Posted on 02/22/2016 10:57:24 AM PST by Reeses
With its ideas of particles zipping in and out of existence, quantum mechanics is probably the kookiest-sounding theory in science. And our understanding of it is little helped by the mysterious "probability fields" most physicists say dictate the zipping.
But a more intuitive picture may lie beneath. As new research demonstrates, beneath the shroud of probability, particles can in fact be viewed as behaving like billiard balls rolling along a table - although in surreal fashion.
The result helps resurrect an 80-year-old picture of quantum mechanics, and provides one of the most stirring demonstrations yet of an effect Einstein called "spooky action at a distance".
The work, reported in Science Advances, is a new version of the most famous experiment in quantum mechanics, in which particles of light, called photons, are fired at two slits before being detected on a screen.
Hog-tied by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, for decades physicists thought they could never know which slit a particular photon went through - any attempted measurement stops it in its tracks.
But in 2011, physicist Aephraim Steinberg at the University of Toronto achieved the seemingly impossible by tracking the trajectories of photons using a series of "weak" measurements, gentle enough not to disturb their position.
This method showed trajectories that looked similar to classical ones - like those of balls flying through the air.
Although it was a seemingly outstanding result, some physicists were not convinced, highlighting the experiment's inability to deal with "entanglement" (where two particles, in this case photons, are intimately connected so that measurement on one instantly affects the other, no matter how far away it is).
The critics pointed out that doing the same experiment with two entangled photons would lead to a contradiction - such as the photon's trajectory being measured as going through the top slit, but the photon itself hitting the bottom of the detector (as if it came from the bottom slit). They coined the term "surreal trajectories" to describe this result.
Now Steinberg's team has achieved the experiment for entangled photons, and shown how the surreal behaviour is caused by the "spooky" influence of the other particle.
The team first entangled two photons, then sent one of the pair through the regular two-slit apparatus, and the other through an apparatus that monitored polarisation - the plane the light waves are travelling in.
Weirdly, the choice made by the experimenters in how to measure the polarisation determined which slit the first photon went through - as if interfering with one particle caused the other to change direction instantaneously.
This kind of bizarre phenomenon is exactly what Einstein had in mind when he dubbed it "spooky action". Physicists have seen evidence of it before, but never in such a direct fashion.
The results bolster a non-standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, which throws out the notion of abstract probability fields altogether.
First put forward by Louis de Broglie in 1927, the interpretation treats quantum objects just like classical particles, but imagines them riding like a surfer on top of a so-called pilot wave.
The wave is still probabilistic, but the particle does take a real trajectory from source to target.
The new work does not disprove the standard "probabilistic" view of quantum mechanics, but it does highlight that the pilot-wave interpretation is perfectly valid too. That is "something that's not recognised by a large part of the physics community", says Howard Wiseman, a physicist at Griffith University who proposed the experiment.
It may be easier to visualise real trajectories, rather than abstract wave function collapses.
"I would phrase it in terms of having different pictures," says Steinberg. "Different pictures can be useful. They can help shape better intuitions."
It is, of course, fictional but the concept is interesting.
In theory one should be able to account for even random “mutations” if said being knows everything there is to know.
Maybe so. In that case, there is another plane of existence that we currently can’t view, that the energy that composes ‘potential particles’ lives in.
I loved those books as a kid. But I seem to recall the Puppeteers were meddling to keep everything on track?
Likewise...
The reason is it becomes almost purely mathematical.
A particle is no longer a “spherical object” like a ball or a planet; it is a mathematical equation.
A wave is a shape in this context, not a thing. The surfing idiom refers to particles following a wave-shaped probability curve, in essence being “pushed” or floating upon the laws of probability.
Your desk lamp begs to differ. Lol
Not by us. Too many variables.
Ya. Or the brick wall when I drive my car into it.
Now if someone could build a device that would allow me to drive through the wall without “interacting with it,” then that would be pretty cool. :)
I think you are confusing Asimov’s Foundation universe with Niven’s Known Universe. It has been 20 years since I read Asimov, but I don’t remember any Puppeteers. In the late books of the Foundation series Asimov did have humaniform robots who carried over from the I, Robot series of books, particularly Daneel Olivaw, who had evolved the 3 laws of robotics to include a Zeroth law to protect all humanity.
All you need to do is shrink yourself down to Planck scale! Then you can drive through it, or detour to the other side of the universe to go around it. But you will never know until you get there! :)
And none of them “linear.” Or at least we don’t have a way to describe them accurately.
Why the whole global warming modeling thing bugs me. Then again, I am no expert but there are definite limitations to the science and even more limitations to the models.
It is a common theme throughout Asimov’s books. He ties it together in the last book.
SPOILER ALERT! Email me if you want to know.
You are absolutely right, I did conflate them. No Puppeteers.
Never mind. I didn’t read your complete post.
I'm no quantum physicist so don't take my theory too seriously but here is how I look at it: the spooky action at a distance happens because the particles are not really two separate things, they are one thing that, in our world (universe, whatever), encounter interference such that they appear to be separate. They're connected "before" they're perceived here, and "after."
Laugh, sure. But it helps me read about this stuff.
Interesting theory and very possibly true. Interesting that you included time as a variable.
The Foundation was behind the scenes guiding events. I accepted that when I read the books.
Now, I wonder about their nature. Some on the left talk breezily today about “changing human nature.” Is this a Marxist Foundation? Yes, or no, it presumes they know what is best and are entitled to manipulate others.
But there was another entity watching and guiding based on “the three laws.”
Nassim laughs.
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