Edit note: Okay, this has been draft for a couple days and I'm done caring about making it pretty. Just a quick edit through for logical cohesion and grammar then done.
Just listened to the description of the dual slit delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. It occurs to me that this is a fascinating effect. Consider this: Take the down converters as described in in the book and send the idle photons down a loop or path long enough to delay their arrival at the subsequent series of detectors by a day or just a couple of seconds but spatially separated such that the two parts of the experiment cannot observe each other to make the experiment more technically feasible.
Rig three idle photon detectors. One for each path and one to accumulate both (I think this minor alteration of the experiment as described would still work since you wouldn't be able to glean path information from the accumulated photons though clearly this wrinkle can be ironed out to exactly match the delayed choice experiment)(a tangential question is would the accumulative detector display an interference pattern)
Set up a splitter on each incoming stream such that you can control the path of both streams to simultaneously either be detected with path information or detected indeterminately.
Now send you photons down the experiment in sets. However many photons are required to conclusively display an interference pattern or lack of one, send them in sets of that many with enough rest time between to easily differentiate the sets when analyzing the data. Presumably there doesn't need to be much separation between individual photons as we aren't concerned with confirming that they act like waves individually. We just want to see if they're acting like waves or like particles for any given set of events.
Analyze each set for a series of binary information based on the presence or absence of an interference pattern (wave or particle interactions).
The next day, or however long your delay loop is, or in the next room depending on the technical level of your experiment your associate who has not been compromised with the data acquired previously comes in and using the splitter control coerces the idle photons to create the binary data you received yesterday.
Would that really work? Can I send myself the lotto numbers? And, would that be illegal? >.>
This also all depends on my understanding that these experiments do not require vacuum. Which is to say that the probability wave doesn't collapse until a human observer looks at it (if any particle interaction counts as an observation then the whole quantum eraser experiment ceases to make sense to me since both the 'eraser' and the initial polarizing are clearly interactions with the particles).
This is also an interesting consideration when remembering that light, due to its speed through space, is not moving through time. Technically the photons that reach each experimenter are the same age and so trying to decide if we would actually send information into the past makes my head hurt.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Continuing problems with Time
Further confused rumination about time and quantum probability waves. I don't understand how it's possible to have a universe-wide probability wave for a particle with mass. Not in the sense of instantly collapsing the wave to a point, as described in the book, but in the sense that it's supposed to be impossible for a particle to travel faster than light. Which means that a particle's probability wave must be bounded by the speed of light. It's not enough to say that the probability approaches 0 at a radius in space-time defined by how far light can travel, it should be 0. Otherwise we've broken Relativity, or something.
If I understand it all correctly to say that a particle has a 2^-500 chance of appearing some number of light years away from here in the next few seconds is tantamount to saying that it has that much chance of traveling backwards in time. Which might be a miniscule probability but the universe has a disgustingly large number of particles. So many that even tiny probabilities must occur some number of times. I'm not a mathematician and I'm not going to try and figure out hard numbers. Unless the notion of quantum probability has been described incorrectly in the book it just doesn't mesh with Relativity. Then again... I think that's sort of the point to current theoretical physics isn't it? >.>
(Note: This post is slightly out out of order, it sat as a draft for a week or more)
If I understand it all correctly to say that a particle has a 2^-500 chance of appearing some number of light years away from here in the next few seconds is tantamount to saying that it has that much chance of traveling backwards in time. Which might be a miniscule probability but the universe has a disgustingly large number of particles. So many that even tiny probabilities must occur some number of times. I'm not a mathematician and I'm not going to try and figure out hard numbers. Unless the notion of quantum probability has been described incorrectly in the book it just doesn't mesh with Relativity. Then again... I think that's sort of the point to current theoretical physics isn't it? >.>
(Note: This post is slightly out out of order, it sat as a draft for a week or more)
Quantum bizzarness
The quantum eraser experiment is friggin' weird.
Up until those results it was possible to take 'observation' to be any interaction between particles. Thus most of the weirdness of quantum mechanics is actually not terribly weird. Everything is a probability wave until it interacts with something else's probability wave (where the two waves peak together, presumably), at which point both waves collapse into particles (or fields, or whatever), do their interacting business, and depart again as waves.
The quantum eraser makes mincemeat of the notion. Using the traditional dual slit experiment but polarizing the light differently for each slit eliminates the interference pattern if the detecting medium can detect the polarization. That's in line with the above in that the probability wave is collapsed by the interaction with the polarizing element. But if you subsequently polarize both streams of light in the same way, thus making the streams indistinguishable again, the interference pattern returns. Which would seem to disagree with the idea above.
I'm curious if the interference pattern is identical to the pattern formed when the light goes through the entire process unpolarized and I'm also curious what occurs if the detecting medium is unable to detect the polarization. If the assumption is that the probability only collapses when a human detects a particle then a medium which can't detect polarity should always display an interference pattern in the above experiment since no matter what you do to the polarity the streams would be indistinguishable. It's just entirely bizarre that the capacity of 'observation' should be reserved for humans (or more likely thinking beings, which leads you down the rabbit hole of what qualifies as thinking). It's intuitively reasonable, to me at least, to describe 'observation' that collapses a probability wave as any interaction between particles but it makes no sense to ascribe that capability only to conscious thought. Here's to hoping this is considered more thoroughly later in the book.
Up until those results it was possible to take 'observation' to be any interaction between particles. Thus most of the weirdness of quantum mechanics is actually not terribly weird. Everything is a probability wave until it interacts with something else's probability wave (where the two waves peak together, presumably), at which point both waves collapse into particles (or fields, or whatever), do their interacting business, and depart again as waves.
The quantum eraser makes mincemeat of the notion. Using the traditional dual slit experiment but polarizing the light differently for each slit eliminates the interference pattern if the detecting medium can detect the polarization. That's in line with the above in that the probability wave is collapsed by the interaction with the polarizing element. But if you subsequently polarize both streams of light in the same way, thus making the streams indistinguishable again, the interference pattern returns. Which would seem to disagree with the idea above.
I'm curious if the interference pattern is identical to the pattern formed when the light goes through the entire process unpolarized and I'm also curious what occurs if the detecting medium is unable to detect the polarization. If the assumption is that the probability only collapses when a human detects a particle then a medium which can't detect polarity should always display an interference pattern in the above experiment since no matter what you do to the polarity the streams would be indistinguishable. It's just entirely bizarre that the capacity of 'observation' should be reserved for humans (or more likely thinking beings, which leads you down the rabbit hole of what qualifies as thinking). It's intuitively reasonable, to me at least, to describe 'observation' that collapses a probability wave as any interaction between particles but it makes no sense to ascribe that capability only to conscious thought. Here's to hoping this is considered more thoroughly later in the book.
Monday, October 7, 2013
More consideration of evil
So back to this topic (it's one of my favorites), the crack I mention in that post deserves perhaps a bit of explanation. Consider the ratio between good and evil in reality to be an equilibrium.
Edit: Some time later (I think about 4 years :P )
Nonono, scratch all that. The notion of equilibrium is ridiculous, more or less, and the closest thing I have to a notional answer at the moment is from (need to find that verse again) where it seems to be claiming that at the end evil will cease to exist as though it had never existed. Which seems silly on its face and also from present experience. But if time could be rewound such that an event never happened, could it still be said to be evil?
Take for a moment as axiomatic that God is omnipotent and thus has such power at His disposal.
Take for a moment as axiomatic that God is strongly omniscient, existing beyond/behind quantum mechanics with knowledge of the full state of every particle or probability wave in existence at all points in time.
Finally take as axiomatic the assertion in the post linked above that an omni-good God will not allow evil to exist given knowledge and power to prevent it.
Given an entity embodying the first two axioms the third would not allow such an entity to have created the reality we see. But if an evil act were to cease to have ever existed, if all the ramifications of that act were to be blotted out completely would it still be 'evil' in a sense that has any meaning? Would it still disqualify the Christian notion of God?
On a footnote, the notion in the linked post about payment nullifying the evil is starkly naive and blind. Paying for a thing does not made it to have not happened. If you witness the rape and murder of your child there is no amount of payment that will cleanse you of the scars that evil event will create in you. You are changed forever at each moment of existence. 'Payment' is a ridiculous notion. But rewinding? Hm.
Edit: Some time later (I think about 4 years :P )
Nonono, scratch all that. The notion of equilibrium is ridiculous, more or less, and the closest thing I have to a notional answer at the moment is from (need to find that verse again) where it seems to be claiming that at the end evil will cease to exist as though it had never existed. Which seems silly on its face and also from present experience. But if time could be rewound such that an event never happened, could it still be said to be evil?
Take for a moment as axiomatic that God is omnipotent and thus has such power at His disposal.
Take for a moment as axiomatic that God is strongly omniscient, existing beyond/behind quantum mechanics with knowledge of the full state of every particle or probability wave in existence at all points in time.
Finally take as axiomatic the assertion in the post linked above that an omni-good God will not allow evil to exist given knowledge and power to prevent it.
Given an entity embodying the first two axioms the third would not allow such an entity to have created the reality we see. But if an evil act were to cease to have ever existed, if all the ramifications of that act were to be blotted out completely would it still be 'evil' in a sense that has any meaning? Would it still disqualify the Christian notion of God?
On a footnote, the notion in the linked post about payment nullifying the evil is starkly naive and blind. Paying for a thing does not made it to have not happened. If you witness the rape and murder of your child there is no amount of payment that will cleanse you of the scars that evil event will create in you. You are changed forever at each moment of existence. 'Payment' is a ridiculous notion. But rewinding? Hm.
It's Drafting Day
Getting some old draft posts published just to get them out of draft status. It's silly to keep them around like that and I've decided to not bother with copious polish on most posts. So rough as they are, I'm not going to have any more drafts dangling like participles.
A Literal Bible
Edit: I'm sure I had a lot more meat on this post in my head, but unfortunately the draft is too old for me to remember it all now. I really need to figure out a better way to get my thoughts down. Just publishing this as is is unsatisfying, though still accurate as far as it goes to describe my present thoughts.
A literal interpretation of the Bible is wrong
The Bible was written about things thousands of years ago in completely different contexts. To apply it literally today has no meaning. In order to apply it today it must be interpreted. To maintain it's own internal consistency it must allow for context, a context-free literalism with regard to the commandments puts Saul in a huge bind when God, through Samuel, orders him to break the commandment against killing.
A thing gains power as a symbol, as its literal self it has none. A blade of grass vs. a poem.
A literal interpretation of the Bible is wrong
The Bible was written about things thousands of years ago in completely different contexts. To apply it literally today has no meaning. In order to apply it today it must be interpreted. To maintain it's own internal consistency it must allow for context, a context-free literalism with regard to the commandments puts Saul in a huge bind when God, through Samuel, orders him to break the commandment against killing.
A thing gains power as a symbol, as its literal self it has none. A blade of grass vs. a poem.
Soon
What does soon mean?
'Jesus is coming back soon.' (Need to find the relevant verse address here)
Really? Who's definition of 'soon' is He using there? His own? Why would He use a godly definition of 'soon' when speaking to a people that don't even understand what time is? Then He turns around and speaks of things most mundane for the time period and culture He's embedded in and uses them to address deep(ish) philosophy (the prodigal child, the lost sheep, Bring Your Own Parable). He couldn't have done that to describe 'soon' in a way that would be more accurate? WTF. Was Jesus the original idiot savant?
Wait wait. Would you prefer to believe He meant 'soon' by His own timeframe in order to lead people to believe He meant 'soon' by their timeframe so they'd act like He wanted them too?
If, Then God is a manipulative bastard. End If.
'Jesus is coming back soon.' (Need to find the relevant verse address here)
Really? Who's definition of 'soon' is He using there? His own? Why would He use a godly definition of 'soon' when speaking to a people that don't even understand what time is? Then He turns around and speaks of things most mundane for the time period and culture He's embedded in and uses them to address deep(ish) philosophy (the prodigal child, the lost sheep, Bring Your Own Parable). He couldn't have done that to describe 'soon' in a way that would be more accurate? WTF. Was Jesus the original idiot savant?
Wait wait. Would you prefer to believe He meant 'soon' by His own timeframe in order to lead people to believe He meant 'soon' by their timeframe so they'd act like He wanted them too?
If, Then God is a manipulative bastard. End If.
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