Quantum Mechanics (Q.M.) 'Spooky' Connection ?... help!

[Arising_uk]

Hi D71,

...thanks for the pointer to the bell experiments. Just read wiki's take about bell inequalities and the EPR paradox.

Great. As I tried and could not easily grasp them but with your help I may. My take was that these experiments took a particle(normally a photon) and spilt it to produce two particles that combined equal(?) the Energy(?) of the original particle. What differs is that they have two opposing but exclusive properties, Spin? Move them apart and we find that if we change one property the other does as well? If so the best I can get is that we are stretching an object rather than splitting it, as I can imagine a bar where one end is going clockwise and the other anti-clockwise, so the effect we see would exist. But I have great trouble with the idea of two 'particles' being connected in such a way. If it was the case does this mean we will never understand the mechanism? As my understanding is that light is the only measure we can use so we will never observe the 'information transfer'?

...But as Richard Feynman said if your theory disagrees with observation of nature.... Your theory is wrong.!

I love Feynman's laymen books, truly one of the great Physicist writers, QED is fantastic.
a_uk

[Diomedes71]

Hi uk

Loved your analogy of the rotating bar, though incorrect I'm afraid. If your analogy was correct then the two particles would have set of with a physically real spin value. The EPR experiment has tested this and indicates otherwise.

I give you my take on it. It is simplified, it is total B.S. but it exist in my minds eye as an abstraction of what i think they are saying on wiki. I just don't intuitively get all the talk about measuring the spin at different angles and it's consequences, well kinda do, but not to 'prove' an explanation to a 3rd party....

If you have two guys tossing coins away from each other they both observe 50:50 probabilities. Demonstrating 'real' fixed realities fixed after an event. Now connect these two coin tossers by 'spooky' phenomena and 'we do measure' a change in the probability outcomes that the rotating bar analogy doesn't predict, but 'action at distance' does.

I think that the hidden variable approach to which I thought i was a proponent, is an attempt to fix reality as with the rotating bar. But this is not observed and if you except the bell tests (some think they are flawed) means the final measurement is the determining factor of which way the spin will be found. I am O.K with this, I am still a determinist, or just stubbornist , I had a though or I heard it intimated..........

There must be a connection through extra dimensions and there are not two variable hidden to each but one shared hidden variable thus preserving real outcomes from experiments....may be?

Oh wasn't he just Great! Have the books, but the long documentary by the BBC? years ago showed what a character he was.

Regards........

[Arising_uk]

Hi Diomedes71,
Thanks for the reply. Will cogitate upon it. One thing,

...If your analogy was correct then the two particles would have set of with a physically real spin value. The EPR experiment has tested this and indicates otherwise.

Could we not just say the 'bar' was not rotating at the start?
a_uk

[Diomedes71]

Hi Uk,...

You'll be forgiven for actually thinking these things do actually spin, it all just an analogy.

ps - sorry to brake the news to you, quarks don't have colour or taste very nice and they're terrible at parties.(charm).....

The laws just say they have these properties and those are the labels we choose, we could equally have chosen back-flip, front-flip, first gear, second gear etc. These things are not flying pin pong balls, they're just stuff with properties, if 'stuff' has certain properties we might call it an electron or other properties light. I think it is all interchangeable .. including space and time .. maybe

Regards

[Arising_uk]

Hi Diomedes71,

Hi Uk,...
You'll be forgiven for actually thinking these things do actually spin, it all just an analogy.
ps - sorry to brake the news to you, quarks don't have colour or taste very nice and they're terrible at parties.(charm).....

I get the idea of analogies Apparently Mathematics is one of the best although Computational Mathematics and Imaging appears to the preferred experimental analogy now-a-days.

...These things are not flying pin pong balls, they're just stuff with properties, if 'stuff' has certain properties we might call it an electron or other properties light. I think it is all interchangeable .. including space and time .. maybe

Are they not 'flying ping pong balls' with these properties? I thought QM was the study of teeny tiny bits of Matter, i.e. 'particles'? I take it that you are on the 'wave' side of 'particle properties'? If so why is there a problem as a wave is always connected? Is it that we can find 'particles' without 'wave' properties that is causing the problem then?
a_uk
p.s. oo! Or is it because that what makes up a 'particle' appears to contain this 'action at a distance with no perceivable cause' problem?

[Diomedes71]

Hi uk,

nah, on the contrary, even the wave idea is only an analogy of how some property varies over time. What exactly is it you think is waving, standard answer would be electromagnetic feild and the magnetic feild a 90 deg. But what is this 'field' what is it made of, what is waving about?

I thought QM was the study of teeny tiny bits of Matter, i.e. 'particles'?

- Now your really making me smile. QM blows away all notions of matter as we might think of it. Don't you think..? Wave particle duality, 2 slit experiment, EPR paradox/ bell test....

No, I like my theory, all things is jst 'stuff' Stuff has properties which we give names and mathamatical ratlationships have been found for approximations and guesses at what might happen in an experiment. That's why the quote 'Anybody who is not totally shocked by QM hasn't really understood it'...... somebody said something like that.

An aside, as an atheist, sometimes I wonder at the size of the universe and the intractability of the scientific questions we face (Heisenburg uncertainty principle) and just see irony in it... That is the only evidentual, if you can call it that, reason for thinking ....just maybe

Regards

[isaaclw]

I realize I came to this party a bit late... Anyway, I had this thread bookmarked for a while and finally got around to reading it.

This is fascinating stuff... My Physics prof would always say that if understand Quantum Mechanics, you don't really know everything...

I tried reading over the Article: "Bell test experiments"

Ok. just cause repeating it is sometimes helpful: (referring to: "A typical CHSH (two-channel) experiment" )
they created two photons sent in opposite directions.
Since each photon has a specific spin, they detect it with a polarizer which sends it in a different location (supposedly) and is recorded.
The "++" "+-" "-+" "--" refer to the spin of the photon in the one direction and the photon in the other direction...
What I can't figure out is what a a' b and b' are all about. Nor can I understand the two equations (though mostly because of the previous issue).


Um. is this the article you were referring to with the Bell Experiments?

You'll be forgiven for actually thinking these things do actually spin, it all just an analogy.

Spin is something that I've always been a bit confused about also. Once again I turned to wikipedia and found this:

In particle physics and quantum mechanics, spin is a fundamental characteristic property of elementary particles, composite particles (hadrons), and atomic nuclei.[note 1]
...
Spin is a type of angular momentum, when angular momentum is defined in the modern way (as the "generator of rotations", see Noether's theorem)[1][2]. This modern definition of angular momentum is not the same as the historical classical mechanics definition, L=r×p. (The latter definition, which does not include spin, is more specifically called "orbital angular momentum".)

Doesn't that say that spin is... well, spin? I mean, that's what Angular Momentum is, right? I tried researching Noether's Theorem, but as with most things I couldn't figure out what the Wikipedia article was saying...

[Arising_uk]

Shit! Sorry Di,
Brain like a flutterbug.

nah, on the contrary, even the wave idea is only an analogy of how some property varies over time. What exactly is it you think is waving, standard answer would be electromagnetic feild and the magnetic feild a 90 deg. But what is this 'field' what is it made of, what is waving about?

We agree then, its all analogies of Kants Noumena? So "what" questions will pertty much always exist, unless the world is discrete and we can produced the technology to manipulate it, but if I was pushed for a metaphysic then I'd say what is 'waving' is a pattern produced from planck length(or less) 'bits' calculaing something?

- Now your really making me smile. QM blows away all notions of matter as we might think of it. Don't you think..? Wave particle duality, 2 slit experiment, EPR paradox/ bell test....

Yeah! But *clicks* and stopwatches.

No, I like my theory, all things is jst 'stuff' Stuff has properties which we give names and mathamatical ratlationships have been found for approximations and guesses at what might happen in an experiment. That's why the quote 'Anybody who is not totally shocked by QM hasn't really understood it'...... somebody said something like that.

You, me and Kant, except I think, with Husserl, that a Phenomenology is possible for philosophy.

An aside, as an atheist, sometimes I wonder at the size of the universe and the intractability of the scientific questions we face (Heisenburg uncertainty principle) and just see irony in it... That is the only evidentual, if you can call it that, reason for thinking ....just maybe

I like the Planck length myself, but Heisenburg is logical if the world is particles, even tho' he brought it up to show that the world was discrete, I think.
Personally, as an atheist, I boggle at the night sky given I understand what I'm looking at.

Regards

Yours.

[Cerveny]

Consider please the history of universe as solid sediment of particular matter configurations. Every (crystal like) layer of such sediment relates some quantum time jump. Next, consider the “future” (an outside of universe) as unordered (a gas/liquid like) phase of reality. The point “now” – the quantum world is an interface between the history and the future. Every measurement, better, every interaction fixes, glues new local time sediment to the universe's history. There is usually more possibilities how to build the history, but particular interactions (incorrectly called “measurements”) mean a catching of a future element and growing, building of universe history.

[Arising_uk]

Hi Cerveny, this has fascinated me as I pretty much can't understand it but it sounds excellent.

Consider please the history of universe as solid sediment of particular matter configurations. Every (crystal like) layer of such sediment relates some quantum time jump. ...

Okay I can sort of get this but at what level of things should I be considering when you say "the history of universe"? As I can sort of picture a 'matter configuration' as all the stars, planets, etc in a 3-d snapshot and this 'history' as a 'sediment' of these(what do you mean by sediment please?), but at this level there appears to be no discrete processes? Are you saying this 'quantum time jump' level is(are?) the snap/s?
Could you explain what you mean by this crystalization process as I'm not a chemist.

Next, consider the “future” (an outside of universe) as unordered (a gas/liquid like) phase of reality. The point “now” – the quantum world is an interface between the history and the future. Every measurement, better, every interaction fixes, glues new local time sediment to the universe's history. There is usually more possibilities how to build the history, but particular interactions (incorrectly called “measurements”) mean a catching of a future element and growing, building of universe history.

!! Like a boot-strap initialization process?

I find it very difficult to imagine how we are in this model?
p.s.
What I meant was at what level are you considering "matter"?

[Cerveny]

Hi Folks,

I have a little problem with the above. Here's the situation as I understand it.

We only know probabilities of outcomes of quantum events. This is not a failing of ours but a feature of the natural world. It is all we will ever know.
If we arange an experiment such that the outcome is two particals one with up spin and the other is down spin ( perfectly feasable ), then if we dislocate the fist partical from the second ( in theory many hundreds of light years. Then when we measure the the spin of the first we know the spin of the second. The assertion is that the particles in the experiment only make their mind up which state they are in upon being measured. Thus the dislocated particle assumes it's spin as a result of a distant measurement potentially violating the information speed limit of light.

I have no problem with all of the above except what evidence do we have to support the decission being made only at the time of measurement?

You should not believe everything :( Do with me: there is created a pair, say electron and position. We know nothing about their spins. Of course we are able to somehow measure (to "fix") the spin of one of this couple. OK. What we can do next? We can measure the spin of the second particle: We can obtain an opposite direction or the same direction – such particle must interact (react) with the measuring environment that fix it - and … it is the all! Consideration of the uncertainty and undistinguishing principle even more obscure some serious result of such experiment. Where is any measurable, real proof of some changes of spin direction :(

[Cerveny]

Could you explain what you mean by this crystalization process as I'm not a chemist

The HISTORY is 4-D imperfect crystal (crystal's defects are elementary particles here). This crystal is growing from the other disordered phase (from the "FUTURE"). Every new crystal layer either replicates the last layer (last planck sediment) or partialy smoothes it (the future is gluing at the history and by own way smoothed it). Say the history freezes up. The 3-D thin, live, active border between the history and the future (the suface of HISTORY) is our (quantum) world, our PRESENT Universe. Sorry I have already tried to explain this model in this forum by several times in the other place. Perhaps I have explained it better there

[Arising_uk]

No I think I'm getting a better picture and some an old phrase springs to mind. You think we live in a 'phase boundary' between two different states of a 4-d 'substance' of some sort? A substance that has 'time' as an attribute?

[Cerveny]

You think we live in a 'phase boundary' between two different states of a 4-d 'substance' of some sort?

Exactly, but perhaps the outside phase, the "FUTURE" has more dimensions, who knows... (:I am internally tempted to call the "Future" as a "IDEA":)

A substance that has 'time' as an attribute?

As the "time" can be called the (real, local, not global ) direction orthogonal to the common space, say direction toward the center, toward the "centroid" of "HISTORY" :)

[Aetixintro]

Concerning this thread, there is an articles that relates to the Schrodinger theory and such in BJPS (British Journal of Philosophy of Science) that you may want to check out!

Here it is, "Branching with Uncertain Semantics - Discussion Note on Saunders and Wallace, ‘Branching and Uncertainty’ by Nuel Belnap and Thomas Müller" - url: http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/3/681.full. Now this is laid out for free by BJPS which is most generous. It's just to go there and read it! This is certainly my recommendation!

Cheers!