Werner Heisenberg has a few things to say about that.
Cheers!
Posted on 03/11/2009 8:20:34 PM PDT by grey_whiskers
ScienceDaily (Mar. 4, 2009) — In quantum mechanics, a vanguard of physics where science often merges into philosophy, much of our understanding is based on conjecture and probabilities, but a group of researchers in Japan has moved one of the fundamental paradoxes in quantum mechanics into the lab for experimentation and observed some of the 'spooky action at a distance' of quantum mechanics directly,
Hardy's Paradox, the axiom that we cannot make inferences about past events that haven't been directly observed while also acknowledging that the very act of observation affects the reality we seek to unearth, poses a conundrum that quantum physicists have sought to overcome for decades. How do you observe quantum mechanics, atomic and sub-atomic systems that are so small-scale they cannot be described in classical terms, when the act of looking at them changes them permanently?
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
They assure the particle it was an accident and it should go about doing whatever it was doing beforehand, they won't do it again, they swear.
ping
Stan and Ollie’s Paradox?
Werner Heisenberg has a few things to say about that.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Cheers!
So, if I read a liberal newspaper, I can change the ink at the subatomic level to transform the shape of the letters into words that I like better?
Who knew?
Unlike Hardy’s original argument, our demonstration reveals the paradox by observation, rather than inference.”
This seems to be a mistaken conclusion.
Hardy’s Paradox: “the axiom that we cannot make inferences about past events that haven’t been directly observed while also acknowledging that the very act of observation affects the reality we seek to unearth”
If the observation affects the reality, the paradox applies. If the observation does not affect the reality, the paradox does not apply. By older technology, the observation affected the reality. With newer technology, an observation can be made in a less obtrusive manner, so that it does not affect the reality. That means that the paradox does not apply. It’s wrong to say that the paradox has been observed. It just does not apply.
It is kind of like saying that the ancient Greeks were wrong about atoms being the smallest building blocks of matter. They said there were smallest building blocks, which they called “atoms.” Modern scientists concluded that we had found the smallest building blocks, and they called them “atoms.” Later, scientists concluded that there were “sub-atomic” particles. This doesn’t mean that the ancient Greeks (ancient geeks) were wrong. It means that some modern scientists were wrong when they concluded that they had identified the smallest particles. They only identified the smallest particles known at that time.
Then they acquired statistics of (and hence information of the quantum states) by averaging over many trials.
I liked your comment at the end, btw -- the modern scientists jumped the gun on deciding what entity really was an ἄτομος.
Cheers!
· Google ·
If Werner’s mistress had not forced him to get entangled with ... oh, never mind.
“’Spooky Action At A Distance’ Of Quantum Mechanics Directly Observed.”
Well, if it’s directly observed, how spooky is that?
Oh Jeez, my heart!!!
Yet there is still no way that they can be assured that there isn't some significant, yet undeterminable systematic influence affecting their observations.
It would be illogical to expect to observe anything without affecting it. Its just that in our everyday measurements the uncertainty gets buried in the everpresent noise.
??? Sorry, I'm not sure I'm quite following you.
It would be illogical to expect to observe anything without affecting it. Its just that in our everyday measurements the uncertainty gets buried in the everpresent noise.
It's more than that -- it's that the magnitude of the uncertainty is also much smaller (Planck's constant) than the quantity being measured. Even with much higher precision, the error introduced is insignificant in such cases.
There is likely to be a systematic bias in the way that they gathered their statistical data, of which they are unaware.
Cheers!
You provided a nice description of their technique. You are following the science.
I was merely following some of the philosophy and logic. I was a little surprised that their logical reasoning appeared wrong (on one point). I would have thought that logic would be easy and experimental science hard. Perhaps for some people it’s the other way around.
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