Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird after All

Skeptical Inquirer ^ | July 2006 | Paul Quincey

[PatrickHenry]

By popular demand ...

SciencePing

An elite subset of the Evolution list. See the list's explanation at my freeper homepage. Then FReepmail to be added or dropped.

[Red Badger]

Do quantum mechanics use quantum wrenches?...........

[Quark2005]

A+ post.

Point 2) under "conceptual problems" was especially important, IMO. People who read about quantum entanglement often misconstrue this point (even some otherwise very good physicists I've known).

[MHGinTN]

Interesting post, pipe. May I disagree slightly? Here goes, for what its worth.

There are two dimensions we experience on a comprehensive scale, dimension time and dimension space. We also experience the dimension of life force because we are alive and sensing, and the dimension of spirit because we have a sense of good and evil (well, most people do anyway).

Here's a different way to consider these dimensional aspects. Each dimension has three variable expressions. With dimension space we have linear, planar, and volumetric, with time we have past , present, and future, corresponding roughly in conception to the three variable expressions of dimension space. With dimension life force we have will, emotion, and mind --for want of better terms-- and these also have a similitude to dimensions time and space. I suspect there are three variable expressions to dimension spirit also, but I haven't a clue yet what the variable expressions might be called.

Here's a though regarding the mixing of dimensions time and space. In classical physics there are distances at which the various standard model forces are in effect for the phenomena 'observed'; I would switch this way of describing that, to say that the various forces act in various spatial expressions, as in planar or volumetric, for instance. There may be (and I believe firmly that this is the actual case) 'times' at which the various forces are in effect also, mingled with the various distances (spatial characteristic).

I am working on a paradigm to explain this different perspective using space/time realms or continua as the limits for the various forces. As an example, gravity is a volumetric/past phenomenon, where the temporal aspect is the operant in the force expression, so the entire universe is the realm of gravity action based upon an entanglement of temporal origin related to the start of the disunity to dimension time at the big bang origin of our universe.

Dimensions life force and spirit have been added to the mix of dimensions space and time, broken into constituent expressions, and until some means of mathematically expressing the combinatorial nature of their being mixed into the universe is found, life and spirit will remain metaphysical realms of wonderment, while space and time will continue being explored and codified using a touch of metaphysical perspective, as in quantum field as 'aether' (in a spatio-temporal sense) for standard model force expressions, and entanglement, and action at a distance (each area of exploration being dependent more upon a temporal or spatial expression for fundamental interaction of matter and energy).

Because of this 'different' way of viewing the universe and the standard model for subatomic reality, I have predicted that no graviton particle will be found as mediator of the force of gravity, because gravity is primarily a temporal phenomenon not a spatial phenomenon. Electromagnetic effects are primarily spatial phenomena thus a mediating particle acts as focus of the force exchange because everything in this universe is entangled via temporal containment (everything is existing within a temporal volume in relation to everything else) ... we are in the universe we are in and in which the processes that have resulted in us have occurred, adding dimensional expressions as we have been 'built up' in complexity.

Other 'beings', such as angels, may not have been 'built' in the same fashion from the simplest to the more complex as we have been constructed, for the mind of God can bring things into being by a word, at any complexity level He chooses to assume for them. Parallel universe theory and brane theory and string theory are all hinting at a more inclusive way to define the universe. I think there are recorded examples of events where greater complexity realities have intersected our reality, as in Daniel chptr 5, and the entire of Jesus sojourn on this planet.

Hope this hasn't been too esoteric to have meaning for you.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

What we need is a magazine called "Popular Quantum Mechanics."

[Iris7]

Adrian Schwinger (at least as much a big dog physics guy as Feynman was) believed Feynman's view of quantum mechanics to be fundamentally flawed. It has to do with reconciling Maxwell's equations with quantum theory.

If Feynman is correct I read that quantum computation is possible, and, if not, is not.

There is a fairly respectable group of physics people who say that the observed behavior of GPS satellites violates Relativity theory. Therefore relativity theory is wrong. These guys are pretty far up there in the physics world as far as I can tell.

Everybody wants to believe that they know what they are doing. I doubt anyone does.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The assault on the Copenhagen Interpretation continues.

[Quark2005]

There is a fairly respectable group of physics people who say that the observed behavior of GPS satellites violates Relativity theory.

I don't think that's true. GPS positioning uses a leading order correction based on General Relativity to compensate their positioning. Without it the satellites would lose several meters of accuracy every day.

[Iris7]

I am not in anything like a position to say yea or nay here, for sure.

My impression is that the correction you refer to is empirical in major part and is something of an exercise in curve fitting.

Not claiming special insight here. I just suspect that True Knowledge (term borrowed from Iain Banks, suggests human frailty and the need for enough certainty to have at least some hope for the future, and is a mixture of serious and ironical) is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow where we endlessly pursue and endlessly do not find. A "chimera", though the analogy is a bit strained.

[linear]

Ping for later

[snarks_when_bored]

Adrian Schwinger (at least as much a big dog physics guy as Feynman was) believed Feynman's view of quantum mechanics to be fundamentally flawed. It has to do with reconciling Maxwell's equations with quantum theory.

If Feynman is correct I read that quantum computation is possible, and, if not, is not.

The Schwinger-Tomonaga operator-theoretic approach to quantum electrodynamics was shown to be equivalent to the Feynman sum-over-histories approach by none other than Freeman Dyson (an act which secured Dyson a permanent faculty appointment at the Institute for Advanced Studies).

[Physicist]

I only skimmed this article, but I didn't like very much what I read. It glosses over some very real philosophical problems associated with QM, and pretends they're not problems.

(N.B.: When I say "problems", I don't mean mathematical inconsistencies in the theory or disagreements between the theory and experimental fact--we know of none--but rather refutations of our naive philosophical expectations.)

For example, with Schrödinger's Cat, he shrugs and says, "QM can't predict the future, no problem". But the problem isn't a question of the future; it's a question of the past.

Suppose the decision whether to release the prussic acid occurs at 4:00, and the chamber is opened at 5:00. The cat is in a superposed dead/alive state at 4:30. It will collapse at 5:00 into one state or the other, sure, but that doesn't mean the cat will live or die at 5:00. The death of the cat, if death is the outcome, will have occurred at 4:00. At 4:30, that event is already in the past. At 5:00, when the mixed state collapses into the death eigenstate, the cat will be an hour dead. It's not the future which is indeterminate, but the past.

Furthermore, the author misleads when he says "we never see this". We may not see it with cats in our sadistic basement experiments, but we see it in the lab, with subatomic particles. Indeed, we exploit it as an experimental tool.

[Aldin]

I thought you might get a kick out of this - I think I'm going to enjoy pondering it quite a bit.

[snarks_when_bored]

It's possible that Quincey might respond by elaborating on these sentences:

But if quantum mechanics can accurately describe all the information we can ever obtain about the outside world, perhaps we are simply being greedy to ask for anything more. The headline "Physics Fails to Describe Events That Cannot Be Observed" is, again, rather lacking in impact.

Puzzles about superposition strike me as being modern instantiations of the problem of the one and the many. If I had more time (and were much, much smarter), I'd say more.

[hosepipe]

[ With dimension space we have linear, planar, and volumetric, with time we have past , present, and future, corresponding roughly in conception to the three variable expressions of dimension space. ]

It does have esoteric and exoteric meaning to me.. Linear, planar and volumn (and time too) might be a 2nd reality.. Probably is.. It could be that "shape" is a 2nd reality.. i.e. all geometry really; including known physics.. Could be that EVERY human is "into" some version of 2nd reality..

Matter/energy (both light and dark energy/matter) could be plasmic in essence.. Like a very good painting/landscape(2 dimensions masking three) can look very real in this paradigm.. Its NOT real(the landscape) but appears to be real.. i.e. a created observation by a human.. This universe could be the same on a spiritual level(God).. except upped a level of reality..

I say that; to posit, that "shape" may be a human observational limitation.. meaning all matter/energy is plasmic.. in essence.. Shape being needed by human eyes and other senses in a limited reality..

This subject is quite deep.. and completely "out of the box"... So I don't discuss this with many.. Everyone I know cannot concieve of a universe without "shape" being integral..

Some people have problems with a tripartite God.. I do not.. It could be God is an amalgam of additional(not mentioned in the bible) Spirits also.. i.e. Father, Son, Holy Spirit plus additional entities not mentioned.. or not.. One way or the other "that" would have no bearing on the bibles message(s) anyway.. Father, Son, Holy Spirit is fine with me..

Some of Stephen Barrs ideas have serious merit...

[kcrackel]

Dean Koontz wrote a good book called "From The Corner Of His Eye" that involved quantum mechanics. Dean gets into some detail about it as he really does his background research when writing books. I would highly recommend this book for entertainment value as well as a for a little quantum mechanics knowledge.

[Doctor Stochastic]

But neither the “world” of relativity nor the quantum world are “visualizable” in the standard sense of that word.

That would depend on how much mathematics is in one's "standard sense."

[Iris7]

I read about that in Dyson's "Disturbing the Universe". The famous trip from the East coast to New Mexico.

My understanding is that Schwinger rejected the Feynman model until the day he died. My hazy recollection is that it had something to do with a "particle's" electrical field. Something about Feynman's analysis seeing a particle as "pointlike". Something about Maxwell's mathematical model.

[dr_lew]

For example, with Schrödinger's Cat, he shrugs and says, "QM can't predict the future, no problem". But the problem isn't a question of the future; it's a question of the past.

In the Copenhagen Interpretation, QM only represents our state of knowledge of a system. With the cat hidden in the box, QM only predicts the probability of what we will find when we open it.

Suppose we put a clock in the box instead of a cat, rigged to stop when the quantum event is detected. When we open the box we will find it running or stopped, and in the latter case we may certainly say that the time it records is the time of the quantum event.

Note that even a dead cat is an evolving system, and we may say by various means such as temperature when it died, even if we weren't watching. The cat is no different than a clock in this way.

This famous paradigm is more a rhetorical exercise than philosophical. The characterizations of "dead" and "alive" as quantum states is entirely unjustified, but the drama of the situation distracts us from noticing.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

With the cat hidden in the box, QM only predicts the probability of what we will find when we open it.

This is certainly a different interpretation than was adopted at Copenhagen. What the Germans said was that the cat is neither alive nor dead until we make an observation of it. Schroedinger's equation allows us to calculate the probability of what we'll find when we make the observation.