I watched a show on fizziks that is freakin bugging me.

[FrostyBoy]

Fizzycists always claim non-fizzycists don't know anything. You're not welcome in their elitist group.

I don't like that attitude. Einstein was never like that. Fizzycists = stuck up *******s who act like they know everything, but in fact know very little.

[onodera]

What's worse, you can't find out the location AND the speed of a particle with high enough precision.

[Lancer]

This is the show...interesting stuff. Didn't realize it was BBC.

The Illusion of Reality

Part 1)



Part 2)




Part 3)

[Lancer]

Part 4)



Part 5)



Part 6)

[FrostyBoy]

Thanks Lancer. Will the Internet ever run out of good stuff?

[Lancer]

Hope not Frosty.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Maniac
God exists after all!!!

Amazing...
1)


2)



3)

[Lancer]

4)



5)

[Agathon]

The idea that reality is an illusion is very old. Just as you see a stick in the water and see that it is bent, but know that it isn't really bent, so too our ordinary way of thinking about objects, space and time is appearance, whereas the reality is quite different. The difference is that we are used to it in the case of the stick, but not in the case of our assumptions about space and time.

Similarly, the idea that observation makes a difference is common sense. When we measure things it is not like holding up a mirror to the universe (where the mirror just reflects and does not effect what it is showing). Rather, we, and our measurements and beliefs are part of the physical universe. One reason people find this hard to believe is that they are still stuck with the old idea that our minds are reality-mirroring immaterial beings, that don't obey physical laws.

[Kuciwalker]

None of which has to do with the actual revolutionary implications that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle posed. Specifically, particles don't actually have fixed positions or velocities - in fact, the entire idea of them as little moving points is just fundamentally wrong.

It's not a result of "measurement error", it's a result of trying to measure something that doesn't actually exist.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
None of which has to do with the actual revolutionary implications that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle posed. Specifically, particles don't actually have fixed positions or velocities - in fact, the entire idea of them as little moving points is just fundamentally wrong.

It's not a result of "measurement error", it's a result of trying to measure something that doesn't actually exist.

Where did I say it was an error? I think you misunderstood me. Nothing I said implies that particles do have fixed positions or velocities. My point was that long term prejudices about the nature of minds make us believe that sort of thing, when we shouldn't.

Reality is different from appearance...

Are you a realist about particles, whatever their nature?

[Kuciwalker]

Where did I say it was an error?

I'm clarifying, for the sake of the other non-physicists here, that quantum physics isn't just a bunch of metaphysics, and that things like the uncertainty principle are actually fundamental physical phenomena for which there is no correct macroscopic analog.

Basically every analogy ever give in any popular science book is bogus, because the only correct way of understanding these phenomena is through the actual math.

Your philosophy may be legitimate, but it's not really related to quantum mechanics.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Where did I say it was an error?

I'm clarifying, for the sake of the other non-physicists here, that quantum physics isn't just a bunch of metaphysics, and that things like the uncertainty principle are actually fundamental physical phenomena for which there is no correct macroscopic analog.

What do you mean by metaphysics? I find your use of the term puzzling.

I don't think the appearance/reality thing is bogus at all, and it need not apply to Quantum mechanics. It's a long time since I took science, but IIRC Einstein's relativity theories are part of classical physics, and that is one area in which appearance and reality is a useful way of thinking about it, since our ordinary view of time and space is somewhat misleading. So QM is essentially irrelevant to whether the A/R distinction (one I am skeptical about anyway) can be used to help people understand science.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm remarking on this bit:

Similarly, the idea that observation makes a difference is common sense. When we measure things it is not like holding up a mirror to the universe (where the mirror just reflects and does not effect what it is showing). Rather, we, and our measurements and beliefs are part of the physical universe. One reason people find this hard to believe is that they are still stuck with the old idea that our minds are reality-mirroring immaterial beings, that don't obey physical laws.

The point is that the actual uncertainty principle is far from common sense, and isn't really about the fact that measuring something changes it.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I'm remarking on this bit:

Similarly, the idea that observation makes a difference is common sense. When we measure things it is not like holding up a mirror to the universe (where the mirror just reflects and does not effect what it is showing). Rather, we, and our measurements and beliefs are part of the physical universe. One reason people find this hard to believe is that they are still stuck with the old idea that our minds are reality-mirroring immaterial beings, that don't obey physical laws.

The point is that the actual uncertainty principle is far from common sense, and isn't really about the fact that measuring something changes it.

The problem I am alluding to is the problem of realism versus anti-realism. It doesn't have to do with the idea that measuring something changes it (which if you read my post again, but this time more carefully, you will see that I did not say – nor did I say that the actual uncertainty principle was common sense), but about the idea that things have existence independently from our measurements in the same form (or perhaps in any form if you believe that).

What is common sense is the idea that we and our beliefs are part of the universe and not some transcendent subjectivity that reports on what is "out there". This assumption creates somewhat of a mental block. Unfortunately, people are Janus faced in this respect.

IIRC Heisenberg himself cared deeply about the consequences of his work for our understanding of "the real", and published a number of works on it.