Bridging the gap to Quantum world

[astroron]

One for the physicists among us :P
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8081058.stm

[mswhin63]

Interesting stuff, could be the basis for some telepathy maybe. Always a touchy subject though. Would be good to see if they can get entanglment to expand, it would have some very interesting applications. :whistle:

[astroron]

It is a very interesting subject that I have a great deal of difficulty understanding:rolleyes:

[mswhin63]

Usually with anything new there is time needed to understand it.

One thing i noticed in the article, Such a big laser to get a couple of atoms excited. :poke:

[Nesti]

At the risk of attracting heat, may I expose a chink in the quantum armor? Cheer!

Okay, quantum entanglement is a nice little phenomenon, however, what nobody seem to care about is, what nobody seems to be asking is; why does it exist, and, what is its purpose?

Now, to change spin states into some sort of [mathematical] logic, so that quantum computation can be achieved, Everett’s ‘Relative State Formulation’ or ‘Many-Worlds Interpretation’, must be a real interpretation, and in being real, will rescind the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics. That’s a big call.

Personally, I feel quantum mechanics is a load of tripe. I’m not saying it isn’t real, because it is, I just don’t believe that it holds the answers we seek. Yes, it does give us a lot of toys and real world technology, however, it is a discipline which is decidedly ‘After the Fact’. What I mean, is that quantum measurement outcomes - whether they be intuitive and classical, or counter-intuitive and decidedly quantum - only arise during and after an event, and with only small amounts of information coming into the equation (metaphorical), from future states and values of event outcomes which have not happened yet. YES that’s right, quantum events must take into consideration what the future holds in order to decide which way a probability outcome will transpire (see below for details). In the simplest possible terms, quantum outcomes are outcomes derived from the clash between classical mechanics, relative mechanics, electromagnetism and wait for it…freedom of choice!!! Like a turbulent shoreline of crashing waves and foam (quantum foam if you like), between the predictable dynamism of the ocean and the predictable static nature of the land. Quantum mechanics merely shows us the conflict, not any TRUE meaning of the universe, but it is nonetheless important to probe and understand, as the exhaust of the engine can and does tell us what might be happening inside the engine.

Have read of these if you are interested in time symmetry and its effects of quantum measurement;

New Insights on Time-Symmetry in Quantum Mechanics
Yakir Aharonov and Jeff Tollaksen
Center for Quantum Studies
Department of Physics and Department of Computational and Data Sciences
College of Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030

Two-time interpretation of quantum mechanics
Yakir Aharonov and Eyal Y. Gruss
School of Physics and Astronomy,
Beverly and Raymond Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences,
Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel.


A little quote from my book of horrors;

[I]"One of the real surprises in quantum mechanics came from the works of John Bell in his work on ‘Bell inequality’, whereby in 1964 he showed that quantum mechanics is neither a realistic theory, nor a local theory. What this means is that quantum mechanics isn’t a way of working out what is happening within any given event, with inputs and definite outputs, rather it is an overview of all possible events and likelihoods that can possibly happen. And that even though it is a non-local theory, it does not violate special relativity (information cannot be transmitted instantly) in as much as there is no passage of information in the first place. His insight into the true meaning of quantum mechanics allows us to now understand that the theories themselves are only guidelines as to how events [may] transpire, and has very little, if anything, to do with what an outcome will be for any given event. Quantum mechanics it seems, is more akin to a statistical analysis, rather than a mechanism or process. So the big question now is, if quantum mechanics is a snap-shot (a theory) of all possible outcomes, then what decides which outcome will transpire – what forces choice to become reality, since the universe is decidedly structured and not random and chaotic?"

[mswhin63]

Findings got to start somewhere.

Still a nice read for me.

[Enchilada]

Sorry. Frankly, your understanding is very limited for you to make such a bold statement. Bottom line. Quantum Mechanics is not intuitive nor easy to dismiss so casually - it is really based on probability not some 'fixed' answers.
Quantum mechanics is accepted because of its amazing predictive power of, say, various fundamental constants, (it is not really a predictive theory, though!) in understanding real experimental phenomena. I.e. Atomic theory or the Casimir effect - forces exhibited resulting from the quantum field. i.e. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
Another of course is the theory of Quantum electrodynamics (QED), describing electron using the Dirac Equation via so-called relativistic quantum mechanics - and whose results are experimentally verifiable! Another is the particle gauge theory of Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) regarding quarks, etc.

If you must debate anywhere on such difficult subjects that seem to defy commonsense, I'd real suggest you read "The New Quantum Universe" by By Anthony J. G. Hey, Patrick Walters Pub. Cambridge University Press. :thumbsup:

As for its purpose, well you might ask what is the purpose of being born into the world or some child/children own existence. In the end, it really makes little sense for a question and epect a simple answer. :hi:

As for the real purpose (or what is running in the head) of astroron posting this grissly waterdown BBC dribble, who knows? :screwy: As John Jost says;

"What we wanted to do was to perform this entanglement in the sort of system that people can relate to, a mechanical system that pervades nature everywhere."

Clear, even he (Jost), according to the Jason Palmer BBC article, has not even remotely achieved this goal. Really. Is the media right here or was the original published article saying something else. (the latter is real closer to being truer, methinks.) :screwy:

[leinad]

Thanks for the post Ron, interesting.
Also interesting thanks Mark.

Also interesting, thanks Enchilada?
perhaps you can review this one also:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090603131429.htm

[Enchilada]

Thanks very much for this ScienceDaily article, which is often usually delayed by a day or two before the major science sites or common media - but is at least often more 'complete'. Now this actual source now makes much more sense to me compared to the BBC one. :thumbsup:

[AlexN]

Enchilada, This has to be the third or fourth time in a few months that I've seen you fire up in a thread due to people not agreeing with you... You have your opinions, others have different opinions, and if you could prove that your assertions were correct, then we would all have a better understanding of the universe, and the world we live in. However, I will assume at this stage that you can't prove that you're opinion is fact, And until you can, perhaps voicing your opinion in a less condescending manner might be a better choice.

Thanks for posting Ron, An interesting read to be sure. And interesting input Mark..

[Enchilada]

What you mean by 'research', eh? It was an obvious comment. The Casimir effect was only highlighted to show the predictive nature of quantum mechanics - challenging directly your unfounded and deliberate controversial statement; "Personally, I feel quantum mechanics is a load of tripe. I’m not saying it isn’t real, because it is, I just don’t believe that it holds the answers we seek."
The Casimir effect is the classic example of a prediction of quantum mechanics before it was observed - true even using Wikipedia or not.