Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Experiment confirms quantum theory weirdness
PhysOrg ^ | 5/27/15

Posted on 05/28/2015 6:02:31 PM PDT by LibWhacker

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-51 next last

“...reality does not exist if you are not looking at it...”

Ah ha! Mrs. Clinton’s popularity explained finally!


21 posted on 05/28/2015 6:46:59 PM PDT by SuzyQue
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker
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.

What you said was true up until that point.

The physics of time-paradoxes [if they exist] has not yet been written. There is only speculation, and it has nothing to do with this.

It is also untrue that the "future affects the past." The correct statement is "the future reflects the past." If causality is real [and it certainly appears to be] it is not possible for the future to contain outcomes without causes. When you add to this that the total number of outcomes is very severely constrained by physical laws, it gives rise to the illusion that where things end up affects where they started. But it does not. They end up because, contrary to what the moron is saying in this article, quantum mechanics is FULLY CAUSAL. It is not deterministic, and it is probably not locally real on some scale [although there is actually still some controversy about this.] But it is a causal theory, and quantum fields and particles are quite real whether you observe them or not.

22 posted on 05/28/2015 6:52:08 PM PDT by FredZarguna (It looks just like a Telefunken U-47 -- with leather.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: SuzyQue

It explains her emails. You can’t look at ‘em ergo they don’t exist.


23 posted on 05/28/2015 6:55:40 PM PDT by TigersEye (If You Are Ignorant, Don't Vote!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

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

...

Consider this. When you look at a star that is a 1000 light years away, there is a light wave that travels backwards in time to the star, 1000 years in the past, long before you were born, and enables the light wave that travels 1000 years into the future to hit your eye.

http://mist.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/tiqm/TI_toc.html


24 posted on 05/28/2015 6:56:29 PM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

The answer is neither and both.


25 posted on 05/28/2015 6:58:24 PM PDT by WriteOn (Truth)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: FredZarguna
The experimenter is engaged in an exaggeration that ultimately invalidates what he's said.

Yup, I can buy that.

26 posted on 05/28/2015 7:06:25 PM PDT by The Cajun (Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, Mike Lee, Louie Gohmert....Nuff said.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Billthedrill
It doesn't map well when you don't know what you're talking about, and neither this experimenter nor the science writer apparently do.

When you translate a rigorous mathematical result into English, you must be equally accurate and precise.

Most of the statements made in this article are actually either false or gibberish. Here are just a few:

reality does not exist if you are not looking at it

False. Not what quantum mechanics says.

quantum theory, which governs the world of the very small

Nope. Governs everything, large and small. And contrary to popular science writing, there are lots of examples of large scale quantum mechanical effects.

"Quantum physics' predictions about interference seem odd enough when applied to light, which seems more like a wave, but to have done the experiment with atoms, which are complicated things that have mass and interact with electric fields and so on, adds to the weirdness,"

Nope. It doesn't. We've suspected that massive particles were quantum particles since DeBroglie wrote his PhD thesis in 1924, and had proof of it since 1927. Nothing newer or weirder is happening here at all.

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, said Truscott.

If one chooses to believe that, one is choosing to believe what no physicist has believed for almost 100 years.

"The atoms did not travel from A to B.

Yes. They did.

It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,"

Gibberish. The atom travels every spacetime path between A and B, and it is only when a particular experimental measuring apparatus [or, in this case, gimmick] is used that a particular behavior appears to be seen. But this is an illusion. Atoms are not "sometimes" particles and "sometimes" waves. They are neither of those things, but when certain kinds of measurements are performed on them, they seem to display a behavior consistent with one or the other model. But as good as a model is, it is sometimes necessary to remind ourselves that our models are not reality.

This kind of nonsense gives rise to all sorts of loonieness, and professional physicists shouldn't be encouraging it. Most are highly disdainful of this sort of language.

27 posted on 05/28/2015 7:08:56 PM PDT by FredZarguna (It looks just like a Telefunken U-47 -- with leather.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62
I would add the disclaimer that, while interesting, The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics which is where that link points, is not taken seriously by most physicists...
28 posted on 05/28/2015 7:14:13 PM PDT by FredZarguna (It looks just like a Telefunken U-47 -- with leather.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

QM in a nutshell...

“This statement is false.”


29 posted on 05/28/2015 7:19:37 PM PDT by ForYourChildren (Christian Education [ RomanRoadsMedia.com - Classical Christian Approach to Homeschool ])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

Or, for more fun.... entanglement...

“The next statement is true.”
“The previous statement is false.”


30 posted on 05/28/2015 7:20:32 PM PDT by ForYourChildren (Christian Education [ RomanRoadsMedia.com - Classical Christian Approach to Homeschool ])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: FredZarguna

Hi, Fred!... Very interesting. Thanks so much for once again steering me in the right direction on things having to do with physics. I need it and do appreciate it, and always look forward to your input.


31 posted on 05/28/2015 7:37:33 PM PDT by LibWhacker ("Every Muslim act of terror is follow by a political act of cover-up." -Daniel Greenfiel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: FredZarguna
Thank you for your response. I know next to nothing about physics but a lot of the statements in the article seemed to me to just be self-refuting nonsense.

Cordially,

32 posted on 05/28/2015 7:42:21 PM PDT by Diamond (He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Billthedrill

Very astute of you. I see that all the time in math and in physics (at least that elementary part of physics I actually do understand)... If you understand the mathematics of something, the derivations, etc., it’s easy to understand. Otherwise, it can be very difficult and will surely be the source of much confusion.

When I read things in the popular press about quantum mechanics, say, I’m really no better off than someone who doesn’t understand a thing about it. The math is key.


33 posted on 05/28/2015 7:49:09 PM PDT by LibWhacker ("Every Muslim act of terror is follow by a political act of cover-up." -Daniel Greenfiel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: hinckley buzzard

If a man speaks in the forest, and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?


34 posted on 05/28/2015 7:50:22 PM PDT by InMemoriam (Scrape the bottom! Vote for Rodham!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

Once again, I call B.S.

Not at you, LibWhacker, at the “science”.


35 posted on 05/28/2015 7:54:29 PM PDT by SolidRedState (I used to think bizarro world was a fiction.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: FredZarguna

Makes me think I should just stop reading the popular press and sit down with a good textbook in quantum mechanics and get to crackin’. You would think Phys.org could do better than that, given the name of their website.


36 posted on 05/28/2015 7:55:54 PM PDT by LibWhacker ("Every Muslim act of terror is follow by a political act of cover-up." -Daniel Greenfiel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: SolidRedState

I understand. You have a much better BS detector than I do; I fall for this stuff every time! :-(


37 posted on 05/28/2015 7:57:24 PM PDT by LibWhacker ("Every Muslim act of terror is follow by a political act of cover-up." -Daniel Greenfiel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: InterceptPoint
Of course, as Dr. Feynman pointed out, nobody actually does.

Yes, and if you try to "understand" it, "You will go down the drain into a blind alley, from which no one has ever escaped."

I maintain that the language of weirdness is all predicated on an attempt to retain a classical concept of objects. The correct view is that objects are emergent constructs of multiple quantum events. I don't see why people can't just accept this, as Feynman advocated.

38 posted on 05/28/2015 8:01:36 PM PDT by dr_lew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: ForYourChildren

Lol


39 posted on 05/28/2015 8:02:25 PM PDT by LibWhacker ("Every Muslim act of terror is follow by a political act of cover-up." -Daniel Greenfiel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

I had a feeling the entire physical universe is an illusion. None of it is real. It is a projection of the ego that is perceived by the ego. Notice the operative word perception not observation. I will be glad when I wake up someday.


40 posted on 05/28/2015 8:03:24 PM PDT by mosaicwolf (Strength and Honor)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-51 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson