Quantum Mechanics (an embarrassment) - Sixty Symbols
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Even the professional understanding of quantum mechanics is "embarrassing", says cosmologist Sean Carroll.
Read Sean's blog on this subject at bit.ly/V1SUpV and the full paper at arxiv.org/abs/1...
We filmed with Sean during his visit to the University of Nottingham and will have more videos with him coming soon.
Check out Sean's website (and his excellent books) at: preposterousuni...
Read his Higgs Boson book: amzn.to/Nvdn8P
Visit the SIxty Symbols website at www.sixtysymbol...
We're on Facebook at / sixtysymbols
And Twitter at #!/...
This project features scientists from The University of Nottingham
www.nottingham....
Sixty Symbols videos by Brady Haran
A run-down of Brady's channels:
periodicvideos....
12% had "No Preference". I guess these are the die-hard "shut-up and calculate" folks.
That's probably a version of Feynman's path integral approach. (Calculating all possible paths for a certain action to occur, and seeing which action has the highest probability of occuring).
Or they're not allowed to say "electric universe" out of reasonable fear.
Or they belong to the "nothing anyone has come up with makes any sense" crowd.
That’s the Copenhagen interpretation
Shut up and calculate is the Copenhagen.
One of my hobbies is decohering wavefunctions and splitting universes.
Jim1971a I do this watching paint dry
That comment made my day hahaha
dont waste your life. there is not splitting universes
:-B Commonly called "chonging". Love ya, XXX :-B
There is actually an app
The interviewer is asking the sharpest, most accurate questions one could ask, in a way I would never be able to formulate. Gorgeous videos.
He did work at the bbc
"The more success the quantum theory has, the sillier it looks."
- Einstein
There were a lot of ideas Einstein didn't like how they felt, but ended up true anyway. He wanted a static universe but even his own attempts and rectifying the expanding universe just further proved the idea using his own equations/formulae. Even the cosmological constant he introduced to try to "fix" the issue just helped further affirm the expansion being a real thing.
@@DeathBringer769 Not a real thing, no decent evidence.
DigbySirChickenTF2 cosmological redshift is the evidence, dude we’ve known this since 1927 by Edwin Hubble
@@user-vq7th9gl7t That assumption that redshift is caused by expansion is erroneous, we are currently mapping the known universe whilst ignoring 'expansion' because its just not there.
DigbySirChickenTF2 dude that is nonsense the emission spectra of stars match exactly what scientists would expect from cosmological redshift and not a Doppler effect using the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker and the redshift- distance relationship give you a linear relationship which was predicted by Lemaître years earlier.
"If it is wrong, that would be a huge step forward, obviously"
Science©™
@@frankvanwill5363 it is a quote
Even knowing something is wrong is knowing more about the real world than believing something is true when it's not.
Sean Carroll is a genius.He keeps things so simple that even I, as a non-physicist, always understands the points he is making. Someone else who had this gift was Richard Feynman who also made difficult ideas easy to understand.
I am a Mathematics major and a few months back I started reading his book - Geometry and Spacetime out of curiousity. I was so amazed by the fact that I could understand the book. The only experience that I had in physics prior to that was in Fluid Mechanics, Classical Mechanics and Magneto Fluid Dynamics. He has a gift for explaining difficult topics.
gotta be something about that desk
This was one of the best videos so far. Dr. Carroll has a really intriguing way to talk and teach, I'd certainly like to hear more from him!
I sat through the entire 14 minute video and it never lost my attention, really great stuff
so in one universe, I finish this sentence, and in another universe, I just don
Who is don
For me digital physics explains everything. Those wave-collapsing particles exhibit "lazy loading" behavior - the trick I as a programmer often use in my work.
I always wondered why no one mentioned the cat as an observer
Or for that matter, why not the sensor on the device that breaks the vial? I.e., if you run the thought experiment without putting a cat in the box to begin with? ;)
It’s a thought experiment so no those are not considered observers.
Or, *every Photon,* for that matter.
I heard the whole cat in the box suggestion was intended to point out an absurdity... and people started to think it was an honest proposal. Like when Adolf H was nominated for a nobel. It wasn't serious but the press loved it and now its history
At the local pet shop they now have automatic cat flaps that work at the same frequency as the chip in the cat's neck.
One of them malfunctioned and all the other cats in the neighbourhood were bypassing the electronic cat flap and stealing the poor feline's food.
What would Schrodinger have said?
Mr Everett was also, and importantly, the father of Mark Oliver Everett also known as "E"; singer and mastermind of the wonderful band The Eels.
So each atom has universe of probabilities? That is a ludicrous idea.
Wow, De Broglie-Bohm has 0%. Feels bad man
PLEASE: show me an example of a wavefunction f(t,x,y,z), where x,y,z are 3 spatial dimensions & t is time, that has NOT collapse, and show me an example of a wavefunction which HAS collapse.
This was a great video! Fabulous!
For those interested in yet another interpretation. Why not.
Here are my thoughts on CIG Theory as regards its interpretation:
Deterministic: YES>
Ontic Wave Function: YES>
Unique History: YES>
Hidden Variables: YES *1>
Collapsing Wave Function: YES>
Observer Role: No * 2>
Local Dynamics: YES>
Counterfactual Definiteness: YES *3>
Extant Universal Wave Function: YES *4>
*1 Found>
*2 Any Introduction that changes the rate of motion of the particle will> collapse the wave function.>
*3 If all known parameters are defined in advance (i.e. there is no> spontaneous collapse as in GRW)>
*4 Everything is everything else - as such a Universal Wave Function Exists> (Many Worlds exist only over infinite time, not in the same Universe)>
.
To entice you to study up on CIG Theory, the following is what the Theory purports to accomplish:
1) Solve/resolve the confusion surrounding the Double Slit experiment and place it's solution on a firm ground with reality
2) Offer up that new found reality
3) Redefine matter; Redefine Space
4) Combine the fundamentals
5) Bring back a cohesive concept of Conservation of Energy as regards Dark Energy and the accelerating Universe
6) Offer up a new science of pressure
7) Explain Dark Matter
8) Explain Dark Energy
9) Offer a solution to the Horizon Problem
10) Offer a solution to the Core-Cusp problem
11) Offer a solution to the Mott Problem
12) Offer a solution to Quantum Tunneling
13) Offer a coherent explanation of Red Shift anomalies
14) Provides for a Theory of Quantum Gravity
15) Provides for the distinction between the Classical World and the Quantum World
16) Redefines the Correspondence Principle
17) Offers up a quantification of an atomic mass unit and it's potential spatial quantity
18) Maintains consistency with the idea of Quantum Decoherence
19) Maintains consistency with the idea of Superposition
20) Explains why the Universe is Accelerating
21) Explains 'Why" E=mc2
22) Explains "why" large things are large and small things are small
23) Offers up a solution to the Neutrino mass problem
24) Provides a solution to the Measurement problem
25) Expands on the concept of Virtual Particles
26) Provides a new and dynamic view of the Night sky
27) May explain Sonoluminescence
28) Contains & maintains "Black Holes" within the theory
29) May provide insight on entanglement
30) Contemplates all permutations of all fundamentals in one "Conceptual Equation"
31) Redefines Einstein's Field Equation in terms of the "=" sign, as opposed to a proportionality only
32) Maintains consistency with relativistic theory
33) Is based on sound logic
34) More
🐣 🐦
Bruuuuuuh
I'm not quantum physicist but I think I can break this down to help you understand it. All atoms are made of sub-atomic particles, and sub-atomic particles are even further broken down into other things such as quarks. At this tiny level, things follow quantum physics. As we are made of atoms, we are also made of quantum systems. When we observe a quantum event (say the decay of some element), that quantum system (did the element decay?) effects us (we realize, "oh look it decayed!").
How would you explain when someone suddenly appeared pulling into my lane of traffic out of nowhere, as if I was the one who had suddenly appeared, judging BY the startled look on the drivers face, as I narrowly averted tragedy by swerving into the left lane of traffic to avoid a collision that would undoubtedly have ended the mans life. THEN 10 MINUTES LATER TO COME UPON THE SAME MOTORCYCLE WITH A SIDECAR, and pass him again after overtaking him 10 minutes earlier, and traveling about twice the speed his vehicle was capable of traveling. I have a witness to this event.
Sean is smart. I like listening to Sean. I also enjoy Brady asking questions.
Universe as a computer simulation hypothesis
Where is the computer, then?
Not enough atoms in the universe to construct a computer that could simulate the universr itself
@@adorabasilwinterpock6035 So then, that computer would reside inside the universe while simulating the existence of that universe. Circular reasoning!
@@adorabasilwinterpock6035 you dont need to simulate the entire universe all at once. there are a ton of optimizations that can be done. and the universe is infinite so how is there not enough atoms in the universe? are you confused with the observable universe?
I would suggest that the collapse of the wave function is a real nonlinear collective phenomenon. Its description would require many dimensions of configuration space. This transcends the ability of pencil-and-paper analytical methods since it is nonlinear. It also transcends the ability of numerical methods since we just don’t have a computer which can cope with exponential-time algorithms. The typical micro-detector is two molecules of nitrogen tri-iodide. We can propose theories about it, but can neither prove nor disprove our theories.
Your suggestion is as wrong as it can be.
Superposition of bosons makes sense, uncertainty seems real. Entangling two atoms, advantageously sending them on two paths, then recombining them using an interferometer, makes sense. Tunneling apparently works. Quantum particles seem to have a fundamental wavelike degree of nonlocality to them, photons apparently need several wave-cycles to carry front and back tail effects
Dipole-dipole interactions can create temporary dropouts, collapse is dubious, one particle showing self-interference by taking two paths at once is dubious.
Gravity is clearly quantized on the subnuclear level otherwise entanglement-based gravity sensors wouldn't work. Gravity-dependent lightspeed eventually makes bent space-time experts tragically shrivel up as the metrological approach they elevated to the status of undeniability everywhere but in a black hole continues to crack at its worthless seams.
Dipoles expressing an attraction of opposites up to various distance limits seem to be a fundamental aspect of all matter and forces, suggesting vacuum energy dipoles express gravity flow at the smallest useful scale.
"Shut up & calculate!"
An issue I like to point out in various discussions, and which applies here, is that confusion is the only result of mixing hard and fuzzy words in the same discussion. A hard word is like "rock" "copper" "water". A fuzzy word is like "meaning" "love" "universe". The hard words can be decomposed to their finer structures, at least to the point current technology allows. The soft words can't be decomposed. And some words are sort of hard and soft and can be decomposed to some extent, but in such a decomposition eventually the hard and soft are separated, and progress towards decomposition can proceed only on the hard part. Yes, "universe" is a fuzzy word. Some will say it means "everything" but that's hardly a definition. A definition has to set something apart, make it distinct. A "many universes" explanation of the "universe" is a sign of mental fatigue (and madness) - a cop out, as the "other universes" in which one is not a part are lost and gone forever, and so....who cares? How can a profit be turned ? The Copenhagen and other interpretations that try to focus on what is "real" are in fact focusing on profit. QM via Copenhagen has turned a profit, though much less than the plain old Newtonian physics, but as time goes on the profit from QM increases. And with Global Positioning System we see that Relativity has turned a nice profit. All the money burned by science comes from the mercantile sector because it is seen by that sector as a good investment over the long run. And tunneling down and looking for the base source of that money flow for science we find petroleum and coal, and all the pollution produced by their consumption. What can't turn a profit does not matter, as it will not matter. And I don't think "profit" is a fuzzy word, but it's definition is multi-faceted. We earn our friends...we earn the respect of our children (hopefully)...we earn our income (most of us) and so on. Don't mix fuzzy and hard words, and all will make more sense.
Just freaky. And after 20 years ago reading about it, it's still freaky. Ahhhhhh!
The more important and fundamental the question is, the harder it is to answer. Those that are infinitely fundamental or close, may be infinitely difficult to crack, at least in our frame of reference.
..one of the best videos, because the Prof lays out the range of approaches and techniques. If theories are part and parcel of the process, then they will also evolve and adapt to encompass new data.
On its own, Quantum Fields integrate to form interactive reciprocal structures, pivoted on the unit quantum vector connection 1-0D, and theories are creatures of the environment, they'refitted to sets of dimensional relationships. The quality of existence is temporarily condensed into interactive quantities in every possible way, in a range of sustained probabilities. What You See Is What You Get, modulated-quantization measurement.
The explanations make sense, the detail of the approachs to the context is infinitely distributed by phase, so just identifying a function of quantization in a rational context is "job done". The rest is categorization of sub context, ie Quantum Fields, and if disagreement ends, it's probably because the world has ended.
What defines a split though? Say I leave my house, and I can back out of my driveway and go one of two ways, right or left. OK that's two splits for two options. But in the quantum level, the atomic level, it's far more complicated than that. Say I decide to go left. Well now I've gone left but exactly how far do I back out of my driveway in the left direction? It's random chance but realistically, I could back out to any reasonable space to do so + x number of atoms. So right there, depending on how far I back out, that's billions of possibilities, billions of split world's created for each time I backed out one atom further. And that's only considering one point in space on the back on my car vs one spatial direction, try factoring in MY range of specific motion while performing the turn to back my car out in the left direction. Suddenly, this one trivial and insignificant task that takes only a few seconds has split well over a quintillion new universes. The amount existing from all of us navigating life and probability space is inconceivable, not to mention how much energy would be required to just diverge an entire universe. No, it's a beautiful idea, one I used to subscribe to in my youth, but I just don't think it's plausible.
Many Worlds interpretations seem the most interesting to me. But I think the correct one is De Broglie-Bohm.
One of the problems in understanding QM in its unobserved aspect, is trying to think of what the world is like when we're not observing it in the terms in which we observe it (ie the terms of human experience). Think outside the phenomenal!
"None of us can 'remember' things that happen tomorrow..." -Sean Carroll
"(W)hat's past is prologue" -Shakespeare
We'll never "remember" the future exactly but we are able to get a very decent approximation of it with the past as our guide in the present.
I really hate it when people invoke Occam's Razor as some sort of authoritative way to solve a debate, given that there is no law by which the axiom is absolute, but just a constructive guideline. But holy crap, how can someone give serious consideration to the amount of world splitting that would have to take place given the amount that quantum systems interact. Trillions of new universes every second. All to avoid postulation of the supremacy of consciousness over matter. Materialism is truly a religion. This argument is equal to listening to a Christian or Muslim fundamentalist try to justify a 6000 year old earth.
You spoke my mind.
"This argument is equal to listening to a Christian or Muslim fundamentalist try to justify a 6000 year old earth."
That's cute. But it isn't. For all the bells and whistles regarding quantum mechanics, it doesn't come anywhere near the massive amount of cognitive dissonance one would have to employ to believe the Earth is 6000 years old.
Faerlon123 So grossly underestimating the age of earth has somehow suddenly become more crazy than postulating that there are trillions and trillions of earths playing out every possible quantum state that could ever exist. Interesting...
Sriramprasath Manivannan He isn't "postulating" it. He is speculating, which is all he can do.
But as a theoretical cosmologist I would assume he has more knowledge about the subject than a random idiot in a youtube comment field flaunting his pseudo-intellectualism about scientists being as dogmatic as Christian or Muslim fundamentalists. You're a disgrace, now go away.
Faerlon123 A speculator wouldnt call the other person wrong (especially when the topic is QM), he would remain open to all possibilities, which is clearly not the case here.
I don't know who you are and I honestly don't care. But I do know that anyone who calls out a random person on internet as a disgrace without prior knowledge about the person would definitely be not more mature than a teen ager. So I'm going to refrain from abusing you like you did me.
"What is the universe, really?"
I'd suggest that at least 80 years of lack of consensus is "exactly what we should expect" about THE(?) answer to that question.
Or, we could all be living in independent universes until we start interacting with one another, and whenever we get entangled our two universes merge and there's really only one path forward.
The Everett Wheleer model is the correct one. Check my comment in exactly 11 years.
I'm stumped that physicist never consider the velocity of the observer.
If a feild is moving and the observer is moving then different parts of the feild will have different velocities relative to the moving observer, resulting in the illusion of a "particle".
In a sense, spontaneous collapse theories and many-worlds are relative. In the sense that they both assume an ontological status for entanglement.
The opposite being conceiving entanglement as purely epistemic correlations in the specific form appropriate to the quantum structure (logic), or as the codification of the regularity and consistency of QM, but, in any case, as something that "is" not in itself, or "per se".
They, spontaneous collapse and many-world, divide with respect to the ontological status assumed for the projection rule: the former assumes that collapse has ontological status (it's "real", really happens "out there"), the latter consider the projection as purely epistemic conditionalization (again, in the appropriate form for the structure, or logic, of QM).
It is interesting to note, I think, that it is a philosophical notion that orders different interpretations.
LSD
Very nice! Sean Carroll is clearly very well educated in these topics and presents his ideas quite nicely.
My only problem with his argument, however, is that there is no way to differentiate between a hidden variable theory and the many worlds of Everett. He didn't stress that, by definition, the hidden variables in theories such as De Broglie's or Bohm's are untestable. Similarly, the decoherence of universes in Many Worlds is undetectable.
Therefore, we have two theories that are absolutely identical in prediction, but differ in interpretation, and the choice between the two becomes a matter of personal preference. I agree that theories with testable differences should be put to the test, and it's embarrassing they haven't, but I believe even after that, the interpretation of quantum mechanics will still be subject to opinion.
Here are questions worth to be asking about :
"why we are here in the first place?"
"why do I have been given a life?"
"Who created me? Since everything are just perfectly in place with a perfect proportion. Also, human being itself is such a complex creature. There must something that can really give a fix statement which is right and which is wrong."
I really see that those are questions that many people tend to ignore or they just never thought about it.
If that has been answered, the origin of universe will be answered.
Imagine finding the origin, will it be another world? What will explain that world? Will it be nothing? It's ungraspable.
AM loki Where did that other world come from? See, you're stuck within an infinite loop. It's ungraspable, don't try to say you've got it all figured out. The truth is currently unthinkable, and that's all we know.
The main problem I have with the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is simply... why is it that the particular "path" the universe is taking that I'm conscious of is the one I'm conscious of? Why not some other universe that split off from this one?
It doesn't seem acceptable just to say that there are copies of me in other universes with their own consciousness. Maybe that is true though, perhaps it's not so different from there being other humans and animals with their own consciousness that I'm not aware of, yet I have no idea still why I'm conscious of myself. But that's not really a reason to say that other humans' consciousness isn't real.
I don't understand at around 9:00 when he explains and asks questions about the Copenhagen Interpretation:
"What happens if you open the box but don't look in" Yet when he was explaining the Everett Interpretation he did a good job of describing what "entanglement" really is. Therefore, the moment you open the box, light gets in, information exchange is possible, and thus the wave-function collapses to either dead cat or live cat. Is this any more fantastical than thinking the universe splits and allows for all possibilities (matter creation???). Personally, instead of saying infinite universes, I would rather constrain the physicists and say, there is an extraordinarily large BUT finite number of solutions as the more improbable events that can engage in a "splitting" get weeded out and cease to exist (the universe where an electron tunnels from one end of the sun to the other, as an example).
As Neo so eloquently put it, the problem is ...CHOICE...
Now I don't know all the interpretations, but My ..CHOICE.. is also Sean's the Everett interpretation. It seems the most logical to me too.
This video should be higher in the play list as I kept feeling the earlier videos in sixty symbols were statements based upon early theories we learned in school but since disproved. This video makes it much easier to understand there is not a "right" answer to the most fundamental questions at the moment but rather ideas. I kept wondering why I was obviously more capable of seeing obvious false statements created by false observation or limited conceptual thinking. Until this video I felt I was watching obviously more intelligent men than me acting like ants in a Hollywood movie unable to observe but not imagine the world that exists all around them. All the other videos felt informational while this one on the many definitions of QM was an exciting moment of discovery for me personally. All the videos are wonderfully enjoyable but left me feeling I was alone in how to think.
The problem is that the interpretations, as of right now, aren't really scientific but more hugging the wall of philosophy. The ideas aren't falsifiable so speaking about them as truths is unscientific.
Well, I think there are currently 3 distinct theories of the physicality of the multiverses. So we can't take anything as a truth, only theories.
CJ L Hypotheses is the proper term!
What you're not understanding, is that MW is the /straight, simple, unaltered/ interpretation of the equations. The equations ONLY state that the different parts of the wavefunction cease to interact. Copenhagen then ADDITIONALLY postulates that the other parts of the wavefunction that we don't personally see VANISH ("collapse"). Copenhagen (i.e. the collapse postulate) has no evidence; Everett (aka MW) is just the simple interpretation of the quantum mechanical equations.
The only problem of the multi-universe theory is that people think it means a completely different thing than what it actually is.
I’m glad you know for sure
or an infinite amount of cars with an infinite of outcomes ie.... the car runs out of gas or has a flat tire or the driver has a heart attack or the battery dies or a bird hits the wind shield or the brake line fails or the car gets struck by lightning....infinite outcomes.
Professor Carroll "knows what QM is", (he has always stated that "existence is wave", and that is that), in the way an Auto mechanic knows they have all the parts and a few spares, to rebuild a vehicle for whatever purpose it is to be adapted for, that's how evolution works.
Although the integration of Phys-Chem in the ancient oceans of the Earth, processing the components at the speed of reaction over the millennia amounts to a vast inverted pyramid of condensing organisation to bring possibilities together as probabilities.., and then there's the Eternal "Anthropic" arrangements for the microcosmic "cell" of Earth.
"The way you look at it" is the same as selecting a locally consistent context within a general rule, and that's what evolution is, a particular arrangement of quantization. (And that's the converse of constructing a general universe of consciousness)
Yes, "Observations" are connection.
"Wave function collapse"? Stop-motion freeze frame image extraction.
Momentum and position identity.
"Agreement in principle", ..is the basic requirement, and that's because it's another way of saying "universe", or universal quantum field connection, etc etc.
If by "embarrassment" we mean lack of a full or complete explanation of QM, eternity and infinity are holistic words of indescribable content and context, just like QM-Time.., it never stops and never ends, (or splits/starts), only reflects, recirculates, re-locates relative locii in universal connection.., here-now.
Embarrassingly beyond our perceptions and abilities to explain comprehensively, but it's more than acceptable, it's necessary to have "theoretical" ideals assembled from experience, and applied in a "fit for purpose" Nomenclature.
Mutual respect for abilities is a key component of a stable culture.
We can all agree on the direction of a reiterative principle, (of e-Pi-i resonance connection paths of construction = the Reaction Dynamic of Phys-Chem), but "It's always now-eternity", is omnidirectional-dimensional in Principle.
Nice to hear a physicist actually be specific about what an 'observation' is as it relates to the 2-slit experiment et al - not humans looking at stuff, but quantum systems interacting with each other. If physicists would just drop the 'observer/observation' vocabulary, it would help cut the legs out from under all the quantum woo merchants (Chopra, Lanza, etc) who seize upon the semantics to promote their quantum consciousness nonsense. Perhaps this is a more realistic short term goal than achieving consensus on what all this stuff really means. It would also be a great public service.
4:45 "What can be on the other side of the equal sign that says to you: multiple universes? what's the result that says that, what's that equation look like?"
hahaha I'm so glad you asked that, it's exactly what I was thinking about, perfectly put!
What's embarrassing is not that we don't know how to interpret quantum mechanics, it's that we've spent 90 years pretending it's not an issue.
Will we ever know which interpretation(s) are correct? Are they all correct?
That's called science. Design experiment, test, repeat until satisfied.
Yes we will. I have come from the future to make a few stock investments. Hint, Apple is going higher. I am prohibited from revealing scientific discoveries, but you can be assured, time is bi-directional in another dimension. Peace.
Locutis - I am from your future. Return at once. You will be in violation of the Time Code, which of course applies retroactively. You must return for punishment before you commit the crime, or you may be removed from this timeloop.
Bohmian mechanics
When we develop human level AI in quantum computers we will know, according to David Deutsch
Nobody ever said that life only ever originated once. The biggest issue with life re-originating now is that extremely simple forms of life are essentially just food for existing organisms.
Parmenides Inspired Poem:
It is, now, all together,
And now, now is gone,
But now is always here, even after it has gone.
Really now has never gone, nor does it move at all;
For there is no place for it to move,
For it is always now.
But now now, what is now?
Now is but a point in time,
Now is just a thought of mine,
Which is stuck and bound to the thought of time,
Which I hear is just (a point on) a line,
But time does not carry with it the world,
For if the world was now, it would be but a point,
A point, a point, a point, a point,
Ah yes but you remember then,
Though memory is not a thing past, but present,
For remembering is always now,
And past is gone, but not its impressions,
And you are as wax, full of impressions,
always impressing, always being impressed,
And you recall yesterday by the marks it has left on today,
Not by yesterday itself,
Thought of things past, are not of things past,
For the thought of a thing past is a thought present,
Not even past is a thing past,
For the present is an ever-expanding womb,
And the seeds of the past have sewn its field,
Of which a child-always-being-born is its yield,
It is not that you have not been, but rather that been is not,
And nothing is coming to be, for it is always now, even as it changes,
As it changes it does not change,
For that-it-is always is,
And that-it-was never is,
And always “was”, is is
80 years and counting... That's because Quantum Mechanics surfaces so much controversy between observation, consciousness, reality, causality, retro-causality. Physicists don't want to get into experimentation because we are social creatures and we prefer others to see us as credible and of course get a paycheck every month.
Hi,
As I understand, Max Planck one of the greatest theoretical Physicists broke down and used empirical data to derive the so-called Ultraviolet Catastrophe. I'm sure for a man of Planck's intellect, this was not much of a problem.
Apparently this endeavor got the whole QM ball rolling. For such a seminal discovery, I would expect to see an equally stellar explanation of why Planck concluded that energy must come in packets, but alas not so.
To me, the black body radiation equation does not yield such a conclusion. Why did he conclude that discrete energy was a fundamental requirement ?
i shed a tear when de Broglie/Bohm had 0%
I think that everything in the universe that happened and will happen could be calculated in an equation with the only variables being the ones dictated by the law of physics of our universe because everything in the universe can be calculated with mathematics even if we can't right now. Everything in our universe is bound by the laws of physics and physics are calculable. We just don't fully know how to properly calculate most of the universe. As for the creation of the universe, that will never be understood.
That itself is its own and supper interesting debate. Is the universe mathematical? Is the universe governed by math, or are the equations we use to make predictions simply inventions that give rise to useable answers.
There is no problem with having many “interpretations”; if they do not change predictions, you cannot say which is the valid. If there are an infinitude of possible interpretations that do not change predictions, how are you going to say which one corresponds to how things “really” are? experiments do not distinguish among those interpretations, are you going to resource to faith? Are we talking about science or about untested and not testable beliefs?
This does not mean that we should consider all interpretations as having the same value. On the contrary, interpretations should be judged by their usefulness. depending on many things like: coherence, simplicity, articulation with other scientific disciplines, suggested path for more advanced theories, intuitiveness (but, intuition is pretty adaptable, we should not judge by “initial” intuition, and should expect a degree of strangeness in other domains of reality), etc.
But, if we cannot experimentally determine which interpretation is the valid one, maybe we should not have an interpretation, and we should not loose time with “interpretations”. The problem is that we need an interpretation to link the predictive structure of the theory with the experimental data and facts, so, if we do not rationalize/conceptualize an interpretation, we will use interpretations anyway, but without the benefits of making them coherent and uniform. (An analogy: if we are only interested in ideas, concepts and logic, should we lose time learning a language with all of its arbitrary conventions? YES, because without those “arbitrary conventions” we do not have a language, and we cannot even think in conceptual/abstract clear terms without a language).
MWI predicts that there is an infinity of worlds. That means we should be seeing an infinity of worlds... wait... :-)
As Sean says, maybe we should take the equations of physics more literally. Dirac discovered that if he flipped the sign of the direction of increasing time, then he could switch the charge of the election from negative to positive; thus he predicted the existence of the positron. For reasons of historical convention, antimatter particles are drawn as going backward in time on Feynman diagrams. We know we see much more matter than antimatter in the universe.
I cant help wondering if, again, we should take the equations more literally. Is it possible that most of the antimatter could be heading backward in time from the moment of the big bang. If time were plotted on both sides of time zero where the big bang exists, might we see our missing symmetry. Could there be an antimatter universe on the opposite side of time zero consisting of some antimatter people wondering where all the missing matter is.
It baffles me that the majority of people seem to follow the copenhagen interpretation.
How can one possibly believe that the state of a quantum system depends on whether or not someone is looking at it? Humans may behave differently when they are being looked at by others, but why would a quantum system care?
"Looked at" at a quantum level means building a device that measures the traits of the sub-atomic particle, usually with some form of electro-magnetic field that fluctuates (and you measure the fluctuation to get a reading). The field itself would affect the very particle it's measuring, unless it's neutral to the field, in which case the particle may not even be measurable with the device (neutrinos, for example).
Joshua Richardson Indeed some ways of measurement will affect the particle. Even in some cases the particle may be consumed in the process. However nothing about measurements techniques is stated in the copenhagen interpretation. It says that the system has a wave function which "collapses" as a result of being observed.
That's because the only possible way of observing a subatomic particle is to interact with it.
You're right: the Copenhagen interpretation says nothing about a particular measurement technique. It says something about ALL of the possible measurement techniques: that you will have to interact with the particle in order to measure its properties.
It is not a limit of our measurement tools nor an intrinsic property of the Universe: it is both. The limit of our measurement tools IS an intrinsic property of the Universe.
You can precisely measure an object as long as you can separate it from your measurement tools: this cannot happen for subatomic particles since whatever measurement tool you can or can't build is made of subatomic particles.
Build something which can precisely tell an observer the position AND momentum of an electron: you can't. It is not a technological limit (as in: we can't send people to Mars). It is a theoretical limit (as in: let me travel faster than the speed of light).
You are confusing the importance of 'humans' observing. It has nothing to do with humans. It's simply the process of being 'observed'.
as bs My problem with this is, why would the system behave different depending on whether it is observed or not.
There is no (separate) observer or observed.There is only observing. And no one is doing it because everything is One, or entangled.
He's speaking about the many worlds theorem as if it was fact, but the chart shows that there are two theorems that scientists prefer over it.
ive never hear so much bullshit as the "many worlds" theory
haha. You should try watching TV then. Theres plenty more bullshit there.
The Many Worlds Theory is such a convoluted solution. It's way too complicated to be the right answer. An infinite number of Universes that we can't detect? You're out of the realm of science and safely into the realm of faith.
+chessthecat Hardly faith... Bigger does not mean more complicated. The theory explains away some of the more troubling aspects of quantum physics. Textbook/Copenhagen is messy- What constitutes an observation? Why does my observation of the system change the system? Why this discontinuity of information and arbitary randomness on observation? Many worlds in comparison merely states that everything interacts in the same way and produces all possible eventualities, that's all. You could criticise the MWT for grandiose unproven assertions but to call it convoluted and complicated is to be blind to it's greatest strength as a theory- it's simplicity and elegance.
+chessthecat It's a lazy interpretation for people who do not want to believe that the time line is constant, and therefore predeterminate. Basically, rather than suggest quantum particles behave in a simple fashion of interaction we don't yet understand, it assumes they behave randomly. It also only conserves energy, if you interpret it in a weird way to do so, but it also doesn't conserve energy, if you believe every split requires another higher dimension of energy.
Let's say we have a computer simulation which does a numerical integration of the coupled Schroedinger and Maxwell equations. This is not the same thing as a computer simulation of quantum mechanics, as Max Born would have pointed out. Does such a simulation have any use for a random number generator? With an RNG, we have the Vernam cipher available. Any ideas? We can do investigations with antimatter. Any ideas?
My own answer begins with tachyonic Brownian motion, but maybe followers of David Bohm or Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber or Roger Penrose have something to say. All of us are remarkably poorly represented in your poll.
"Unless a thing can be defined by measurement, it has no place in a theory. And since an accurate value of the momentum of a localized particle cannot be defined by measurement it therefore has no place in the theory."
-Richard P. Feynman
It seems clear enough to me that there is a special role played by observation/measurement. QM is understood well enough by those who use it as a calculational tool. The problem is that they don't have the technology to track/reveal what's happening in the 'quantum realm'. Obviously something is propagating between emitters and detectors. But what, exactly? That's the problem. One might apply QM to just about anything, cats for example, and that's ok, because QM is a probability calculus. What does it mean? Nothing in particular. It's not a model of the physical world. Of course, there are many sort of 'realistic' models associated with QM regarding various processes/preparations, but QM itself is just a framework for calculating the probabilities of results given the particulars of various models/preparations. Interpreting QM as something other than this is incorrect, IMHO.
I don't think it's embarrassing, I think it's beautiful and humbling that there can be facts without the requirement that we have to understand why those facts exist or how they work.
Take note of this comment. In 20 years, an interpretation based on Pilot Wave theory (aka Bohmian or "De Broglie-Bohm theory" in this video and the poll) will be the interpretation supported by the majority of professional physicists. Mark my words.
That discontinuation between theories of Schrodinger and Copenhagen couldn't that be what force is? As soon as something gets a particular location that would also create motion. In a computer simulation you could say that several objects have different ideas about where they are located. Say one particle thinks its one place but that differs from what another particle says. Neither one is correct because they are just referring to a property in memory. Well when the discrepancy becomes important and needs to be resolved, they both just find the average of the two. And this results in a motion of the particle to the (seemingly) new location. Well it doesn't result in motion after the fact it's just the property is changed and since the property is the only way to tell the location then that's the new location. I base this on a simulation using only polar coordinates where the particles themselves determine their own location. There is no universal grid system but each particle has it's own grid and each particle is connected to another in a inked list. Particles don't actually have a location they have a vector or a velocity. Maybe particles don't have a particular location but only an origin and destination. How it gets from one place to another is arbitrary.
As a subjective being I think that is entirely true.
But in that case I used "what you see" to stand for all manner of observation including sensors and other indirect means, not just my eyes. And yet still because I or someone subjective like me set the test and interprets the results, the results will be biased by prejudices.
Arguably (accurate) mathematical prediction is the highest level of understanding, though I think you meant to say "theories are useless unless validated by experiment", and I completely agree with that.
All theory stems from empirical observation in the end. E.g. Maxwell's equations, all just discovered by men in sheds it would seem, but when you use them in conjunction with vector calculus, a wonderful thing happens and the speed of light pops out, as well as a description of what light is!
This idea has some very interesting ramifications about time and 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Basically, the 2nd Law says that it is statistically impossible to backwards in time-- and yet with infinite universes there MUST be ones that exist where the 2nd Law is violated! In fact if this is true there is no reason (other than sheer improbability) that we don't start going back in time.
the universe us clasping as well as expanding.
our perception is based on gravity.
Gravity is warped space and can be viewed as acceleration. this is the manifestation of space "moving" and different areas moving at different rates.
time dilation and space contraction means this movement/acceleration/gravity manifests in large areas of emptyness and tiny areas we perceive as sub atomic particles.
well maybe this makes sense in the idea that time is a variable, i.e. that there not entirely separate universes, but a series of dimensions that might cross
No mathematical equation suggests multiplying universes. The possibilities of reality and actual reality are not the same beasts. It takes a mediocre mind to leap from reality to possibilities. Saying that a car could turn either direction is resolved when the car turns. Actualizing possibilities is a choice, not a mathematical equation.
Well. He's sold me on the multiple worlds theory. Normally when I've heard it explained in layman's terms it's appeared fantastical and impossible, but when compared to the observer issues in copenhagen it seems much more logical.
if one observation triggers whole universe be copied, then for every byte of observation needs to be tied with every old bytes in all universe before observation and continue from there and act accordingly, then eventually huge amount informations should be kept in universe every time observation made??? if this was a computer program, and coder of this program would be fired from his company fhjfghjghjfghdgf
There is every frequency of energy traveling at random at every given point of time.. This means there is multiple reality overlapping each other at random. The observer can only see one reality at a time
VERY brilliant man. I respect his mind.
many worlds interpretation sounds reasonable to me.
if universe came to existence once - why wouldn't it again?
the problem is to jump from zero to one universe, but once you have done this:
having as many new ones as you wish, does not pose any (mental) problem to me.
if you find any kind of phenomenon - that is a big surprise at first
but once you found it, it is no surprise to find more, isn't it?
it would actually be much more unusual to have just one universe than to have many.
I really like that in science disagreement is the agreement to find the truthfull truth.
I'm a novice so forgive me, but isn't the Copenhagen interpretation basically just describing indeterminate state of that which is being observed? In other words, there is no pattern to the features of a particle, and so everything is probability until measured?
The many worlds interpretation is an attempt to reduce a quantum universe in terms of our limited scope as a classical world. The equations do not demand such an interpretation - only if you try to force the world to look how you feel it needs it to look to be sensible to you. A little too egocentric for my liking.
So the universe is split like a branches of a tree and we are having plentry species of trees like we have at the quantum physics equations (in paper) multiple universes...
I started having dreams about quantum physics/mechanics over 25 years ago and wrote a book explaining how this subject pertains to the duality of our physical/spiritual existence. I had never studied physics let alone quantum physics. Quantum entanglement simply reveals focus and flow of energy. All elements of life seek reconciliation and we are a bunch of elements seeking our reconciliation - centre - ,balance. What we choose to focus on, we energetically draw into our lives is our choice. Understanding how everything is frequency and what we tune into is the beginning of what we are going to manifest into our physical life because energy cannot be destroyed or created only transformed, we get the opportunity to reconcile over and over again. Knowing what 'charges' you and how this 'charge' affects what you are focusing on manifesting? Energy travels the path of least resistance, which is why we tend to replay our 'go to' behaviours. Only approximately 4% matter in our entire universe spinning at varying rates of frequency giving us the illusion of a solid world and 96% dark matter/energy underpinning our physical world. Light and dark not separate but a spectrum of frequency revealing dual states of particle and wave - physical and spirit. Here's my theory of probability....it sits within each and everyone of us in varying degrees. How clear and confident are you in your beliefs, emotions, thoughts and actions? Are you charged, pushing or aggressive in your energy or unsure, scared or anxious, or are you centred and flowing energetically? Your charge affects the outcome of the energy you are choosing to focus on. Everyone's energy and varying charges is what stops us from having a definite outcome. Any athlete knows trusting they have done everything possible to prepare and now they have to let go of the outcome and trust! When we train ourselves to focus/entangle with what we want to draw/manifest into our lives and not on what we don't want. Free up and quieten our mind so we can receive the incoming information (much like a radio station, we can only tune into one station at a time.) Superposition, the best potential path for each opportunity/choice in any given moment can be available to each and every one of us by realising how our beliefs, thoughts, emotions and actions (all frequency and often charged within us falling into categories of positive and negative experiences) keep us cycling seeking reconciliation until we become conscious enough to realise, everything is all for our continuing growth and development.
I don't see how this is embarrassing, disagreeing allows us to study and prove/disprove a wider range of theories than we would have if we all agreed on one interpretation
Many Worlds makes sense, especially if the splitting worlds can interact in some way like entanglement, which helps explain how for example photons explore every possible path... they get help from all the worlds.
80 years? How long did the ptolemaic misunderstanding (usefully) predominate until copernicus came along? and how long until einstein and the heisenberg crowd? i have no answers - i myself am uncertain.
Is quantum weirdness because the physics of QM represents the continuum of time as a physical process with the spontaneous absorption and emission of light forming time as an emergent property coming into existence photon by photon? We can interact with the wave particle duality of light turning the possible into the actual within our own ref-frame as time unfolds. By the way this is an invitation to see an artist theory of the physics of ‘time’ as a physical process!
Only a conscious observer or being can bring two systems into contact. Without someone conscious there would be no observation.
It depends what you mean by prove. You can prove that gravity exists by dropping anything, eliminating all other factors that could cause it to move. But on a quantum level, and in the standard model, gravity doesn't exist, It doesn't fit with the equations, so you can prove it with maths, or you can prove it with by experiments, in both cases, it has been proved.
anybody else see the snow fall off the car? only on one side though. multiverse basics big decisions may be opposite but everything else moves on its own free will. I.E. snow falling off the car when turning right but not when turning left.
Looks like the quantum logic approach was so uncommon it wasn't even listed. Yet modal interpretations were present. Wonder why?
It's not that we don't know what quantum mechanics means. The problem is that we don't know what means means.
Jeez, now we get to vote on reality. The very definition of belief, or "as I would have it be"...fascinating.
I had no idea that Carroll favored the Many Worlds Theory.
The issue seems to be that our intuitive, gut-level "understanding" of the world is inadequate for the world outside the scope of the world we're accustomed to. Deeper/broader reality, as reflected in QM, isn't going to make sense to us. That shows the limits of our intuitive understanding, not the limits of QM. We can use math to understand it, but it probably won't make 'sense' to us apart from the mathematics.
that schrodinger equation was written in klingon right!?