informative)
Now, as long as we are in this area, I would suggest that you look into birefringence. In birefringence, the right-angle polarities are refracted differently because they travel through the crystal at different speeds.
Personally I suspect that it will eventually be possible to have spooky communication at a distance. The reason why we can't do
Re:Founder? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Founder? (Score:5, Informative)
As a side note, the history is a bit similar to the Boltzmann constant which was named by Planck after he understood that the constant Boltzmann had introduced in his equation (giving a microscopic theory of entropy) was one of the fundamental physical constants.
Support one of the non-registration required sites (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Support one of the non-registration required si (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Support one of the non-registration required si (Score:2)
Re:Support one of the non-registration required si (Score:5, Funny)
Correction: (Score:2, Funny)
Actually, this term was coined by Nikola Tesla and refered to his observations of the violent sub-molecular reaction created when a cat with a cheese pizza tied to its back is dropped onto expensive carpeting. What, you didn't think that his silly "death ray" is what caused the Tunguska event, did you?
Non-registration article text (Score:5, Informative)
This fall scientists announced that they had put a half-dozen beryllium atoms into a "cat state."
No, they were not sprawled along a sunny windowsill. To a physicist, a "cat state" is the condition of being in two diametrically opposed conditions at once, such as black and white, up and down, or dead and alive.
These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. Moreover, like miniature Rockettes, they were all doing whatever it was they were doing together, in perfect synchrony. Should one of them realize, like the cartoon character who runs off a cliff and doesn't fall until he looks down, that it is in a metaphysically untenable situation and decide to spin only one way, the rest would instantly fall in line, whether they were across a test tube or across the galaxy.
The idea that measuring the properties of one particle could instantaneously change the properties of another one (or a whole bunch) far away is strange to say the least -- almost as strange as the notion of particles spinning in two directions at once. The team that pulled off the beryllium feat, led by Dietrich Leibfried at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in Boulder, Colo., hailed it as another step toward computers that would use quan- tum magic to perform calculations.
But it also served as another demonstration of how weird the world really is according to the rules known as quantum mechanics.
The joke is on Albert Einstein, who, back in 1935, dreamed up this trick of synchronized atoms -- "spooky action at a distance," as he called it -- as an example of the absurdity of quantum mechanics.
"No reasonable definition of reality could be expected to permit this," he, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen wrote in a paper in 1935.
Today, that paper, written when Einstein was a relatively ancient 56 years old, is the most cited of Einstein's papers. But far from demolishing quantum theory, that paper wound up as the cornerstone for the new field of quantum information.
Nary a week goes by that does not bring news of another feat of quantum trickery once only dreamed of in thought experiments: particles (or at least all their properties) being teleported across the room in a microscopic version of "Star Trek" beaming; electrical "cat" currents that circle a loop in opposite directions at the same time; more and more particles farther and farther apart bound together in Einstein's spooky embrace now known as "entanglement." At the University of California, Santa Barbara, researchers are planning an experiment in which a small mirror will be in two places at once.
Niels Bohr, the Danish philosopher king of quantum theory, dismissed any attempts to lift the quantum veil as meaningless, saying that science is about the results of experiments, not ultimate reality.
But now that quantum weirdness is not confined to thought experiments, physicists have begun arguing again about what this weirdness means, whether the theory needs changing, and whether in fact there is any problem.
This fall, two Nobel laureates, Anthony Leggett of the University of Illinois and Norman Ramsay of Harvard University, argued in front of several hundred scientists at a conference in Berkeley about whether, in effect, physicists are justified trying to change quantum theory, the most successful theory in the history of science. Leggett said yes; Ramsay said no.
It has been, as Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted, "a 75-year war." It is typical in reporting on this subject to bounce from one expert to another, each one shaking his or her head about how the other one just doesn't get it.
"It's a kind of funny situation," N. David Mermin of Cornell University, who has called Einstein's spooky action "the closest thing we have to magic," said, referring to the recent results. "These are extremely difficult experiments that
Re:Non-registration article text (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Non-registration article text (Score:2)
Re:Non-registration article text (Score:3, Informative)
Quantum Enlightenment (Score:5, Funny)
Ah ha (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ah ha (Score:2)
Re:Ah ha (Score:2)
Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna said that he thought, "The world is not as real as we think."
Yep, time to put our tinfoil hats on now and swallow the red pill.
There's no spoon
Re:The Red Pill (Score:2)
Our brains are designed to fill in what we don't see or underst
wouldn't that be... (Score:4, Funny)
Wouldn't that be Schroedinger's strangest theory?
Re:wouldn't that be... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:wouldn't that be... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:wouldn't that be... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the predictions appeared completely absurd to him, and he wrote papers about those (like the Bose-Einstein-Condensate or the synchronous state as mentioned in the article). Because of the counterintuitive results he was getting from applying Quantum Theory he doubted its validity.
But most of the described experiments weren't feasible at the time they were thought out. Some of them are right now, and the Bose-Einstein-Condensate is a reality, and this article in the NYT describes another one of the strange predictions being proved.
So with doubting the predictions of Quantum Theory and describing experiments to falsify them A. Einstein in fact lead the way to the advancement of the same theory he had his problems with. That's a fine example of how Science is supposed to work: Always try to find contradictions to the theories and describe experiments which might falsify the theory. Advancement of Science doesn't care if you believe the theories to be correct. Every new hypothesis has its bugs and rough edges which can only be corrected if someone actually finds experiments where the bugs show up.
They forgot one: (Score:5, Funny)
Or something happy to have its tummy rubbed only to bite you seconds later.
Don't expect to understand. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Don't expect to understand. (Score:2)
Well, if that's the problem, then perhaps we should start doing advanced theoretical physics research in Kansas?
Re:Don't expect to understand. (Score:2)
Re:Don't expect to understand. (Score:2)
.
Entangled atoms for FTL comm? (Score:2, Interesting)
Do I read that right and they created entangled atoms, giving us possible faster than light communications? Or is this just the usual journalists misreporting of scientific facts?
Re:Entangled atoms for FTL comm? - No (Score:5, Informative)
The known problem with this is that no information actually is transferred as far as we know; it is is only acquired at both ends at the same time (that is, you can't decide what you read).
Entangled atoms allow safe FTL cryptography though, because uncovering and reading the state of the atom creates a bit of a key that is shared at both ends.
Re:Entangled atoms for FTL comm? - No (Score:5, Informative)
Entangled atoms allow safe FTL cryptography though, because uncovering and reading the state of the atom creates a bit of a key that is shared at both ends.
Not really FTL, it's more like a read-once OTP. You entangle two atoms, which is like creating two identical OTPs (even though you do not know the values). You then split the atoms (OTPs) at sub-light speed. You can then read out the same OTP at both ends. You still need to encrypt/send at sub-light speed/decrypt. The big point is that the OTP is verifiably *one time*, it can not be read twice. I suppose you can call it "security by quantum obscurity", since the entire point is that the key is kept behind a veil of quantum mechanics.
Re:Entangled atoms for FTL comm? (Score:2)
Re:Entangled atoms for FTL comm? (Score:5, Informative)
If I remember some of the stuff I've read correctly, it's a bit more complicated than the article's summary made it seem, and no, it doesn't make FTL communication possible.
What the experiments have shown is that if A and B are "entangled," then whatever state A is observed to be in, B will be in that state also, regardless of whether A and B are too far apart at the time the observation is made to have any communication with each other. This can be thought of as Einstein characterized it, as "spooky action at a distance," i.e., the observation of A somehow affects B (which is what makes the action spooky, since there is no known way for any information to be communicated between the two). However, it can also be thought of in other ways - for instance, that A and B were in the same state when they were entangled (though there's no way to determine that for sure, since the states aren't observed at that time), and the observations of A and B are just showing the states they've "always" been in. In the latter way of thinking, the spooky part is that these randomly selected particles always turn out to have the same state when observed. It's like sticking your hand into your sock drawer 100 times at random and always coming up with matched pairs.
Quantum theory means the world may be a simulation (Score:4, Interesting)
Now assume someone with insufficient knowledge about such a universe who tries to model a simulation to get predictions, much like having for of war in a strategy game - when a unit disappears into fog of war (since x turns ago), it would be essentially in all places that in could reach in x turns at once.
An interesting question then might be, is then human knowledge and usage of quantum theory a desired property of the simulation, or an artifact that invalidates the simulation results?
Re:Quantum theory means the world may be a simulat (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Quantum theory means the world may be a simulat (Score:2)
As in: The granularity (bits) of the computer would be the Planck scale, and the top speed of the computer's operations would be the speed of light.
Well yes and no. That is a completely different angle. The "real" universe I was talking about might have quantums and planck squales as well.
But I can add something to your point of view:
Re:Quantum theory means the world may be a simulat (Score:2)
Re:Quantum theory means the world may be a simulat (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite. That would be what's called a hidden variables [wolfram.com] system: the unit still does have a real location, which is tracked by the program, even if it's inaccessible to an observer within the system. However, that doesn't appear to be the way our universe works; the Bell inequalities [wolfram.com] show that hidden variables are incompatible with locality.
Wolfram says .. (Score:2)
However, at present there are no "clean" experiments unambiguously verifying the inequalities.
In addition to that, I am not stating that the program does have hidden variables, but that the program uses quantum logic to treat unknown states. Of course these would collapse somewhere, but not necessarily at the time of the measurement from our human POV; That is, if it is not necessary for a measurement to know a hidden variable it will not be determined.
This matches in some respec
Re:Quantum theory means the world may be a simulat (Score:2)
This is extremely doubtful, as it is hard to see how there could even be particles without quantum physics. What would these particles be? Infinitesimal points? If so, how could they react?
Re:Quantum theory means the world is a simulation (Score:2)
Actually no - I would say that the 'billiard' model sounds no more or less like a simulation than the quantum model.
I am not disputing that, I am stating that there might exist a point of view outside our universe from which our universe can be consid
Quantum theory == fog of war (Score:2)
I am basically arguing that "fog of war" equals "quantum physics" in some respect; you sure will agree that an observer of a strategy game who is not impaired by "fog of war" will build a different model of the game as a player who is inside the game and as such has to make guesses as to the location of enemy units.
You are right that the Bell equations seem to contradict me; but Wolfram states they are unconfirmed, and I don't quite see why if a quantu
Physicists Don't Seem too Philosophical (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the whole point of the cat-in-a-box: if an electron can be superposed, why not a whole cat? And what does that say about reality, if the quantum theory makes no sense? E.g. our sense of reality says the cat is either alive or dead, not both. Hence, shouldn't an electron be one or the other? Q.T. says no.
That "why" issue is the sort of thing that troubled a philosopher-type like Einstiein --- someone who wonders "why?" compulsively is likely to keep on digging. The physicists seem happy to crunch the numbers, do an experiment and see if it agrees with the numbers.
Which is in keeping with my observations of physicists: they are essentially applied mathematicians. Mathematicians (like Einstein) are a different sort.
Re:Physicists Don't Seem too Philosophical (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scientist and Science (Score:4, Insightful)
Science isn't an accumulated body of knowledge. It is a method for generating that knowledge. The method may be followed to a greater or lesser degree by scientists.
Re:Physicists Don't Seem too Philosophical (Score:5, Insightful)
Theorists focus on the "why" (to some extent, but really more of a "how") - "Why don't we see starlight in every portion of the sky?" leads to a question of "What are the possible scenarios in which we would see the sky as we see it?" leads to theories - "We see the night sky the way it is because [...]"
Experimentalists then enter the picture. "Well, if [...] was the reason for the sky looking as it does, then we should find X and Y traits also." Then they do their experiments and record the observations. Sometimes, those observations match up with the theoretical predictions. Sometimes, those observations are almost, but not quite right, and sometimes they're incredibly far off, and everyone needs to go back and look for sources of difference.
Now, you dismiss experimentalists as being just "applied mathematicians" (or, at least, that is certainly what your tone implies - they're somehow less relevant, valuable, whatever than "pure" mathematicians) - however, one cannot be terribly effective without the other.
Some scientists are exceptional at both theory and experiment - Issac Newton would be an excellent example of that fusion. Some are pure theorists - Einstein is a poster child for those folks. And some are pure experimentalists - Hubble would be my pick as an archetypical experimentalist.
Re:Physicists Don't Seem too Philosophical (Score:4, Insightful)
Physicists who study the very small, very high or low energy and very fast on the other hand, are looking at phenomenon that we have no everyday experience with, so our intuition is useless. There is no reason why the rules we're familiar with from every day life should apply to these realms and, as relativity and quantum mechanics tell us, it looks like they don't. So a quantum engineer (an applied physicist) has to ask "does this make sense?" in terms of the theory and previous experiments (his experience).
Clockwise=Counter-Clockwise (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Clockwise=Counter-Clockwise (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Clockwise=Counter-Clockwise (Score:5, Informative)
Schrodinger's cat is dead (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.phobe.com/s_cat/s_cat.html [phobe.com]
The Copenhagen Interpretation (Score:4, Informative)
Here's to the atom bomb (Score:5, Funny)
Why do they always have to use the atomic bomb as an example of the applications of quantum mechanics? It really gives it a bad name.
Re:Here's to the atom bomb (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the only way to get some Americans interested in science.
[obligatory karma-burning acknowledgement goes here]
Einstein was right, these guys are still on crack! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's like saying, something happens in reality only the very moment you know it. Turn on CNN, and all what they are reporting on, just happened at that very moment you learnt of it, and if you did not hear it or know it, then it did not happen! Crack!
An electron has a specific velocity, whether any person knows it or not. The probability distribution of the electron's velocity (wavefunction) is not a property of nature as Heisenberg states, but a property of our minds (lack of complete information). When that value is finally measured, we have a single value rather than a wavefunction (complete information). It is our minds that have changed, not reality. Therefore it is crack to say the electron has many velocities (wavefunction) before measurement but as soon as it is measured, it collapses (wavefunction collapse) into a single value.
The strangest part of this is that this blatant confusion has not totally incapacitated the usefulness of quantum mechanics. Imagine what will happen if more physicists could get their ducks in line and properly understand why Quantum mechanics works. Einstein was on track. Others have followed him and been able to do great things, although clearly disagreeing with the "spooky action at a distance" "copenhagen" interpretation. Such as Schrödinger, Edward Thomson Jaynes, the father of "maximum entropy".
ET Jaynes wrote about the possibility of doing a thesis under Oppenheimer:
http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/etj.html [wustl.edu]
Oppy is Oppenheimer.
Quantum mechanics works, there is no question about it. The question is why does it work. IMHO, the majority of physicists today are backing up the wrong tree -- the copenhagen interpretation. Further progress is, thus being hindered.
Re:Einstein was right, these guys are still on cra (Score:2, Interesting)
look up Bell's inequality. You will see that *no amount* of extra information 'hidden' from us but carried by the particles can explain the observed phenomena of both EPR entangled particles and the distribution of states observed at one end.
QM in that sense is not shown to be incomplete by EPR. it is truly non-local. Or there are many universes. It is not at all the case that an electron 'has a velocity' and we don't know it. It really does only have a velo
Re:Einstein was right, these guys are still on cra (Score:2)
I just dropped a coin on my floor. Tell me what I got, Heads or Tails. Or tell me that I got 50% heads and 50% tails, and the moment I finally tell you the TRUE results, what I got automatically changes.
You see, there is a difference between TRUTH and KNOWLEDGE(information). What you know about my coin is just that, information, not reality.
BTW my post was not about the EPR paradox. But y
Re:Einstein was right, these guys are still on cra (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Einstein was right, these guys are still on cra (Score:2)
Re:Einstein was right, these guys are still on cra (Score:2)
Firstly, just because they say something on CNN doesn't mean it actually happened. But that's got nothing to do with this discussion.
Secondly, you're inferring too far. You can't discount perspective from measurement, perspective being a point in space an
Re:Einstein was right, these guys are still on cra (Score:2)
The tree does, as far as there are people trying to say the tree is 50% standing, and 50% fallen. Just like the cat being 50% alive and 50% dead.
Now the more reason why you should "give a shit" also is because, your ability to reason correctly depends on how you answer the question.
Do you also believe that an electron does not have a velocity until it is measured? Then don't even bother
You are, simply, wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
It has withstood rigorous experimentation. Just because you do not understand Quantum Mechanics (very few people, if that, would claim to understand Quantum Mechanics) doesn't make it false.
Re:Einstein was right, these guys are still on cra (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Einstein was right, these guys are still on cra (Score:3, Informative)
Hey, mind and reality are not diametrically opposed opposites, as 3000+ years of western philosophy would have you believe.
I think in order to move forward, we are going to have to have a better idea about the relationship between mind and reality.
Note: I am not saying that people create reality with their minds or anything like that. All I am saying is that mind and reality are not opposites.
Re:Einstein was right, these guys are still on cra (Score:2)
The rules have never changed. A theory is a theory. It only becomes a problem when some think their theory IS reality.
Queue the crappy philosophy and mysticism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Queue the crappy philosophy and mysticism... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no such thing as "wrong interpretation".
If there was "wrong interpretation" then there would be "right interpretation" also.
But, the very meaning of the word "interpretation" is "not the original".
Because interpretation is not the original, it is always, always misleading (or, plainly put, false).
When we say that something is a mystery we mean we don't understand it. There is only one kind of pers
Re:Queue the crappy philosophy and mysticism... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no such thing as "wrong interpretation"
Sorry, but in science there is. If you don't like being wrong I suggest you take up a pursuit like philosophy.
The scientific community tends to fall into "I am quite satisfied with my understanding of the universe" crowd.
I don't know where you got this idea, but it's exactly the opposite. Science deals with things that AREN'T understood. Scientists, by definition are people who aren't satisfied with the "explanations" (science is about understanding and pre
Re:Queue the crappy philosophy and mysticism... (Score:3, Insightful)
And it's evolution that's hard to swallow? (Score:5, Interesting)
The real kicker is that evolutionary theory makes sense on an intuitive level. Random variation + natural selection = genetic change. Genetic change + time = a lot of change. Divergent change = speciation. I'm no scientist--I'm not even that bright. But the ideas are simple and elegant if you make even a token effort to understand. Not so with quantum mechanics. It means what again? If any thse creationists or ID advocates were actually moved by their supposed skepticism about methodologial naturalism, they would be up in arms about quantum mechanics. Instead you hear what from them? Silence. The only branch of science that their profound, deeply conscientious, implacable intellectual integrity can concern itself with is the only one that has implications for a simplistic reading of Genesis. Every time I read "I'm no creationist, but I can't stand by when our children are sold half-baked theories as fact!" I want to crack up laughing. Quantum mechanics is such an easier target because maybe 50 people worldwide really understand it (okay, I'm exaggerating, but by how much?) and high school teachers probably don't make a large percentage. If the issue were just the nature of methodological naturalism, or the limits of human knowledge, or the nature of science, then evolution would never be the easiest target. But as it is, it's the only target.
Perhaps I'm coming late to this realization. Despite my noted cynicism, the very act of debate requires a little respect for the opposing view. But if the opposition is just flat-out lying, not only about their facts, but about their very motivating premises, then what is there to talk about? I guess it had to come to this eventually--if the other side really thinks you are working for the devil, you can't help but call them kooks sooner or later. What else is there?
No, this post o' mine didn't address quantum mechanics. It's just that the sheer inscrutability of the subject (to me) got me to wondering--where are all the gadflies who normally come out of the woodwork with dire warnings about passing off rank theory as fact? Where are the lessons in the scientific theory, the exhortations to "prove" it before we poison the minds of the next generation?
Re:And it's evolution that's hard to swallow? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say by about 50.
Re:And it's evolution that's hard to swallow? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Evolution theory is, in essence, simple. You've described it pretty accurately in a couple of sentences. It's also very simple to misunderstand, e.g., get only the "random variation part". Quantum mechanics is so counter-intuitive as to be considered incomprehensible.
2. Evolution theory poses a clear and present danger to the religious worldview, insofar as one of the strongest (perhap the strongest) cases for belief in a diety is the argument from design ("can you imagine a building without a builder?" etc.). The whole point of evolution undermines this argument: Yes, it is possible to get from something simple to something complex without a "designer". Quantum mechanics, OTOH, falls under "god works in mysterious ways" to most folks.
Re:And it's evolution that's hard to swallow? (Score:5, Insightful)
All over the place. They just aren't connected to religion (or at least not major religions), so they don't get the microphone of a major religious organization.
Hang out on one of Usenet's science groups, or look through the archive, and you'll find all sorts of kooks with all sorts of theories "proving" QM, or General Relativity (link to examples) [google.com], or Gravitation, or the accepted theories of Cosmology, wrong.
The thought has crossed my mind [jerf.org] that more people would be more upset about physics if they realized how thorougly it contradicts their ideas about how the universe works, and really, that statement isn't just limited to the religious, either. But most people live in varying states of blissful ignorance, and ultimately, that's probably just fine.
This proves.... (Score:2)
it makes no sound?
Our perception of reality (Score:2, Interesting)
Faster than the speed of light (Score:4, Interesting)
Bohr responded with a six-page essay in Physical Review that contained but one simple equation, Heisenberg's uncertainty relation. In essence, he said, it all depends on what you mean by "reality."
This reminds me of the quote by the great Neil Peart "the more we think we know about, the greater the unknown."
Bullshit - bad reporting, not bad science (Score:3, Insightful)
this is an experiment in heisenbergs closed box, it's not factual, it's not real world, it's a thought experiment in the realms where we have a whole bunch of other thought experiments that attempt to explain the real world.
Re:Bullshit - bad reporting, not bad science (Score:3, Informative)
These guys are in a "cat" state.... (Score:3, Funny)
And then, the two scientists began spinning clockwise and counterwise at the same time....
The other explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
The real surprise here is how very limited our intelligence is, and how little of the true universe we are able to percieve. It is a terrible conceit to believe that we are a neutral observer capable of impartially observering the universe. We literally create our reality by observering it because our reality is a tiny three-dimensional slice of all possible realities. The universe isn't weird, we are just hopelessly myopic.
This interpretation has the benefit of proving Einstein right. God does not play dice with the universe. Since it is commonly accepted that God would transcend the Universe, his conciousness would be at least five-dimensional. He would be simoultaneously aware of all possible paths into the future. When we pick one, we experience a true free-will choice, but the transcendent observer knows which path we will pick - without affeting the nature of the choice iteself. As a side benefit, free will and omniscience are reconciled, and one of the major arguments against the existence of God crumbles into dust.
We aren't programs in the Matrix, we are ants in an ant farm - trapped in a tiny little slice of reality.
Re:The other explanation (Score:4, Informative)
Google for Hilbert Space. Or ask wikipedia, where there's a simple definition and lots of links to further reading.
A Hilbert Space has countably-infinite dimension, but only points whose sums-of-squares value is finite; i.e., only points a finite distance from the origin are in the space. This doesn't mean that the origin is special, of course; one can easily prove that all points are a finite distance from each other, so choosing another point in the space as origin won't change the set of points.
There has been a lot of theoretical work on Hilbert Spaces. They are important to Quantum Mechanics.
spins both directions? (Score:3, Funny)
most successful theory in history? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:most successful theory in history? (Score:3, Insightful)
Transactional Theory of QM (Score:3, Informative)
Some people commenting on this thread will find the transactional theory of quantum mechanics [washington.edu] (powerpoint) of interest. (Less clear cut paper in HTML here [washington.edu]).
In my opinion, this is the most reasonable, extant interpretation. From my perspective, it says that the paradoxes of QM are perceptual, arising from our perception of time as entirely forward moving. If waves move backwards in time (as in the transactional theory), everything makes sense, though it won't appear to make sense to us.
Re:Maybe they observed wrong? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but wouldn't the act of observing the slip up change it's state?
Re:Question about Q-phys (Score:5, Insightful)
The famous double-slit experiment demonstrates the problem very well. Imagine shooting electrons through a wall with two slits. The slits are close enough that each electron, given the vagueness of its exact position, could go through either slit. After going through the slits, the electrons register themselves on a detection screen of some kind.
Well, if you have a sensor at each slit watching to see where the electrons go, they each go through either one slit or the other quite nicely, and they register their impacts on the screen in a nice bell distribution.
However, if you don't check which slit the electrons go through, there is equal possibility of going through both. Therefore, bizarrely enough, they actually *do* go through both slits at once. The detector then records a more complicated ripple pattern of impacts, as each electron's ghostly half interferes with the other half in a wave pattern.
So when we say there are two opposite states existing at once in the quantum world, it is actually true, and the effect is often bizarre. But the state of a particle behaves itself when you decide to "look" at it.
"Alternately, if schroedinger's cat is in an alive/dead superposition in the box, then if the cat experiences a sane and straightforward set of experiences yet the outside-of-box observer claims it to be in an alive/dead combo state, then outside the box observer and inside the box observer's consciousness lines must potentially deviate."
Schödinger introduced the cat just to point out this weirdness. What does the cat see? Is he both alive and dead at once? Does the universe split into two timelines? Adherents of the "Copenhagen Interpretation" would, I think, argue over whether or not the cat qualifies as an observer, and can collapse the quantum randomness on his own.
Another, more intriguing interpretation, is that at last, when you look at the cat and see whether he died or not, your observation propagates a randomness-collapsing wave *backwards in time* that forces the past action of the cat living/dying to resolve itself. There are variations of the double-slit experiment (like measuring the slits after the electron's already through) that reinforce this idea.
Note that I'm not a physicist, and not necessarily good at explaining things.
Re:Question about Q-phys (Score:2, Informative)