Well I must say I would agree with that, without implying I agree with what Tom has been saying. To say that someone thinks reality is the measurement, is tantamount to calling them an idiot. Tom's point has, and always is, about the correspondence between what can be deemed to be reality, given the proper execution of measurement/experimentation.
Rob
I am not interested in what happens inside brains, that is not physics. Wave, collapse, observation are being referred to, my question is what, physically, are these. My point being, once people try to define that, they will come back to the original point you made, which is that the ideas postulated have not been substantiated. And indeed, more iportantly cannot be, ie the basis of QM is a metaphysical take on existence.
Paul
John,
The problem with the concept of light that your have described, is that "light" remains "light", even when its intensity is reduced to the point that single photons are emitted and/or detected, one at a time. These one-at-a-time particles will still produce an interference pattern, in a double slit experiment.
If you assume this pattern is caused by "wave" behavior, and if you additionally assume that, only direct interactions between particles can produce waves (the classical conception of a wave), then you have a problem.
The problem with that problem is that the second assumption is false. There is another mechanism for producing "wave-like" correlations between the particles, other than direct interactions between particles. You can produce the same result, indirectly, by forcing each particle to interact with a third entity, that ensures all the non-interacting particles will exhibit the required correlation. If that third entity gives each of the particles the same "energy", that is the required correlation. If different particles are given different energies, no interference pattern will appear.
Rob McEachern
All
I must admit, that like many others I have just being responding to points made. So in the spirit of keeping to the topic, I have had a look at what was originally stated.
I will just make one point.
Timing is not about the devices used, these just tell the time. Neither is it about anybody's perception of it, particularly Einstein. The reference against which timing is being effected is a conceptual constant rate of change. There is therefore no choice of timing device available, where that implies one can deploy a different rate of change reference. Obviously, the more refined that reference the better, ie the more detail about what occurred and its alteration one is going to capture, the more highly differentiated the reference. Indeed, the ultimate rate of change reference would be one that alters at the speed that the fastest alteration occurs in physical existence (and please do not say that is c, because light is not physical existence). Now, that is impossible for us to effect, but I am just making the point as to what timing really is.
The "time evolution of the physical world" will obviously "look different" if the reference is more refined. Just in the same way as if one has a complete pantone chart, each colour (which is the function of a physical process) could be identified rather than associating a lot of actually different shades (ie different physically existent states) under (say) 'light green'. But this is implying that what occurred in physical existence is driven by the quality of the rate of change reference utilised, rather than, obviously, it is just a case of refinement of detail, given the reference used for comparison. More detail, may reveal the need to alter theories, this is how knowledge evolves, but this is not the same as suggesting that choosing different times (which is not possible anyway) obtains different results.
Paul
Rob,
I'm not looking at the existence of the particles as foundational, but structural. At the speed of light there can be no structure. It requires a degree of composition, balance and internal dynamics not possible at c. Structure would seem to be an interaction of inertia and energy, where positive and negative charges balance. It may well be the wave patterns are a very initial structural development. It is just that from ourpoint of view we can only judge distinctions inherent in structure and the element of energycan thus only be measured in that context.
So even when you release a single quantum of light it does spread out as just energy and any detection of it in transit does manifest wave patterns. Eric Rieter's experiments on loading theory show how it will then trip the detection point closest to being tripped in the first place.
Tom,
I'm afraid I remain an apostate. Now blocktime, wormholes, multiverses, or even expanding universes for me.
Paul,
Tom has no trouble deeming lots of things to be real, for which the experimental validity is debatable. That doesn't make him an idiot, only deluded. I am sure that in many aspects he is far smarter than me. Sometimes though, even the smartest can fall into age old patterns of believing one's school of thought is infallible. It is a form of intellectual ethnocentrism.
John,
"When you release a single quantum of light...any detection of it in transit does manifest wave patterns." No it does not. ALL "wave patterns" require multiple particles to be detected in order to observe any "wave pattern". If you send a single particle through a double slit, you will observe no interference pattern. You will only observe a single spot on the detector screen. The "wave pattern", that is to say, the interference pattern, is built up by multiple particles striking the screen, to form the pattern. The interference pattern is nothing more than the density distribution of the "impact craters" formed by the multiple particles striking the detection screen.
Rob McEachern
Rob,
The assumption is that it traveled through the slits as a particle/particles. As opposed to a quantum of energy that happened to trip a particular atom in the detector. The detector isn't a complete blank sheet, but is made up of atomic structure and how does light interact with mass, but being absorbed by the atoms. So is light actually composed of particular quanta, or are quanta a function of how mass absorbs energy? This goes to the loading theory mentioned by Constantinos and experimented on by Eric Rieter.
Paul,
We are arguing but not communicating! I argue we cannot know and be 'out of our mind'. While you are arguing we can. I see in your argument an impossibility. And no amount of explaining can bridge this inherent contradiction in your thinking. How can we know "what is" out of our mind? It is typical of metaphysics to argue such knowing is NOT metaphysical. Everything else is irrelevant if this is not relevant. Don't you think?
Constantinos
In the article, it is stated that:
"those states of the clock were correlated with the other evolving parts.
But now, Albrecht ran into an unexpected problem. It was entirely up to him to set up these correlations in his simple computer model. Depending on his choice of correlations, he could hypothesise different clocks and radically change the physical behaviour that the quantum system would then follow."
The first statement would appear to imply that the clock was allowed to "evolve". None of the mathematical equations, that are used to describe the time-evolution of observable events, allow for such a possibility. A clock may appear to evolve to an observer it a different frame of reference, due to time-varying travel-times of the signal from the clock to the observer, but the clock itself is assumed to remain constant and "non-evolved".
The second comment implies that the simple computer model was too simple. Rather than factor in whatever it is that actually determines "these correlations", he simply assumed that he could do it instead. Given the dubiousness of the latter assumption, it is unsurprising that "Albrecht ran into an unexpected problem."
Rob McEachern
Yours is a strawman argument, Rob.
Einstein perfectly explained the relation between clocks and correlated events at least as far back as 1921 in his speech to the Prussian Academy of Sciences
"The phenomenon of the propagation of light in empty space assigns a tract, namely, the appropriate path of light, to each interval of local time, and conversely. Thence it follows that the above assumption for tracts must also hold good for intervals of clock-time in the theory of relativity. Consequently it may be formulated as follows: if two ideal clocks are going at the same rate at any time and at any place (being then in immediate proximity to each other), they will always go at the same rate, no matter where and when they are again compared with each other at one place. If this law were not valid for natural clocks, the proper frequencies for the separate atoms of the same chemical element would not be in such exact agreement as experience demonstrates."
Tom
Paul is correct, John. You did call me an idiot, twice now. I let the first go by -- you don't get a third.
Tom
John,
The assumption is that "it" traveled through the slits. Period. We need not assume that "it" traveled as a particle. The whole point to the experiment is to try to deduce from the outcome, what "it" is, rather than assuming "it" to be anything in particular.
In other words, create "something", and blast it through the slits. The question is, did the outcome match your expectation for that outcome. Did you expect to see an outcome indicative of a paint-ball splatter, and then observer something indicative of "wave behavior"? Did you expect to see something indicative of a sound wave, and then observe something indicative of a shot-gun blast?
My point is, that the problem does not simply lie with what "it" is. It lies within the all too human, poorly formed expectation of how "it" is expected to behave. "It" is not behaving badly. The human observers may have merely formed dogmatic, incorrect expectations for how "it" should behavior.
Rob McEachern
Tom,
"if two ideal clocks are going at the same rate..."
My point is that the wording of the article seems to imply that the above assumption may have been violated. The two clocks of concern are the clock, implicitly assumed within the structure of a mathematical equation, and the clock in the computer model, that is modeling that equation. The designers of the equation assumed the clock does not "evolve". If the designer of the computer model choose to model an evolving clock, then there is no reason to suppose that Einstein's assumption will be valid.
Rob McEachern
Tom,
It's not as though you have never questioned my judgement and there are far more than two times I found your inability to accept simple observations at face value to be rather obtuse. That said, I do appreciate your taking the time to pursue what you think is a lost cause.
Rob,
You write, "Darwin made many such predictions."
No he didn't. He conjectured common ancestry and common ancestry has been successfully tested without being falsified within many other disciplines including paleontology, archeology, geology, cosmology and of course -- biology -- where it forms the foundation of that discipline.
By the very same criteria, string theory (extended quantum field theory) conjectures the origin of physics, and is successfully tested and not falsified within many other subdisciplines of physics. The myth that it is "just math" needs only one novel prediction to be busted. The theory is, however -- legitimate science and foundational.
Just as Albrecht's research is.
Tom
Constantinos,
You write, "Are you arguing my mathematical derivations in 'The Thermodynamics in Planck's Law' are wrong? Have you studied them?"
Your derivations are not connected to the question of whether or not physical laws exist independent of the mathematics that describes them. I have already explained my position that if mathematical language were not independent of physical meaning, we would -- demonstrably -- have no means to express objective statements of physical reality. I'm a realist in that regard -- the moon is really there.
And that's really all I have to say about it.
Tom
Rob,
Agreed. We are spatially and temporally finite entities, on a linear trajectory. It does introduce a set of biases. I find though, as you expressed in your contest entry, that other fields, from biology to information theory, have gone through various systemic revolutions, which might provide insights to some of the stumbling blocks that physics is encountering, but there is significant institutional hubris and inertia that has to be overcome and this goes back generations, so those practicing now are loath to really question the foundations.
Rob,
You write, "My point is that the wording of the article seems to imply that the above assumption may have been violated. The two clocks of concern are the clock, implicitly assumed within the structure of a mathematical equation, and the clock in the computer model, that is modeling that equation. The designers of the equation assumed the clock does not 'evolve'."
Okay, now I better understand. What I'm seeing in this fledgling research, however, is that the free random choice of clock refers to a clock that has *already* evolved. Think of Wheeler's delayed choice experiment. The idea is also entirely compatible with 4-dimensional Riemannian geometry; i.e., if one asks the question, "Where did creation begin?" one may pick any of infinite points. And yet one more supporting theorem is one of arithmetic: one point may approach any set of points simultaneously, provided that it is far enough away.
It makes perfect sense to me, that Albrecht's hypothesis follows from the assumption that the wave function does not collapse. (Joy Christian's research follows from the same assumption.)
"If the designer of the computer model choose to model an evolving clock, then there is no reason to suppose that Einstein's assumption will be valid."
Again -- I am confident Albrecht refers to a clock that has already evolved. Classical physics is time reversible, as Einstein's speech allows, beginning to end, back to front. Spacetime conservation, and conservation of angular momentum, coupled to an "equally likely" set of universes in our multiverse, makes it possible to avoid the singularity of a comsological initial condition -- the problem that vexed Einstein till the day he died.
Tom
Tom,
Darwin did not become famous because he "conjectured common ancestry". He became famous because he hypothesized "Natural Selection" as the primary process by which evolution occurred. The issue, for Darwin, was not "if evolution occurred", the issue was how it occurred.
He made a number of significant predictions in connect with that process. For example, he hypothesized that flowers and their pollinators must have co-evolved as a result of natural selection. Consequently, when he observed a very peculiar flower, with a very long and curved structure, that no known pollinator could enter, he predicted that a pollinator with a similarly shaped, never before seen pollination apparatus, would be discovered. It was.
Rob McEachern
