New view on wave-particle dualism
12 Sep 2021 11:51:06 UTC
Topic 225992
(moderation:
Hallo!
One of the most counterintuitive concepts in physics – the idea that quantum objects are complementary, behaving like waves in some situations and like particles in others – just got a new and more quantitative foundation.
Seehere and here and in german here.
But I´m missing a clear conclusion, when is it a particle and when a wave. If I read it properly, they can continously adjust between both states. Probably I´m too silly for this.
Kind regards and happy crunching
Martin
This seems somehow related to
)
This seems somehow related to "spooky action at a distance". How they will tie them together (so to speak) is beyond me.
Yeah, QM is weird. You can do
)
Yeah, QM is weird. You can do either path information or interference information but not simultaneously on precisely the same set of photons. The experiments described mixed two measurement modes together in the one setup, and thus partitioned the set of photons into those where path information was obtained and those where interference information was obtained. This was recognised early on in QM as a possibility and is yet to be disproven. Rather than say that a photon is a wave or is a particle as an absolute statement you have to say a photon has measurable path properties or has measurable interference properties. But there are no photon states where both can be exhibited on a single photon. In fact using the phrase 'single photon' implies that it is a discrete entity. The modern way - quantum field theory - around this is to say that the electromagnetic field transactions occur in discrete energy jumps and we have mis-labelled that discrete character ie. as being analogous to small versions of how large objects behave. The viewpoint we ultimately have is a macroscopic one and any microscopic description is necessarily ( well informed & consistent ) guesswork on how our measuring apparatus behaves. This is partly historical accident and partly due to our macroscopic extent as human beings.
As for entanglement, well, that implies a level of correlation across scales where light speed is not a barrier. Have you heard of the word 'palimpsest' ? It means painting/writing done over the top of another painting/writing on the same canvas/paper. I think we are in the superficial layer and there is an unknowable reality on a deeper level, that level is where the machinations of QM fundamentally occur, and we are only privy to its effects on the superficial layer. This is metaphysical of course ie. cannot be proven or disproven, but I think has comforting merit. We are within the very thing we wish to describe and ultimately our information is subjectively constrained by our situation. We would have to get out of the palimpsest to truly understand it. This is unfair of course.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Mike Hewson wrote: Yeah, QM
)
Now THAT makes sense!!!
Mike Hewson wrote: As for
)
You might as well suppose that the correlation occurred at the beginning of time. So the choice we make and the state of the particle are predestined. We are all part of the same system anyway, and no one knows what consciousnesses is, much less free will.
Metaphysics is very democratic. Anyone can do it.
Jim1348 wrote:Mike Hewson
)
Einstein called entanglement 'spooky' and with Podolsky and Rosen came up with the implications of that, subsequently worked on by Bell and later Aspect. It turns out that Einstein was right ie. it is spooky because the correlations across spacetime are superluminal. There are simple demonstrations of this which defy natural logic as encoded by Bell's Inequalities. It really can be the case that properties of pairs of particles can have correlations across a spacelike interval in spacetime. This doesn't lead to any superluminal messaging however because sub-light speed methods must still be used to compare the states of the entangled particles in order to confirm the correlation. The states appear randomly distributed with respect to either party of the entangled pair when considered separately. This is the unfair, bizarre & perverse bit. No macroscopic objects behave that way and so we have no native intuition for it. One possible ( uncomfortable ) perspective on this is that free will is an illusion and yes, the correlations must extend back to distant origins in time and likewise to future times.
Cheers, Mike.
NB Side note : if one particle of an entangled pair fell into a black hole what would the other particle in the pair do ? The answer lies in some theory of quantum gravity which, to be complete, has to encompass all the weirdness of quantum mechanics ie. do black holes keep or break entanglement ? There is an information 'destroying' aspect of black holes which is, strictly speaking, a deferral of any correlations to some very distant future time : the black hole 'evaporates' and thus returns any state changes to the observable universe. More unfairness .... :-(
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Mike Hewson wrote:One
)
I think that to find someone that can explain the stuff to me show advance planning from the beginning of time.
Thanks.