If infinite parallel universes exist ...

So what's really going on?

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Blaggard
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by Blaggard »

uwot wrote:
Blaggard wrote:The point about the Copenhagen interpretation is that there is no classical analogue to quantum behaviour, we do not know and can not know what the wave is without measuring it and by doing so we cause indeterminacy that hides its true nature.
As far as knowing what the 'wave' is, I think you have to distinguish between epistemology and ontology. Physicists know perfectly well what the wave is, in that it is a certain amount, a quantum, of energy. Like all energy, it is just the power to affect a change, most usefully in the excitation of electrons. The maths describes what happens in terms of the changes in energy levels extremely well and even, I gather, makes some stab at explaining how it got from a to b, which I'm guessing is what the Path-Integral Formulation is all about. The truth is though, at the quantum level, no ones knows.
Blaggard wrote:So a classical analogy might be a blind man reaching down to touch the ripples on a pond, do those ripples stay the same or..?
Quite so, Blaggard; you can't touch the ripples without changing them. (Isn't that Heisenberg rather than Copenhagen?) I think you can stretch the analogy by pretending fundamental particles are whirlpools, they have 'mass', because the water has to change direction. I think that is Higgs in a nutshell. The two slit experiment is much less puzzling in those terms.
Seriously, Blaggard, I am, as you say, a maths idiot, although I will try and get my head round that limit stuff. I'm not sure many people here are much better. If you really want to communicate these ideas, you will need to translate them.
Blaggard wrote:Hence the term complementary meaning a classical analogue to quantum stochastic model.
Then again, there's no guarantee I will understand you in English.
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is why Copenhagen is the mainstream and other interpretations are less popular it defines the very heart of quantum mechanics and shows that the maths results in only one probabilistic mechanics that can have a hope of modelling the nano scale. At Solvay the big shots had it out, on one side was Schroedinger and Einstein and Lorentz, the old guard on the other were Pauli, Dirac, Heisenburg, Bohr et al.

Only one woman there Marie Curie, we sure have come on a long way since then. ;)

Einstein eventually conceded defeat although it was not really a defeat because everyone benefited from that great meeting of minds, Einstein had huge reservations about probability theory until the day he died and Schroedinger famously said "I am only sorry I will not be alive to see the demise of quantum mechanics" his cat in a box analogy was meant to be a wry joke about something being alive and dead at the same time, but physics jokes are an acquired taste. ;)

Large image

http://blog.mujtabahussain.net/wp-conte ... erence.jpg

I am perfectly willing to explain this stuff, after all the best way to not be shocked by quantum theory is to explain it, so take your time, there really is no hurry it took me a whole year just to wrap my head around calculus, and I am good at maths as I said. :)
Last edited by Blaggard on Sat Feb 08, 2014 5:44 pm, edited 3 times in total.
uwot
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by uwot »

HexHammer wrote:Paralel universes is but a fairytale dream, stop dreaming!
How can you tell? I agree it isn't very parsimonious, but some physicists think it might explain the weakness of gravity compared to other forces. What do you think, Hex?
Blaggard
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by Blaggard »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK2eFv7ne_Q

This is a good lecture from a Yale Professor but I would advise you get to grips with calculus and the other maths before you attempt to view it or you will be lost.

I can understand it, but it stretches even my learning at times. :)

Field theory well, that shit just makes your brain leak out of your ears, and it is the same for all physics students. ;)

I once worked in a Medical physics department in a hospital where I met some of the most clever people I have ever seen. And even they said the maths of quantum mechanics was the reason they were Experimental Physicists, not Theoretical Physicists.

Only one guy I met could do the theory maths for the solutions in calculus and ironically he was a lowly technician. ;)

The only thing I can say with any certainty, after so many years studying this stuff, is don't for one minute think it is the super smart only that can understand this, it is not; Bohr owed a huge debt to Kant's realism, Heisenburg was was in debt to Bohr, and Einstein plagiarised Lorentz's transform mercilessly, even the greatest minds in science although obviously highly intelligent really would of got nowhere if they were not standing on the shoulders of giants such as Newton, Kepler, Liebniz, Galileo et al.

"The secret of good science is knowing how to hide your sources."

Albert Einstein. ;)

Incidentally I met someone who was taught by Dirac at Cambridge, he said the guy was on another level from everyone, they'd invite guest speakers to explain their theories of physics to lecture halls, some would start actually physically looking nervous when Dirac walked in. He had a habit of taking your theory and destroying it in one sentence. ;)
Last edited by Blaggard on Sat Feb 08, 2014 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
uwot
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by uwot »

Blaggard wrote:Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is why Copenhagen is the mainstream and other interpretations are less popular it defines the very heart of quantum mechanics and shows that the maths results in only one probabilistic mechanics that can have a hope of modelling the nano scale.
I don't think that follows. I don't speak maths, but I'm sure you could tell the story a number of ways, as long as they acknowledge uncertainty.
Blaggard wrote:I am perfectly willing to explain this stuff, after all the best way to not be shocked by quantum theory is to explain it, so take your time, there really is no hurry it took me a whole year just to wrap my head around calculus, and I am good at maths as I said. :)
But does maths describe what happens to what?
Blaggard
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by Blaggard »

uwot wrote:
Blaggard wrote:Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is why Copenhagen is the mainstream and other interpretations are less popular it defines the very heart of quantum mechanics and shows that the maths results in only one probabilistic mechanics that can have a hope of modelling the nano scale.
I don't think that follows. I don't speak maths, but I'm sure you could tell the story a number of ways, as long as they acknowledge uncertainty.
Blaggard wrote:I am perfectly willing to explain this stuff, after all the best way to not be shocked by quantum theory is to explain it, so take your time, there really is no hurry it took me a whole year just to wrap my head around calculus, and I am good at maths as I said. :)
But does maths describe what happens to what?
I am telling the story it is just if you don't understand the language it is unlikely you will understand it. Do you see why Bohr said what he said about poetry at least now?

The language is maths, the dictionary is large, and the number of definitions of each word also huge. But poets can give words scope. Thusly Physicists do the same job with maths and theory.
But does maths describe what happens to what?
Yes of course what use would it be if it did not?

What is not clear is only what is actually going on the science it might seem at face value is induction, the maths is the result of using induction but the theory is deduction based on experiment and the theory not only works it is why you are able to type this now, the transistor was a product of theory not of arm waving conjecture.

I wont waste your time any further suffice to say this explains it, albeit comically, but it is highly apposite so don't dismiss it out of hand:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r6NY4Kl8Ms

Genuinely I am not joking either, this is brilliantly logically perfect. :)

"Silent in 1952"

Bertrand Russel, think about that for a moment. :)
uwot
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by uwot »

Blaggard wrote:I am telling the story it is just if you don't understand the language it is unlikely you will understand it. Do you see why Bohr said what he said about poetry at least now?
I thought I'd made it clear I understood it first time round, but yes, I get the poetry bit.
Blaggard wrote:The language is maths, the dictionary is large, and the number of definitions of each word also huge. But poets can give words scope. Thusly Physicists do the same job with maths and theory.
But does maths describe what happens to what?
Yes of course what use would it be if it did not?

What is not clear is only what is actually going on
To philosophers, that's the interesting bit. Like I said; as far back as Anaximander philosophers have understood that there is a difference between epistemology and ontology, knowing that and knowing what, if you like. The knowing what in many cases, is completely irrelevant, as expressed by Isaac Newton. The inverse square law describes the action of gravity very well, but Newton gave up trying to describe the mechanism; "hypotheses non fingo", "I frame no hypotheses". You can make up any story to account for the action of gravity, but you cannot make up the measurable effect. (Well you can, but peer review will catch you out.) From the philosophical point of view, the reason GR and QM are incompatible is that the mechanism they describe for the action of gravity, warped spacetime and the exchange of virtual particles, are completely different. The temptation is to think that one or other is wrong, but there is a instrumentalist discipline in maths and physics which, in regard to getting things done, quite rightly says: 'Who cares?'
Blaggard wrote:the science it might seem at face value is induction, the maths is the result of using induction
Are you familiar with Paul Feyerabend? Ultimately, there is no 'scientific method', what happens is that some phenomenon is discovered, someone has a hunch, the maths makes some prediction, who knows, an apple falls on your head (apocryphal, I know). What makes something physics is that when the experiment is run, the light flashes or the bell goes ping, what inspires the experiment is neither here nor there.
Blaggard wrote:but the theory is deduction based on experiment and the theory not only works it is why you are able to type this now, the transistor was a product of theory not of arm waving conjecture.
Absolutely, but arm waving conjecture is the fun bit.
Blaggard wrote:I wont waste your time any further
You won't be wasting my time if you wave your arms about a bit.
Blaggard
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by Blaggard »

Well frankly Newton was wrong, Einstein was closer and quantum theory is closer yet.

GR and quantum theory are unified in field theory, they just are incompatible in particle theories, which is hardly all that surprising. Einstein began with the photo-electric effect which proved ultimately that light was neither a wave nor a particle and predicted the existence of particles called photons which are energy equivalent, but did not like the idea of probability. What he did or did not like though is probably no concern of nature.

Field theory says that the wavelike nature of matter means essentially that all points in space are at non zero energy, general relativity says that if energy is non zero then a consequence is that gravity is non zero proportional to the energy gradient. There is no contradiction there.

The contradiction comes when you attempt to model a particle interation at the nano scale, then the theory becomes incompatible because the equations end up with infinities.

For example lets take Newtons law of gravity if r is 0 ie the objects are in the same place what is the gravity?

Image

A famous scientist named Pauli solved the paradox seemingly by expressing an exclusion principle that applies to fermions electrons, pions kaons etc but not baryons, but that was not the end of the story...

The Pauli exclusion principle is the quantum mechanical principle that no two identical fermions (particles with half-integer spin) may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. A more rigorous statement is that the total wave function for two identical fermions is anti-symmetric with respect to exchange of the particles. The principle was formulated by Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1925.

For example, in an isolated atom no two electrons can have the same four quantum numbers; if n, ℓ, and mℓ are the same, ms must be different such that the electrons have opposite spins, and so on.

Integer spin particles, bosons, are not subject to the Pauli exclusion principle: any number of identical bosons can occupy the same quantum state, as with, for instance, photons produced by a laser and Bose–Einstein condensate.

Proof that photons existed came later with a Scientist named Compton who observed a scattering effect when particles collided that ended with an energy decrease or increase proportional to the angle of incidence.
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uwot
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by uwot »

Blaggard wrote:Well frankly Newton was wrong, Einstein was closer and quantum theory is closer yet.
By that logic, Einstein was also wrong. If QM is simply closer yet, it too is wrong. I disagree. I don't think any of them are 'wrong', there is just more or less accurate, we will never know what is right.
Blaggard wrote:GR and quantum theory are unified in field theory, they just are incompatible in particle theories,
Right. And unless you take an instrumentalist point of view, you assume that any 'field' is a 'physical' thing. Which is to say, it is not simply a field of influence, which is entirely compatible with mathematics, being an abstract entity, but that it exerts a mechanical, for want of a better word, affect.
Blaggard wrote:which is hardly all that surprising.
Could you wave your arms about a bit?
Blaggard wrote:Einstein began with the photo-electric effect which proved ultimately that light was neither a wave nor a particle but did not like the idea of probability. What he did or did not like though is probably no concern of nature.
I think Feyman was right: "All we know for certain, is what is wrong." What is interesting philosophically is whether it is possible to attribute all the demonstrable effects to a single substance: a 'field' for instance.
Blaggard
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by Blaggard »

Newton was right to 6 decimal places, Einstein was right to 12, quantum mechanics is right to the planck scale or 1.616199(97)×10−35 none of them were wrong per se although I think his airy fairy arm waving about God being the source of gravity was bullshit, the experimental values just got refined downwards.

Feynman was right we know what is wrong but it is wrong to such a statistically negligible fraction of a number that to all intents and purposes our models are extremely accurate.

The wave function takes the experimental results and turns the lights possible degrees of freedom into a probability of a particle occupying a position at any one time, of interest then only is when the probability is non zero. This leads to superposition which then leads to particle/wave duality which then lead to compton scattering proving the photon existed, which then lead to quantum theory which then lead to the standard model, which predicted a boson called higgs related to gravity which then lead to the discovery of the Higgs boson as predicted by the standard model.

That's science in action, I doubt arm waving is going to change reality, so I will rerfrain from it.
Uncertainty relation between the gravitational radius and the Compton wavelength of the particle is a special case of the general Heisenberg's uncertainty principle at the Planck scale

Image

where Imagethe radius of curvature of space-time small domain; Image - coordinate small domain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length
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uwot
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by uwot »

Blaggard wrote:Field theory says that the wavelike nature of matter means essentially that all points in space are at non zero energy,
Doesn't that just mean that there is no point in space that does not exert some force? What does it mean in terms of any substance?
Blaggard wrote:general relativity says that if energy is non zero then a consequence is that gravity is non zero proportional to the energy gradient. There is no contradiction there.

The contradiction comes when you attempt to model a particle interation at the nano scale, then the theory becomes incompatible because the equations end up with infinities.
Why do infinities imply contradictions?
Blaggard wrote:For example lets take Newtons law of gravity if r is 0 ie the objects are in the same place what is the gravity?

Image

A famous scientist named Pauli solved the paradox seemingly by expressing an exclusion principle that applies to fermions electrons, pions kaons etc but not baryons, but that was not the end of the story...

The Pauli exclusion principle is the quantum mechanical principle that no two identical fermions (particles with half-integer spin) may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously.
Is location part of quantum state? What other than 'two 'matter' particles cannot be in the same place at the same time' does it mean?
Blaggard wrote:A more rigorous statement is that the total wave function for two identical fermions is anti-symmetric with respect to exchange of the particles. The principle was formulated by Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1925.

For example, in an isolated atom no two electrons can have the same four quantum numbers; if n, ℓ, and mℓ are the same, ms must be different such that the electrons have opposite spins, and so on.

Integer spin particles, bosons, are not subject to the Pauli exclusion principle: any number of identical bosons can occupy the same quantum state, as with, for instance, photons produced by a laser and Bose–Einstein condensate.
So matter can't occupy the same spot, waves can?
Blaggard wrote:Proof that photons existed came later with a Scientist named Compton who observed a scattering effect when particles collided that ended with an energy decrease or increase proportional to the angle of incidence.
So what are photons made of?
Blaggard
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by Blaggard »

Did you read any of the material I gave you at all?

The more we try to localise a particles position the less certain we are about its momentum, which part of that is hard to understand, now say we have an electron orbiting a nucleus, what part of no electron/fermion can occupy the same quantum state becomes hard to understand, given that quantum state means the probability of particle e- being found at place x.

Everything eventually will return to a mass sea of photons and black holes which will decay also emitting photons, which will then attenuate to a point called heat death, beyond that time itself begins to decay, and beyond that quantum forces are the only dominant forces that can interact, what happens after that is impossible to predict.

The photon is the unit of energy which in turn gives us a force which is used to do work, the photon is made of quarks 2 in fact and these are either in the up or down state either way though the particle is a photon and the photons anti particle is simply another photon regardless of its intrinsic quark configuration.
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uwot
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by uwot »

Blaggard wrote:That's science in action, I doubt arm waving is going to change reality, so I will rerfrain from it.
No it won't. Metaphysics makes no difference to what happens. Science has discovered what happens extremely accurately, but not to what. Philosophers want to know what that what is, that takes arm waving. Or you accept that we don't know, but so what? It doesn't matter.
We are talking different languages. I don't question the accuracy or efficacy of science, what I want to know is the ontology, the poetry if you will. Can science give any insight into what the universe is, rather than how it works?
Blaggard
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by Blaggard »

uwot wrote:
Blaggard wrote:That's science in action, I doubt arm waving is going to change reality, so I will rerfrain from it.
No it won't. Metaphysics makes no difference to what happens. Science has discovered what happens extremely accurately, but not to what. Philosophers want to know what that what is, that takes arm waving. Or you accept that we don't know, but so what? It doesn't matter.
We are talking different languages. I don't question the accuracy or efficacy of science, what I want to know is the ontology, the poetry if you will. Can science give any insight into what the universe is, rather than how it works?
No metaphysics wants to know why, science already knows what is happening to what at a statistically insignificant value or margin of error.

Can philosophy give any insight into what the universe is? Or should I say has it, well after so much time I have seen precious little explanation of what from anyone except of course the models in science.

Ontology and teleology are not scientific concerns, and there is no reason they should be. What you are in fact asking is the equivalent of asking a theologian to prove God exists empirically. Is that poetic enough for you. ;)

Image

And to answer your question yes waves can occupy the same space that's why the two slit experiment produces interference bands and is the basis of wave/particle duality.

See constructive and destructive interference and this might help too:

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralI ... eSlit.html

Image

Image

Image

Image

I think you need to actually watch some of those links or this could get rather circular.
The Two Slit Experiment for Light

In ancient Greece there was a controversy about the nature of light. Euclid, Ptolemy and others thought that "light" was some sort of ray that travels from the eye to the observed object. The atomists and Aristotle assumed the reverse. Nearly 800 years after Ptolemy, circa 965 CE, in Basra in what is now Iraq, Abu Ali al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) settled the controversy with a clever argument. He said that if you look at the Sun for a long time you will burn your eyes: this is only possible if the light is coming from the Sun to our eyes, not vice versa.
In 1672 another controversy erupted over the nature of light: Newton argued that light was some sort of a particle, so that light from the sun reaches the earth because these particles could travel through the vacuum. Hooke and Huygens argued that light was some sort of wave. In 1801 Thomas Young put the matter to experimental test by doing a double slit experiment for light. The result was an interference pattern. Thus, Newton was wrong: light is a wave. The figure shows an actual result from the double slit experiment for light.
Image
double slit expt for light

Of course, we haven't said anything about what is "waving" or in what medium it is waving. But, in terms of our operational definition it is clear that light is a wave of something.
uwot
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by uwot »

Blaggard wrote:...metaphysics wants to know why, science already knows what is happening to what at a statistically insignificant value or margin of error.
I know.
Blaggard wrote:Can philosophy give any insight into what the universe is?
That's not what it's about; (natural) philosophy takes the phenomenal world and makes up a context for it, a way to make sense of it. There is no reason why the world should make sense, but if you don't at least try to make the world understandable in a way that is consistent with the observations of science, people make up stuff that has nothing to do with anything. Sometimes that fact is exploited by people with bonkers or dangerous political agendas.
Blaggard wrote:Ontology and teleology are not scientific concerns, and there is no reason they should be.
I agree, especially about teleology, but this is a philosophy forum.
Blaggard wrote:What you are in fact asking is the equivalent of asking a theologian to prove God exists empirically. Is that poetic enough for you. ;)
Very pretty, but it isn't analogous. There is a phenomenal world that can be described, uselessly from the point of view of science, metaphysically: there is some stuff that all the things we see happening, is happening to. 'Therefore, someone is pulling the strings' doesn't follow.
Blaggard wrote:And to answer your question yes waves can occupy the same space that's why the two slit experiment produces interference bands and is the basis of wave/particle duality.
The question was: does the Pauli exclusion principle make any further claim?
Blaggard wrote:I think you need to actually watch some of those links or this could get rather circular.
I'm not really looking for evidence that physicists are better at physics than philosophers; I already know that.
Of course, we haven't said anything about what is "waving" or in what medium it is waving. But, in terms of our operational definition it is clear that light is a wave of something.
My point exactly.
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HexHammer
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Re: If infinite parallel universes exist ...

Post by HexHammer »

Imo one has to be extraordinary naive to believe that infinitive parallel universes exists, specially if it's derived from the double slit experiment.

Where does all the mass go? All the mass wold collaps on itself, therefore it's nonsense.
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