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Video URL

http://youtu.be/B2z4bBgESBI

Video Description

Most presentations of quantum mechanics focus on one aspect of the subject and often on some oddity, which eludes common sense. This presentation focuses on an overall common sense understanding to enable the average person to see the worth of quantum mechanics in our society today. The goal is to show that quantum mechanics is a tool we use everyday like the machines we all use now. The method is to present observations from people since ancient times to present showing how the work of many formed a sophisticated science. In essence, this traces Aristotle's observation that light is a wave to the wave mechanics of electricity moving through a wire. The intent is to enable a person to say, "I understand quantum mechanics," after viewing this video.

Video Creator Bio

Al Schneider received a B. S. in Physics from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan in 1969. Professionally, he was a contract programmer focusing on industrial and scientific projects. His side interests included magic, karate, skiing, and theoretical physics. The interest in theoretical physics focused on special relativity and quantum mechanics. His goal in life is to find the end of the thread that would unwind the rug called universe.

16 days later

Hi Al

I saw your video ... I saw it all. And I liked it.

As trying to initiate a scientific revolution, I often have to (try) to explain Quantum Mechanics to laymen, so I am always searching for new and simple ways to address the subject.

I did enjoy your didactics.

But I also noticed that you didn't mention the non-realistic and non-local aspects of Quantum Mechanics.

Do you agree that the local realistic part of quantum theory is enough for chemists and engineers to do their jobs? And that they see no practical use for superposition and entanglement?

I will vote for you. Simple. Comprehensive. No nonsense.

Good luck on the contest.

Teresa

    I appreciate your post a great deal.

    The goal of this article was to provide the layman viewer a real feeling of what quantum mechanics is.

    In that vein, I avoided the collapse stuff, entanglement, etc.

    Curiously, an acquaintance that had just graduated from college with a physics degree, much of which was about QM, said that he really did not understand what he had studied until he read my material. (I had published a book on the material.)

    The book was developed over a long period of time. I do have a degree in Physics, part of which was QM. However, that was a long time ago. To write the book, I ran through much of the math and reviewed a great deal about QM and associated theories, many of them several times. I even review them now and then to see if my head is on square. I am disturbed about the amount of false information there is about this subject. In particular I am disturbed about the idea that electrons are little planets flying around a sun nucleus.

    I am not familiar with local reality and non-local reality or whatever it is. I think those are recent terms for old stuff. I have reviewed the Bell stuff several times. I will need to review this again.

    However, I have a general opinion about that area. This comes from my profession as a programmer working on industrial and scientific environments. When working on something such as this, do not go past an error or something that is not understood. Every time I have done that, disaster ensued.

    This is kind of my corollary to Occum's Razor. The Schneider Razor is, "Don't go past an unknown."

    In my opinion, a lot of this stuff is based on something we just don't know. An example is wave function collapse. That is a demonstration that the physics community is stuck in a hardball universe. I do not think the wave function collapses when measured. Nothing happens. Humans believe the wave function represents some kind of hardball. So, they devise a method to measure such a thing. The algorithm used is designed to find a hardball. It will do so. However, as we really do not know what a wave function is, the result is useless. It violates the Schneider Razor. I understand that we have mathematics about the wave function. I do not believe the math explains what it is. Math is a language. As such it can describe something different from reality just as English. The math produces answers that can be used mathematically just as saying an apple weights so many ounces. That does not explain what an apple is but gives us a tool about how much apple we can buy with a dollar.

    Thus, my article claims we have math to describe what an electron is but clearly claims we do not know what an electron is.

    I hope I have not offended. I think there will be many arguments against what I have said.

    I have read many articles about what quantum mechanics is. I find all of them lacking. I spent a great deal of time tracing through my old college texts, you tube clips and other books. My goal was to glean understanding.

    Well, I am getting carried away.

    I sincerely thank you for your comments.

    Al Schneider

    6 days later

    Hi Al,

    I love people that get carried away with stuff.

    You do not know what local realism is? (shame on me ... I probably should have put something about it in my video ... hehe)

    Local realism is the combination of the principle of locality with the "realistic" assumption that all objects must objectively have a pre-existing value for any possible measurement before the measurement is made. So, no collapse, no superpositions, no influence of the observer...

    The principle of locality states that an object is only directly influenced by its immediate surroundings. So no entanglement ...

    The Bell test, first proposed by Einstein in his EPR paper, are experiences that aim to refute all local realistic theories.

    There are three problems with these experiences:

    1. Some authors claimed to have rejected local realism. But even so ... they couldn't argue that they proved the existence of entanglement. In Science tests are made to disprove something, not to prove something else. Then if local realism was rejected, all the other combinations non-local+non-realistic theories, or local+non-realistic and also non-realistic+local could still be plausible theories.

    2. Because Bell's Theorem only applies to ideal conditions (like 100% detection efficiency), for all Bell experiments some adjustments had to be made do the original inequality. And there are a few of them. But some loopholes were identified (mainly 2). And it is common knowledge among physicists, that so far, there has never been an experiment that has "closed" both loopholes simultaneously. So why do they claim that Local Realism was rejected? Because they wish? they have faith that in 5 years someone will close this (ancien) problem and prove Quantum Mechanics right?

    3. Then the final stoke - an error in the formulation of the inequalities for experiments with non-ideal conditions was made. A systematic error that propagate in all inequalities for non-ideal conditions, and made experimentalists take the wrong conclusion. That is what J.Especial discovered and published. Correcting three things: not confusing fair sampling with perfect contrafactual correlation (in in experiments with non-ideal detectors), not underestimating the measurement crosstalk (in experiments with almost ideal detectors), and the use of creative math instead of the well established Simples method to calculate the limits of the local realism hypothesis. This corrections, show all experiments made up to date as inconclusive. And inconclusive means that local realism was not experimentally rejected.

    Ok, now it was me who got carried away, hehe. Did I explained simple?

    And are you Local Realistic, after all? hehe

    Thank you, Al, for your post. And keep teaching

    Let's keep in touch

    Sincerely

    Teresa

    10 days later

    I have asked you before.

    Please do not communicate to me.

    I have taken some time to review material about entanglement and so on.

    I need to devote more time to it but at present I am encountering three problems.

    1. In my cursory search for experiments that have demonstrated Bell's theorem, I have not seen any with conclusive results.

    2. In reviewing the presentations on the subject I see them begin with the idea that a particle displays weird behavior. Then the presenter goes on to use the weird behavior to explain the phenomena. To me this indicates that what is happening is not understood. Then, that which follows is inaccurate for it is based on non-understanding.

    3. I have my own idea of how the universe is structured. This could be a problem for I view these explanations through a lens of my personal understanding.

    Presently I am creating a video of my view of the universe. It is tedious. I shall continue to study the present work of entanglement as time permits.

    Thank you for the kindness you have shown me.

    Al Schneider

    Hi Al

    Glad you wrote back.

    On your 3 problems:

    1. Exactly!! No conclusive results during the last 40 years, doesn't it means something? That means local realism could not be rejected. So, still a plausible category of potential theories.

    2. No weird behavior. The particles already have their state prior to the observation. No fuss.

    3. I would like to hear that.

    See you soon

    Teresa

    13 days later

    Teresa Mendes

    All of this is getting nearer to a correct solution.

    Assumptions are made about the structure of the photon.

    These assumptions are wrong.

    This has led to the massive confusion you are battling.

    I offered a path to explain but you ignored me.

    Al Schneider

    8 years later
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