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Posted
8 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Your understanding of the Heisenburg uncertainty principle is definitely erroneous. It also demonstrates a very skewed understanding of the actual mathematics involving inherent uncertainties in any Fourier transformation used extensively in QM.

Your understanding of the definition of superposition is also incorrect.

Not a good start.

If you think what I think the Heisenburg uncertainty principle is erroneous, you can state the nature of it here. Please note: we talk about the nature so do not take on any coat of mathematics. 

2 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Word salad. The language of physics is mathematics. Every physics definition has an underlying mathematical proof. If your not applying the correct definitions for its terminology you are not doing physics . Rather you are doing some home spun imagination

Strictly speaking, what I mean is some essential mathematical equivalence summarized in the past for expressing the law of nature has applied limitation but not all.

Posted (edited)

Let's start with the definition of a state in quantum mechanics. A state is a probability function aka its wavefunction. It contains the uncertainty principle as any Fourier transformation on that wavefunction will inherently have uncertainties in the position and momentum.

All quantum states are quantized. 

 However that wavefunction contains all probable evolutions of the state not just the uncertainties.

 that's for every wavefunction and has no bearing on the term superposition. Which is multiple wavefunctions within the same state. 

 Swansont  has already provided a clear example albeit applying the Dirac notation form used extensively in QM

Edited by Mordred
Posted (edited)
13 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Let's start with the definition of a state in quantum mechanics. A state is a probability function aka its wavefunction. It contains the uncertainty principle as any Fourier transformation on that wavefunction will inherently have uncertainties in the position and momentum.

However that's for every wavefunction and has no bearing on the term superposition. Which is multiple wavefunctions within the same state. 

 Swansont  has already provided a clear example albeit applying the Dirac notation form used extensively in QM

'A state is a probability function' is obviously not the starting point. The real beginning is from the experiment, we found the uncertainty of simultaneous measurement for micro particle exists. To better explain the reason, describing state by probability is an option that seems make sense temporarily under the current physics frame.

Edited by wei guo
Posted (edited)

No that is incorrect. We use states to describe probability functions. This applies to the Schrodinger equation. This has little to do with the uncertainty principle. It is part of the wavefunction but only a miniscule part.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_state

It is obvious already that you have not sufficiently studied QM if you claim otherwise.

That is covered in detail in every single QM textbook.

QFT doesn't even use position as an operator. It uses field and momentum however it still describes states.

One example of superposition is a state of a photon (its wavefunction describing two polarity states). However you can also have two photon states describing the wavefunctions for each polarity. The latter example is not a superposition state.

6 hours ago, wei guo said:

 

position and momentum is the first pair of conjugate properties that show the uncertainty when we try to measure them at the same time. You can say that is either superstate or superposition. That does not matter.

This statement is also wrong.

The complex conjugate in QM involves the time dependent Schrodinger equation which include the time axis reversal symmetries. The complex conjugate directly applies to this. In other uses ie with vectors it directly involves complex space (set of complex numbers) as opposed to vectors in the set of (real numbers)

Further details here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_conjugate_of_a_vector_space

A complex function contains one or more imaginary numbers.

Edited by Mordred
Posted (edited)
50 minutes ago, Mordred said:

No that is incorrect. We use states to describe probability functions. This applies to the Schrodinger equation. This has little to do with the uncertainty principle. It is part of the wavefunction but only a miniscule part.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_state

It is obvious already that you have not sufficiently studied QM if you claim otherwise.

That is covered in detail in every single QM textbook.

QFT doesn't even use position as an operator. It uses field and momentum however it still describes states.

One example of superposition is a state of a photon (its wavefunction describing two polarity states). However you can also have two photon states describing the wavefunctions for each polarity. The latter example is not a superposition state.

No matter the equation or the explanation of probability, all these abstract products are based on the previous experiments that shows there is some abnormal performance on micro phenomena. Without the experiments to support, it is unnecessary to create those abstract products. Thus, the starting point is the measurement in experiment rather than either any mathematical equation or the concept, which are created afterwards to fit the perception in experiment.

Edited by wei guo
Posted (edited)

Those definitions also apply in statistical mechanics that has nothing to do with quantum mechanics.

So that's a poor excuse. In point of detail those terms existed long before QM was developed...

That even includes the term superposition. Regardless terminology errors is terminology errors regardless of your excuses.

Those definitions derived from math terms regardless of the physics theories which employ them

Edited by Mordred
Posted
7 hours ago, wei guo said:

The Heisenberg uncertainty relation is more original than superposition or superstate and MWI, which are just two mainstream explanations for why the Heisenberg uncertainty relation exists. But the Heisenberg uncertainty relation is not the very beginning point, which is just an explanation for a measuring difficulty when we try to measure the micro phenomenon at the same time. The key is this very beginning measuring issue, which is not caused by the nature of reality but by the principle about how the observers measure the world.

Heisenberg uncertainty principle is not a measurement issue, despite his early description of it. It’s a fundamental feature of QM for non-commuting variables; position and momentum are Fourier transforms of each other, and that’s the source of the relation.

You can’t give a valid criticism of something you don’t have a grasp of.

Posted
10 hours ago, wei guo said:

The Heisenberg uncertainty relation is more original than superposition or superstate and MWI, which are just two mainstream explanations for why the Heisenberg uncertainty relation exists. But the Heisenberg uncertainty relation is not the very beginning point, which is just an explanation for a measuring difficulty when we try to measure the micro phenomenon at the same time. The key is this very beginning measuring issue, which is not caused by the nature of reality but by the principle about how the observers measure the world.

 

Goodness me this thread seems to have veered right off course.

 

@wei guo

I don't know what your first language is but seriously suggest it is a very bad idea to use words  that have very well defined meanings but come from another language.

 

Superposition and Uncertainty are very different phenomena indeed.

At the simplest if you have two effects , call them F and G, they both relate to what happens when you combine them, but mathematically

Superposition refers to addition and uncertainty refers to multiplication (or composition).

Neither are confined to the 'micro world' and both appear in both classical and modern physics and engineering.

 

However

 

I am really posting to ask what this thread is all about as I cannot spot a focus to your discussion so far.

 

So please just tell us in simple words what it is you want to talk about.

We may then be able to help you find the correct English technical terms.

 

If you wish to discuss the difference between superposition and uncertainty, start a new thread dedicated to that issue.

Posted
19 hours ago, wei guo said:

position and momentum is the first pair of conjugate properties that show the uncertainty when we try to measure them at the same time. You can say that is either superstate or superposition. That does not matter.

Uncertainty has nothing to do necessarily with observation, as you've been told; although no observational device can overcome its limits. 'Superstate' means nothing in conventional physics. The 'super' in superposition is to do with observables being 'fuzzy' in a way, not with known constrictions on how 'fuzy' --in that particular way-- incompatible observables can be at the same time --also called 'complementarity'.

You could think of a world with superposition of states with different expected values for an observable, but without constrictions for pairs of observations. Why not?

Posted
9 hours ago, studiot said:

 

Goodness me this thread seems to have veered right off course.

 

@wei guo

I don't know what your first language is but seriously suggest it is a very bad idea to use words  that have very well defined meanings but come from another language.

 

Superposition and Uncertainty are very different phenomena indeed.

At the simplest if you have two effects , call them F and G, they both relate to what happens when you combine them, but mathematically

Superposition refers to addition and uncertainty refers to multiplication (or composition).

Neither are confined to the 'micro world' and both appear in both classical and modern physics and engineering.

 

However

 

I am really posting to ask what this thread is all about as I cannot spot a focus to your discussion so far.

 

So please just tell us in simple words what it is you want to talk about.

We may then be able to help you find the correct English technical terms.

 

If you wish to discuss the difference between superposition and uncertainty, start a new thread dedicated to that issue.

The core question that we talk about is whether we add something unverifiable(e.g. dark matter, dark energy) into reality is due to ' this is the instinct of reality ' or due to the principle behind how a group of observers(e.g. human beings) express and describe the reality. 

12 hours ago, swansont said:

Heisenberg uncertainty principle is not a measurement issue, despite his early description of it. It’s a fundamental feature of QM for non-commuting variables; position and momentum are Fourier transforms of each other, and that’s the source of the relation.

You can’t give a valid criticism of something you don’t have a grasp of.

So you also agree the observation in phenomena is prior to the explanation in whatever kind of explanation method. What I say is that Heisenberg uncertainty principle is nothing but just a mathematical explanation for a measurement issue in micro phenomena. 

Posted
4 minutes ago, wei guo said:

The core question that we talk about is whether we add something unverifiable(e.g. dark matter, dark energy) into reality is due to ' this is the instinct of reality ' or due to the principle behind how a group of observers(e.g. human beings) express and describe the reality. 

What evidence do you have that dark matter and dark energy are unverifiiable?

5 minutes ago, wei guo said:

So you also agree the observation in phenomena is prior to the explanation in whatever kind of explanation method. What I say is that Heisenberg uncertainty principle is nothing but just a mathematical explanation for a measurement issue in micro phenomena. 

And you are wrong. It’s not a measurement issue. That’s a separate phenomenon.

Posted
16 hours ago, Mordred said:

Those definitions also apply in statistical mechanics that has nothing to do with quantum mechanics.

So that's a poor excuse. In point of detail those terms existed long before QM was developed...

That even includes the term superposition. Regardless terminology errors is terminology errors regardless of your excuses.

Those definitions derived from math terms regardless of the physics theories which employ them

Using statistic or probability to describe something is just a mathematical way that we have to treat the reality as that because we cannot precisely trace the phenomenon currently. This is how we describe reality not because reality can only be operated in probability. You can not equal the description method with how reality operates. Exaggerate the function of mathematics by ignoring its limited application is no different from 'treating the earth as the centre of solar system'.

15 minutes ago, swansont said:

What evidence do you have that dark matter and dark energy are unverifiiable?

Now, every paper that talking about this issue is trying to find this particle or that particle that can serve as the basic element to form dark matter and dark energy. However, today there is no finding in experiment or observation but just many more guesses to create more and more 'artificially-made' particles that is given some surprising and magic physical properties and tell us over 90% of universe is full of such a thing.

Posted (edited)
41 minutes ago, wei guo said:

Using statistic or probability to describe something is just a mathematical way that we have to treat the reality as that because we cannot precisely trace the phenomenon currently. This is how we describe reality not because reality can only be operated in probability. You can not equal the description method with how reality operates. Exaggerate the function of mathematics by ignoring its limited application is no different from 'treating the earth as the centre of solar system'.

The purpose of physics is to make testable predictions of cause and effects in nature. That requires the mathematics. Those mathematics helped shape the technology advances in the modern world. The purpose of probability functions is to encompass all possible outcomes and narrow down the most likely as the highest probability. 

 Are we to assume what you have provided us so far is the extent of your article ?

So far you haven't provided any significant detail of your article. Do you ever intend to show any actual examples of how your article is useful ?

A more important question is your intent. Do you intend to improve your article or are you merely advertising  ? Our site has rules on advertising personal articles.

So unless you intend to improve your article then this thread has little purpose.

Edited by Mordred
Posted
1 hour ago, wei guo said:

Now, every paper that talking about this issue is trying to find this particle or that particle that can serve as the basic element to form dark matter and dark energy. However, today there is no finding in experiment or observation but just many more guesses to create more and more 'artificially-made' particles that is given some surprising and magic physical properties and tell us over 90% of universe is full of such a thing.

Not having found it yet does not mean it won’t eventually happen. And there’s experimental evidence that there is mass we can only detect gravitationally, and that the universe’s expansion is accelerating.

There was a time that beta decay appeared to violate conservation of energy and angular momentum. 

Posted
3 hours ago, Mordred said:

The purpose of physics is to make testable predictions of cause and effects in nature. That requires the mathematics. Those mathematics helped shape the technology advances in the modern world. The purpose of probability functions is to encompass all possible outcomes and narrow down the most likely as the highest probability. 

 Are we to assume what you have provided us so far is the extent of your article ?

So far you haven't provided any significant detail of your article. Do you ever intend to show any actual examples of how your article is useful ?

A more important question is your intent. Do you intend to improve your article or are you merely advertising  ? Our site has rules on advertising personal articles.

So unless you intend to improve your article then this thread has little purpose.

Mathematics is just abstracted by a group of observers from reality for measurement and express the law of nature. Please note Reality exist first and then math as a tool exist afterwards.  You can not treat mathematics as the starting point of this discussion. If you drop in the hole of mathematics, you cannot see the whole picture but are misled that there is no condition for the equivalence between the law of mathematics and law of nature.

2 hours ago, swansont said:

Not having found it yet does not mean it won’t eventually happen. And there’s experimental evidence that there is mass we can only detect gravitationally, and that the universe’s expansion is accelerating.

There was a time that beta decay appeared to violate conservation of energy and angular momentum. 

The opinion of 'universe’s expansion is accelerating' is completely caused by the limited application range of the Doppler effect.  See page: 60-61 on https://vixra.org/abs/2306.0071

8 hours ago, joigus said:

Uncertainty has nothing to do necessarily with observation, as you've been told; although no observational device can overcome its limits. 'Superstate' means nothing in conventional physics. The 'super' in superposition is to do with observables being 'fuzzy' in a way, not with known constrictions on how 'fuzy' --in that particular way-- incompatible observables can be at the same time --also called 'complementarity'.

You could think of a world with superposition of states with different expected values for an observable, but without constrictions for pairs of observations. Why not?

Observation is the starting point. If you are one of a group of other species with the sensor that can certainly observe the micro phenomena, why you rely on creating the concept of 'Superstate' or mathematics to cognize it? 

Posted
3 hours ago, wei guo said:

Observation is the starting point.

Right.

3 hours ago, wei guo said:

If you are one of a group of other species with the sensor that can certainly observe the micro phenomena, why you rely on creating the concept of 'Superstate' or mathematics to cognize it? 

Microphenomena cannot be directly observed --eg. an electron going from an excited state to the ground state-- for the very simple reason that observation happens by virtue of thousands upon thousands of microphenomena producing coordinated responses in macroscopic systems. Never mind dust mites or bacteria.

Posted
11 hours ago, wei guo said:

The core question that we talk about is whether we add something unverifiable(e.g. dark matter, dark energy) into reality is due to ' this is the instinct of reality ' or due to the principle behind how a group of observers(e.g. human beings) express and describe the reality. 

 

Thank you for replying, but why do I merit the shortest response you made to anyone when I am only trying to help?

 

"The core question..."

That is a question not a speculation and in my opinion part of a larger issue that really belongs in Philosophy.

Humankind has been wrestling with the issue of correct and incorrect for thousands of years.
As a result many different approaches have been tried and some adopted.

Your question seems to me to be about knowledge and what we can actually know, as I said a very important issue that affects every part of our daily lives.

Be under no illusion that this only affects 'the micro world' , whatever that is.
It affects pretty well everything from very specific measurements like "I offer you a length of climbing rope marked 1000lb breaking strength, and ask what load is required to break it?"
To something intangible such as "I offer you some new food you have never come across before and ask Do you like it?"

Both questions can be answered by measurement in only one way.

But of what use is a broken rope ?

Over time Humankind has come to understand that it needs a much more sophisticated system to handle real and apparent inaccuracies, and that there are some things we can never know.

A good start is to consider the classification of inaccuracies into those which are inherent in tha measurement technique and those which are inherent in the system itself.

 

 

 

 

Posted
7 hours ago, wei guo said:

The opinion of 'universe’s expansion is accelerating' is completely caused by the limited application range of the Doppler effect.  See page: 60-61 on https://vixra.org/abs/2306.0071

Once again, you link to a paper of yours instead of posting the argument here. You’ve been told that this is required.

But seeing as your understanding of physics is flawed, I don’t see how citing yourself would be expected to be convincing.

Posted
8 hours ago, wei guo said:

Mathematics is just abstracted by a group of observers from reality for measurement and express the law of nature. Please note Reality exist first and then math as a tool exist afterwards.  You can not treat mathematics as the starting point of this discussion. If you drop in the hole of mathematics, you cannot see the whole picture but are misled that there is no condition for the equivalence between the law of mathematics and law of nature.

Of course we use mathematics to describe what we observe. It's one of the best tools for the job. 

 You still haven't provided any significant detail of your article. There isn't enough here to make any judgement of its accuracy or usage 

Posted (edited)
On 6/13/2023 at 7:00 AM, wei guo said:

Today, the scientific community comprehensively accepts adding many extra unverifiable things into reality, e.g. extra mass: dark matter, extra energy: dark energy, extra position: superposition, extra dimensions, or even extra parallel reality. Considering reality is not understood completely, adding something into reality's unknown part is indeed a shortcut for explaining inherent measured discrepancy, but such behaviors are likely to distort the instinct of reality.

In OP, wei guo wrote about many issues: dark matter, dark energy, "extra position", extra dimensions and "extra parallel reality".

Most of you cherry picked the "extra position: superposition" error and ignored the issues of introducing: extra dimensions, parallel universes and dark energy. They are distorting the instinct of reality as Wei Guo said. Do we really have evidence for extra dimensions and/or parallel universes? Why such things are accepted in mainstream physics?

About dark matter I disagree with Wei Guo, but for the rest I'm not. There are real issues.

About "extra position: superposition" error, yes it was an error, but I guess that he/she was thinking about things like the explanation for interference of individual particles in the double-slit experiment, where we consider the particle taking more paths in the same time, as if the particle can be present in more than one position at a time. I don't agree with such explanations either  (I have another one, more intuitive).

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:02 PM, joigus said:

:lol:

So easily confused with extra position [?]= bilocation = "the supposed phenomenon of being in two places simultaneously"

yes

Edited by DanMP
Posted
20 minutes ago, DanMP said:

Do we really have evidence for extra dimensions and/or parallel universes? Why such things are accepted in mainstream physics

I assume you are talking about string theory and the multiverse hypothesis, these are hardly accepted in mainstream physics.  String theory has some interesting concepts so some physicist are working on it - it is not 'accepted'.  The multiverse is a hypothesis, so again it is hardly accepted.  Physicists are allowed to work on any far out idea that they can get funding for.  

So the OP is misleading.  Some of his objections are due to him not understanding physics and the others are not really 'accepted' by the physics community.

Posted

We can only work with has been presented here. Which isn't very much and I'm not about to guess what the OPs article or intention is about.

Posted
1 hour ago, DanMP said:

Do we really have evidence for extra dimensions and/or parallel universes? Why such things are accepted in mainstream physics?

They aren't. Extra dimensions and/or parallel universes are not mainstream physics. Study some physics before you talk.

Posted

In physics including string theory refers to effective degrees of freedom or independent variable or other mathematical object.

 They aren't some alternate reality.

Posted
9 hours ago, Bufofrog said:

I assume you are talking about string theory and the multiverse hypothesis, these are hardly accepted in mainstream physics.  String theory has some interesting concepts so some physicist are working on it - it is not 'accepted'.  The multiverse is a hypothesis, so again it is hardly accepted.  Physicists are allowed to work on any far out idea that they can get funding for.  

So the OP is misleading.  Some of his objections are due to him not understanding physics and the others are not really 'accepted' by the physics community.

Although some explanation is not comprehensively accepted by physics community today, it is currently accepted by at least a group of scientists and also this 'throwing rubbish into reality' trend is more and more popular in the future development of science. If this behavior is not corrected, the whole reality would be interpreted as a rubbish can and the rubbish inside is full of various magic physical properties. 

10 hours ago, DanMP said:

In OP, wei guo wrote about many issues: dark matter, dark energy, "extra position", extra dimensions and "extra parallel reality".

Most of you cherry picked the "extra position: superposition" error and ignored the issues of introducing: extra dimensions, parallel universes and dark energy. They are distorting the instinct of reality as Wei Guo said. Do we really have evidence for extra dimensions and/or parallel universes? Why such things are accepted in mainstream physics?

About dark matter I disagree with Wei Guo, but for the rest I'm not. There are real issues.

About "extra position: superposition" error, yes it was an error, but I guess that he/she was thinking about things like the explanation for interference of individual particles in the double-slit experiment, where we consider the particle taking more paths in the same time, as if the particle can be present in more than one position at a time. I don't agree with such explanations either  (I have another one, more intuitive).

 

yes

So why dark matter is the exception.

8 hours ago, Mordred said:

In physics including string theory refers to effective degrees of freedom or independent variable or other mathematical object.

 They aren't some alternate reality.

The principle of methodology behind either adding extra dimension in the string theory (not mainstream but partially accepted) or adding non-inertia system into reality (quite mainstream) is the same in nature. 

9 hours ago, Mordred said:

In physics including string theory refers to effective degrees of freedom or independent variable or other mathematical object.

 They aren't some alternate reality.

alternate reality refers to the many-worlds interpretation (MWI), which is the second mainstream viewpoint to explain the wave function. The first mainstream viewpoint is Copenhagen interpretation.

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