Posted on 06/03/2019 9:20:45 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Quantum mechanics’ core assumption is that on the smallest scales, atomic properties are quantized...For example, an electron can be in a lowest-energy state, but if you add a little more energy, it doesn’t slowly transition into the new higher-energy state. Rather, it unpredictably snaps into the new state. If you’re not looking at it, the atom can take on intermediate states—but these aren’t midway points. The atom would be in both states at the same time, and then once you observed it, it would immediately snap into one state or the other.
The team’s artificial atom is an experimental apparatus composed of a circuit made from wire that carries charge without resistance with a special kind of insulating fence, called a Josephson junction, placed in the middle of the wire. In regular atoms, “states” are represented by the location of the electron around the atom’s nucleus, but in this artificial atom, the state is represented by a quantized property whose value changes as electrons pass the insulating fence. This is a quantum system (it’s technically a two-qubit quantum computer) and follows the same rules as other quantum systems, including electrons around atoms.
The researchers apply two specially tuned microwave signals. One signal supplies just the right amount of energy for the atom to transition between the ground state and the excited state, while the other signal indirectly measures the energy of the circuit during this transition.
Detectors measure a bright flashing photon signal—reflections from the second microwave pulse—when the artificial atom is in the ground state... The sensitive detectors were able to measure every last photon until the signal went dark—the sign that the transition was about to occur. When researchers sent another pulse at just the right time, they were able to stop and reverse the transition.
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
Good kitty!
re: “Quantum mechanics’ core assumption is that on the smallest scales, atomic properties are quantized...For example, an electron can be in a lowest-energy state”
QM fails even here; QM provide NO justifiable first-principles reason WHY the lowest electron state is what it is.
No doubt things are “quantized”, but QM proponents have missed other key properties of the atom.
All cats aside, i believe it’s imprecise of the article to say a quantum particle is in two places or states at once. Rather, quantum mechanics says it cannot tell which place or state a particle is in until it’s measured. QM / schrodinger’s wave function doesn’t say a particle is distributed over two or more Locations or states. Rather, it gives us the range of locations or states where we can expect to find the particle — with probabilities we will find it at each location / state. In short, it says nothing about where the particle is now —it is not descriptive/ of the present—it instead gives us predictive information about the future — what we can expect of our measurements. You can say that the formula is a mathematical construct that tells us about the future of our measurements and nothing actually about the present status or location of the particle ———
I agree.
I have no choice :)
Cause I dont know what the hell anyone is talking about :)
Yes indeed. Great kitty!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DCofdZITUEY
re: “QM / schrodinger’s wave function doesn’t say a particle is distributed over two or more Locations or states. Rather, it gives us the range of locations or states where we can expect to find the particle “
QM is mistaken in that assumption. It assumes the electron is a particle, and this is flat-out wrong.
THAT’s what has put QM on the wrong track 100 yrs (or so) ago.
Electrons are particles and waves depending if the wave function is collapsed just like photons.
I am not sure that it is the job of a scientific theory to establish first principles or explain the why of nature, rather scientific theories are just working models approximating what we observe.
While interpreting the shocking discoveries of QM is a difficult matter, but don't blame QM for it--the very counter-intuitive equations have proven to have extraordinary predictive power. If we can't make sense of it, blame God, not the physicist.
Well, QM talks about wave- like and particle- like properties — as seen from our macro- scale, world experience these are constructs with different qualities. And it’s often convenient to call a quantum level identity a “particle” or a “wave” from our POV when we observe the characteristic qualities in “it”. But as you can see perhaps from the frequent references to “wave- particle duality at the quantum level,” these terms are just crude applications from our macro frame of reference to the micro- quantum world— these terms help us discuss the quantum level but they can also get in the way, indeed we can trip over them. I see QM as not specifying that a quantum phenomenon IS a particle as we would see, say, a physical ball or grain of sand. Rather. QM only uses that terminology to identify some, not all, aspects of the quantum phenomenon in language we can identify with. The fact that quantum phenomenon also exhibit wave- type properties should alert us that they aren’t just particles or Little Rockks. I believe QM just doesn’t say that, despite the commonplace that it does.
I haz dis box and now I been saved.
I lolled first time I saw that on a geek’s t-shirt in an airport. And I’m not that smart.
That’s true. The article is misleading at best.
Seems like in quantum mechanics every variable is a random variable with a distribution of values. For a particular particle you do not know it’s attributes until you measure them.
Sort of like the height of a particular person. We know the distribution of people’s height, so we can bracket a particular person’s height a priori, but you won’t know his actual height until you measure it.
In this sense QM is more a pragmatic theory than a realist theory.
In popular jargon people normally believe "pragmatic" and "realistic" to be synonyms, but they're not.
Scientists are supported by the public, I believe in part, because they claim to have discovered new and interesting things like electrons, quarks, black holes, etc. But all they've really been doing is coming up with mathematical formulas to predict what their future measurements will be.
Yes. Science has come up with predictive formulae - about future measurements. And it’s fascinating how accurate some of these predictions are. That we csm observe aspects we term electrons, black holes, etc does at least inform us more about nature than we previously understood. What is reality? What is real? Were observed phenomenon “real” or even “the same, essentially” before we observed them? I don’t know.
Thanks BenLurkin. It's good to have a mews.
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