Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

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Aetixintro
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Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Aetixintro »

and comments over them.

From my website, http://www.t-lea.net/Evolution.html, written by myself:
Schrodinger's cat. The probability expresses the statistical chance for the cat. There's nothing more to say about it. There's something wrong with Schrodinger's theory if this is a necessary implication.
Schrodinger's cat can also be set up with a rat, by requirement of the ladies, slightly sedated and laid under the guillotine. So when this condition of the atom triggers, the guillotine blade falls and decapitates the rat, rendering it certainly and clearly dead, with its head chopped off and thus leaving the rat in 2 pieces.

Assertion: Photons are the smallest constituents of all matter. I assume the other particles of the Standard Model are made up of photons. Why is this? The sun burns mass and to my knowledge it only/mostly by far emits electromagnetic radiation, mostly in the form of photons. When a nuclear bomb explodes, it converts matter into electromagnetic radiation, energy of various forms. Compared to this, I think one can throw the string theory out the window along with dimensions beyond the usual 4 (I'm not certain about this concerning Einstein's theories that I'd like to keep as it is). Also, let's assume higher intensity radiation emits more dense amounts of photons and that it declines further down the electromagnetic spectrum.
[Edit, 03.04.2010, also added to the website this day:] New on photons: I think I can also hold that photons are "semi-fluid" on a hyper-level (of course). I don't know what this adds to our view of reality, but it's a possible way of reconciling the wave-particle duality. [End of edit.]

Assertion: The space and possibly everywhere is held in a background uniform space that extends to the edges of the Universe, its gravitational system I'd like to call the Neo-aether that is consistent with Michelson-Morley experiment and functions in a more sublime way that we are yet to discover the full extension of. Einstein's theory effectively describes some of the nature of the Neo-aether.

Concerning the Large Hadron Collider, LHC, it's my belief there will be absolutely no possibility of baby-black holes! If the smallest building blocks really are the photons then in LHC we'll see greater emission of photons from the collisions.

I guess it's a common view to consider the Big Bang "a generative mechanism for the pattern of natural laws of the Universe". I still find the mind and the phenomena elusive, though, like if it's relevant here! It may be necessary to look to the moments after Big Bang to solve the riddle of the reason for matter to exist in particles, atoms, as they do, ie. solving the question of the Higgs boson particle. It's also worth mentioning that unless there's formation of new matter from the absorption of photons, something I think there isn't, the matter in atoms is lost forever once it's dissolved. This is seldomly pointed out by physicists. Also, the absorption of photons into existing atomic structures brings increased excitation and perhaps weight and this fact, I think, adds to the Photon theory, ie. photons are the smallest building blocks in nature, universe.

I also like to mention that particle physics is far more complex than being just the Standard Model. Sir Roger Penrose writes in his book, The Road to Reality - A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, p. 628, about the pions, kaons, lambda, sigma, omega-minus, anti-protons, anti-neutrons, "vast hordes of particles whose existence is so fleeting that they are never directly observed, tending to be referred to merely as 'resonances'", 'virtual' particles and 'ghosts'. There are also mentioned numerous other "theoretical" particles by other theories.

It's just a quirk of mine, but I'd like to have the Charm and Strange quarks renamed as this, Charm gets the name Control and Strange gets the name Random. Does this make sense? Is it possible to prove the characteristics of control and randomness in the two quarks?

Question: how are radio signals from space or through space explained? This is a terrible riddle to me. Radio waves, conventionally, are fluctuations through atoms like air, water and other substances. Do you have a good explanation of it? I have an update on this and it turns out radio waves are just another part of the electromagnetic spectrum with an even weaker intensity than infra-red. Thus, just another form of emission of photons. Done! [End.] I've been working on this since 21.10.2009 with last addition made 21.11.2009. First, I've been very irritated by Schrodinger's Cat and second also with string theory. Future will tell!
I'm pleased to say, along with many others, I've been confirmed of no baby black holes at 7 TeV. I'm also expecting to be confirmed on photon emission. This is, of course, concerning the LHC experiments at CERN.

You know, when evaluating the combination of Strong/Weak Nuclear Interaction Forces as gravity, please, bear in mind that this is a possible inclusive "or" relationship! I've not made the calculations yet on how this may look like!

Your views? Any puzzles, mysteries you're wondering about? :)

[Edit, 23.02.2011:] The rat and the guillotine are added to the Schrodinger-experiment! [End of edit.]

[Edit2, 23.03.2011:] It seems a lot more need to be added to this posting. Here comes:
Gravity explained: In a unified picture of physics where the strong and weak magnetic forces are combined, one may achieve a calculated picture that equals what we perceive as gravity, but without adding any new particles and only asserting properties to mass in general, that is, "monades", the most basic constituents have a gravity/magnetic property to them and that is all. Job's done! This is all there is to describe because we have simply reached the bottom level there is to describe whatsoever!

Some more words on my "Opinions on Physics": My angle to solving or providing a better explanation of gravity can be considered Cascading Effects of Weak and Strong or either of them as purely magnetic force (thus constituting gravity) and holding off Electromagnetic force to itself (by the property of electrons and possibly others). [End of edit.]

[Edit, 07.05.2011:] I've added some more words on Strong/Weak... I'll see if I can get the wording better in a while. You should know this, however, that it only relates to the explanation of gravity. By themselves, they are good as they are! [End of edit.]
Last edited by Aetixintro on Sat May 07, 2011 10:39 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Mike Strand
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Mike Strand »

Yes, Aetixintro, I have questions, like the following about quantum theory, similar to your observation:
Aetixintro wrote:From my website, http://www.t-lea.net/Evolution.html, written by myself:
Schrodinger's cat. The probability expresses the statistical chance for the cat. There's nothing more to say about it. There's something wrong with Schrodinger's theory if this is a necessary implication.
In an earlier post in the topic "Unknown electron", I wrote:
Mike wrote:This reminds me of an analogy between shuffling cards or shaking dice and the wave function of a tiny particle, such as the electron. Let's look at shaking a single die, then throwing it down on the table. The outcome will be one of the following: 1 spot showing, 2 spots showing, ... 6 spots showing, with a probability associated with each outcome. While I am shaking the die, any of the possible outcomes or "states" is present in the "cloud" of the die-shaking. But when I throw it down (i.e., stop the die from rolling and tumbling and take an observation), this "cloud collapses", like the wave function of an observed particle, and I see it in one of the possible states or outcomes.

I've heard the electron described as a "tiny wave packet" by science writers trying to explain quantum theory to the general public, like me. This puts the image in my mind of a ripple on the surface of a pond, or a display on an oscilloscope. Is it any more or less valid to view the electron's wave function as a "wave packet", than to view the die-outcome probability distribution as a little packet of probability spikes? True, the phenomenon of a die rolling around in my fist or in a canister is a physical, observable event, but the set of probabilities regarding the outcome of throwing the die down and observing the result is a mathematical concept only, not really a physical entity.

I would like to see people comment on this analogy -- its strengths and limitations in regard to understanding quantum theory.
I'm still interested in hearing from a quantum theorist about this. In particular, do the various possible states actually "exist" (is there both a live cat and a dead cat in the unopened box, or two universes, one containing the live cat-in-the-box and the other universe containing the dead-cat-in-a box), or does "exist" here merely mean "exist as a concept of probability theory (a probability distribution)?

Thanks, Aetixintro, for bringing up the puzzles, mysteries, etc .... again!
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Aetixintro »

I'd also like to point out that the "mystery" of Schrodinger's cat comes down to the Copenhagen Interpretation, that I follow strictly on the observation point only, of having to be observed for something to exist. Schrodinger's cat goes clearly against this, even as an indirect observation. I therefore think that the whole of this line of thinking (Schrodinger's cat etc.) is flawed. It's almost embarrassing how mistaken it seems in regard to the huge interest.

[Edit, 03.04.2010:]", that I follow strictly on the observation point only," [End of edit.]

Well, we work on... :)
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Aetixintro »

Aetixintro wrote:
i blame blame wrote:The earth's gravity does not have north and south poles. The earth's magnetic field has them.
This is understood! And it is also my point that gravity of the Earth by its magnetic field can be redefined as either a combination of strong and weak interactions/forces or either of them. To say Earth's gravity or Earth's gravity field or the magnetic gravity field of the Earth is only a matter of convention. How nice to make the magnetism of the Earth stand out, i_blame_blame, other than that, you're not doing anything else than reiterating my point, that Graviton is virtually dead and that a possible solution can be found in the redefinition.

[Edit:] You can consider Earth's gravity vs. the Sun's gravity that has no clearly defined north and south pole, I think. The Sun's magnetic field of gravity is quite hazy! [End of edit.]

[Edit2:] Added the missing "interactions/forces". [End of edit.]

[Edit3:] The point for me is to bridge gravity of the Sun to the gravity of the Earth to magnetism in general, even the little magnets on the fridge. In doing so, I envision how easy it should be to come up with a number for the magnetic force that is required for bending the light, that this is really only a matter of public education. You know, even NASA spells it out that bending the light by electro-magnets is impossible because photons have no charge. This must obviously be WRONG!!! [End of edit.]
[Edit4:] I have indeed added the whole thing of Higg's boson, Graviton and "bending light by electro-magnets" to my website(s), Opinions on Physics on the Evolution webpage as pointed out by the OP. The link will not be repeated. [End of edit.]

This post has originally also been added to 2 other topics.

I must "warn" readers that I have been reading Lee Smolin's "The Trouble With Physics" (by Penguin Group, 2006) and Roger Penrose's "The Road to Reality" (by Vintage Books, 2004). I have also studied physics all the way through upper high school, 3 years, for the Norwegian equivalent of GCSE Science and I've looked carefully into Bayesian problems in philosophy (relating to the Raven's Paradox by Carl Hempel).

Cheers! :)
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Rortabend »

There's something wrong with Schrodinger's theory if this is a necessary implication.
This isn't an implication of Schrodinger's theory. It is a thought experiment that is intended to show the absurd consequences of the Copenhagen interpretation at the macro-level.
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Aetixintro »

You about that... Apart from that, it should be noted that Schrödinger's Cat is much cited in relation to Schrödinger's theory/theories, but I hereby encourage people to investigate this themselves. Schrödinger's Cat is also not necessarily hypothetical, it may be that they have done it, one version or the other, where theory and experiment come together in description. :)
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by converge »

As spike says, Schroedinger's Cat is not supposed to be taken as true; it was an example that was supposed to show that it doesn't make sense at a macro level. As far as I know there aren't any quantum theories that take Schroedinger's Cat as something that actually happens. Copenhagen says that the cat, or any object of large scale, acts as an "observer", and causes waveform collapse. The greatly simplified assertion of the Copenhagen theory is basically "Anything that would require the particle to have a specific state makes it have a state" or "Any time there's a cat problem, it resolves itself to a state." The Multiple Universes theory would state that the universe branches into two when the particle kills/doesn't kill the cat, but those universes exist at the time of particle decay; you're either in one universe or in the other; it doesn't wait for you to open the box.
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Aetixintro »

:roll:
The Copenhagen Interpretation is indeed a set of (definite) requirements to the world of physics. I think you need to get sharper, you, mister or miss! :)

[Edit, unsp.:] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation... :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Rortabend »

The Copenhagen Interpretation is indeed a set of (definite) requirements to the world of physics. I think you need to get sharper, you, mister or miss!
This is meaningless.
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Mike Strand »

Back to rolling dice -- I speculated that the "waveform" corresponds to the conceptual probability distribution of outcomes as the dice are being shaken. The collapsed waveform corresponds to the actual outcome when they are tossed onto the gaming table.

I want to try to extend this analogy in an attempt to understand or explain Einstein's idea that "God doesn't play dice."

In theory, if we could specify all of the factors that affect the outcome of shaking dice in a cup and tossing them on the table -- the precise initial conditions, the way the cup is being shaken, the interactions of the dice in the cup, the forces involved in throwing them down, the angles and energies with which they hit the table, and so on -- we could predict, using maybe just the classical Newtonian laws of physics, the outcome of the toss. In theory. But in practice, this is impossible, even if we are shaking and rolling even a single die or subjecting the experiment to other controls. There is no way, except in thought experiments, that we could know all of the conditions and do the calculations.

But the fact of our not knowing all of the factors involved -- either quantitatively or otherwise (forgetting about or not knowing of factors that affect the outcome) -- does not mean that the outcome is not deterministic. In a manner of speaking, "God" knows what the outcome will be, while we humans have to use the theory of probability in an attempt to at least specify the set of possible outcomes and their chances of occurring.

The set of possible outcomes and their chances can be pictured as some kind of wave-like structure that has no physical reality (except as ink or chalk on paper or blackboard). Only the outcome itself has reality. Add to that fuzzy vision (measurement error in physical experiments), and even the actual outcome is in doubt! (Could this relate to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle?)

Some quantum theorists claim that there are no hidden factors (does this have something to do with Bell's inequalities? -- someone check me on this please) to account for. But Einstein and others, I think, would say this is a dangerous assumption -- scientific hubris. How many times have human beings with our theories thought we had accounted for everything (Newtonian physics, for example), only to find that yes, there are other factors and data (light bending as it passes the sun, for example) which force us to change our theories.

It may turn out that we'll never be capable of knowing and measuring all of the factors which affect the sub-atomic world, let alone a die as it's being shaken. Thus we'll always depend on probability theory to give us a distribution of outcomes and to describe measurement error. This is a task that is challenging in and of itself! But I don't believe this disproves the claim that the outcomes are deterministic. Neither is our need to deal with phenomena using probability theory a basis for inventing alternate universes in which the other possible outcomes of an experiment actually occur.
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Mike Strand »

In addition to the above two sources of uncertainty - uncertainty in the outcome and uncertainty in the observation of the outcome - we have a third uncertainty: The uncertainty in our probability model and calculations. Do we know the set of all possible outcomes and their chances of occurring? For example, if one of the dice is loaded, unknown to us, both our probability calculations and any deterministic outcome we could (in our imaginations) calculate would fail, being based on the faulty assumption of fair dice. (In reality, the faces of a physical die do not all have the same chance of showing face up. But assuming so is usually adequate, at least for gaming purposes).

Translated to quantum physics, do we really have a handle on the wave forms?
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Mike Strand »

........I was hoping someone would comment on the use of rolling dice as an analogy to subatomic phenomena, that I've presented above -- its good and bad points, maybe clarification from someone better versed in physics and math than I .......... any practicing quantum physicists out there? Know of any that might look at this analogy and be willing to comment?
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Aetixintro »

The handle on the wave forms is indeed the probabilistic theories, both statistical and prediction (by the assumed predictions that are based on numbers by assumptions). No?
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Mike Strand »

That's my take on it, Aetixintro! And thanks for picking up the thread, to which it appears I've attached a dead weight.

Schroedinger's wave equations, I think, are the handle we have on the probabilistic behavior of pesky little entities, like the electron. Not that these entities are actual waves. Maybe little vibrating "strings", I don't know. But that the equations are intended to show the possible states of the entity and the probabilities associated with those states.

How good are these probability models? I leave that to someone else -- I was only speculating that they may themselves be somewhat uncertain, like the probability models we build for larger phenomena -- waiting time in queues, for example. There are always hidden factors, it seems, which both lead to the necessity to use probability models, but which also may confound the simplifying assumptions that go with those models.

In the case of subatomic activity, we also have the issue of measurement error, which limits our ability to determine the state of the tiny entity upon "collapse" of the wave function. Measurement error is also treated using probability theory! And probably I should quit here.
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Re: Opinions on Physics - Puzzles, mysteries, that sort...

Post by Mike Strand »

I re-read my posts about my proposed analogy between throwing dice and the behavior of sub-atomic entities, and two things strike me: First, my comments maybe sound too authoritative. The other thing is, why hasn't anyone pointed out a flaw in the analogy? After all, I think most analogies do have flaws.

For example, in what way does shaking and throwing dice correspond to or explain the weird results of the famous double-slit experiment?

Take the case of where the photons or electrons are being projected one at a time onto the plate with two open slits. I'll ignore for the present how the experimenters know they are projecting them one at a time. Why is it that, when the experimenters, on the one hand, do not observe through which slit each successive electron passes, we get an interference pattern which suggests waves impinging on the slits -- and yet, on the other hand, when they do observe through which slit each successive electron passes, we get a two-band pattern, which is the pattern we get by first projecting the electrons with one slit covered, then projecting them with the other slit covered? This latter pattern is similar to the two-band pattern of hits when firing bullets at a plate with two open slits.

How can throwing dice on the table and seeing the outcome be likened to observing the electron's passage through a particular slit?

The experiment shows that the pattern differs depending on whether or not we observed each electron's path before it made a contribution to the pattern! It's as if watching them makes them "behave" as particles, or tiny bullets; otherwise they behave like wild and crazy wavelets. Could we find a way to "sneak" a look without "influencing" them?

To be flippant, consider the patterns themselves. If we didn't observe the resulting patterns, what would they be? If we could find a non-influencing ("sneaky") way of looking at them, would they still differ in the same way?

It's difficult to see how even measurement error -- lack of precision or accuracy in observing which slit each electron passed through -- could explain the two different patterns that occur.

What I'm saying is that my analogy isn't so good. I invite others to come up with other ways of looking at it.
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