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Web edition: November 5, 2010
Print edition: November 20, 2010; Vol.178 #11 (p. 2)
 Read features from the special edition In the tapestry of 20th century physics, virtually every major thread is entangled with the name of Albert Einstein. He was most famous for the theory of relativity, of course, which rewrote Newton’s laws and set modern theoretical cosmology in motion. But Einstein also played a major role in the origins of quantum theory and in perceiving its weird implications — including entanglement, a mystery named by Erwin Schrödinger in a paper based on an experiment imagined by Einstein. Entanglement is now one of the hottest research fields in physics. It is pursued not only for insights into the nature of reality, but also for developing new technologies, as Laura Sanders notes in a special section marking the 75th anniversary of Einstein’s entanglement paper (and another quantum legend, Schrödinger’s half-dead, half-alive cat). Despite his contributions to quantum theory, Einstein didn’t like it. He believed that its weirdness indicated an incomplete theory that accounted for observed phenomena but was silent on invisible elements of reality that produced the weirdness. As I describe in this issue, Einstein clashed with Niels Bohr, who found it meaningless to ascribe reality to anything unobservable. Bohr outdebated Einstein, but adherents to Einstein’s views remain vocal today. Today’s debate sometimes gets acrimonious. It was not that way with Einstein and Bohr – their disagreement did not erode their deep mutual respect. Their conflicting ideas simply reflected differences in their worldviews, shaped by their personalities and scientific backgrounds. Einstein valued simplicity and clarity; Bohr embraced ambiguity. Einstein was a loner, working for the most part in isolation; Bohr surrounded himself with the brightest physicists of the day at his Copenhagen institute. Einstein’s initial scientific success came from finding unities in phenomena – matter’s identity with energy, for instance. Bohr explained the atom by emphasizing the incompatibility of classical and quantum physics. For Bohr, quantum mysteries such as the dual wave-and-particle nature of light reflected the richness of a complicated universe. Einstein wanted a simpler, unified theory from which complexity would emerge logically, sans weirdness. Physicists have pursued Einstein’s goal within a quantum framework, without much success. It’s unclear whether future progress will come from avoiding quantum weirdness, or by making it even weirder. |
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After decades of debate, disputes over the mathematical rules governing reality remain unresolved. |
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Physicists take quantum weirdness out of the lab |
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Albert Einstein coined the phrase “spooky action at a distance” to describe the counterintuitive phenomenon in which particles appear to instantaneously influence each other even when they are kilometers apart. |
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Quantum weirdness/Quantum weirdness in action Some key concepts in quantum mechanics lead to rather startling results. |
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75 years of entanglement
Though it has been confirmed numerous times since 1935, entanglement is as spooky as ever. |
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Past Science News quantum coverage View Science News quantum coverage from 1928 to present in PDF format. |
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Consider: the solar system is virtually closed; particles only rarely leave, only rarely enter at Sol's heliosheath. All others pick up a charge from this magnetic field that itself is energized from clouds of plasma in space, and return to Sol with a higher charge than when they left. Hence the periodic ion storms which ravage the Earth and its life. The KISS principle in action.
It is the limits of the inference, the error in the distribution, the standard error that restricts the characterization of each of each individual element under measure.
What is needed is a matemática that explicates each event so as to leave no uncertainty in the characterization of each element under investigation. A matemática that cannot only explicate the probabilistic decay of a group of atoms, but can identify which atom will decay.
Einstein seems to have found the lack of complete determinism both unsatisfying and not very credible. If one assumes that a "complete theory" must describe a process of past events marching forward in time, thereby creating completely deterministic microscopic descriptions of future events, one would have to agree that quantum theory really is "incomplete." No, we cannot produce equations that predict the exact configuration of everything to arbitrary precision. Sorry. But if, philosophically, you want complete determinism, as far as I can see, the Minkowski view is still viable, except that all the details of new configurations cannot be determined completely from the earlier ones. But such a modified (not really weakened) Minkowski determinism can gracefully remove the tormenting puzzles of entanglement.
1. multiple intersecting realities
2. things which are linked through event relationships, that maintain their relationship(s) though they may inhabit different space and time.
3. all things in reality are the result of interactions....kind of obvious isn't it? however what I really mean is that _things_ exist as balanced disturbances....you know like "first there was the void."
What it means ultimately is that this reality affects and is affected by other realities, directly.
Rudy Rucker "Wet Works", Orson Scott Card's reference to the ansible Jane....Katsina dieties, Tibetan Dieties...entities in other related/connected realities....ecologically speaking....fractal sharing
proofs in the pudding....accurate perception required....can't see squat if the pool of your consciousness is ruffled by projections....chitta.
There are no gravitons.....there _is_ close packing of space that creates a distortion.....the symptom of which is things hurrying "downhill" unless they are interrupted by their physical manifestation meeting the outer physical manifestation of the earth/ocean.
Orders of reality. Close packing, chemical equilibrium, electron states, gravity....same thing(s).
chiaow....I know how to spell....cognitive dissonance is the art of knowing more than one thing at a time simultaneously.....the open door through which new information enters the cage of
trained consciousness.....preconceived notions....expectations....
see with the eyes of a child...fresh.
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you/nothing can remain unaffected by the touch of ALL....discreteness is an illusion....there are only degrees of discreteness....
the whole of reality is a distributed system(s)
separated by perception.....the map is not the object
david bohm
entangled? existence is the result of muted energy...made material...orbiting
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Dec. 5, 2010 at 5:56pm
said:
....No, we cannot produce equations that predict the exact configuration of everything to arbitrary precision. Sorry. But if, philosophically, you want complete determinism, as far as I can see, the Minkowski view is still viable, except that all the details of new configurations cannot be determined completely from the earlier ones. But such a modified (not really weakened) Minkowski determinism can gracefully remove the tormenting puzzles of entanglement.
My reply:
Time doesn't flow in one direction. Now is still being accessed by the past, and one can move from Now to the future or the past. Time is a dimension of qualification regarding the traversal of "reality" it is a quality, not just a dimension....and it is a flexible dimension. One can tunnel through time, one can be here and emerge there.....NOW contains particles of then and in-a-little-while, all mixed up together. To the scientist unable to discern the encapsulation, grouping of matter held together by past purpose, or future purpose growing there is no direction.
As-a reliable event emerges it has a probability of occurring emerging too...the event condenses into the probability/alignment preceding it. The Kirilian aura of a leaf precedes the growth of the leaf into that space.....this isn't New Age Bokonism, this is a description of a class of behavior that identifies future-happening NOW as a physical discernible thing.
Since time to science has only one flavor, now, the uniqueness degrees of past and future are ignored. Where is an electron orbiting around an atom? Don't know? If you could stand on the surface of the atomic neurons I am sure that you would see weather that would tell you where the electrons were and are going to be....doncha know.
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I have been thinking about lots of things involving our universe,
matter vs anti-matter
upon reading that the higgs could possibly be light, i thought of the concept of a dark photon, the same as light but dark. could this be possible? might it be anti-gravity causing the expansion of our universe. matter is attracted to itself because of gravity creating dips or even holes in space-time. could the opposite be said for anti-matter and particles. creating bumps or bubbles.
quantum electron movement
if an electron appears to be in two places at once, could this be what happens when a positron spontaneously decays creating an electron? going by the conservation of matter, the electron is able to switch its charge, instantaneously transferring it to the anti-matter universe. with this being said, could the switching create a measurable difference that is dark matter? having a negative, duplicate of our universe on top or in between our space-time that helps to hold everything together.
If the sun were to vanish, it would take 8 minutes for us to see any effect from light or gravity, this being said if the graviton is moving at the speed of light, and our most powerful particle accelerator gets to 99.99% there isn't any way we will be able to break the bond of the graviton unless we can reach the full speed.
Also it has been reported that the proton is lighter than previously thought, if that is the case then why not start at the absolute smallest mass, 0, then increase by .001 each consecutive test, it will probably be easier test all the numbers instead of looking within a specific mass range.
i apologize if it seems unorganized, i have a hard time putting my thoughts into words, but any insight or comments would be appreciated.
Your assumption that "what has happened is inviolate" doesn't hold water.....in many ways...timewalking is existent in many cultures, dreaming is an access path...other than that quantum tunneling from past to future and the reverse has to be true simultaneously....there is a path of interactions to follow that produces the "now" following this path backwards produces "the past" simply following it changes it
sensorial experience is simply the effect of some thing on something else and having a system of decoding that is based upon practice and part of that practice is the result of predecessors passing on their mechanisms for doing that.
science is examination of engineering...and predicting.
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Kendrick Miller, Wadesboro, NC
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