Quantum wonders: Nobody understands

Ten million times the speed of light.

I wonder if thats getting somewhere
close to the speed of thought.

And the interesting thing is due to the laws of themodynamics the larger and colder the universe gets the longer a thought process takes ....I recommend Michio Kakus Parallel Worlds book if you want to be presented with some truly mind blowing scenarios.

reply to post by plumranch


hi just wondering what that means that you cant have free will, reality and the speed of light all together. Why is that not possible?

reply to post by bulletproof_monk

From Paul Frenhough

The results seem to violate John Bells’ inequalities (possibly an understatement – they violate it by about 1000 standard deviations!) & thus prove one of 4 things :-

a) something travelling faster than light is communicating between the entangled photons. (at the moment their estimate is 10,000 times the speed of light)
b) the experimenters have no free-will to choose what to measure
c) reality doesn’t pre-exist before its experienced or measured.
d) Bell’s inequalities are flawed

Restated, it's like if something isn't traveling incredibly faster than the speed of light, here then something really spooky and incomprehensible is going on!

Take your pick. This is all at the debatable stage. There are theories but no one has proof. These phenomena often seem unprovable at our level of understanding but then there is a big attraction to this field of study! A lot could happen in a few years!




[edit on 11/5/10 by plumranch]

Originally posted by DaMod
reply to post by nik1halo

 

Double negatives do not work the same way as a double positive.

That doesn't really matter anyway.

It's not issue of what the double negative means, it's the fact that he used one in the first place.

That is a no no and could be considered a reflection on this man's intelligence.

Plus the information presented is sketchy at best.

You are full of it. That is NOT a double negative. They negatives aren't even in the same clause.

Compare:

I don't feel that I don't understand quantum physics.

vs.

I don't like that you don't like apples.

In fact, I DON'T LIKE THAT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS SIMPLE ENGLISH!!!!

Originally posted by Snarf
reply to post by plumranch

 

there is zero proof to back any of their claims

Besides the countless experiments that have been done you mean?

ok thanks for clearing that up. still very confusing, but i do understand a bit better now. Hasnt someone disovered some sort of frequency that was travelling faster than the speed of light? what would that mean in the case of the points you posted up? I think one of the more likely scenarios is that this guys equation is flawed in some way, but who knows? Our universe is a weird place

reply to post by bulletproof_monk

Hasnt someone disovered some sort of frequency that was travelling faster than the speed of light?

Supraluminal Transmissions

"If you take a laser and shine it on the moon and swing it rather gently, for example, the spot on the moon travels faster than the speed of light," Singleton said. "If an effect can do that, it makes you wonder if you can do things with light to get the equivalent of a sonic boom." That's what the faster-than-light radio waves — more scientifically known as superluminal transmissions — do. They're the light version of a sonic boom, he said. "When something travels faster than its own wave speed you get a very large disturbance," Singleton said. "And these powerful signals that result, well, this would be how E.T., if he were out there, would likely try to communicate with us."

These supralumenal transmission are radio waves going on the order of a few times the speed of light so would not compare to the speed of connectivity between quantum entangled pairs. Besides supralumenals are detectable with ordinary equipment. The entangled pairs have something going on between them we have not been able to detect.

If this is true that an undetectable connectivity exists then it is reasonable to postulate that many or even all waves and even matter is sensitive and excitable by this force. This force could be related to dark energy, zero point energy, free energy or even the force that maintains the structure of atoms and atomic particles. Pure supposition but nevertheless great food for thought and one of my favorite theories!



[edit on 12/5/10 by plumranch]

Originally posted by plumranch
Richard Feynman: "Nobody understands quantum mechanics."

Good old Feynman. And if you know Feynman, he was speaking but especially for himself. He made no pretense about what he knew and what he didn't know... From Feynman's perspective, he didn't know anything, which is the wisest of all perspectives for a physicist.

The thing about quantum mechanics is that it defies our comprehension, and necessarily so. As four-dimensional creatures living in a four-dimensional reality, it's simply not possible for us to fully grasp concepts in an eleven-dimensional manner.

Sure, we can draw up mathematical paradigms; but, relatively speaking, those models are as flat as a two-dimensional sketch of an aircraft carrier. It might fully describe an enormously complex vessel, but you're never going to land an F-16 on its deck.

In reply to good old Feynman's whimsical quote, I offer my favorite quote from J. B. S. Haldane: The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we CAN suppose.

— Doc Velocity





[edit on 5/11/2010 by Doc Velocity]

Originally posted by jcrash
Anyway, the scary thing about this quote is the fact that if scientists don't understand quantum physics, how can they (or a lay person for that matter) accurately judge other scientists assessments of quantum physics ?

That which we call the ironclad fact of today was once the much-derided notion of yesterday, and our modern ironclad facts will be the mistakes and apologies of tomorrow. Science is nothing but consensus, an erstwhile agreement between bad-tempered adversaries. — Prof. Charles Austin Miller


— Doc Velocity







[edit on 5/11/2010 by Doc Velocity]

It seems to me that one of the ideas of quantum mechanics - that is, that your bedroom doesn't exist after you close the door, walk away, and cease paying attention to it - is a means for which the universe can conserve by eliminating unnecessary computation.

The tree that falls in the woods with no one around to hear it doesn't exist, in other words.

So the infinite universe thing seems hard to swallow, if the universe isn't going to bother with figuring out what is happening everywhere, all the time, in an infinite number of possibilities. I can't imagine an engine of any type that would keep track of all of that.

...Which makes you wonder... who or what is making sure that everything stays the way it's supposed to be? And everything is accounted for? Either there is a fundamental property of the universe that makes sure things don't disappear or break the rules... or... ah heck, I forgot where I was going with this....

Anyway, an infinite number of universes means that no matter how improbable, someone somewhere has figured out a way to blow up all the universes, and done it. But we're here.

An infinite number of universes means that somewhere, everything is happening that makes no sense at all according to any laws of physics. Somewhere, objects are falling up, light shines dark, and what happened didn't. The heisenberg uncertainty principle says it's unlikely, but if you look around forever, you'll find a place where it's real.

Gives me a headache.

Originally posted by gonquin
Ten million times the speed of light.

wonder if thats getting somewhere
close to the speed of thought.

Actually, human thought moves at only about 200 mph, which, granted, is pretty damned fast when you're talking about something as small as a thought circuit. Still, just because we amaze ourselves doesn't mean our thought processes are particularly amazing. As with any computer, the human brain's processing capability is only as good as its output device.

So far, I'm not especially amazed with Mankind's output. Well... except for my own, of course.

— Doc Velocity






[edit on 5/12/2010 by Doc Velocity]

reply to post by Doc Velocity

So far, I'm not especially amazed with Mankind's output.

Me neither, especially when we can't decide when things are waves or particles!

From Corpuscles and Bucky Balls/ waves or particles

All that leaves a fundamental question: how can stuff be waves and particles at the same time? Perhaps because it is neither, says Markus Arndt of the University of Vienna, Austria, who did the buckyball experiments in 1999. What we call an electron or a buckyball might in the end have no more reality than a click in a detector, or our brain's reconstruction of photons hitting our retina. "Wave and particle are then just constructs of our mind to facilitate everyday talking," he says.

Originally posted by plumranch
reply to post by Doc Velocity

 

So far, I'm not especially amazed with Mankind's output.

Me neither, especially when we can't decide when things are waves or particles!

From Corpuscles and Bucky Balls/ waves or particles

All that leaves a fundamental question: how can stuff be waves and particles at the same time? Perhaps because it is neither, says Markus Arndt of the University of Vienna, Austria, who did the buckyball experiments in 1999. What we call an electron or a buckyball might in the end have no more reality than a click in a detector, or our brain's reconstruction of photons hitting our retina. "Wave and particle are then just constructs of our mind to facilitate everyday talking," he says.

The fun thing is that we do decide simply by observing. Our consciousness decides for us.

It's called the double slit experiment. It has been done over and over and over again with the same conclusions; consciousness is the only changing factor when something appears as either a wave or a particle.

Originally posted by jcrash
Anyway, the scary thing about this quote is the fact that if scientists don't understand quantum physics, how can they (or a lay person for that matter) accurately judge other scientists assessments of quantum physics ?

I think this stems from the fact that it's an "unsolved" theory; that is, it's still being hashed out by scientists and no general consensus has been established. So everybody's throwing hypotheses around here and there and backing them up with all sorts of crazy math and sometimes metaphysical explanations ("consciousness causes collapse", "consciousness is collapse", etc.)

So I think it'd be unwise to say that since they don't understand it, they should therefore not argue over it. Rather I think lack of understanding is in fact the perfect reason to discuss something. Instead what we should be encouraging scientists to do is let go of their egos when discussing and debating their theories, in order to keep their minds open at a time when they really ought to be open.



[edit on 12-5-2010 by NewlyAwakened]

reply to post by SpectreDC

It's called the double slit experiment. It has been done over and over and over again with the same conclusions; consciousness is the only changing factor when something appears as either a wave or a particle.

Wave-Particle Duality of c60 Molecules

This would be the equivalent of a particle of dust behaving as both a wave or a particle.

The implication is that this could be done on larger objects as well if an experiment could be so designed!

Human perception is the only variable, I think, in the wave/particle debate. So often — too often — I hear the argument broken down to Is Light a wave OR is it a particle? Or is it neither?

I seldom hear anyone opine that Light is BOTH a wave and a particle, depending solely on your perception of it.

Consider the Earth, or any planet in orbit of a star. If we observe the Earth from our human four-dimensional perspective, it appears to be a planet moving along under its own inertia on the rim of the Sun's gravity well. In short, we perceive the Earth as a particle.

However, if we look at the same "planet" from, say, a perspective in the sixth or eighth or eleventh dimension, we might see something very different, indeed.

For example, if our brains in another dimension process information at a different rate than the human brain, we might see the Earth as a coiled helix — or a wave, if you will — representing several years of solar orbit as the Sun itself is moving along, dragging its planetary offspring along through an extended orbit of the galaxy.

The Earth and all the other planets form a multiple concentric helix, winding through space. The Sun itself appears to become a helix, as well, depending on your perspective.

So, in a cosmic sense, the Earth is both a particle and a wave. Why shouldn't all seeming particle/wave oddities — such as Light — likewise be considered perceptual oddities?

— Doc Velocity






[edit on 5/13/2010 by Doc Velocity]

reply to post by Doc Velocity

So, in a cosmic sense, the Earth is both a particle and a wave. Why shouldn't all seeming particle/wave oddities — such as Light — likewise be considered perceptual oddities?

Ah yes! Why not indeed! The more I think about it everything is somehow a compilation of waves.

One of my college aspirations was to be able to predict all the possible properties of matter and energy based on chemistry, physics and mathematics. Wasn't long before I discovered my fallacy!

Here is a great example:

Superfluids and Supersolids

Take helium, for example. At room temperature, it is normal fun: you can fill floaty balloons with it, or inhale it and talk in a squeaky voice. At temperatures below around 2 kelvin, though, it is a liquid and its atoms become ruled by their quantum properties. There, it becomes super-fun: a superfluid.

Superfluid helium climbs up walls and flows uphill in defiance of gravity. It squeezes itself through impossibly small holes. It flips the bird at friction: put superfluid helium in a bowl, set the bowl spinning, and the helium sits unmoved as the bowl revolves beneath it. Set the liquid itself moving, though, and it will continue gyrating forever.

All this is nothing in the weirdness stakes, however, compared with a supersolid. The only known example is solid helium cooled to within a degree of absolute zero and at around 25 times normal atmospheric pressure.

Under these conditions, the bonds between helium atoms are weak, and some break off to leave a network of "vacancies" that behave almost exactly like real atoms. Under the right conditions, these vacancies form their own fluid-like Bose-Einstein condensate. This will, under certain circumstances, pass right through the normal helium lattice - meaning the solid flows, ghost-like, through itself.

Flows through itself!





[edit on 14/5/10 by plumranch]

reply to post by Epsillion70


according to schrödingers dog and kirkegards tennisballs life is ever changing,

if i recall correctly a quantum calculator would know all the wrong answers inorder to promt the correct , it just knows what its not.

s , f for s good find and subject ,

i have a few audio tapes with his lectures i think its from 1964 at Cornell University,, have to try and find them , dont know thou what copyrights there are on them but if they are free of copyrights i guess they could be posted on the ats media db.

reply to post by plumranch


To say that nobody understands quantum mechanics seems like an attempt to embarrass those that do understand QM.

We need to stop 'dumbing down' ourselves because some fresh PHD wrote a statement in their dissertation something that took them that long to finally understand and, at the same time, try to use that time as leverage to say nobody else could possibly have understood it earlier then that PHD.

I remember a conversation I had with a PHD that wrote their dissertation on how hard it is for grasp shared memory and use effectively. There are people who wrote lockless queues for shared memory in the Linux Kernel probably before they had a PHD or even never had a PHD. Just because it was inconvenient for one student to learn about advanced subjects doesn't mean it is inconvenient for all students/non-students.

A good reason for this -- those that really want to learn about subject do it all on their own at their own pace -- and that could even be a 5 year old that found it easy to read books on the concepts.

What may be more true is that people that apt to an auditory strengths may find it harder to understand QM as compared to those who are more apt to have a visual or kinetic strengths.

reply to post by dzonatas

To say that nobody understands quantum mechanics seems like an attempt to embarrass those that do understand QM.

Those are the words of the Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. I think he meant that even QM physicists have a hard time understanding the various aspects. Most of the things we do know came from observation, not so much prediction based on formulas.

To make this point: Source

Lev Vaidman of Tel Aviv University, Israel, like many other physicists, touts an alternative explanation. "I don't feel that I don't understand quantum mechanics," he says. But there is a high price to be paid for that understanding - admitting the existence of parallel universes.