Article: Physicists bid farewell to reality?
Robert Karl Stonjek
Physicists bid farewell to reality?
Quantum mechanics just got even stranger.
Philip Ball
There's only one way to describe the experiment performed by physicist Anton
Zeilinger and his colleagues: it's unreal, dude.
Measuring the quantum properties of pairs of light particles (photons)
pumped out by a laser has convinced Zeilinger that "we have to give up the
idea of realism to a far greater extent than most physicists believe today."
By realism, he means the idea that objects have specific features and
properties -that a ball is red, that a book contains the works of
Shakespeare, or that an electron has a particular spin.
For everyday objects, such realism isn't a problem. But for objects governed
by the laws of quantum mechanics, like photons and electrons, it may make no
sense to think of them as having well defined characteristics. Instead, what
we see may depend on how we look.
This notion has been around ever since the advent of quantum mechanics in
the early twentieth century. The theory seemed to show that, in the quantum
world, objects are defined only fuzzily, so that all we can do is work out
the probability that they have particular characteristics - such as being
located in a specific place or having a specific energy.
Allied to this assault on reality was the apparent prediction of what Albert
Einstein, one of the chief architects of quantum theory, called 'spooky
action at a distance'. Quantum theory suggests that disturbing one particle
can instantaneously determine the properties of a particle with which it is
'entangled', no matter how far away it is. This would violate the usual rule
of locality: that local behaviour is governed by local events.
Einstein could not believe that the world was really so indeterminate. He
supposed that a deeper level of reality had yet to be uncovered - so-called
'hidden variables' that specified an object's properties precisely and in
strictly local terms.
Failed test
In the 1960s the Irish physicist John Bell showed how to put locality and
realism to the test. He deduced that if both ideas applied to the quantum
world, then two particular quantities calculated from measurements made on a
pair of entangled photons would be equal to one another. If so, there would
be nothing 'spooky' about entanglement after all.
Experiments were done to test his prediction in the ensuing two decades, and
results showed that Bell's equality was violated. Thus, either realism or
locality, or possibly both of these ideas, do not apply in the quantum
world.
But which is it? That's what Zeilinger, based at the University of Vienna in
Austria, and his colleagues tried to find out.
They came up with a similar test to Bell's, to see whether quantum mechanics
obeys realism but not locality. Again the experiment involves comparing two
quantities calculated from measurements on entangled photons, to see if they
are equal. But whereas in Bell's test these quantities are derived from the
so-called 'linear' polarization of the photons - crudely, whether their
electromagnetic fields oscillate in one direction or the other - Zeilinger's
experiment looks at a different sort of polarization, called elliptical
polarization.
Like Bell's, Zeilinger's equality proved false. This doesn't rule out all
possible non-local realistic models, but it does exclude an important subset
of them. Specifically, it shows that if you have a group of photons that all
have independent polarizations, then you can't ascribe specific
polarizations to each. It's rather like saying that you know there are
particular numbers of blue, white and silver cars in a car park - but it is
meaningless even to imagine saying which ones are which.
Truly weird
If the quantum world is not realistic in this sense, then how does it
behave? Zeilinger says that some of the alternative non-realist
possibilities are truly weird. For example, it may make no sense to imagine
what would happen if we had made a different measurement from the one we
chose to make. "We do this all the time in daily life," says Zeilinger - for
example, imagining what would have happened if you had tried to cross the
road when a truck was coming. If the world around us behaved in the same way
as a quantum system, then it would be meaningless even to imagine that
alternative situation, because there would be no way of defining what you
mean by the road, the truck, or even you.
Another possibility is that in a non-realistic quantum world present actions
can affect the past, as though choosing to read a letter or not could
determine what it says.
Zeilinger hopes that his work will stimulate others to test such
possibilities. "Our paper is not the end of the road," he says. "But we have
a little more evidence that the world is really strange."
Source: Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070416/full/070416-9.html
Keep up with all the Physics news in glorious HTML at 'Physical Sciences -
News and Views'
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/physical_sciences/
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Douglas Eagleson
wrote:
>
> Keep up with all the Physics news in glorious HTML at 'Physical Sciences -
> News and Views'http://groups.yahoo.com/group/physical_sciences/
>
> Posted by
> Robert Karl Stonjek
Local as the defined action at a distance was Einsteins complaint. He
beleived it and propsoed the experiment. And so everybody continues
to evade his experiment!.
It borders on contempt of the man.
A singel quanta!!!!!!!!!!!!!!MUST BE THE EXPERIMENT, NOT THE
ASSEMBLAGE
A set of statistically tested particles does not obey.
And here we sit. Bell lied by the way. His relative state was a
false product.
So to evade in this day in age and claim complete theory while obeying
Einstein as theorectically berift was the writeup. If the authors
approved the summary then they lie like Bell intentionally.
SO the experiment, means, go back to school, they just repeated Aspect
with non-crystal source.
galathaea
wrote:
and the misstatements continue to propagate
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics/msg/9d2a6ec44dea35e2
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
galathaea: prankster, fablist, magician, liar
ken...@erinet.com
wrote:
>
> Keep up with all the Physics news in glorious HTML at 'Physical Sciences -
> News and Views'http://groups.yahoo.com/group/physical_sciences/
>
> Posted by
> Robert Karl Stonjek
All the weirdness of the quantum world disappear if you include the
fact that the particles and the detector are each in a different state
of absolute motion. The proposed experiments in the paper entitled
"Proposed Experiments to Detect Absolute Motion" in the following
website are designed to detect the existence of absolute
motion......also absolute motion is defined as that motion of an
object with respect to the light in the carrying medium (the aether).
http://www.geocities.com/kn_seto/index.htm
Sam Wormley
>
> All the weirdness of the quantum world disappear if you include the
> fact that the particles and the detector are each in a different state
> of absolute motion.
Let's assume that there is no possible way to use "absolute motion".
Consider two entities, Ken, A and B, experiencing relative motion
such that each measures dv/dt = 0 and c > |dr/dt| >> 0 with respect
to each other.
Consider observer A. A will *measure* B's clock to run slow.
Similarly, B will *measure* A's clock to run slow. And, of course,
this is expected due to the symmetric relationship between A and B.
The degree of *measured* time dilation is exactly as is predicted
by SR.
Furthermore, let |dr/dt| equal 17000 km/s. Then A will measure B's
clock to run slow by a factor of 1.0016, and B will *measure* A's
clock to run slow by a factor of 1.0016.
Each measures the other's clock to run slower than her own. There
is nothing wrong with that.
ken...@erinet.com
> kens...@erinet.com wrote:
>
> > All the weirdness of the quantum world disappear if you include the
> > fact that the particles and the detector are each in a different state
> > of absolute motion.
>
> Let's assume that there is no possible way to use "absolute motion".
> Consider two entities, Ken, A and B, experiencing relative motion
> such that each measures dv/dt = 0 and c > |dr/dt| >> 0 with respect
> to each other.
Such assumption is wrong. Relative motion between A and B is the
vector difference of the vector component of A's absolute motion and
the vector component of B's absolute motion along the line joining A
and B.
>
> Consider observer A. A will *measure* B's clock to run slow.
> Similarly, B will *measure* A's clock to run slow. And, of course,
> this is expected due to the symmetric relationship between A and B.
> The degree of *measured* time dilation is exactly as is predicted
> by SR.
No.....B's clock is running slow if it is originated from A. B will
not see A's clock running slow if it is origiunated from A. B will see
A's clock running fast. The symmetric relationship is assumed. There
is no observation or experiment to support the assumption of symmetry
(or reciprocity) between A and B. In fact all observations and
experiments support the asymmetry between A and B.....the SR effect on
the GPS clock is asymmetric.
>
> Furthermore, let |dr/dt| equal 17000 km/s. Then A will measure B's
> clock to run slow by a factor of 1.0016, and B will *measure* A's
> clock to run slow by a factor of 1.0016.
This is wrong. If A measures the relative velocity to be 17000km/
second then the gamma factor is 1.0016. You can't assume that B will
measure the relative velocity to be 17000km/second. Why? Because the
passage of A's clock second does not correspond to the passage of B's
clock second. What this mean is that a clock second is not an interval
of universal time.
If B's clock is really running slow then A's clock must be really
running fast. The idea of mutual time dilation is bogus. That's why
IRT has two sets of equation one for time dilation and the other for
time expansion.
>
> Each measures the other's clock to run slower than her own. There
> is nothing wrong with that.
Sure there is.
Sam Wormley
QED
Autymn D. C.
> and the misstatements continue to propagate
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics/msg/9d2a6ec44dea35e2
"like time sequence spin projections"
Is there any reason that you flunk grammar?
Autymn D. C.
Eric Gisse
Is there any reason for a fat old cow to spend hours a day on USENET
in the form of some incompetent grammar nazi?
Autymn D. C.
No, there isn't a reason for you.