Posted on 12/28/2005 1:42:38 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
Einstein said there would be days like this.
This fall scientists announced that they had put a half dozen beryllium atoms into a "cat state."
No, they were not sprawled along a sunny windowsill. To a physicist, a "cat state" is the condition of being two diametrically opposed conditions at once, like black and white, up and down, or dead and alive.
These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. Moreover, like miniature Rockettes they were all doing whatever it was they were doing together, in perfect synchrony. Should one of them realize, like the cartoon character who runs off a cliff and doesn't fall until he looks down, that it is in a metaphysically untenable situation and decide to spin only one way, the rest would instantly fall in line, whether they were across a test tube or across the galaxy.
The idea that measuring the properties of one particle could instantaneously change the properties of another one (or a whole bunch) far away is strange to say the least - almost as strange as the notion of particles spinning in two directions at once. The team that pulled off the beryllium feat, led by Dietrich Leibfried at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in Boulder, Colo., hailed it as another step toward computers that would use quantum magic to perform calculations.
But ...
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I assume this is why most physicists say information cannot be transmitted faster than light, even using entanglement.
If you say so.........but it spins.......
A Galileo fan, eh? (smile)
I assume this is why most physicists say information cannot be transmitted faster than light, even using entanglement.
Right.
But only in this reality.
In the case of the quantum weirdness experiments they are doing with spin, it does. What they do is they isolate a particular spin probability that they are interested in measuring. They calculate what that probability ought to be based on quantum mechanics. Then they calculate what it ought to be based on Einstein's conjetures (and by the way, they never asked Einstein what he thought it ought to be because he had been dead for decades!).
Then they do their experiment to determine what the actual statistical probability is. The problem is that they can't measure the actual statistical probability even with their ingenius experiments because of the uncertainty principle. They can only make their own conjecture of what it is by measuring certain other statistics with different particles, and then backing into the result by applying the quantum equations to calculate what the probability must be, based upon those quantum mechanical equations. But if their theory is wrong to begin with, then what right do they have to do that?
This bewildering, branching view of 'reality' is called 'the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics' and is the preferred view of 'reality' of many quantum physicists.But only in this reality.
To which reality would you be referring?
Great, now you've gone and messed it all up.
Don't you just hate it when that happens?
By analogy to Fermat's last theorem? Or does it relate Paul Krugman to quantum states via "classically forbidden" mechanisms? ;-)
Cheers!
Are you sure there are no "solitons" or "monopoles" involved ;-)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Cheers!
...and keep in mind that by definition Hermitian operators have only real eigenvalues... :-)
(corresponding to eigenvalues of the Hermitian operator representing the quantum observable being measured)...and keep in mind that by definition Hermitian operators have only real eigenvalues... :-)
Indeed, g_w.
LMAO
I have discovered a truly marvelous 'dead cat bounce' joke, but this post is too brief to contain it.By analogy to Fermat's last theorem? Or does it relate Paul Krugman to quantum states via "classically forbidden" mechanisms? ;-)
I knew I was being too obvious...dang.
Clever.
"At this point, quantum mechanics is considered to be gospel, which is ironic. And it's especially perplexing when one considers that it is inconsisent with relativity, which is also considered to be gospel. And even more perplexing when you consider that quantum mechanics has no explanation for the existence of gravity, yet clearly gravity exists."
All true,
but in the realm of electromagnetism quantum mechanics is thoroughly sound. It has predicted (later confirmed) most of all we know about electron bonds (thus, chemistry and solid state physics). It has given us all of modern digital electronics.
I have been avoiding getting involved with this discussion, but you have put your finger upon the primary error.
Thanks for saying what I wanted to say.
I don't have any problem with electrodynamics, chemistry, etc. The thing that sticks in my craw is the same thing that stuck in Einstein's craw. I don't think that the quantum world can be reduced to mere probability waves. There has got to be some underlying physical reality, and that is what modern quantum mechanics denies.
It seems to be pretty much accepted as a given in this day and age.
I read your link carefully. The only reason Mary can't get information faster than light is because the source in the middle emits paired electrons with a random setting. If the source only emits electron pairs that are green for position 1 and red for 2 and 3, then I can fix my detector to position 1, and Mary can set hers to position 2. If I turn my detector on, Mary will see 50/50 green/red. If I turn my detector off, she will see only red. Hence she can know whether my detector is on or off, which is information faster than the speed of light.
This doesn't violate locality or Einstein's information speed limit if the paired electrons share the same location while they appear to move away from each other. They both take their original location with them. This isn't communication over a distance, it's somehow sharing the same bit of universe location in what we incorrectly perceive as two distant locations.
It's a very interesting subject.
LOLOLOL! Thanks for the ping!
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