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Quantum Trickery - Einstein's Strangest Theory
breckinshire writes "The New York Times is running an interesting story on Einstein's strangest theory. The theory was brought to light this past fall when 'scientists announced that they had put a half dozen beryllium atoms into a "cat state." [...] These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time.' It is an interesting writeup for even the uninitiated and also concentrates on Einsteins role as a 'founder and critic of quantum theory.'"
I suppose that is why Planck's Constant is named after him.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
"To a physicist, a "cat state" is the condition of being two diametrically opposed conditions at once, like black and white, up and down, or dead and alive."
Actually, this term was coined by Nikola Tesla and refered to his observations of the violent sub-molecular reaction created when a cat with a cheese pizza tied to its back is dropped onto expensive carpeting. What, you didn't think that his silly "death ray" is what caused the Tunguska event, did you?
This is just further proof that we are living in the Matrix. With each and every absurd observation, man is getting closer to the truth that we are the cat in the box.
Burn Hollywood Burn
"The New York Times is running an interesting story on Einstein's strangest theory. The theory was brought to light this past fall when 'scientists announced that they had put a half dozen beryllium atoms into a "cat state."
Wouldn't that be Schroedinger's strangest theory?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
"To a physicist, a "cat state" is the condition of being two diametrically opposed conditions at once, like black and white, up and down, or dead and alive."
Or something happy to have its tummy rubbed only to bite you seconds later.
Don't expect to understand. We evolved to run around on a plain and throw spears at antelopes, so we shouldn't be suprised when we don't understand complex things.
Support them... by slashdotting their site! Awesome :-p
"Most physicists agreed with Bohr, and they went off to use quantum mechanics to build atomic bombs and reinvent the world."
Why do they always have to use the atomic bomb as an example of the applications of quantum mechanics? It really gives it a bad name.
Yes, but wouldn't the act of observing the slip up change it's state?
Cogito, ergo sig.
This fall, two Nobel laureates, Anthony Leggett ... and Norman Ramsay ..., argued in front of several hundred scientists about whether physicists are justified trying to change quantum theory. Leggett said yes; Ramsay said no.
And then, the two scientists began spinning clockwise and counterwise at the same time....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Read this article and then go play sudoku in your paper (don't know what it is? do a search, and you will learn). I think my head my just explode in a moment. I keep seeing entanglements and cat states. this box is both a "9" and "8" until i pick one. But the box all the way over there that's an "8" means that this can't be, but that it might be a "6" instead. So if this is "6" than i know that is "8" and therefore that one is "9". Dang Einstein ruining a good game even after he's dead.
Jester
Warning: This sig may be legally binding in England.
Actually this is proof that the article is in a quantum state. It is a dupe while at the same time it is not a dupe.
Even subatomic particles have to put up with politicians...
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...either cats or surfing.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
From the article:
These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. Moreover, like miniature Rockettes they were all doing whatever it was they were doing together, in perfect synchrony. Should one of them realize, like the cartoon character who runs off a cliff and doesn't fall until he looks down, that it is in a metaphysically untenable situation and decide to spin only one way, the rest would instantly fall in line, whether they were across a test tube or across the galaxy.
Any halfway competent C programmer can easily see this is simple pointer aliasing. Physics was clearly written in C++ - albeit with a very high precision floating point library. What is happening is that, to save memory on the galaxy, most of the different atoms we perceive are actually just the same one, aliased using pointers. There is some neat code in Physics.cpp which detects when an atom is modified and makes a mutable copy as required. Clearly in this case (with the atom, cat, whatever) something is fux0red in the code and it's not making a copy; hence modifying one atom modifies the perceived value of several. Fortunately as soon as a human observes it, atom->View() is called, and a stable copy of the atom is created and from then on the bug kinda disappears (all the atoms go about their business as normal).
As a bug, it probably got noticed in beta, but was considered low priorty, however now there's such a fuss about it, I'd expect an online patch to stop the scientist hax0rs exploiting "the Quantum effect" any millenium now, so don't go writing it into your world view.
(Incidentally, this is why people die, it's to avoid problems with them knowing too much and causing stack overflows, but that's another story)
[FrLz]