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$100,000 Prize: Prove Quantum Computers Impossible
mikejuk writes "Quantum computing is currently a major area of research — but is this all a waste of effort? Now Scott Aaronson, a well-known MIT computer scientist, has offered a prize of $100,000 for any proof that quantum computers are impossible: 'I'm now offering a US$100,000 award for a demonstration, convincing to me, that scalable quantum computing is impossible in the physical world.' Notice the two important conditions — 'physical world' and 'scalable.' The proof doesn't have to rule out tiny 'toy' quantum computers, only those that could do any useful work."
Just point a gun at his head and ask him "Convinced?"
Err, uh,
Didn't D-Wave sell a commercial Quantum computer to Locheed Martin in 2010? Almost a year to the day?
Someone explain to me the difference between this quantum computer and the one they're trying to prove doesn't exist, please.
moox. for a new generation.
Now there's a challenge!
Prove that something which already exists CAN'T exist!
Methinks their money might be safe on this one... :P :P :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I will prove Quantum Computers both possible AND impossible at the SAME TIME!
So I guess the proof would be that they do exist, but only if you don't observe one.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
So if we make a quantum computer that can log in to facebook, it clearly is not doing useful work. Would we then win?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Yesyes...maybe Lockheed bought a quantum computer. It's real? I don't see why not. I can imagine you can program existing hardware to simulate the quantum effect. Does it mean that you get a quantum computer - no...but it simulates it, so in effect...you have one, expensive - not sure how useful, but it'll prove some working theory.
It's like a double douche - here's one, the other proves the existence of the first one. It's like perpetual energy theory, there will always be believers, and if you make it complex enough, no one will dare to prove them wrong, even though we never ever see the practical use of it.
My guess it's the same with the Quantum Computer. If ya catch my drift ;)
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
D-Wave uses quantum annealing. This works for minimization problems, although it's unclear whether it's better than "simulated annealing". This does not work for problems like factoring integers, which "real" quantum computers can do.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
Even my brother-in-law can do useful work if you stretch the definition far enough.
Have gnu, will travel.
Prove there is a god
I'm willing to bet all I own that neither will ever be successfully claimed. You need faith to accept either to be met.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
From what my friend who is into Quantum computers tells me that was almost certainly a scam.
And even without knowing the specifics of quantum computers enough to have any opinion I know that one of the leading quantum computing places in the world, Waterloo Canada does not have a QC that is even close to being usable. It is just like a few quantum bits with a few rooms full of machinery that operates these bits and is both slow and has way to small a number of bits to really be useful.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I'm pretty sure Google and D-Wave even worked together as well on something. I'm sure it was posted on here with some pictures too.
Found it on physorg - Google and D-wave collab.
A similar question could've been asked years ago, back when transistors didn't exist: 'I'm now offering a US$100,000 award for a demonstration, convincing to me, that scalable personal computing is impossible in the physical world.'
Using only technology available then, the answer would've to scale down tubes to the minimal size and go "well this computer's too weak to do anything useful, ergo it's impossible to have a personal computer that isn't just a toy computer." Then transistors happened.
These kinds of things are stupid, because you're asking for a demonstration to an engineering problem, when engineering is always capped by scientific research. You could have a perfectly "convincing" proof today and tomorrow a new discovery crumbles it all to the ground.
Unless a theoretical and fundamental proof can be made that quantum computing is impossible, there's no reason to say that it is, and I have serious doubts such a proof can be made considering what has been accomplished thus far. Current limitations are engineering issues, but nothing fundamental is stopping a useful and practical quantum computer from existing.
{straightface, dead glare} They're impossible because they don't exist. {/straightface}
It is just like a few quantum bits with a few rooms full of machinery that operates these bits and is both slow and has way to small a number of bits to really be useful.
I don't know Jack - sorry, I don't know Werner - about quantum computing, but you did just describe the state of regular computing circa 1946 or thereabouts.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I know a man (my father actually) who wrote (unreleased) book in Serbian in which he claims (and proves with numbers) that Quantum Mechanics and Theory of Relativity are mostly untrue.
Ever try proving something that is not going to happen?
Try it, and you'll know that it's impossible to prove something that is negative - like proving quantum computer impossible
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"Convincing to me".
a new BS meter for posting that link, which features the following gem among many others:
HPCwire: Can you prove that quantum computing is actually taking place?
Rose: This was the question we set out to prove with the research published in the recent edition of Nature. The answer was a conclusive "yes."
And this is the clincher:
HPCwire: What's next?
Rose: This is a very significant time in the history of D-Wave. We've sold the world's first commercial quantum computer to a large global security company, Lockheed Martin.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
no, it's a prize/award, not a conditional loan.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Isn't the human brain a quantum computer? Isn't that proof enough that it doesn't work?
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
...and no, it 'in't 'cos I'm a black man. This is a CS guy looking for potential problems in QC to solve before a mature solution can be even considered ready for promotion from drawing board to prototyping - 'cos once you go physical shit gets expensive.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Well, then translate the book to English, so someone unbiased can take a look.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
I don't know Jack - sorry, I don't know Werner - about quantum computing, but you did just describe the state of regular computing circa 1946 or thereabouts.
The difference is that the way forward was clear in 1946. Scaling up was primarily a problem of cooling and maintenance. In other words, engineering problems, not theoretical ones.
The area of quantum computing today is nowhere near on par with where we were with classical computing in 1946.
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We can only prove and disprove what we can measure. We need the definitions of the dimensions we wish to measure to prove or disprove something "exists" (can "be found"). The first definition I think is most important is whether or not said "god" can interact willfully with the universe and change what would otherwise be natural consequence. If it cannot, then god is of no consequence. If it can, then how can you reproducibly show the god's interaction? If someone cannot repeatedly find god for others, then god hasn't been found, because said god as defined ceases to exist until demonstrated!
1. Human imagination imagines beyond what is possible.
2. I cannot imagine a quantum computer.
3. Therefore, quantum computing is further beyond what is possible than my imagination.
4. By (1), quantum computing is beyond the possible.
At least it's valid. If you give me half the money, I can work out rest of the kinks.
When the status quo was a room full of vacuum tubes, I doubt that the way forward (solid state transistors) was as clear as you suggest. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. There is a vast world of difference between making smaller, faster, better vacuum tubes, and making a transistor. So I think GP's suggestion that we are in the vacuum tube era of quantum computing is reasonable, and we are waiting on the equivalent of a quantum transistor to make quantum computing feasible.
... if I can prove they both are possible and impossible?
Maybe it's just me, but I had a hard time accepting the credibility of TFA when it misused "effects"/"affects".
Only if you seal him in a box.
The idea is nice but it seems like you're trying to get something for nothing which generally doesn't tend to work out in the real world. This prize is probably a good idea to take a look at things from the other end rather than just trying to scale up small-scale experiments (and continually failing if it's genuinely not possible).
I'd love to be wrong in this case but it seems possible it's something that's in the realm of perpetual motion, FTL travel and anti-gravity to my mind.
D-Wave is selling snake oil. Their so-called quantum computer is pure hogwash. The main reason that quantum computing is nonsense is that it is based on the pseudo-scientific concept of quantum state superposition. The problem is, superposition is not observable by definition. It is just a silly interpretation of QM. Superposition is nonsense on the face of it since any child can tell you that nothing can be its own opposite. Physicists do not understand why quantum interactions are probabilistic and yet they feel knowledgeable enough to conjure up all sorts of cockamamie Star-Trek physics that make no sense. The actual reason that quantum interactions are probabilistic is that there is no such thing as a time dimension. Therefore, nature cannot calculate the exact timing of interactions and is forced to use probability. Conservation laws are momentarily violated but are obeyed in the long run. Why is there no time dimension? Because a time dimension makes motion impossible. Surprise! This is the reason that time travel is crackpottery and that Sir Karl Popper compared Einstein to Parmenides and called spacetime, "Einstein's block universe in which nothing happens". From Science: Conjectures and Refutations. Don't take my word for it.
The physics of oscillating crystals, such as those used in microphones and phonograph needles as well as radio transmitters, indicates that quantum computing could never not exist. Matched oscillating crystals have been in use for thousands of years and the mathematical model is proven by hundreds of different laboratory and home appliances; eg. an infrared spectrophotometric detector. The emission and absorption frequencies predicted by the mathematical model of the particle in a box (the basis for calculating electron dispersion around the nucleus and the fundamental beginning for subatomic calculations).
Particle in a box model translates into equations known as the Hamiltonian and, in combination with Eigenvalues calculated from the variables used in particle in a box modeling, generates the Schroedinger equation. Quantum computing could never be nonexistent because the mathematics of matched oscillating subatomic particles already has been proven millions of times over.
The marathon runner was not reporting a successful war campaign. The marathon runner was part of a system proving that those crystals do indeed oscillate, matched, from across the universe (at least 26.2 miles), in real time. Begin counting, begin running, when you arrive, repeat what they said back to them and report your current number. They will determine if your number matches theirs and if you repeat the exact words they said.
One aspect of the inside joke is that, when the marathon runner arrived and made his report, the response from the priests was,"That's _NOT_ what we said!" and they promptly hit him over the head with a baseball bat in frustration over the not completely failed experiment. "Don't tell anyone that he made it."
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
People were already working on solid-state transistors in 1946. The main difficulty was growing pure enough crystals.
Even without solid state transistors, computers would have continued to get more powerful and require less maintenance per tube as vacuum tubes improved (nothing like what was possible with solid-state transistors, of course). Remember, vacuum tubes themselves were only about 35 years old at that time--lots of improvement in size, power and reliabililty was possible, but work on them stopped when it became clear that transistors were so much better.
In the case of quantum computers, there are lots of ideas floating around, but no one actually has any clear idea of what will be needed to maintain quantum coherence across a large number of bits. In fact, it is not yet clear that it is possible.
The D-Wave computer uses quantum annealing which does not require coherence across a large number of bits, but which is also a LOT less useful than one that does.
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Um, you can't disprove a negative... so, anyone that is offering $100 grand to... is a fool.
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
I examined all of the possibilities simultaneously and I have the answer.
Wrong. See: Bell inequality.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
http://www.timecube.com/
Your argument is invalid.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Superposition is nonsense on the face of it since any child can tell you that nothing can be its own opposite.
Any adult can tell you that "any child can tell you" is a really, really bad guide to understanding how the world works.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Science isnt about being right or wrong, its about looking for the answer, whatever it may be. Schroedinger posed a fantastic, perspective-altering question, and you dismiss it as 'pseudo-science'
Good-bye
Do you have a link on this subject? I'd like to know more.
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
I am a layperson, though I studied quantum computers a bit at the university, and (years ago) I came to conclusion that quantum computers do not scale as well as normal computers. That's what will make them impractical.
In QC, unlike in normal computers, every qubit needs to be interlinked with all other qubits, otherwise the superposition won't work. In normal computers, once you can create a computer with X bits, creating a computer with X*2 bits is pretty easy, just build X twice (and add an address line). With quantum computers, creating a computer with even X+1 qubits from computer of X qubits can be hard, because you need to entangle the extra bit with all others. So the QC will scale only logarithmically to normal computer, and that will make it impractical (respectively, any advantage will be nullified by this problem).
At least that's what I think; I would like to hear a debunking argument.
Same AC here...
I forgot to add that in Genesis 19:32, that same righteous man tricks is daughters into thinking he's the last man on earth so he can knock up his own daughters.
This is the same Lot that is such a wonderful person god goes out of his way to spare him from the burning of soddom. Yet god kills his wife just for looking back at the city where her friends and relatives are dying and screaming.
Lot is really god's kind of fellow.
Aw shucks, I'm kinda low on money. I really need to spare some weekend to crack this quantum thingy, and a couple of those all-time toughest problems in mathematics.
This is a gross misunderstanding of the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment, and something of a fallacious presentation of it.
I don't think there was ever any doubt that a cat locked in a box for a sufficient length of time would expire. That is neither in doubt nor interesting.
The formulation deals with the status of a cat in a box present with some measuring apparatus capable of detecting decay of some isotope, linked to a sealed capsule of some poison, in a sealed container with a cat. Supposing the isotope has a roughly 50% chance of decaying in the next five minutes, and iff it decays the poison is released (killing the cat), after five minutes is the cat alive or dead?
The "collapse the waveform pseudo-science b***s***" here is simply translating the simultaneous probabilistic states into a single actual one. The reason this is relevant is in quantum mechanics there are real, measurable effects that occur as a result of the probabilistic waveform that differ from the effects of the collapsed state -- once you know whether the cat is alive or dead, in other words, you have a fundamentally different system than before it was observed.
"Demonstrate why cold fusion is impossible."
Obviously, most of you are missing the point. His ploy to get people looking into quantum computing is working. You are all at least discussing it. Some of you might even take career paths to try to prove him wrong. Well done Scott Aaronson.
-g
Is it just me, or does this just seem like a big buzz kill. I mean, who on earth who wants to see the human race getting better computer, more interconnected and overall smarter (basically any scientist) would want to start proving that things cant happen. Someone could of 'proved' that the earth was flat at the time, but that isn't true is it. Seems like anyone who considers themselves a scientific person will want to go another route...like maybe do something better then quantum computer, why would we want to encourage someone smart to do something that has utterly no point to it. maybe i am missing something, i didnt read much...lol
Do we still get the prize if we can prove quantum computer both exists and does not exist simultaneously?
You could extend the point by noting that Theories of Science are the best models of knowledge, and yet, they are always unable to cover all possible aspects. Those Theories are drawn from matching the data extrapolations which are themselves sorted by the Laws of Sciences which have limited practicality relative to their own application. And as Laws are inherently incomplete, the Math which proves them serves limited use beyond the paper or program which creates or uses it. Or, as one person has put it, "Did you know the '[Philosophiæ Naturalis] Principia [Mathematica]' has an error rate?" If you can't know every value of every dimension in the whole Universe, or otherwise, are not Maxwell's Demon, it's impossible to prove bupkis. Even the Doctor of Gallifrey can be suprised, and he knows this history of most civilizations in the Universe from the near beginning to the near end.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
Disclaimer: i have worked for a group competing with dwave.
What dWave has, and they claim not much more, is a system which is stable enough to use thermal noise (their unproven claim: with a small addition by quantum tunnelling) to find the ground state of a Hamiltonian to construct. This solves some tasks, but by far not all.
What the rest of the QC community wants is a computer which can generate and manipulate entangled state superpositions, enabling to execute arbitrary operations on exponentially scaling (in the number of qubits) sets.
My prediction: The thing (dwave) has is a nice patent stack. Once other groups solve the important problems dwave will sue the fuck out of them or agree on a technology exchange.
They are not a scam, except for their marketing personal. They have a computer that doesn't hold classical information, but isn't a (q?)digital quantum computer either. They anounced that "feat" by claimming that they created a quantum computer.
Calling it is a quantum computer isn't completely untrue (not less than calling the one on your desk a quantum computer), and it is able to solve some kinds of problems in a way that is different from what a normal computer does. The machine may be usefull for somebody...
About nobody knowing if it is in fact bettter than a normal computer, well, nobody knows if real quantum computers are either. Also, nobody knows if P != NP, what is a related question.
Rethinking email
The fact that simply viewing the state alters the state is the most interesting part to me, because that means what we know about the natural world is gonna have to be shitcanned once we find out how everything is connected at the quantum level. This kind of effects bugged Einstein so much he came up with his famous "God does not play dice" quote because all that he took as fact when reduced to the quantum state basically got a "LOL Goatse" because those rules simply didn't apply. The fact that the observer, supposedly completely disconnected from the actual event, can affect the event simply by observing the event? Now THAT is interesting.
As for TFA the problem is he is trying to predict something when our current understanding of it is frankly still quite primitive. it would be like saying "Can we build a device that will reach the moon and send data back" in 1919, yes we could, just not with the state of technology that existed then. Who knows how many discoveries that will change the world and our understanding of how things work will be found in the next 20 years. Can we build one NOW? Nope, we are still too primitive when it comes to understanding how things work at that level. But when I was a kid the thought that a PC would reach 1GHz and still be affordable to the masses would have been laugh worthy, hell a Mb of RAM would cost you more than your house. But things change and now computers a thousand times more powerful than the Crays we used to drool over can be bought at the local best buy with a paper route. Trying to predict what the next breakthrough is gonna be AND whether or not that will allow a quantum computer a million times faster than anything we currently have while fitting in a watch? Frankly we just don't know and won't know until we get there.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Just so I'm understanding this correctly. The actual act observing is what triggers final observational results. Correct? That is to say, the results are always there regardless of whether or not you decide to observe?
Life is not for the lazy.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. But marketing is what makes any product a scam so I would not say that this fact makes it not a scam.
And If real practical quantum computers are possible I am pretty sure that it has been proven that they are a whole lot better at at least some things.
from what I hear they are massively parallel by nature, kind of turning any problem into a constant time solution.
So P=NP, since N is always equivalent to 1 in quantum computing.
I am sure the preceding comments are a gross approximation at best, but that is how I understand it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
In all of these scenarios, there are multiple observers in the form of fermions receiving and transmitting bosons. It isn't simply the human observer that is counted in QM....
It's a misleading analogy for QM in that it relies on the lack of observation of such a large system (cat, poison, etc.). The cat itself is an observer of whether or not the particle decays, as is the detector, etc.
In fact, the state of the cat is observed by the box and every particle within it- does it maintain its output of IR or because its metabolism has ceased does its output of IR diminish?
Blehh- someones quick and insightful joke about QM can cause such a high number of uncollapsed states among the unobservant.
In the distance you hear an ominous moo.
All possible results are there until you observe, this causes the wave form to collapse.
The information wants to be free, I just give it somewhere to go.
I dismiss it because we now have some evidence that it took us down the wrong road.
BTW, science IS about being right or wrong - when you build a castle on a flawed hypothesis and aren't ready to question it and toss it on the trash-bin when it's wanting, that's not science, that's religion.
I have a cat. I think the above is stupid even for a thought experiment.
Depends on the cat, I guess. But yes, it's a stupid experiment that led to a wrong interpretation of the real world. It ignores the fact that the cat is an observer, as well as assuming that time can only go in one direction (and that last one has been in doubt for 50 years or so).
The smallest amount of time that can be measured is a Planck unit. And with regards to energy and mass, there may not be any limitation as to how small each unit can be. In fact, the resolution may be as infinite as calculating out Pi. So most assuredly, any "unit" that makes up the universe is purely a concept invented by man. Sorry, but I'm afraid it's turtles all the way down.
Life is not for the lazy.
So? Just because it's the smallest we can measure doesn't mean that it's the smallest there is. Or are you going to claim that amoebas only sprang into existence when Anthony van Leeuwenhoek invented the microsocope?
And you base this extraordinary claim on what evidence? The universe is grainy - the question is how far below the Planck constant that graininess act at .. and that includes not just mass and energy, but time as well, which neatly gets rid of the stupidity of "wavicles" and "wave functions."
You're assuming for a moment that there is even a natural "unit" of time yet to be discovered as though the universe's space and time are made up of some natural resolution that can be calculated. I'm simply stating that it's perhaps infinite in the true sense of the word.
The universe is what you make of it. Is that what your telling me? Let me flip the question back at you. By what extraordinary claim and on what evidence is the universe "grainy" (granular of a finite calculation)?
You know. Some say the Big Bang happened. Some say it not only happened, but in fact is continuing. Time just dilates the passage of time the closer to the present you observe from.
Life is not for the lazy.
I really have no clue what you guys argue about above. To clarify: when I used the word "stupid" I did not evaluate the experiment from a scientific point of view. I just wanted to emphasize that I love cats...
The fact that simply viewing the state alters the state is the most interesting part to me, because that means what we know about the natural world is gonna have to be shitcanned once we find out how everything is connected at the quantum level.
This is a perspective popularized by new-age crystal gazers who are:
A) too enlightened to be bothered with rational thought, and
B) tend to prefer wishing for a result to exerting effort to bring one about.
It is also incorrect, I am sorry that it is necessary to point out.
While our interpretation of the data might change, the data itself remains constant. Objects of differing masses accelerated downwards (in a vacuum, pedants) at the same speed before and after Newton. The only thing that changed was the increase in humanity's understanding.
The laws of motion and thermodynamics have unparalleled powers of prediction and explanation. Any theory of "how everything is connected at the quantum level" that can't be used to make predictions with equal (or, preferably, greater) accuracy will be rightly shitcanned.
We know how to use quantum computers to solve several problems in a much better way we know how to solve them on a clasical computer. But nobody has ever proved that there is no algorithm that olves those problems in a way that is as good as we can do with a quantum computer with a classical computer.
So, nobody knows if P = QP (quantum polynomial) or if QP = NP. The solution isn't as easy as you imply. There are plenty of people betting that if we found that QP = NP, that also means that P = NP (but nobody knows that either).
Rethinking email
The folly in this, (and most other) Quantum thought experiments is that the past events that cause the decay to occur or not occur at a given time have already occurred. Indeed, in order to even place radioactive material in the box it must have been observed to exist by the real physical world at some point. Just because you can write the phrase "Percent Chance" on paper does not mean that such a thing actually exists in reality. The limitation of our measuring devices are abstracted away with equations...
It's folly to believe that the Universe is only as accurate as our current measuring sticks.
On paper you can have multiple outcomes, in reality there WILL be only one outcome, because the initial states are already known by the Universe, or else nothing could not exist within it.
Allow me to reiterate: Math may describe the Universe, but it is not made of Math. Equations are not Real.
This thought experiment only proves one thing: We don't have enough information to solve the word problem.
Then explain how quantum entanglement can get around that pesky "can't go faster than light" thing because even with our limited tests so far it most certainly does. Go on, we're waiting. And this isn't some "new age hippie shit" this is the fact that we simply have VERY limited understanding of how everything reacts and interacts at the quantum level but what we are finding so far has shown us that at this point in time we are about like a 2D race trying to understand 4D space.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
To paraphrase what Pons said to Fleischmann, "Ehh, close enough."
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
First ,it was Djkstra who said "so bad it's not even wrong."
Second, the variant of the two-slit experiment, where the path of the photon is only observed after it has passed through the slit changes whether it generates an interference pattern or not, has two interpretations - the classical one, and the one that involves time actually working just fine in both directions at a small enough scale.
It's only the insistence of people that they must continue to build more and more convoluted "'splanations" (sort of like the pre-Copernian gang with their epicycles and cycles within cycles and all that crap) who deny the clear evidence of their eyes, that time does, at the most basic scales, go in either direction as required.
It's akin to Einstein's biggest mistake - saying that there's no such thing as "spooky action at a distance" - which also can be explained by either the Copenhagen gang OR by time working in both directions. Of the two, Occam's Razor makes it clear that time should be treated no differently than space (after all, we even call it space-time), as it provides the simplest explanation for everything from particle decay half-lives to particle entanglement (it just becomes another aspect of the laws of conservation of matter and energy).
But keep on rejecting the simpler, more obvious explanation, and build up those epicycles.
That's baby-peek-a-boo reasoning - cover your eyes, and the world disappears.
And no, nowhere did I say the universe is what I make of it - that's YOUR argument. That because you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. Maybe in some future, we'll find a way to measure it - but if we insist it doesn't exist, we'll never find it, and continue looking in the wrong places and making the wrong deductions.
Time is the same as any other dimension - there's no reason to believe that at a small enough scale, it can go in both directions, which explains things like spooky action at a distance through simple conservation, rather than some crap about "quantum entanglement" - which brings up the question, if C is the speed limit, how is quantum entanglement possible without violating it? Oh, wiat - it must reach back in time at exactly the same speed. What a complicated s***house we've built. Nope - to the extent that other explanations, explanations that back up our understanding of everything else (after all, have you ever seen an example that violates any of the laws of conservation of energy or mass).
Honestly, I don't know what the "truth" is regarding the absolute makeup of our universe. No one does. There are countless papers on the subject. I'm simply saying that perhaps you should keep an open mind, that's all.
Life is not for the lazy.
Hrm? Entangled particles can exhibit correlations in some measurements that would (apparently) require them to exchange information faster-than-light. However, these correlations are only observable when measurements from distant locations are subsequently compared and - as far as I am aware - can not be used to actually send a message faster-than-light. No information is recoverable by observing only one data set. It is a complicated issue.
For one thing, it both explains AND solves the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Can QM do either? No - it only describes, without an underlying explanation as to why except "that's the way it is."
Take for example the question of where an electron orbits the nucleus. QM says we can't say where, only give a probability.
Here's a "bad" analogy, but it's a start. Picture you at home. During the course of the day, you go from room to room, doing things. Sometimes, you leave. Now, someone whose best observational resolution is 1 day will, when asked, only be able to say that they can give a probability as to whether you're in a particular room or not, or even that you may have "ceased to exist" (the equivalent of popping in and out of the so-called quantum foam - another dumb invention, which can also be better explained by particles simply moving back and forth a bit in time).
Since mathematically there's no real difference between space and time, why should we be surprised? Especially since the 2-slit experiments (the ones where the observer affects the outcome even if they only observe after the particle has passed thru the slit) are much better proof of the apparent reversal of causality that time travel of individual particles would cause, than any sort of "dual nature" of particles (which still doesn't really explain the results except with LOTS of hand-waving).
This line of reasoning is fundamentally flawed. You have a first condition, and a second, later condition, and because the two differ, you assume, with no proof, that this "proves" all the following:
1. that there are such things as probablistic wavorms
2. that there is such a thing as a superposition of states
3. that observing the system causes the collapse of these alleged staes
Now, down to brass tacks.
Prove any of this. Can't be done. Every experiment that claims to do so can also have the same result if, at small scales, time can flow in both directions. The best part is that, unlike your cat thought experiment, some of the 2-slit experiments give this result. So if you're going to foe someone over an argument that you can't even prove, keep to your pseudo-scienty-religion. I'll apply the principle of parsimony, and take the simplest explanation that explains the real observations in the real world.
The Pope would have loved you at Galileo's trial.
What a bogus excuse. "Oh, maybe it happens, but we're going to make it a special case where the universe conspires to prevent any real exchange of information until the 2 parties compare notes." Forget God, you've got the Universal Accountant.
Keep on building those epicycles.
Every observation can be easier explained, including entanglement, every 2-slit experiment result, as well as the "probability sphere" of the electron around the nucleus and half-lives of elements, as well as the apparent exchange of information faster than C, without requiring any such thing as "superposition of states" (which violates a few laws of conservation, btw), or a quantum foam (same problem) by simply positing that at small scales time can go in either, or both, directions. It also gets rid of "wavicles" and other nonsense - they're simply not needed, since everything then has a simpler explanation.
Occam's Razor is dead in the QM community. People don't want to give up their cherished superstitions, even those cloaked in "science". Film at 11.
(and no, Schrodingers cat is not science in any shape matter or form - it assumes that which it then claims to "prove").
First ,it was Djkstra who said "so bad it's not even wrong."
No, actually it was PAULI that said it. Dijkstra may have also said it later, but honestly, telling me unequivocally that I'm wrong without even spending the literal few seconds to check your facts just demonstrates your arrogance once again.
Second, the variant of the two-slit experiment, where the path of the photon is only observed after it has passed through the slit changes whether it generates an interference pattern or not, has two interpretations - the classical one, and the one that involves time actually working just fine in both directions at a small enough scale.
It's only the insistence of people that they must continue to build more and more convoluted "'splanations" (sort of like the pre-Copernian gang with their epicycles and cycles within cycles and all that crap) who deny the clear evidence of their eyes, that time does, at the most basic scales, go in either direction as required.
It's akin to Einstein's biggest mistake - saying that there's no such thing as "spooky action at a distance" - which also can be explained by either the Copenhagen gang OR by time working in both directions. Of the two, Occam's Razor makes it clear that time should be treated no differently than space (after all, we even call it space-time), as it provides the simplest explanation for everything from particle decay half-lives to particle entanglement (it just becomes another aspect of the laws of conservation of matter and energy).
But keep on rejecting the simpler, more obvious explanation, and build up those epicycles.
God-fucken-damn you're ignorant of the issues here. It's well known that time must be treated differently than space in non-relativistic quantum mechanics because it is impossible to construct an observable time operator. Now, it is true that space and time must be placed on even footing in special relativity, and special relativity forces us to consider quantum field theory, from which quantum mechanics is regained in the non-relativistic limit. However, the contortions required to fit quantum mechanics and special relativity together -- including the treatment of time on the same footing as space -- do not resolve the issue. If they did, you would have heard about it some decades ago, I assure you.
Now maybe we are all just stupid, and you can show us how all experimental results, that agree with standard quantum mechanics, are also predicted by a theory based on your "obvious" physical axiom regarding time, which at the same time resolves the mysteries of quantum entanglement, etc, and draws a neat little line under them. Because unless you can compose a theory which fits with what is empirically known, then you're just armchair quarterbacking, and you almost certainly don't appreciate the nuance of the problem.
But hey, I might be wrong -- if you can exhibit how your brilliant insight leads to such a revolution in physical understanding then you should write it up and get it published; or at least put it on the arXiv -- you'll no doubt find someone to endorse the submission. If you're right the there will be significant fame and fortune to be had, I'm sure.
And by the way, Occam's Razor is not a scientific authority. Experiment is. Comparing quantum mechanics to epicycles is completely disingenuous; a particularly obvious difference being that quantum mechanics makes new predictions that are borne out by experiment, in contrast to the epicycle models which only predict that which they were explicitly constructed to explain. That's what makes it science: an apparently subtle concept that seems to be completely over your head.
There's no such thing as "waves." Interference patterns are generated when either different particles, or the same particle, with a different time/space mass, whack into each other. Since the underlying space is discrete, not continuous, it results in bands, rather than a broad scatter.
When you add an external observer, it no longer is a 2-body problem, and the particle moving forward in time, and its partner moving back, no longer take the same space/time path, and as such, no longer interact - so you get a simple spot on the detector, and not an interference pattern.
Note that to an observer moving only forward in time, it still appears that 2 particles were emitted.
So, back to experiment. Particles traveling in both directions, in both space and time, explain all the results, and don't cause problems with the voodoo associated with quantum entanglement - they don't require the universe to somehow transmit an effect instantaneously across a distance. QM does. QM fails on that basis alone.
It also explains why so many things happen in pairs - it's the same particle, going forward in time, interacting with something, then returning to its' start point. The flashlight emits one photon, which travels forward through the slit to the detector, then back. On the way, it meets itself, and because it DID interact with the detector, it's path back is slightly shifted, always by a discrete amount since the underlying universe is discrete, not continuous (a continuous universe would either not allow for particles to interact or would produce non-quantum-like results), so the interaction will produce bands (remember, it met itself on the way out as well, so you don't just get a big center spot and a bunch of weak bands, though it will still peak at the center).
There's no need for particles to "vibrate" (which brings up another question - if they vibrate in one direction, then the other, why? Why should they violate the laws of inertia and motion by suddenly reversing direction w/o interacting with something else?)
Much better to say that when a particle acquires energy, it can move faster and further wrt the space/timeline (in other words, able to go further forward/backward in time - the two are equivalent, and in the end the sum of all interactions will always even out).
Why does it return? Conservation of time is the same as conservation of matter or energy. You roll uphill, you're going to eventually roll back downhill. Time is just another hill.
You've stated over and over that "every observation can be easier explained" if you assume that "at small scales time can go in either or both directions."
I am asking you to elaborate. What energy is expended by this transition? If time is moving in "reverse" or in "both directions" how does that affect entropy? What particles have this property, what determines which ones may "travel through time," and what bounds the distance they may travel? How does that remove wavicles? Just as an extremely simple example, how does that explain the results of the double-slit experiment?
How, then, do you account for systems which behave differently under observation? As a simple and recently high-profile example, what about the Quantum Zeno effect? If observation does not motivate quantum coupling, then the results are inexplicable, and still so under the model of "sub-Plank discrete higher-dimensional fundamental particles". I suppose what I'm saying is the problems are orthogonal, except that the observation problems can be used as a starting point to further develop a theory of quantum interactions -- the one we have, coincidentally -- whereas making gross assumptions about the invalidity of current field and entropic models appears to add nothing to the discussion.
Also, in every single one of your responses to every one of the people attempting discussion of this point, you have responded with derision, insults, condescension, and disdain for the life's work of hundreds of PhD holders, each of which would love nothing more than to be the one to publish a paper formulating a model obviating the need for current quantum "weirdness." In light of that, I must confess to some curiosity regarding your own credentials, since you appear to hold everyone else's in such disdain.
That's the beauty of it - concepts that we *know* to be true in respect to mass and energy (conservation of mass, energy, the laws of motion and inertia) all continue to work with time.
It also explains why so many things appear to be pairs.
"For every forward-in-time there's an opposite and equal backward-in-time." To someone moving forward at the macro scale, it looks normal. The flashlight, for example emits a photon, which travels forward in time until it can interact with something, then travels backward in time. To the outside observer, it looks like the flashlight emitted 2 photons, not emitting one and absorbing one.
Let's move this on to something bigger - the Sun. The same principle - the sun would, to an observer moving along the timeline, indead be losing mass, and if you look back on the timeline, it is indeed more massive at the start.
They travel until they interact with something else, same as always. There's no need for a "quantum foam" where particles magically appear and disappear - they just seem to because we can't see their entire history - only a cross-section defined by "NOW".
This explains the "spooky action at a distance" problem of QM - it's the same particle, just that my "copy" looks different because it interacted with me, and yours with you. We separate, I observe mine, it now interacts with me, and retraces its path - which includes going back to the time when it originated, then forward again to you, but now it's been affected by my observation. So your view of the particle is affected by my having viewed it "first." If, on the other hand you had viewed YOURS "first", my particle would be similarly affected when I finally get around to observing it.
As for "wavicles" - think of it. Why should a particle vibrate? If it oscillates in one direction, shouldn't it continue in that direction, instead of snapping back - without interacting with anything else!!!! That violates everything we know about how particles act at macro scale. If instead we posit that the universe has a fixed minimum graininess (space is "quantized", as is time - which makes more sense than an infinitely-variable scale because it makes it so much easier to generate interference phonomena) we can do away with a few problems - including the whole "how does a particle 'know' to interact with another" and why does it happen in discrete amounts?)
We no longer need "waves" or vibrations as a store of energy.
So, on to the two-slit experiment, where observation of individual photons prevents them from interfering ...
In the classical 2-slit experiment, there are sufficient photons involved that you can pretty much guarantee that they will interact with each other. Because both space and time are "quantized", and because two particles can never occupy the same "space:, they will interact - it's only because both space and time are quantized that we see an interference pattern, and not a broad band.
However, when we reduce the incidence to less than one photon at a time in the apparatus, there can be no "interference" unless the photon tries to take the same path back in time after interacting with the detector. Sure enough, the photon moving forward in time does interact with itself moving back in time, and we end up seeing the classical interference pattern being built up, same as if there were many photons. No need for "wavicles".
Now, let's extend this to observing the detector after a single particle at a time has passed through the slit, but before it interacts with the detector. In classical QM, we say that observation affects the result, but we don't say why. "It just does." That's a sorry excuse.
Putting an observer into the equation means that the paths are not the same forward and backward. The observer adds a "forward" direction bias - so the photon, in order to return, has to take a different path through space/time, so it never gets a chance to interfere with itself, and we end up wit
For a long time, I believed the same things. I don't because it's become overly-complicated, and there are simpler, more elegant, explanations. Why the "attitude"? Because scientists, like anyone else, are EXTREMELY resistant to having their beliefs challenged. Science operates along the same lines as any other belief system. It has to - we're only human, after all. Just look at all the resistance to discarding the physically impossible "baby shaking syndrome" as just one example. We have proven that it's bio-mechanicaly impossible, that the only test ever done was so ridiculous (and worse, basically disproved the theory), and yet people accept it as real based on nothing more than faith. Faith in a concept developed by a doctor because of his experiencing dizziness after a roller-coater ride, with NO other proof.
Please keep in mind -1/3 of all our knowledge is wrong. The problem is we don't know which 1/3 (and even that may be optimistic). So to go around and think that ideas shouldn't be kicked - hard - when they become overly complicated and start sounding more like excuses ... well, life is too short for that.
QM doesn't explain "spooky action at a distance", and the many-worlds hypothesis, while attractive at first, totally fails because, in a regime where everything is possible, the concept of probability makes no sense, since it's always 1 - and we know from observation that that's not the case, and to actually do so would require massive violations of the known laws of conservation, not to mention bringing with it its' own version of the Fermi Paradox - if everything happens in at least one multiverse, then at least one of them has developed the way to travel through space and time and should have already conquered every one of them. That we even exist says that the multiverse is a lie - and QM requires at least some version of the multiverse.
Am I happy about it? No - because it also makes the question of free will a lot harder. I would like to believe in free will, but in an universe where the future and the past are so intertwined as they seem to be, it's looking a lot less likely, since even emergent behaviour can be fully explained by deterministic systems, and that kind of sucks. But just because it sucks doesn't mean I'm going to reject it and go back to believing in "the cult of QM".
If the multiverse does exist, it's not because of QM. There are no "infinite branches."
Any books you would recommend on this theory? It's interesting stuff.
And the bonus follow up question Scott Aaronson asks: "Prove that Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction"
I'll put writing one on my to-do list ... :-p
In the meantime, why not consider this - if time were flowing backwards locally, how would you be able to tell? At any one point, you'd still have only the memories and experiences up to that point, so to you as an observer, time would still seem to flow forward (and trying to get used to that can give you a big headache :-) You'd still be able to remember what happened "yesterday", but have no recollection of "tomorrow".
Which brings us to the next point - since time truly is just another dimension, to say that time "flows" is wrong. Just like saying that if you were to come and pay me a visit, saying that space "flows" as you move would be wrong.
It's also why there's no paradox if you go back in time and kill your grandparents before you're born. Causality isn't broken because causality is not accurate when there's no "before" and "after", when tomorrow exists simultaneously with yesterday. There's no God Accountant to enforce cause and effect - which is broken at the quantum level anyway, so that should have been a big smack on the head that we're "doing it wrong" at least in some respects.
But no ... we still insist, because our perceptions tell us that it must be the case, that cause comes before effect, without also realizing that if this were the case, information would have to travel instantaneously at the lowest levels - something that can't be done in the conventional model.
If instead, we treat time the same as any other dimension, then there's no conflict between a and b happening simultaneously and being connected, but to speak of cause and effect is to add an extra layer of complexity that just isn't warranted.
The only apparent exception is life. A rock doesn't "experience" anything, so to speak of the "arrow of time" for a rock is meaningless. The constituent components are pretty much all that count, and whether they're currently in the form of a rock or 15 billion years ago they were fusing atoms in the center of a supernova is certain irrelevant to the rock - it just exists.
Life, on the other hand, even if we accept that there is no arrow of time per se, does experience the subjective arrow of time. It "knows" the past, but not the "future" (whereas the rock "knows" nada, nothing, zilch, rien). Whether it's an amoeba fissioning or a mother raising a child, life is experienced as cause and effect, not "it is what it is."
Why? Possibly (and here's a bit of a stretch) because life is, at some point, more than the sum of its components. The energy requirements to experience ALL of life simultaneously are simply too high, so to balance things out, we only experience it in one direction - which one is irrelevant, since to our senses, it would always seem to be forward. After all, keep in mind that the term "experience" implies that it is subjective. It's what YOU remember - and if time is flowing backwards, you would still "remember" the past, but not the future. (But again, "flowing" is a misnomer - we're just experiencing a slice, the same as someone in flatland only sees a slice of 3-d space).
More accurately QM says there *is* no precise location, only the probabilities. This isn't a matter of the electron being at a particular point, where we lack the ability to determine where it is exactly. In essence the electron *is* a field of probabilities and left to its own devices (e.g. in a remote part of space) is theoretically at every position simultaneously. Only in the presence of other quantum fields does that change - so when an electron interacts with a proton in a hydrogen atom for example, the two sets of probabilities interact with the result that the probabilities associated with the electron are constrained to positions more or less associated with the classical notion of an orbit.
When we attempt to observe an electron's position we necessarily interact with it in a way that constrains its position probability to something close to a single point - this is the only sense in which an electron becomes a "particle". So in the 2-slit experiment, if we don't observe it, the probabilities remain (relatively) unconstrained and there remain possible paths through both slits, whereas if we do observe the electron we narrow the field of probabilities enough to make it almost certain it will only pass through one slit.
(it is therefore meaningless to say "only observe after the particle has passed thru the slit" since there is no "particle" until the observation is made)
Don't you wish you hadn't wasted 3 seconds of your life reading this sig?
The point is that unlike QM, we CAN give the exact position - if we were able to see at that fine a scale and that exact time. So it helps explain things that QM cannot explain, like spontaneous decay of atoms.
Larry Gopnik: Uh, yes. You failed the mid-term. That's accurate.
Clive Park: Yes, but this is not just. I was unaware to be examined on the mathematics.
Larry Gopnik: Well, you can't do physics without mathematics, really, can you?
Clive Park: If I receive failing grade I lose my scholarship, and feel shame. I understand the physics. I understand the dead cat.
Larry Gopnik: You understand the dead cat? But... you... you can't really understand the physics without understanding the math. The math tells how it really works. That's the real thing; the stories I give you in class are just illustrative; they're like, fables, say, to help give you a picture. An imperfect model. I mean - even I don't understand the dead cat. The math is how it really works.
Clive Park: Very difficult... very difficult...
Larry Gopnik: Well, I... I'm sorry, but I... what do you propose?
Clive Park: Passing grade.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Well, isn't the concept of "Higgs Bosons" similar to having some sort of "ether"?
Also, there is nothing that says ether must interact with all particles in the same way, or at all. That might sound far-fetched, but it really isn't more far fetched than proposing dark matter and dark energy with similar properties.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
I must say Google Translate does a decent job.
I'll try to find time to understand what is being said.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
Space can both be finite and infinite with regards to some other metric. There is no contradiction. For example consider the inside of a sphere without the shell, commonly referred to as an "open ball":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_(mathematics)
Clearly the open ball is limited, yet regardless of how close you come to the shell (but stay inside the ball), you can always come closer.
Also, there does not need to be a containment, but the nonexistance of something.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
What is being said in there might be correct as far as things have been considered.
There are some problems though:
First, don't name something in a way that conflicts with the usage of the word by physicists. Example: If perceived matter is really something else that moves through something else, don't name the "something else" "matter".
Pro physicists go to great length for that reason, consider the weird names for the quarks.
Suggestion: One might be better of with prefixing everything with "dark": dark matter, dark ether, dark third field.
Regarding the calculations being made, it is really hard to tell for me whether there are new results matching existing measurements, or whether any matches are the results of tuning the free parameters that are available such that the calculations seem to match reality.
Finally, to have the new theory to be considered, it has to be able to predict something new, or at least it will be necessary to reproduce existing laws to some extent, the same way that Einsteins theories includes and matches Newtons theories for low speeds.
So the new theory will have to match Einsteins theories at least under some conditions, approximately, or as a corner case.
Good luck in your affairs!
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
Scalable Quantum Computing relies on Quantum Mechanics. Here is my experiment that defies QM: Use Cd-109 that emits one gamma at a time. Put two NaI scintillator detectors in tandem and see if the gamma is detected in coincidence, at rates exceeding chance. The detections must be full height. It worked. Chance was greatly exceeded. QM fails in a very fundamental way, therefore QC can't work. The experiment, theory, history, tests eliminating artifact, tests of many form with different detectors and sources etc, control tests revealing the conditions for success and failure, are all on my Unquantum.net website. We should expect a flaw in QM because wave-particle duality has always been a paradox. My theory, the Loading Theory, is an extension of Planck's Second theory: emission is quantized, but absorption is continuous; Planck's constant is a threshold (a maximum). The distinction between QM and the Loading Theory is made in my many experiments. Also: you were misled by a false assumption in your textbooks concerning photoelectric time lag. I can demonstrate the experiment upon appointment. Please see www.unquantum.net Thank you.