Observation and Reality

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Bowser, Dec 30, 2016.

  1. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,454
    Yes I had meant the QM system to refer to the free electron in my example and the detector as something that interacts with it and changes its state, destroying the previous wavefunction of the free electron.

    I tend to think of the de Broglie matter waves as physical and only their interactions as quantised. This makes sense of the double slit experiment for me and also what I know of atomic and molecular structure and processes. The wavefunction is - being a "function" - a mathematical description of the physical thing. I do not pretend this is rigorous but it seems to account for what I need to understand.

    I agree one gets into problems with QM, as with many models, if one pushes it too far beyond what it was designed to do. But then I have an image of the relationship between science and physical reality as a bit like Russian dolls - there is always another one somewhere inside, such that one never gets quite to the final absolute and complete reality.

    But to me this notion of some that the presence or absence of consciousness alters physical reality is a ludicrously anthropocentric way to view the world. After all, what is consciousness but a neural network in operation, itself made up of biochemical reactions? Defining it is arbitrary.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    Everyone who has worked with a ripple tank simulation of a double slit already knows how diffraction patterns emerge, and that is not an issue. But this experiment, carried out by Birigit Dopfer in 1998:

    http://www.paulfriedlander.com/text/timetravel/experiment.htm

    demonstrates that focusing or unfocusing a lens in one entangled optical path is equivalent to observing which slit a photon goes through, and provides the additional wrinkle that it appears that the coincidence detection in a slit that is a longer optical path length can affect the diffraction pattern of a shorter one. In other words, for all intents and purposes, an observation that takes place in a future double slit experiment can affect the outcome of an entangled double slit experiment done in the past. This communication evidently requires no bulk transfer of energy to accomplish. Sound familiar?

    A later researcher attempted to update Birgit's 1998 experiment and ended up even more confused about observation and reality. We are still waiting for someone to come up with a satisfactory explanation of this experimental observation.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Diffraction patterns due to water waves in a ripple tank do not account for diffraction patterns produced in a one-photon-at-a-time single-slit experiment. The former experiment is a classical experiment; the latter is one that demands a quantum explanation.

    Do you think the diffraction pattern in the second case has something to do with entanglement? Because that is very far from the standard explanation of what is going on there. So is your explanation in terms of photons lasting for a certain amount of time, or whatever it was (I didn't really understand that part of your post).
     
    danshawen likes this.
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,828
    Damn, I love YouTube. It might be the best thing that ever happened to the internet.

     
  8. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,454
    You mean because it saves people having to explain - or even understand - ideas for themselves?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    danshawen likes this.
  9. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,828
    Because some people can say it so much better than others. I take it you watched a 30 minute video in 5 minutes? You are amazing.
     
  10. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,454
    No I never watch YouTube videos on discussion forums, because (a) it wastes my time - as you in effect acknowledge, and (b) YouTube is full of shit and so I have no way of knowing whether a video that somebody posts is shit, unless I first waste my time by watching it.

    If you have a point to make on a discussion forum, you should make it in your own words. People can read those in about 30 seconds - much more efficient and respectful of readers' time.

    See?
     
  11. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,828
    You really should watch those videos. EC. Some are very educational and can add a lot to the conversation. If I could say it as well as can the SCHOLARS in the above video, I would. Quite honestly, I have more faith in their expertise than I have in yours.
     
  12. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,454
    Understandable. I have not been a scholar for many years now. How about you?

    But if you understand the video, you should be able to summarise at least one or two of the key points, in your own words. That would do readers here the basic service of participating in a discussion (this is a discussion forum) and might even whet the appetite of some to watch some or all of the video, on the basis that you have shown them it is not, in this case, shit.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  13. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,828
    I don't believe the video can be "summarized." Do you? Also, I eagerly await a link to your videos that break down the questions and theories revolving around the issue, presenting them in a manner that even I can grasp. My ego isn't the issue here, understanding the topic is. I mean, you're a genius, right?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  14. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,454
    No. Just someone who can read, and with limited patience.
     
  15. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    Okay, here is what's happening in Birgit's entangled double slit experiment.

    Because the bound energy electrons that produced the entangled photons are a byproduct of the superposition of positive and negative electron half integer quantum spins, the temporal reversals observed are exactly the same causality / temporal reversals as we see for relativistic observers approaching a pair of events from opposing directions that appear simultaneous in the rest frame common to the events. Yes, to the uninitiated, it will appear to be time travel, but we know better, don't we?

    In the case of the double slit, even a single photon produced is the result of a superposition of states of a pair of entangled electrons. This is the principle reason it is possible to have entangled photons.

    If you observe only a single direction (observe a single slit without a knowledge the other exists) you don't see this effect. Observing the effect of two slits on one photon is what makes this a dual observer scenario like we see so often in the relativity of simultenaeity, because multiple directions are involved, akin to the multiple directions of quantum spin of a pair of entangled electrons. The separation angle is negligible, yet this still works. What does that tell you?

    I think I might have accidentally revolutionized thinking about the double slit paradox. Sorry.

    A really nice problem. Now I understand what's happening completely.

    Thank you, James R.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2017
  16. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    Even unpaired 'valence' electrons may be intermittently paired with othe valence electrons. When they are paired with the SAME unbound electron all the time, regardless of interaction with other free electrons, you have a Cooper pair (a superconductor).

    This also explains why higher temperature superconducting materials are not pure metals, and also why pure metals that are require low temperatures. The temperature of the photon ground state is what works the magic of making entangled photons and electrons work together to maintain the superconducting state. Well, this just solves a lot of unrelated problems, doesn't it?
     
  17. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Photons in a double-slit experiment are not typically entangled, though. The usual explanation of the double-slit experiment has nothing to do with entanglement. In fact, if you do the experiment one photon at a time, with a source of individual photons, there's no way they could be entangled.

    This doesn't actually make any sense.

    No. In a typical double-slit experiment, no entanglement is involved.

    What about single-slit diffraction, then? That's what I originally asked about, remember.

    It sounds like you've make up some gobbledegook that convinces yourself, but that's about it.
     
    exchemist likes this.
  18. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,454
    Exactly!
     
  19. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    • Please do not post nonsense or pseudoscience to the Science subforums.
    That's not what the OP asks about. I don't need to explain single slit diffraction here. The OP question is: why does it make a difference whether or not you 'observe' a photon has come through the other slit? Does observation alone affect reality? The simple answer is: yes.

    I have explained this completely. The other slit is monitoring what the photon is doing in another direction, James R, but my explanation goes much further than that. It even explains why even a single photon obeys the inverse square law. Evidently, it takes an entangled pair of electrons to produce even a single photon, or pairs of entangled ones.

    Yeah, this is going to take some time for you and everyone else to wrap their heads around. But you are the one who asked the right question. I didn't even know the answer was knocking around inside my head, waiting for the right question to come into contact with just the right tooth of the right badly rusted gear. Entanglement here appears to share some properties of a phase locked loop. Another of our engineering "discoveries" that nature perfected long before we did.

    Whether you want it to be or not, whether it was designed to be or not, the double slit experiment outcome is determined completely by entanglement and the way the photon was produced initially. A double slit is just one means for separating out the spin components of a single photon. In order for a single photon not to be polarized (linear, circular, elliptical, right- or left- handed), it must contain equal and opposite polarization or quantum spin states. All by itself. Even ONE, and only ONE photon or quantum of energy emitted from atomic structure, or even from an electron outside of atomic structure, because to accelerate it and produce a photon, virtual or otherwise, requires association with another paired electron in order to exert a force on the electron or to accelerate it.

    The production of a photon can only occur because the process that produces it is faster than light propagates in a straight line. It involves interaction between pairs of entangled electrons. Those pairs of entangled electrons undergo spin flips that are for all intents and purposes simultaneous. When you observe them through a double slit apparatus, the interference patterns you see on the screen resemble a double slit only for as long as the original single photon which produced that pattern remain entangled with itself. Observing what is happening in just one of the slits is sufficient to cause the entanglement state of the photon to decohere.

    Well, now entanglement communication by means of Morse Code modulation looks quite easy, doesn't it? No net energy is transferred, so the communication by means of entangled photons is instant, literally. FTL communication is a practical reality. To communicate instantly from point A to point B (one direction) connected by a stream of entangled photons, all you need is a lens, a screen, and perhaps a protocol for full duplex communication with an entangled photon stream sent in the other direction. No physical laws are broken, and that includes relativity as it applies to the bulk transfer of energy. It never applied or was extended to include quantum spin or entanglement until now. Entanglement works whether bulk energy is transferred or not, and it works much faster too. It has to. That's how light itself is produced.

    If there is anything else I have forgotten to address, by all means, continue to ask. The model is getting clearer.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2017
  20. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    Does a single entangled electron or photon 'observe' it's entangled partner? My answer is NO, and the reason is simply because 1) there is nothing faster, which is required in order for something to be observed (the lens must move) and 2) because they already are part of a balanced structure which for all intents and purposes is unitary, and independent of any light propagation time 'distance' that may separate entangled particles.

    Observation, on the other hand, requires time, even for single events which are not entangled or simultaneous ones. Note that this is the same idea as looking at your watch to measure time while traveling relative to something else at speeds approaching c. Time dilation affects both the relativistic observer and the rest frame of the center of the atom of which the entangled electron pair is a part. The atom persists relative to its own center because of time dilation beyond the limits of relativistic description. This can only be the case if quantum entanglement makes it happen. It's the only thing fast enough to do this.

    Discuss.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2017
  21. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,454
    What gibberish. The double slit experiment has sod-all to do with entanglement. It has been explained already on this very thread, quite clearly, without any recourse whatsoever to entanglement. So it is manifestly unnecessary to invoke it.

    Not only that, entanglement is, as both and James and I have pointed out, inapplicable to the interesting case of the double slit experment, which is the one in which photons or electrons are passed one by one through the slits. If you have only one photon you cannot have entanglement. The notion of it being entangled with itself is quite meaningless.

    Your explanation of the production of a photon from electrons is bilge as well. Only one electron is involved, so no f***ing entanglement, and no superluminal velocities. Read up the QM on transition dipoles. That is standard undergraduate stuff and explains it all perfectly well.

    I have reported your post as being, in my opinion at least, unfit for the hard science section. Pfft.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2017
    danshawen likes this.
  22. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    One photon can be entangled with itself. I have explained why. Unless you can show that a single electron not subject to the force / acceleration of ANOTHER electron can produce a photon all by itself? Or unless you claim that a rh circularly polarized photon can be created without the possibility of a lh circularly polarized photon to create a linearly polarized one? What is the polarization state of a single raw photon? Leads you right back to the subject of this thread, which is not a single slit issue.

    You are an exchemist. You were probably taught a lot of inconsistent science without being able to identify what bits were bogus. So was I.

    Don't take my word for it. Take the trouble to read Birgit's paper and see for yourselves how muddled it is. Just like the question posed by the OP. Did anyone else answer it with something consistent with the observations, other than 'time travel'? How can you travel in time, other than forward, without understanding what time is?
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2017
  23. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    There does seem to be a lot of confusion out there as to whether a single photon can be entangled with itself or not. I say it can, and this is critical to my argument about the double slit observer.

    As further evidence that photon entanglement enables instant information transfer, here is a clever experiment demonstrating that photons do not need to illuminate an image in order to "see" it by means of their entangled partners. This is from Nature, the gold standard for physics that is not woo:

    http://www.nature.com/news/entangled-photons-make-a-picture-from-a-paradox-1.15781

    In this case, the image absorbed all of the entangled photons, changing their entangled partner's states to replicate the image.
     

Share This Page