Alain Aspect + The Holographic Universe
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In light of the explenations above, I am very confused now as to how any of this is non-local. It seems to me that the "spin" happens locally, protons are untangled, seperated at an infinite distance and then observed - but just because we observe it at a particular point in time makes it non-local?
I appreciate this is the tricky bit, but surely if we remove the act of observation form the equation they still have their corresponding spin properties. Am i missing something here?
I appreciate this is the tricky bit, but surely if we remove the act of observation form the equation they still have their corresponding spin properties. Am i missing something here?
merlin wood
mind traveller 3rd class
Crispy said:Beg your pardon. Replace 'science' with 'physics' and that would be closer to what I meant
Right but then science generally is all to do with arguing from the experimental and observable evidence while using the appropriate methods to support this argument.
While it so happens that a non-local cause and effect theory is such that just does require the use of diagrams rather than mathematical calculation to get in off the ground at all.
So for a start this is why physicists are just stuck for any answer to the quantum entanglement problem since the effects that are measured cannot be explained in terms of the measurable strength of any cause.
And so if the physicist admits that there are such effects then they generally argue that they have no cause at all. In which case you can wonder whether this really makes any scientific sense for a start.
Yep. According to most conceptualisations of QM, until we observe either one of the entangled particles, both of the entangled particles are in a 'superposition' of states (ie they are in a multiplicity of states at the same time). After you observe either one, both particles are in a definite state. The 'non-locality' refers to the fact that by observing one of the particles, the other one which may be arbitrarily distant in terms of space 'collapses' from its superposition of states into a single definite state.niksativa said:
The key to understanding it is that you can't understand it! The non-locality paradox is a consequence of the super-positioning paradox.
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sorry for being ignorant here: does the state of the quantum object really change by it being observed, or is this just true in terms of empirical truth, ie., all we can say about it at that moment?
Looking at something doesnt make it change states - so is this a case of "all we can say for certain is that x,y,z - (changes occur at the moment of observance)"
If there is no chance of explaining this to me , dont worry... but thansk for the efforts!
Looking at something doesnt make it change states - so is this a case of "all we can say for certain is that x,y,z - (changes occur at the moment of observance)"
If there is no chance of explaining this to me , dont worry... but thansk for the efforts!
niksativa said:
Nope. It doesn't have the property until it is observed. The property is the outcome of the observation. As various posters have said, this is one of the weird and worrying things about QM - but the bloody thing works, so we just have to get used to it.
1) Prepare two entangled particles: that is, prepare two particles, neither of which yet has the property, in such a way that you know that when one is observed to have property "red" the other will have property "blue".
2) Separate them.
3) Observe one.
Doesn't help that you keep talking about "disentangling" them to start with.
E2A: 'Course, one of the other weird and worrying things about QM is "what counts as an observation and who/what counts as an observer?" - to which, as far as I know, the answer is a resounding "dunno for sure, but it goes on working damn well when we assume the answer is 'a human with some measuring instruments'."
merlin wood
mind traveller 3rd class
gurrier said:
i suppose that's right, gurrier. But then you could ask whether quantum entsnglement is only paradoxical because the superposition conceptualisation/interpretation is paradoxical.
So despite the majority of physidists always being out of favour with it the David Bohm deterministic non-local hidden variables conceptualistion/interpretaion of quantum physics is still consistent with a wide range of eperimental results, including the long distance entanglement experiments such as Aspect's and the Geneva10 kilometre plus experiment.
So you can say Bohmian mechanics is conistent with there being a nonlocally acting cause of these entanglement effects rather than an indeterminate superposition of states and whereby there's an insoluble meaurement problem. And so rather than there being just a confusing paradox there is a causal problem that you could suppose, one day anyway, could be resolved...
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laptop said:
How is it known that they dont have the spin property before observation? Surely you can't tell without observing?
No doubt there is a simple answer to this!
In the case of the card it is simultaneously red and blue at the same time before you observe it. Similarly with spin. You can say precisely what the probability is that it will be red or blue when you observe it, but the only way to really squeeze the mathematics into a conceptualisation without leaving important bits out is to say that the card is simultaneously red and blue until observed.niksativa said:
Once again, the key is not to try to make sense of it. That's just the way it is and the sums work remarkably well even though it makes no sense in our macroscopic view of reality.
Jonti
what the dormouse said
Something on our own scale is continuously interacting with its environment and having an effect. Not so quantum particles. They only occasionally interact with the rest of creation.niksativa said:
We cannot ascribe reality to these quantum properties (or indeed anything else) unless and until they have some effect. It is in the nature of quanta that they only have an effect when they bump into stuff. So we have to say that their state is undefined until then.
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.
merlin wood
mind traveller 3rd class
Jonti said:
That is, we cannot speak according to early Wittgenstein and the logical positivists.
But then you couldn't speak about gravity in generally accepted scientific terms unti after Isaac Newton's Principia was published.
merlin wood
mind traveller 3rd class
...while in 1952 David Bohm did show in a detailed mathematically justified argument that you could speek about the behaviour of quantum objects beyond the detectable exerimental results, and in a way that was and is still consintent with a wide range of these results. .
And thus Bohm effectively refuted von Neumann and the Copenhaginsts snd their logical posivistic arguments.
And thus Bohm effectively refuted von Neumann and the Copenhaginsts snd their logical posivistic arguments.
You can hardly speak about something that you don't know or accept the existence of.merlin wood said:
That's like saying that we couldn't speak about relativity until Einstein formulated the theory (a logical consequence of a theory not existing is that you can't talk about it)
Jonti
what the dormouse said
I think not.merlin wood said:
I think you you will find that Bohm's predictions are no different, for all performed experiments. Unambiguous measurable predictions which differ from those of the Copenhagen Interpretation can be made from Bohm, but the experiments have not yet been performed.
At least, that's my reading of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_interpretation
Jonti said:
Shame it doesn't say what those experiments might be. I warn casual readers that the "quantum chaos" referred to is territory marked "here be dragons" - one symptom is that people who actually want careers, but still to study chaos-like results in the quantum realm, refer to what they look at as "Quantum random waves"
I went off looking for proposals for such experiments. I came across B. J. Hiley, who clearly sees himself as Bohm's heir, announcing in 1999 that
Jonti
what the dormouse said
whereof we cannot speak ...
This from
http://ceeandcee.blogspot.com/2005/11/whereof-we-cannot-speak.html
I've long admired that last proposition of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, often translated (a bit sententiously perhaps) as, "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent" -- followed by nothing. It has a teasing, mysterious, Zen-like quality to it, that may at least partly be due to the fact that it's paradoxical, or self-contradictory -- since the subject clause itself, brief though it be, speaks of that "whereof we cannot speak". And I don't think this is a mere quibble -- that very paradox illustrates an important understanding of both the limitations and the power of thought and its medium, language. There are some things which, by their nature, are beyond, or at least outside of, thought as such, but which at the same time, owing to the recursive, object-making nature of language, are "containable" by thought -- thought can hold them, in a fashion, even if it cannot reach them. And a very simple, mundane example of this is simply phenomenal experience itself, the stuff out of which thought is made.
This from
http://ceeandcee.blogspot.com/2005/11/whereof-we-cannot-speak.html
I've long admired that last proposition of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, often translated (a bit sententiously perhaps) as, "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent" -- followed by nothing. It has a teasing, mysterious, Zen-like quality to it, that may at least partly be due to the fact that it's paradoxical, or self-contradictory -- since the subject clause itself, brief though it be, speaks of that "whereof we cannot speak". And I don't think this is a mere quibble -- that very paradox illustrates an important understanding of both the limitations and the power of thought and its medium, language. There are some things which, by their nature, are beyond, or at least outside of, thought as such, but which at the same time, owing to the recursive, object-making nature of language, are "containable" by thought -- thought can hold them, in a fashion, even if it cannot reach them. And a very simple, mundane example of this is simply phenomenal experience itself, the stuff out of which thought is made.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Although, that leads onto another train of thought. Our brains have the power to intuitively grasp certain concepts. Experiments with brain scans have shown that we have 'instinctive' knowledge of "one" "two" "three" and so on up to about 5 I think. Beyond that, we start counting things, using a different part of the brain. If (and it's a big if) we ever design an AI that's smarter than us, then it might have intuitive knowledge of things that we can only dress up in concepts. And what would it think of QM?
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
laptop said:Elitist!
And... this AI that can grasp the Schrödinger equation the way we grasp "three", or "red"...
What would it say to us? Would it bother?
It would probably scream at us in 100,000 frequencies at once. God-level bandwidth enough to melt the soul.
Luckily, there's a 15 year old japanese boy with a 30-storey tall robot warrior suit to save the day.
) Stanislaw Lem's "Non Serviam".
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laptop said:
42
merlin wood
mind traveller 3rd class
niksativa said:42
NIce one, niksativa, and so there's more to Life the Universe and Everything than is dreamt of in a mathematicsl physics.
But I say not more than we can understand...
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