Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Quantum Trickery: Testing Einstein's Strangest Theory
The New York Times ^ | December 27, 2005 | Dennis Overbye

Posted on 12/28/2005 1:42:38 PM PST by snarks_when_bored

The New York Times



December 27, 2005

Quantum Trickery: Testing Einstein's Strangest Theory

By DENNIS OVERBYE

Einstein said there would be days like this.

This fall scientists announced that they had put a half dozen beryllium atoms into a "cat state."

No, they were not sprawled along a sunny windowsill. To a physicist, a "cat state" is the condition of being two diametrically opposed conditions at once, like black and white, up and down, or dead and alive.

These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. Moreover, like miniature Rockettes they were all doing whatever it was they were doing together, in perfect synchrony. Should one of them realize, like the cartoon character who runs off a cliff and doesn't fall until he looks down, that it is in a metaphysically untenable situation and decide to spin only one way, the rest would instantly fall in line, whether they were across a test tube or across the galaxy.

The idea that measuring the properties of one particle could instantaneously change the properties of another one (or a whole bunch) far away is strange to say the least - almost as strange as the notion of particles spinning in two directions at once. The team that pulled off the beryllium feat, led by Dietrich Leibfried at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in Boulder, Colo., hailed it as another step toward computers that would use quantum magic to perform calculations.

But ...

[snip]

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: bohr; einstein; entanglement; eprparadox; heisenberg; physics; quantuminformation; quantummechanics; quantumphysics; schroedinger; science
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120121-123 next last
To: PatrickHenry

Thanks for the ping!


81 posted on 12/28/2005 9:27:46 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Servant of the 9
Who is this "we" to whom you refer?

The overwhelming majority of humanity.
82 posted on 12/29/2005 3:08:24 AM PST by R. Scott (Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]

To: snarks_when_bored
the properties of one particle could instantaneously change the properties of another one

No information transfer channel appears to be involved.

The information channel doesn't exist as a wire or cable or energy transfer across the ether. It appears as though the particular (pun) atom of Be is supposed to spin in a particular way, along with ALL its brethren in this universe. If ANY atom of Be is forced to be different from the others, in any way, the others follow (instantaneously) suit to keep the family together, like they were all permanently connected. One atom in a device in a lab (or communications center) is changed or modulated in such a way as to convey a message. Digital 1's and 0's can be represented as, say, CW and CCW spin. Another atom of the same element, in another place, next door, down the street, across the continent, on the moon or another star system, is monitored for it's direction of spin and decifered. The message is sent and received. Instantaneous communications faster than the speed of light. It doesn't break the rules of Einstein's universe, because there is no travel involved, and hence no time. It's outside the realm of normal light physics, so the rules are different. This is thinking outside the box of Einstein's rules. He was correct, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. And I do mean nothing.............

83 posted on 12/29/2005 5:31:58 AM PST by Red Badger (And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: The_Reader_David

See my post #83......


84 posted on 12/29/2005 5:35:10 AM PST by Red Badger (And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 77 | View Replies]

To: ThinkDifferent
See post #83...........

I'm My Own Grandpa

Lyrics: Dwight Latham, Moe Jaffe

Music: Dwight Latham, Moe Jaffe

Played by Jerry Garcia with David Grisman

Oh, many, many years ago

When I was twenty-three

I was married to a widow

Who was pretty as can be

This widow had a grown-up daughter

Who had hair of red

My father fell in love with her

And soon the two were wed

This made my dad my son-in-law

And changed my very life

For my daughter was my mother

'Cause she was my father's wife

To complicate the matter

Though it really brought me joy

I soon became the father

Of a bouncing baby boy

This little baby then became

A brother-in-law to Dad

And so became my uncle

Though it made me very sad

For if he was my uncle

Then that also made him brother

Of the widow's grown-up daughter

WHo of course is my step-mother

Chorus

I'm my own grandpa

I'm my own grandpa

It sounds funny I know

But it really is so

Oh, I'm my own grandpa

My father's wife then had a son

Who kept them on the run

And he became my grandchild

For he was my daughter's son

My wife is now my mother's mother

And it makes me blue

Because although she is my wife

She's my grandmother too

Now if my wife is my grandmother

Then I'm her grandchild

And every time I think of it

It nearly drives me wild

For now I have become

The strangest case you ever saw

As husband of my grandma

I am my own grandpa

[chorus]

.................

85 posted on 12/29/2005 5:41:01 AM PST by Red Badger (And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: Straight Vermonter

LOVED Weaver's line:

Computer: No alternaive sphere available

Weaver: We don't have another one

Crewman: Do you have any idea how annoying that is?

Weaver: Look, I have ONE g*ddamn job on this ship, it's a stupid job, but I'm going to do it, okay?


86 posted on 12/29/2005 5:53:23 AM PST by ko_kyi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 80 | View Replies]

To: R. Scott
Who is this "we" to whom you refer?
The overwhelming majority of humanity.

Ohh, them.
They are the observed.
I'm the observer.

So9

87 posted on 12/29/2005 5:57:47 AM PST by Servant of the 9 (Trust Me)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 82 | View Replies]

To: Servant of the 9
Ohh, them.
They are the observed.
I'm the observer.

Uh…no - to me, you are the observed and I am the observer.
88 posted on 12/29/2005 6:36:45 AM PST by R. Scott (Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger
Here's a link to the home page of a physics/computer science course that was taught this fall:  Qubits, Quantum Mechanics and Computers

And here's a quote from Lecture 5 (9/13/2005) of that course, a lecture entitled "Entanglement can facilitate information processing" (a PDF file):

Nature is consistent with quantum mechanics and not with local realism, confirming that for the wavefunction

ψ = α |0 + β |1
nothing can be known about the coefficients α, β until a measurement is made.

Entangled pairs of qubits such as

|ψab = (1 ⁄ √2) (|0a1b + |1a0b⟩)
can be used to facilitate sharing or transmission of information, but not to transmit information from A to B directly. I.e., there is no superluminal transfer of information happening in an entangled state. Why not? Because Alice has no control over the result of her measurement and consequently she cannot control what Bob measures either.
One doesn't need to know much about Dirac notation to grasp the general point being made here, I think. Your claim that

[t]he message is sent and received. Instantaneous communications faster than the speed of light.

is wrong if currently understood physics is right.

Best regards...

89 posted on 12/29/2005 8:11:24 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 83 | View Replies]

To: snarks_when_bored

All it takes is one experiment (and several millions of dollars).............


90 posted on 12/29/2005 8:14:44 AM PST by Red Badger (And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 89 | View Replies]

To: Servant of the 9

I meant to reply to you yesterday...sorry. Those are great Clarke quotes, without question.


91 posted on 12/29/2005 8:16:35 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: Warthogtjm

When I read this my nose is both bleeding and not bleeding at the same time.>>>>>>>>>>>>

I am currently both having sex with a beautiful.....oh, forget it.


92 posted on 12/29/2005 1:17:43 PM PST by RipSawyer (Acceptance of irrational thinking is expanding exponentiallly.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant
Sure, if you assume that the equations of quantum mechanics are correct, then you are going to get experimental results that seem consistent with them.

Actually that's not true. The world doesn't care whether your equations are correct or not. It is what it is. However if your equations are not correct, sooner or later you'll find a situation where your predictions do not agree with the theory. Then you might be in line for a Nobel prize, if you can come up with a theory that does predict the observed results, while still predicting earlier results that did not conflict with the "old" theory.

93 posted on 12/29/2005 1:17:53 PM PST by El Gato
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: tet68
Sooooo, if a cat dies in a box and there's no one to see it, it's still alive?

No, you just don't know which it is, and since you don't know, it might as well be both alive and dead. Until you open the box and the probability wave collapses. The the cat will be alive or dead, but not both.

94 posted on 12/29/2005 1:19:44 PM PST by El Gato
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: snarks_when_bored; Alamo-Girl
[ These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. ]

UnLikely story.. Obviously a story from a democrat.. who believe in such things..

"We contend that for a nation(democrats) to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." ~Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

95 posted on 12/29/2005 1:31:01 PM PST by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: El Gato

Sooooo, if a cat dies in a box and there's no one to see it, it's still alive?

No, you just don't know which it is, and since you don't know, it might as well be both alive and dead.

But the cat knows?


96 posted on 12/29/2005 1:32:35 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 94 | View Replies]

To: hosepipe

(laughing)


97 posted on 12/29/2005 1:33:48 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 95 | View Replies]

To: bkepley

"So has anyone confirmed yet that the cat is both dead and alive? I wonder what it would be like."




Just ask Alan Colmes.


98 posted on 12/29/2005 1:43:45 PM PST by HighWheeler (RATS hero is an impeached, dis-barred, lying, perjuring, cheating, lazy, cowardly sexual predator)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger
One atom in a device in a lab (or communications center) is changed or modulated in such a way as to convey a message. Digital 1's and 0's can be represented as, say, CW and CCW spin. Another atom of the same element, in another place, next door, down the street, across the continent, on the moon or another star system, is monitored for it's direction of spin and decifered. The message is sent and received. Instantaneous communications faster than the speed of light.

The passage that I quoted in my earlier post to you (#89) states why this won't work: "...Alice has no control over the result of her measurement and consequently she cannot control what Bob measures either." The outcome of the change or modulation of which you speak (by which I take it that you mean 'measurement') will have a range of possible values (corresponding to eigenvalues of the Hermitian operator representing the quantum observable being measured), but which specific value is found during any single measurement is a matter of chance and cannot be controlled by the experimenter (i.e., Alice). So no determinate message could be 'sent' to Bob by way of entanglement relations.

99 posted on 12/29/2005 1:45:19 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 90 | View Replies]

To: snarks_when_bored

If you say so.........but it spins.......


100 posted on 12/29/2005 1:48:01 PM PST by Red Badger (And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 99 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120121-123 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson