Einstein and Schrodinger's Quest for a Unified Theory led to a Titanic Clash

StartsWithABang writes When it comes to the very nature of quantum mechanics — about the inherent uncertainty and indeterminism to reality — it's one of the most difficult things to accept. Perhaps, you imagine, there's some underlying cause, some hidden reality beneath what's visible that actually is deterministic. After all, a cat can't simultaneously be dead and alive until someone looks can it? That's one of the problems that both Einstein and Schrödinger wrestled with during their lives. An investigation of that story, their work on that front, and their friendship that ensued as both pursued that same end is thoroughly investigated here by physicist Paul Halpern.

Comments

Not Hard To Imagine

[should_be_linear]

If you accept this universe is simply mathematical function, weirdnes goes away. Function, that is itself probably intersection of multiple functions, some of them being evaluated backwards of what we percieve as "time", therefore creating weird effects in our perceived direction of time. Actually, laws of physics in not all that interesting to me (beyond some level), because physics is going after "particles" and "forces" that happen to be in this function, describing this universe. There is infinite number of other configuration. Function y = sin(x) exists just like our universe, so does set of integer numbers or PI.

If "universe" is locally predictable in one direction (which becomes "axis of time"), then self-replicating features (life) can emerge. In the case of our universe, there is atomic/molecular level complex and yet locally perfectly predictable, that enabled (under "perfect circumstances"?) life forms. atomic/molecular level isolates low level quantum weirdness. After all, life doesn't care if this function is predictable at ALL levels, molecular level is enough, and it happens to be good for many other reasons. There is so many random things needed for universe to sustain life, that probably insignificantly small portion of functions has any self-replicating (living) features, let alone intelligent.

Why should I be surprised by weirdness of quantum world then? It never needed to be predictable in our direction of time.

Re:Not Hard To Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I've with you in most respects. Science seems to blinkered in the belief that time has only one direction. Time is a construct of our interpretation of the universe. It is not an forcing acting upon anything. This is why is can't be detected. Much like gravity and the ever elusive graviton! So ultimately, if we don't understand gravity, we're not going to understand time.

There's some big thinkers out there who don't make this assumption of one-directional time in the electrical engineering discipline. In doing so, they can apply this thinking to electrons, which they've found can pop in and out of existence. The thinking is, that much like we have alternating current, it can oscillate back and forth in time with a given frequency, which makes it appear to our instruments as existing, and not existing at the same time!

Nikola Tesla knew this behavour 100 years ago. He figured it out, and there's a whole new kind of electricity he was using that isn't DC or AC as a result.
See videos my Eric Dollard on youtube to get an idea where Tesla was coming from.

Flock of Starlings

[Anonymous Coward]

Look,

1. if detecting a particle *determines* its state vs *observes* it state, (the main point of conflict) then:
2. There is no perfect isolation, a vacuum is not perfect, and does not shield magnetic fields or other effects.
3. Interactions with other stuff *IS* detection. That other stuff does get influenced depending on the state of the particle. The magnetic field does influence the world around it.
4. Your photon has a magnetic field, and that influences the matter around it, depending on its wave function.
5. And thus it is detected ALL THE TIME BY EVERYTHING AROUND IT, long before you put it through a diffraction grating, or whatever test you dream up.
6. Thus your Quantum uncertainty theory can never work, the particle/photon/whatever's state MUST be determined BEFORE *you* detect it by its interactions with other matter.

There's another REALLY dumb thing your missing. You're not detecting the particle when you look. Its only your perception of it created by the detection mechanism. So if I take off my glasses and look at a flock of starlings, it appears to be a dancing, jumping black mass. It's not, I know its not, but without my glasses, I can no longer see the individual birds, only a cluster big enough to fire the nerve in my retina.

Likewise all particle and photon measurements boil down to promoting/demoting electrons through stable states. Does that mean you can never have half a photon? After all, all photons we know are emissions from matter, and so must all be discrete? They can only be created and observed that way, so they must only exist that way. This is false reasoning. Bricks come from a brick factory, yet half bricks are easy to make. Never lose sight of the limits of your observation. If all you can see is whole bricks, you might look at a house and think the corners are fuzzy.

Then there's the 'it matches my equations so it must be true'. This is the dumbest thing of all. I think the sun and planets go around the earth, I make an equation to explain the weird loop-the-loops that planets do. Perhaps I add extra dimensions (like String Theory does), or maybe I invent some new matter or new energy (like cosmologists do). But I *can* make an equation that will predict the planets looping, and you observe them looping, ergo the planets and sun orbit around the earth? Of course they don't. I simply contrived a complex solution rather than give up on a bad idea.

Making and tweaking equations each time you hit a problem, then making an observation, if it fits you say "my theory works, I have proof", if it doesn't fit, you invent some extra tweak to your equation, this is a logical falsehood. Observation in such a case is not proof.

Re:The fucking cat

[Anonymous Coward]

Schrödinger's point was not that the cat couldn't be both alive or dead. It was that if quantum theory was correct that that would be the absurd conclusion.

So is quantum theory correct?

Re:Sure

[fermion]

This is the nature of science, which in many respect only fully matured at beginning of the 20th century when all this was happening. It depends on observation, and without observation all one has is religion.

Here is what is now thought when science is done. An observation is made. If we take Galileo as an example, he observed bones in animals. Then We make a mathematical model. In that case it was the relationship between mass the bone volume that was needed to support the mass. Then we make testable predictions based on that model, Galileo made the prediction that Giants do not exist, which is true, and could not have existed, which is one of the things that made the Church mad.

Relativity and Quantum mechanics both depend heavily on the mathematical model to make predictions on things that are not part of our everyday experience. This is different from classical physics where the mathematical models were based on things that most people observe. Classical physics is a ball falling and bouncing off the floor or light refracting through a prism. Quantum mechanics is a ball tunneling through the floor or light refracting around a galaxy. What I find interesting is that people take Relativity at face value and have a problem with Quantum Mechanics. It is true that we see a limit in velocity in the macroscopic world, but that has to do with friction, not relativity. There is nothing in our experience that says we cannot go as fast as we have the energy to accelerate. Certainly our mass does not increase if we are traveling at 80 miles and hour in a car instead of 30 miles an hour.

OTOH, our experience does tell us that second and third hand information is unreliable, and we are often better off making direct observations if possible. Are we just going to let some stranger bury our cat on the statement the cat fell off the roof and died? No, we want to see the cat, and until we do we hope the cat is alive, but there is chance the cat is dead. Is it both? No, it is uncertain, which is the key thing that people do not learn about science. Uncertainty.

In Quantum Mechanics this is called a wave function, and the cat is in a superposition of wave functions that represent all possible states. The wave function collapses when we make an observation.

Here is another interesting thing. Quantum Mechanics came about to a problem with infinity. Relativity never solved it's problem with infinity, at least not completely, and when combined with Quantum Mechanics develops more infinities. This is what does not make sense.