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More Than One Reality Exists (in Quantum Physics) (livescience.com)
Zorro (Slashdot reader #15,797) quotes Live Science:
Can two versions of reality exist at the same time? Physicists say they can -- at the quantum level, that is.
Researchers recently conducted experiments to answer a decades-old theoretical physics question about dueling realities. This tricky thought experiment proposed that two individuals observing the same photon could arrive at different conclusions about that photon's state -- and yet both of their observations would be correct.
For the first time, scientists have replicated conditions described in the thought experiment. Their results, published Feb. 13 in the preprint journal arXiv, confirmed that even when observers described different states in the same photon, the two conflicting realities could both be true. "You can verify both of them," study co-author Martin Ringbauer, a postdoctoral researcher with the Department of Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, told Live Science.
Researchers recently conducted experiments to answer a decades-old theoretical physics question about dueling realities. This tricky thought experiment proposed that two individuals observing the same photon could arrive at different conclusions about that photon's state -- and yet both of their observations would be correct.
For the first time, scientists have replicated conditions described in the thought experiment. Their results, published Feb. 13 in the preprint journal arXiv, confirmed that even when observers described different states in the same photon, the two conflicting realities could both be true. "You can verify both of them," study co-author Martin Ringbauer, a postdoctoral researcher with the Department of Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, told Live Science.
...we knew it for long time
Every time I talk to my boss, I know there's more than one reality.
The paper indicates that one of three assumptions must be wrong with the other two being: free choice and non-locality. My bet is on the latter. However, one aspect of this particularly dense paper that I do not quite grasp yet is that it seems that the suggested experiment requires measuring the state of an entangled photon non-destructively which I understood to be impossible...but it is possible I misunderstood.
I tried to read the paper but my brain melted about halfway through it.
Can someone produce a lay explanation?
For a little more clarity on the subject, this is a physical realization of the "Wigners Friend" experiment. The "state" referred to in the summary is "superposition/collapsed waveform", and not the specific information about the photon such as its spin.
In the experiment, one scientist ("Wigner's friend") observes a photon in a superposition of states, which collapses the state, while a second scientist observes the first scientist. This uses entangled photons, so that observing the first photon collapses the state of the second.
The first scientist observes one photon, thereby collapsing its state to reveal information. Does the second scientist see his photon in a superposition or collapsed state? The first scientist might even tell the 2nd that he has observed the photon, collapsing its state - but not sating what state information was seen.
According to the experiment, the 2nd scientist still sees his photon in a superposition of states even though he knows that the first scientist has observed the photon and that the first scientist knows what the collapsed state is.
The one that keeps him on the golf course the longest.
Table-ized A.I.
More than one reality In Donald Trump's head.
The current realities are in flux - can you be more specific here?
Is he still "literally Hitler", or has that reality been discarded?
How about "is going to rot in federal jail, along with his family"? Will that reality happen any time soon?
I think the "anti-semite" reality was dealt a death blow by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, but if that didn't kill it the Golan Heights thing surely did.
Or is he still an anti-semite after all that?
The "racism" reality is still going strong, despite having done more for minorities than any other president in living memory (by reforming the sentencing guidelines). Also, illegal immigration disproportionately hurts minorities, and minority unemployment is the lowest it's ever been.
Is he still racist after all that?
Which realities are you referring to, that appear in Trump's head?
We're all dying to know what you think!
The double slit experiment has literally nothing at all do with this.
This is very straightforward.
Oh, yes. They have a theory they know to be wrong (no quantum gravity so far, something is very fundamentally broken theory-wise) and they use it to give extraordinary explanations? That is just hubris.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
But I guess they have never heard of KISS.
The problem is that Quantum Physics already uses the KISS method -- it's just that universe behaves strangely enough that this is the simplest theory they can (currently) come up with that hasn't been already falsified by measured results. Plenty of beautiful, simpler theories (Newtonian mechanics, aether, etc) have already been tried and found wanting.
Correlary: if/when they ever do figure out How The Universe Really Works, it will probably be even weirder and more counterintuitive than their current theories. Buckle up!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Anyone who (a) has been married or (b) has kids already knows this.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
But I guess they have never heard of KISS.
If the universe were simple we would have cracked it by now, then built a system to make it less simple out of sheer boredom.
Science doesn't have to be simple, elegant, concise, easy to convey, or any other such nonsense. In fact, the only people who look for such things are non-scientists.
... to ink this one in.
Recall the twin paradox and the loss of simultaneity with Special Relativity. The phenomenon are both "apparent," and "true," depending on the frame of reference.
It took years for that to be accepted and to morph into intuition.
Quantum mechanics is in its infancy and it will be 30-40 years before we get to the same comfortable place.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Some people go two ways as well, at least that's what he said (@0:25): https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm guessing you're using that quote on the basis you think Einstein was correct, and not what that quote is famous for (Einstein being wrong).
Who ordered that?
I must have missed that. Why is quantum theory is wrong?
Who ordered that?
Why it's here seems pretty obvious: 1) there was nothing 2) nothing can't exist without being something by virtue of being "nothing" 3) this makes the root component of the universe a consciousness capable of at least recognizing things categorically 4) that consciousness would be alone, but infinite 5) it would be lonely and fracture itself into multiple personalities and various static constructs (peoples and matter and energy) in order to cease being lonely 6) this make us all literally a piece of God, but if anyone were to succeed in reunification of the various consciousnesses it would effectively do exactly what that quote suggests: reset the universe and change it in an attempt to prevent it from being discovered again. If you were alone in a void forever you'd aim for the same thing, as would all conscious things we know to exist.
quit thinking on the level of an anti-vaxxer
Quantum mechanics makes useful and provable predictions, it is not nonsense.
Unfortunately, that makes perfect sense. The whole complex mess we have in Quantum Physics theory may primarily server to keep some people employed.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Well, either quantum mechanics or gravity (likely both) are known to be wrong, because they are inconsistent. Hence you cannot make reliable predictions with either. Not possible. I do know they are both exceptionally well verified experimentally, but that just means their flaws are either subtle or surprising or both and they will be fundamental. There are a lot of morons that cannot see that though. You seem to be one of them.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
of "alternative facts"
tone
Only one is know to be wrong (because they are inconsistent with each other). You can make reliable predictions with either. We still use Newtonian mechanics and Newtonian gravity to make reliable predictions and we know those are wrong! We only know that one must be flawed, but we don't know that they both are.
Who ordered that?
We know the models break down under conditions not found in our Earth (inside black holes, extreme energies, times near big bang...)
But they are extremely useful for electronics, optics, for GPS satellite corrections...
hardly nonsense when the computer and monitor you're using is a product of solid state physics which includes quantum mechanics.