Experiment confirms quantum theory weirdness

PhysOrg ^ | 5/27/15

[LibWhacker]

If one chooses to believe that the atom really did take a particular path or paths then one has to accept that a future measurement is affecting the atom's past...

The past affects the future (obviously) and the future affects the past. Too bizarre.

[ClearCase_guy]

“Time is an illusion.” - Albert Einstein:

[hinckley buzzard]

At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it

Shades of Bishop Berkeley.

[Norm Lenhart]

“Reality for a liberal begins every day when they wake up” - Norm Lenhart

I was ahead of my time too ;)

[Diamond]

"... proving that reality does not exist until it is measured."

What is "proving", then? Can it be measured?

And what is "measuring" if reality does not exist?

[BenLurkin]

A darn convincing one.

[The Cajun]

So cause and effect and the forward motion of time breaks down at the quantum level?

Sounds like dangerous place.

[ClearCase_guy]

“I got bronchitis! Ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat.” — Sweet Brown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFEoMO0pc7k

[WilliamofCarmichael]

reality does not exist until it is measured

The effect of a bill before Congress cannot be known until it is passed. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Party quantum genius

[Snickering Hound]

[BenLurkin]

“Knew Something Was Wrong When A Little Pretty White Girl Ran into a Black Man’s Arms.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt5xcAUYJ0k&feature=iv&src_vid=nZcRU0Op5P4&annotation_id=annotation_880250

[KarlInOhio]

The last time I tried to randomly poison a cat in a box I got my dinger shredded.

[InterceptPoint]

I’m sure that I’m not the first to point out that there is nothing weird about quantum level physics as long as you understand quantum behavior. Of course, as Dr. Feynman pointed out, nobody actually does.

[ClearCase_guy]

That’s pretty awesome.

[FredZarguna]

reality does not exist if you are not looking at it

I wouldn't get too excited about it, because as a statement of what quantum mechanics actually says, it is not, in fact, true.

The correct interpretation is: "The reality of an outcome is contingent on what you choose to observe."

That is not a terribly earth-shattering ontological principle.

[Intolerant in NJ]

ah - a thought experiment....

[FredZarguna]

The statement is false; it is not even close to what the axioms of quantum mechanics say. Scientists should not comment about ontology if they haven’t studied it seriously — and most HAVE NOT.

[LibWhacker]

I was watching the Science Channel last week and it was explained thusly: The past must be consistent with the future. Therefore the future affects the past in that sense. The Universe will necessarily end in a particular way (the Big Crunch, the Big Rip, etc.), and whatever happens in the past must be consistent that ending. Similarly, you cannot go back in time and kill your own father when he was a little boy. You know he exists in the future and the past must be consistent with that. Therefore, you could not kill him in the past. The future affects the past.

[Billthedrill]

This stuff doesn’t map well to the English language. Basically something for which we have only a mathematical description behaves in a manner for which we have only a mathematical description. The result is now to be expressed in non-mathematical terms. Best of luck with that.

[FredZarguna]

So cause and effect and the forward motion of time breaks down at the quantum level?

No, and also, No.

The experimenter is engaged in an exaggeration that ultimately invalidates what he's said. There is nothing new in what has been done, and, as pointed out already, the result was completely predicted by the great American physicist, John Archibald Wheeler.