Posted on 11/18/2011 5:52:08 AM PST by ShadowAce
At the heart of the weirdness for which the field of quantum mechanics is famous is the wavefunction, a powerful but mysterious entity that is used to determine the probabilities that quantum particles will have certain properties. Now, a preprint posted online on 14 November1 reopens the question of what the wavefunction represents — with an answer that could rock quantum theory to its core. Whereas many physicists have generally interpreted the wavefunction as a statistical tool that reflects our ignorance of the particles being measured, the authors of the latest paper argue that, instead, it is physically real.
“I don't like to sound hyperbolic, but I think the word 'seismic' is likely to apply to this paper,” says Antony Valentini, a theoretical physicist specializing in quantum foundations at Clemson University in South Carolina.
Valentini believes that this result may be the most important general theorem relating to the foundations of quantum mechanics since Bell’s theorem, the 1964 result in which Northern Irish physicist John Stewart Bell proved that if quantum mechanics describes real entities, it has to include mysterious “action at a distance”.
Action at a distance occurs when pairs of quantum particles interact in such a way that they become entangled. But the new paper, by a trio of physicists led by Matthew Pusey at Imperial College London, presents a theorem showing that if a quantum wavefunction were purely a statistical tool, then even quantum states that are unconnected across space and time would be able to communicate with each other. As that seems very unlikely to be true, the researchers conclude that the wavefunction must be physically real after all.
David Wallace, a philosopher of physics at the University of Oxford, UK, says that the theorem is the most important result in the foundations of quantum...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Physics geeks will feel special for six months.
Does anyone know where I put my Advil?
Okay,
I’m no theorhetical physicist, nor knowledgable about quantum physics... but I am confused.
We know that entangled particles are indeed influenced by one another over vast distances, seemingly instantaneously.
They are arguing if that if the wavefunction was purely a statitical tool, even non entangled particles sould be able to communicate with each other over such distances, seemingly instantaenously as well, but no proof of this seems to exist, so therefore the wavefunction must be real and not mearly a statistical probability that a particle has certain properties.
Ok, I follow that.
So what they are saying is that because of this, that the wave function isn’t showing you a probability of state, but the actual physical absolute of state? Am I correct here?
If so, this seems a pretty big paradigm shift. Am I misinterpreting this article?
At last! I was always troubled by this formulation. Probability waves? BS.
We know the human body has an "electrical field" and a "conscience" (which has yet to be explained) . We're more like carbon based computers than random parts glued together with mucus. Even what we know to be "true" is energy. That energy alone can be manipulated by thoughts and emotions, and we also know energy never dies. It just changes form.
So for the sake of argument, we can still use "electrical pulses" instead of "energy field" if you'd prefer, but the same questions still stand.
Thanks Guys, by merely reading this thread you have changed it’s meaning. I was planning on reading it but now you’ve screwed it all up ...
What???? Our entire system runs on electrical impulses. Everything we do is controlled and enabled by electrical signals running through our bodies. Electricity is energy. How can you not know that? It's Jr. High school stuff.
Yes, the stock market will drop at least a hundred points unless other factors make it rise a hundred points in which case it may either stay the same or change. This is virtually certain to occur at some point in time.
Wave function, no doubt.
It says there is something real controlling real things ......at least at quantum levels....and not just mathematical and statistical abstractions mixed with quantum weirdness.
Could be related to dark matter/energy or the Boggs Particle AKA The God Particle.
Yes, the stock market will drop at least a hundred points unless other factors make it rise a hundred points in which case it may either stay the same or change. This is virtually certain to occur at some point in time.
Wave function, no doubt.
Go back to post #10 - my questions. Replace "energy field" with "electrical system" or what ever you choose to call it.
The question can still be asked using your jargon instead of mine.
Thanks.......you’re obviously a deep thinker!
hmmmmm....I'm also baffled.
"Science is and must be exciting, since it relies on largely unspecifiable clues which can be sensed, mobilized and integrated only by a passionate response to their hidden meaning.... This is the unaccountable element which enters into science at its source and vitally participates throughout, even in its final result. In science this element has been called intuition." --Michael Polanyi, Scientist and Philosopher
"Polanyi ... most adequately expressed this idea of "lower intuition," so to speak, being critical to the evolution of scientific understanding and therefore progress into the great unKnown. It's not so much that the "intuition" is lower, only that science applies (and arbitrarily limits it) to a lower order of reality, i.e., the material/horizontal world.
"But to point out that the material world cannot be understood in the absence of intuition is to simultaneously affirm the obvious fact that the world is not material. "
".... reality itself is nothing but an intuition.
"...a material object only really exists for a subject, existence being synonymous with "definition," or "boundaries." In other words, something cannot exist unless it is in some way separate and distinct from everything else. But only a subject can define, bound, and delineate. Again, until there is a subject, there is only a vast sea of quantum energy.
For example, try to imagine what the cosmos "looked like" prior to a living being seeing it. Obviously, it didn't look like anything. It's a purely meaningless exercise, because sight is a property of eyes and brains. Not only that, but everything depends upon perspective, and there were no perspectives prior to the emergence of life. There was only "everything at once" from "all possible perspectives," which is indistinct from nothing at all from no perspective (again since existence requires definition and boundaries). ..."
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