Wish I understood this
Discussion
I'd like to add another HHGTTG analogy here that might help. The ship, Heart of Gold, has an improbability drive. I like how this is represented in the new film. Basically this works a bit like the theory in the article, although no one is observing it on some occasions. Whether the ship, its crew and contents coalesce into existence at any point in space is a probability. To my understanding, it seems that, at the quantum level, its only via probability that something exists or not. It seems that viewing or sensing something somehow makes its existence probable. This is unnerving for some as it was always assumed that things remained in existence all the time (ie when you're not looking, or sensing them, they're still there).
I think we might have a couple of people who work in quantum so I hope they can come along and correct me.
PS....see the science politics...for decades that theory was eschewed because it was too troublesome. Science is never settled.
I think we might have a couple of people who work in quantum so I hope they can come along and correct me.
PS....see the science politics...for decades that theory was eschewed because it was too troublesome. Science is never settled.
Edited by coanda on Tuesday 11th October 02:14
It's interesting to consider the magnitude of what's happening with this theory.
If you can't see or sense (and I think sensing is more appropriate but, see is easier to understand) your car or your loved one, for example, and no one or nothing that has the ability to sense another object can either - does it/they just exist as potential energy? And does 'seeing' mean anything we can render with our eyes or does it mean anything at any scale within our field of vision (swap out other senses as required)
I remember a bit of a wet lad smoking weed and getting very agitated when it was discussed that when he closes a door, what's on the other side is just the void of the universe, and there is nothing there until he opens the door again - this was 20+ years ago so it's been a topic of conversation for popular science for some time in various places - i.e. Schrödinger cat.
Probably mixing my analogies there a bit, but a fun thought experiment.
If you can't see or sense (and I think sensing is more appropriate but, see is easier to understand) your car or your loved one, for example, and no one or nothing that has the ability to sense another object can either - does it/they just exist as potential energy? And does 'seeing' mean anything we can render with our eyes or does it mean anything at any scale within our field of vision (swap out other senses as required)
I remember a bit of a wet lad smoking weed and getting very agitated when it was discussed that when he closes a door, what's on the other side is just the void of the universe, and there is nothing there until he opens the door again - this was 20+ years ago so it's been a topic of conversation for popular science for some time in various places - i.e. Schrödinger cat.
Probably mixing my analogies there a bit, but a fun thought experiment.
coanda said:
I'd like to add another HHGTTG analogy here that might help. The ship, Heart of Gold, has an improbability drive. I like how this is represented in the new film. Basically this works a bit like the theory in the article, although no one is observing it on some occasions. Whether the ship, its crew and contents coalesce into existence at any point in space is a probability. To my understanding, it seems that, at the quantum level, its only via probability that something exists or not. It seems that viewing or sensing something somehow makes its existence probable. This is unnerving for some as it was always assumed that things remained in existence all the time (ie when you're not looking, or sensing them, they're still there).
I think we might have a couple of people who work in quantum so I hope they can come along and correct me.
PS....see the science politics...for decades that theory was eschewed because it was too troublesome. Science is never settled.
Try telling the climate change "scientists" that...I think we might have a couple of people who work in quantum so I hope they can come along and correct me.
PS....see the science politics...for decades that theory was eschewed because it was too troublesome. Science is never settled.
Edited by coanda on Tuesday 11th October 02:14
Mr Pointy said:
If a clock doesn't exist when I'm not looking at it how come the time it shows when I look at it is different to the previous time I looked at it? If it didn't exist in the intevening period, why did it experience the passage of time?
Quantum physics isn't that literal, the unobserved clock doesn't stop physically existing when not observed but it's only brought to certainty while being observed. ie until you look at the clock again it could be in an almost infinite number of states, it only collapses into the state you see when you look at it.Think of the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment, there's also a famous test called the double slit experiment where one of the conclusions is that matter reacts to observation.
ZedLeg said:
Quantum physics isn't that literal, the unobserved clock doesn't stop physically existing when not observed but it's only brought to certainty while being observed. ie until you look at the clock again it could be in an almost infinite number of states, it only collapses into the state you see when you look at it.
Think of the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment, there's also a famous test called the double slit experiment where one of the conclusions is that matter reacts to observation.
Or maybe the observer splits into a number of states, one of seeing that the cat is dead and the other that it's perfectly healthy.Think of the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment, there's also a famous test called the double slit experiment where one of the conclusions is that matter reacts to observation.
That way we can explain why nobody sees a cat alive and dead at the same time without having to invoke unexplained mechanisms to collapse quantum states.
I am presently (and very slowly) working my way through Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy. Curiously, I have just arrived at the chapter on Bishop Berkeley. It should be interesting in the light of this thread.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley
Is there any theoretical work going on regarding a fifth quantum dimension ? A fifth dimension, only tangible at the quantum scale could allow information to be passed between entangled particles giving the effect of non-locality when being observed in our known space/time dimensions.
String theory touched upon it a decade or so ago but I find so much about string completely incomprehensible that I`d rather not look in that box
String theory touched upon it a decade or so ago but I find so much about string completely incomprehensible that I`d rather not look in that box
Dr Jekyll said:
ZedLeg said:
Quantum physics isn't that literal, the unobserved clock doesn't stop physically existing when not observed but it's only brought to certainty while being observed. ie until you look at the clock again it could be in an almost infinite number of states, it only collapses into the state you see when you look at it.
Think of the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment, there's also a famous test called the double slit experiment where one of the conclusions is that matter reacts to observation.
Or maybe the observer splits into a number of states, one of seeing that the cat is dead and the other that it's perfectly healthy.Think of the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment, there's also a famous test called the double slit experiment where one of the conclusions is that matter reacts to observation.
That way we can explain why nobody sees a cat alive and dead at the same time without having to invoke unexplained mechanisms to collapse quantum states.
But the reason nobody can see the cat both alive and dead is that the contents of the box has already interacted with its environment, causing the collapse of the probability waveform into one state or the other. We think of the observation bit as lifting the lid on the box, but that's not what observation means. The experiment is not a closed system, so as soon as it is part of the same space as the observer (whatever that observer is) then the probabilities of all the states of every particle in the system are all linked, and so the aliveness or deadness of the cat is determined. Lifting the lid has no effect.
I recommend the Mindscapes podast, or any books or Youtube lectures or anything at all really by Sean Carroll. Nobody explains this stuff better than him.
rewild said:
Dr Jekyll said:
ZedLeg said:
Quantum physics isn't that literal, the unobserved clock doesn't stop physically existing when not observed but it's only brought to certainty while being observed. ie until you look at the clock again it could be in an almost infinite number of states, it only collapses into the state you see when you look at it.
Think of the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment, there's also a famous test called the double slit experiment where one of the conclusions is that matter reacts to observation.
Or maybe the observer splits into a number of states, one of seeing that the cat is dead and the other that it's perfectly healthy.Think of the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment, there's also a famous test called the double slit experiment where one of the conclusions is that matter reacts to observation.
That way we can explain why nobody sees a cat alive and dead at the same time without having to invoke unexplained mechanisms to collapse quantum states.
But the reason nobody can see the cat both alive and dead is that the contents of the box has already interacted with its environment, causing the collapse of the probability waveform into one state or the other. We think of the observation bit as lifting the lid on the box, but that's not what observation means. The experiment is not a closed system, so as soon as it is part of the same space as the observer (whatever that observer is) then the probabilities of all the states of every particle in the system are all linked, and so the aliveness or deadness of the cat is determined. Lifting the lid has no effect.
I recommend the Mindscapes podast, or any books or Youtube lectures or anything at all really by Sean Carroll. Nobody explains this stuff better than him.
Halmyre said:
The real reason you don't see a half dead, half alive cat is that it's impossible. Schroedinger only came up with the thought experiment to illustrate the absurdity of applying the collapsing wave theory (the Copenhagen interpretation) to the 'real' world.
But there's no question of a half dead half alive cat. The whole point is that the cat is in two distinct states corresponding to the distinct states of the sub atomic particle.Pobolycwm said:
Is there any theoretical work going on regarding a fifth quantum dimension ? A fifth dimension, only tangible at the quantum scale could allow information to be passed between entangled particles giving the effect of non-locality when being observed in our known space/time dimensions.
String theory touched upon it a decade or so ago but I find so much about string completely incomprehensible that I`d rather not look in that box
There is a conjecture that entangled particles are linked by wormholes:String theory touched upon it a decade or so ago but I find so much about string completely incomprehensible that I`d rather not look in that box
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER_%3D_EPR
EliseNick said:
There is a conjecture that entangled particles are linked by wormholes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER_%3D_EPR
Would that mean you could use entangled particles for faster than light communication?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER_%3D_EPR
(I'm sure the answer is in the wiki article but I couldn't understand it).
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