Implications of Quantum Physics

[Mr. Harley]

Schrodingers Cat Paradox. A physicist takes the cat, and places it in the box with the atomically just-unstable enough isotope, the detector, and the poison gas. He closes the box. A student of his, who is a member of PETA, reports him to the local animal control officer, who then arrests him and confiscates the experiment, citing his cruelty to the cat. The cat, a large unadoptable male, then goes to the local humane shelter, where it is euthanized. Thus the atom must have decayed, becasue the cat is dead. (The professor gets fired afterwards for this cruelty to animals and not having gotten approval for the experiment from the review board at the univsesity).

[Mr. Harley]

Schrodingers Cat Paradox version III. A physicist decides to repeat Schrodinger's experiment. He brings it to the departmental review board, which being all physicists has no problem. It gets booted up to the experimental review board for the College of Science, and the s**t hits the fan.

Torture of the poor cat. Unnecessary cruelty. He quickly retrenches. Instead of killing the cat, the cat gets fed a treat. The cat is put in the perfect kitty environment, with 100 square feet to roam in. The isotope emitter is heavily shielded behind a special lead divider that guarantees no risk to the poor *****.

A grant application is written. It is rejected by the National Academy of Sciences. The researcher's dad contributed to the local congressman, who happens to be Republican and who has a wife who loves cats (and loves the kitty apartment plans). A grant is inserted into the next appropriations bill, and suddenly the physicist finds himself with one million dollars.

He set up the experiment, and then goes on a drinking binge to celebrate that he has brought so much money into the deparment that his Ph.D. is now guaranteed. Plus he's getting a f**king huge stipend. While drunk, he hangs out the window too far and falls five stories.

The atom did not decay, because the physicist dies.

[Odin]

Shawn:

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
I get the impression that no-one in physics is intelligent enough to work out the implications, therefore they try to hush up their ignorance with "shut up and calculate" crap.

Isn't it Feynman who said you should not interpret Quantum Physics philosophically? He's a heck more brilliant than you, Stew.

[Kuciwalker]

Yes, it was Feynman.

[TCO]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
It's both. It's more standard to do the problem from wave mechanical sense, but you can also create an observable (left slit or right slit). If you put the path into an eigenstate of the observable (if it travels through a definite slit) there should be no interference as the electron will propagate as a particle from a fixed point (left slit, say) and you will end up with two peaks and no interference pattern. This is observed when you put a detector on the slits to tell you if the particle has gone through (you perform a measurement on the observable left slit/right slit, which puts you into an eigenstate).

There is no local hidden variable interpretation available right now which is consistent with all experimental results...

Hidden variable seems nicer to me.

[KrazyHorse]

Unfortunately it doesn't work, dude.

Stop whining and accept the evidence...

[Az]

Unfortunately it doesn't work, dude.

Stop whining and accept the evidence...

Evidence that "what", exactly?

[KrazyHorse]

That particles do not carry a so-called hidden variable around with them that will tell them ahead of time what value of quantum observables to display to an observer.

a) there's no experimental reason as yet to postulate the existence of additional variables

b) the naive hidden variable approach ends up contradicting fundamental quantum results (as I've demonstrated here)

c) even slightly more clever hidden variable theories (like the one that was proposed by Einstein et al) have been disproven by use of Bell's theorem and the associated experimental evidence

[Az]

however, a true explanation,l fully describing the phenomenae and results that quantum mechanics predict very well hasn't been established... If we'll look at statistical mechanics as a whole, the statistical predictions are very correct, but go hand in hand with a deterministic model, really.

[KrazyHorse]

however, a true explanation,l fully describing the phenomenae and results that quantum mechanics predict very well hasn't been established

yes it has

If we'll look at statistical mechanics as a whole, the statistical predictions are very correct, but go hand in hand with a deterministic model, really

Quantum mechanics is different from statistical mechanics. Why are you attempting to state without evidence that a deterministic model is necessary?

[KrazyHorse]

You appear to be operating under the axiom that our universe is deterministic and that any theory which is not deterministic is incomplete.

Why is this, other than some silly discomfort?

Do you have any evidence to back you up? Can you provide a self-consistent theory which is deterministic and yet fits with the enormous body of experimental evidence we've collected on the subject?

[KrazyHorse]

Determinism is dead. It has been for 60 years. I'm not willing to revive it unless you can show me why I should...

[KrazyHorse]

Bell's theorem is like the physics equivalent of Godel's theorem...

[Az]

You appear to be operating under the axiom that our universe is deterministic and that any theory which is not deterministic is incomplete.

Why is this, other than some silly discomfort?

Do you have any evidence to back you up? Can you provide a self-consistent theory which is deterministic and yet fits with the enormous body of experimental evidence we've collected on the subject?

eh? I never said that the universe is necessarily deterministic ( though it does converge to the determinstic on the macroscopic level ). I just think usually, a statistical model is used for things we don't know the exact mechanism of, or don't want/need to know.

I think that we should keep an open mind about it all.

After all, shroedinger's cat isn't really in a state of uncertainty, it's only that we don't know what it's state is.