Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Breaking News From the Department of the Really Weird
Here are two reports from the Department of the Really Weird.
Initially, a series of experiments showed that measurements an observer makes can influence events that have already happened in the past.
One experiment, reported by the Science Journal in 2007, confirmed that flipping a switch could retroactively change a result that had happened before the switch was flipped:
Even weirder still, the choice to allow the waves to recombine or not can be made even after the photon passes the fork where it should have split--or not.Equally weird, the Journal Nature reports:
A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.Note: Science and Nature are two of the most reputable mainstream science journals.
***
Through a phenomenon known as 'superposition' a particle can be moving and stationary at the same time — at least until an outside force acts on it. Then it instantly chooses one of the two contradictory positions.
But although the rules of quantum mechanics seem to apply at small scales, nobody has seen evidence of them on a large scale, where outside influences can more easily destroy fragile quantum states. "No one has shown to date that if you take a big object, with trillions of atoms in it, that quantum mechanics applies to its motion," Cleland says.
There is no obvious reason why the rules of quantum mechanics shouldn't apply to large objects.
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I felt like I read this before.
ReplyDeleteThe comfortable sense people commonly have that everything in their consciousness and provided by their perception of what is around them -weaves together such and such a way -a way that makes some clear and even adroit -sense- is generally a grotesque delusion -especially as seen by others from outside that circle of personal comfort.
ReplyDeleteAnd generally absolutely -nothing- about what we believe is true -could be further from the truth.
Truth -is as rare as hen's teeth. It's rarity is why we admire truth so much. -Twain
Society terms those people most deluded in this comfortable-fashion -"insane"- -because they do not go along with the majority's commonly held delusions-of-cognitive-grandeur.
Honestly, folks, the day we -check out- just like the day we -checked in- there's absolutely nothing left that has that clear, concise concrete feel about it.
And those two days are almost the only time during an entire lifetime -when anyone actually might have the required breadth-of-cognizance necessary to discern what it -IS- all about.
It's not about being the "coolest" guy (or gal) in class, that's for sure.
That guy typically turns out to be a thrice divorced wife-beater with a really bad drinking problem and a penchant for bicycles because of repeated OUI arrests, -if he's lucky.
Happy Trails to YOU!
I feel as though I have both read this, and NOT read this, before.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why, but what occurs to me is that the particles (especially photons) perhaps only spend part of their time in this dimension - and part in the 5th dimension where time is perhaps not linear like it is for us.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is what allows photons to act like waves and particles - they act one way in the 4th dimension, and another in the 5th.
-DaveP
PGH PA
How would you feel if I told you that 99% of Quantum Mechanics is mere mind games based on faulty pure Math? Same applies to anyone, including Hawking, who attempts to interpret Maxwell's equations via the now proven faulty Lorentz transformations.
ReplyDeleteWe have reached yet another crossroads in our quest for 'Truth' - Koestler's 'Sleepwalkers' ride again.
Meanwhile the 'new' (in reality old but squashed) physics quietly takes the stage. Think Birkeland, Tesla, Alfven, Thornhill and get real.
Plasma, rather than gravity, rules the Universe, okay?
kjklj
ReplyDeleteAll energy might possess the potential to exist in any possible state at any given moment, a state of infinite possibilities perhaps. Like a blank canvas before the artist makes his mark on it.
ReplyDeleteWhen the 'artist' makes his mark, or an observer or a force interacts with the energy, this potential could become narrowed and more specific allowing the energy to reflect certain possible states and not others.
I wish I could undo some things, in the past.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Star Trek is right, you can time travel and change the past??
No, because if you change the past then you'll create a present in which you don't change the past.
ReplyDelete