Is there any reason this Quantum Telegraph couldn’t work?

[Rob McEachern]

3 minutes ago, TakenItSeriously said:

your arguement atttacks the conclusions from that experiment.

No, it merely points out, what has been pointed out ever since the interpretation was first formulated, that the "physical system" whose state cannot be determined before the measurement, consists of everything in the experiment, including the measurement apparatus itself, and not just the things passing through the slits of the apparatus.

[Strange]

13 minutes ago, TakenItSeriously said:

Of course it has to do with the Copenhagen Interpretation

The choice of interpretation (including none) is irrelevant. They are all equivalent descriptions of the same underlying theory. 

[Rob McEachern]

12 minutes ago, Strange said:

The choice of interpretation (including none) is irrelevant.

Agreed.

 

12 minutes ago, Strange said:

They are all equivalent descriptions of the same underlying theory

Disagreed. The various interpretations have all been slapped onto the same underlying math, but they infer quite different physical manifestations of that math; for example the existence of a multiverse.

Edited March 12, 2018 by Rob McEachern
fix typo

[Strange]

6 minutes ago, Rob McEachern said:

but they infer quite different physical manifestations of that math; for example the existence of a multiverse.

I'm not sure how you could distinguish that conclusion from the others by means of experiment.

[Rob McEachern]

3 minutes ago, Strange said:

I'm not sure how you could distinguish that conclusion from the others by means of experiment.

Precisely my point. a(b+c) = ab+ac is a math identity, but not a physical identity; One side of the equation has twice as many physical multipliers as the other. If all you could ever observe is the end result of either computation, there is no way to ever deduce which physical manifestation produced the result. In other words, it is generally not possible to ever deduce the correct physical manifestation, from an equation, because the existence of mathematical identities, enables one to construct another equation, that will make identical predictions, but not be the same physically. Thus, very different physical interpretations (AKA manifestations) of any mathematical equation, will almost always exist.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Rob McEachern said:

 Disagreed. The various interpretations have all been slapped onto the same underlying math, but they infer quite different physical manifestations of that math; for example the existence of a multiverse.

That only affects the understanding of how the experiment works. e.g. why the signal disappears. The math is, as you say, the same, meaning the physics itself is the same.

And from your latest post, you seem to agree.

[Strange]

1 hour ago, Rob McEachern said:

Thus, very different physical interpretations (AKA manifestations) of any mathematical equation, will almost always exist.

But if there is no way to distinguish them, then this is just irrelevant.

[Rob McEachern]

2 minutes ago, swansont said:

The math is, as you say, the same, meaning the physics itself is the same.

A physical circuit that has two physical multipliers (ab+ac) has a different physical mass and physical energy consumption than a circuit with only one a(b+c). But you cannot distinguish which is inside a blackbox, from only observing the output computation.

 

Just now, Strange said:

But if there is no way to distinguish them, then this is just irrelevant.

It can make a huge difference in cost and size (as well as physical interpretation). For example, discreet Fast Fourier transforms, implemented in hardware, may require many orders of magnitude less size and power (think about putting it on a spacecraft) than a direct computation of the Fourier transform equation, as it is usually written. This does not involve making any approximations. It is an exact mathematical identity, with very, very real consequences in the real world. Thus, if you were to study the physical implementation of a very-large, direct Fourier transform computation, you might be prone to the conclusion that it would be absolutely, physically impossible for such a transform to be implemented, with existing technology, in something as constrained as a spacecraft - but you would be very wrong. Details (which side of a math identify is being manifested) matter. Similarly, the structure of a Fourier transform has a very different physical interpretation (based on an identity) than the only standard, superposition interpretation that most physicists are aware of, and have consequently embedded into all the standard interpretations of quantum theory.

[Strange]

I don't see the relevance of the analogy. You are taking about physically different systems where we can measure the differences.

How would you experimentally test the difference between say, the many-worlds and the Copenhagen interpretation?

[Rob McEachern]

24 minutes ago, Strange said:

I don't see the relevance of the analogy. You are taking about physically different systems where we can measure the differences.

How would you experimentally test the difference between say, the many-worlds and the Copenhagen interpretation?

It is not an analogy. I'm talking about establishing the meaning of the Fourier transforms (AKA wavefunctions) at the heart of quantum theory. Have you ever actually measured a wave-function? Of course not. So what makes you think they exist?  What I am trying to communicate to you, is that fast Fourier transforms "work", by rearranging most of the equation completely "out-of-existence". In other words, the vast majority of the terms in the equation can be rearranged such that they will always be identically equal to zero. So why bother to ever even implement them? The fast algorithm is fast, precisely because it never bothers to compute anything that fails to make any difference in the end result.

Now here is the important part, concerning the standard interpretations of quantum theory: Just as it is possible to rearrange most of the computations out-of-existence, it is also possible to rearrange ALL of the superpositions out-of-existence. There are no superpositions left, whatsoever, in the rearranged equation. All that is left, is a mathematically identical, description of a histogram process - which is why the whole procedure yields only probability estimates - sans anything that can possibly be interpreted as a wavefunction.

So why worry about Copenhagen and Multiverse interpretations, or mysterious, undetected, wavefunctions, wafting through spacetime, when a mathematical identity enables you to simply say that the whole theory boils down to nothing more than the description of a histogram, counting the arrivals of "things" at the times and places described by the histogram? The histogramming does not care what path the "things" took to the detector, or what the things are (particles or waves or wave-particle dualities) - it simply counts them, whatever they are and wherever and whenever they arrive at the detector. And that is all the "rearranged" mathematically identical equations of quantum theory, actually describe - a histogramming process.

[Strange]

31 minutes ago, Rob McEachern said:

I'm talking about establishing the meaning of the Fourier transforms

And I am talking about science. Can you devise an experimental test to distinguish between interpretations? No. 

[Rob McEachern]

26 minutes ago, Strange said:

And I am talking about science. Can you devise an experimental test to distinguish between interpretations? No.

I too am talking about science. Can you devise an experiment to distinguish between two interpretations, one requiring ghostly superpositions to exist and one that does not? No.

Occam's razor states that the simplest explanation is to be preferred, over otherwise indistinguishable hypotheses. As Laplace once said, "God is an unnecessary hypothesis". Likewise, superpositions are an unnecessary hypothesis. They explain nothing that needs to be explained. Everything that needs to be explained (the probabilities of observations) can be explained - perfectly, by a simple, but unappreciated, histogramming process - a mathematical identity.

[TakenItSeriously]

 

The photo electric effect was a paper published by Einstein in 1905 which proposed that an electron could be created by light striking a surface with light

 

The explanation for how light could cause the ejection of an electron was first postulated by Max Plank, Albert Einstein, and Niels Bohr: that light was the occurance of energy in descrete quantities or quanta (which later became known as photons) which was the first time light was proposed to be more like a particle than like a wave as it had previously been assumed to be.

 

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle was published in 1924 which stated that it was impossible to determine two complimentary properties of a particle at the same time.

 

The Schrodinger Wave Equation was derrived in 1925 and published in 1926 which provided the same conslusion based on eigenstates, but interpreted properties of particles as a kind of wave probability state.

 

The Copenhagen Interpretation which was largely devised by Werner Heisenberg and Niel’s Bohr in the years 1925-2927 was in large part about interpretating these confusing results of duality that seemed to behave sometimes like particles or sometimes like waves.

 

The dual slit experiment that resulted in evidence of both a particle state or a wave state for light depending on wether their path through either slit was observed or not was performed by Davison and Germer in 1927 and was also the experimental basis for the superposition argument of quantum mechanics. It was later shown that electrons could also demonstrate either a particle or a wave state in the same manor.

 

BTW, I may have been wrong when stating that the copenhagen interpretation was largely based on the dual slit experiment according to these dates which I got from Wikipedia, apparantly the dual slit experiment was in 1927 while the interpretation was developed between 1925-27 so the dates might have suggested that it was seen as more of a confirmation of the copenhagen interpretation, or perhaps it was adapted to conform to those results. I’m not sure.

 

Entanglement was predicted in 1935 by Einstein, Podolski, and Rosen and later confirmed through experimentation. However, it was introduced as a thought expeiment that was the basis for his arguement that QM was not complete because it implied that the speed of light would be violated based upon “spooky action at a distance”. 

 

In 1964 Bells inequalities was published refuting Einsteins claims that QM was incomplete based on “spooky action at a distance” violating the speed of light, and used the EPR entanglement and the premise that classical probability and the probability of QM are different. Note that while I thought his conclusion about instantanious action at a distance was probably correct, I had strongly disagreed with his premise which was flawed. In fact it’s riddled with flaws to be honest. In my opinion Mathematicians should never try to rely on proofs using logical models. They are simply not equiped to handle logical models because they were trained to think like mathematicians not logicians which are complimentary opposites, just like position and momentum are complimentary opposites. You can’t know both at the same time.

 

Classical probability had never been completely resolved before and was always considered to be an approximation of probability based on incomplete information. For instance the triangle pattern predicted by probability theory is only a function that is supposed to be an approximation of the actual odds, while the wave pattern predicted by QM is much like the binomial distribution pattern that statistics predicts and that the triangle fuction is supposed to estimate. So making claims that they are different and forcing some kind of conclusion from that difference is meaningless.

 

For the record, I agree that QM as it is recognized today is incomplete. But I also agree that instantanious action at a distance is probably true. 

 

I never understood why saying that QM wasn’t complete should even be in question? To be fair, I think that Relativity as it is recognized today isn’t complete either. Clearly, neither theory can explain everything so how could anyone say that either theory is complete?

 

Just because I admire a person doesn’t mean I will agree with him on everything. Or just because a conclusion such as instantanious action at a distance may agree with my own thinking, doesn't mean I will agree with a flawed premise such as that proposed by Bell. To do otherwise is simply corrupt thingking towards some biased agenda, just like politics. 

 

When scientists behave like politicians, why would they wonder why peole don’t trust them anymore.

 

Edited March 12, 2018 by TakenItSeriously

[Strange]

On 12/03/2018 at 9:27 PM, Rob McEachern said:

I too am talking about science. Can you devise an experiment to distinguish between two interpretations, one requiring ghostly superpositions to exist and one that does not? No.

Exactly. So the interpretation makes no measurable (scientific) difference. They all describe the same thing. The mathematics, predictions and results are the same in all cases.

Some people find one preferable (simpler), others prefer another. I have seen people using Occam's razor to say the Many World's interpretation must be right, and others using it to say it must be wrong. <shrug> Choosing your favourite interpretation is not science.

 

[swansont]

14 minutes ago, Strange said:

Exactly. So the interpretation makes no measurable (scientific) difference. They all describe the same thing. The mathematics, predictions and results are the same in all cases.

Some people find one preferable (simpler), others prefer another. I have seen people using Occam's razor to say the Many World's interpretation must be right, and others using it to say it must be wrong. <shrug> Choosing your favourite interpretation is not science.

Which is why "shut up and calculate" works, too. 

[Rob McEachern]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

So the interpretation makes no measurable (scientific) difference.

 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Which is why "shut up and calculate" works, too

However, interpretations do have a significant impact on where, or even if, one looks for answers. For example, last summer, I posted a link to a detailed demonstration, on this website, falsifying the supposed "loop-hole-free" verification experiments of Bell's inequality theorem. That was motivated by a different interpretation. I have noticed that the two of you, in particular (and many hundreds of others) have been noticeably silent about all the errors you have found in that demonstration (and before you ask, yes, the results have been replicated by others). Physicists like to disparage the "god of the gaps", all the while talking about wave-functions and super-positions, as if the "wave-function of the gaps" is more real than the "god of the gaps". But wave-functions and superpositions are no more necessary to explain observations than god is. And the continued belief in all such things has hampered scientific progress. That is the difference interpretations make; bad ones, based on unobserved gods, superpositions and wave-functions, induce dogma, which in turn stifles progress.

So let me put this to you. Above I just told you why quantum theory is entirely probabilistic - not because reality is, but because quantum theory amounts to nothing more than a very complicated procedure for constructing histograms, in an attempt to describe that reality. That is not what was intended by its developers. But it is what they inadvertently developed, for better or worse. So why not take that new-found insight and try to develop a theory, that is not based on histogram-inducing, Fourier superpositions. Communications engineers (the inventors of information theory) did this a long time ago and it resulted in a revolution in communications technology. Maybe it is time the physics community gives it a try too, rather than "shutting up and calculating" the same old histograms over and over again and wondering why so little progress is being made, in fundamental physics.