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For almost a century, physicists have wondered whether the most counterintuitive predictions of quantum mechanics (QM) could actually be true. Only in recent years has the technology necessary for answering this question become accessible, enabling a string of experimental results—including startling ones reported in 2007 and 2010, and culminating now with a remarkable test reported in May—that show that key predictions of QM are indeed correct. Taken together, these experiments indicate that the everyday world we perceive does not exist until observed, which in turn suggests—as we shall argue in this essay—a primary role for mind in nature. It is...

There’s one interpretation of the meaning of quantum mechanics that manages to skip a lot of the unphysical weirdness of the mainstream interpretations: it's de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory. There are some pretty out-there explanations for the processes at work behind the incredibly successful mathematics of quantum mechanics - things are both waves and particles at the same time, the act of observation defines reality, cats are alive and dead, or even: the universe is constantly splitting into infinite alternate realities. The weird results of quantum experiments seem to demand weird explanations of the nature of reality. In this episode,...

Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links - not space-time - constitute the fundamental structure of the universe. ... A field is a highly entangled system. Different parts of it are mutually correlated: A random fluctuation of the field in one place will be matched by a random fluctuation in another. ("Parts" here refers both to regions of space and to spans of time.) Even a perfect vacuum, which is defined as the absence of particles, will still have quantum fields. And these fields are always vibrating. Space looks empty because the vibrations cancel each...

Gravity's quantum leaps detected   19:00 16 January 02 Hazel Muir   Gravity's subtle influence in the quantum world has been directly observed for the first time. On tiny scales, nature makes particles behave according to curiously rigid rules. For instance, negatively charged electrons trapped around a positive nucleus under the pull of the electromagnetic force cannot have any energy they want -they have to fall into a set of distinct energy levels. In the same way, the pull of gravity should make particles fall into discrete energy levels. But because gravity is extremely weak on small scales, the effect has been ...

A hundred years ago, we took the first steps in recognising, at the level of elementary physical events, the dual character of nature that had been postulated in natural philosophy. Albert Einstein was the first who saw Max Planck’s quantum hypothesis leading to this dual character. Einstein suggested the photon have an electromagnetic wave character, although photons had previously been considered as particles. That was the quintessence of his work on the photoelectric effect. Later in 1926, it was deBroglie that recognised that all the building blocks of nature known to us as particles - electrons, protons, etc. - behave...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 14, 2005 — The 226th Quartermaster Company’s Petroleum Oil and Lubricants platoon took over the 27th Mobile Support Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division fuel push duties in late February of this year and is still going strong. It pushes Jet Propulsion fuel, type 8, to various bases throughout the greater Baghdad area of operations. "The missions give us a feeling of distinction; we know that what we do is unique. It helps us stick together as a platoon," U.S. Army Spc. Christopher L. King To date, the Petroleum Oil and Lubricants platoon has received more than 2 million...

Where Have You Gone, Isaac Newton? By David Harriman          More and more today, we are inundated with foolishness masquerading as science. Psychic hotlines proliferate, politicians consult astrologers, and people reject their doctor's advice in favor of "alternative healing" dispensed by quacks. In the past, defenders of real science could be relied upon to expose and debunk such nonsense. So where are these defenders today?         Unfortunately, they are too busy dreaming up foolishness of their own.         This is not, of course, the first time in history that people have believed their fates could be read in the stars and their diseases...